Creationist questions from a creationist

DGE, Where have you dug deeper? I suspect creationist webstites & journals? The evidence in favour of evolution is vast, drawn from multiple disciplines, & as is the nature of corroborating evidence, reduces the tentativity of the Theory of Evolution to near zero.On the other hand.... ...This is a bald assertion supported by no evidence whatsoever, actually, I take that back, it's worse. This is not only unsupported, contradicted by evidence.Why someone would eschew the conclusions of shelf miles of evidence in favour of a position actually contradicted by evidence, I guess I'll never understand. Are you one of these people, DGE?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 07-29-2003]

DGE, Why? An open mind considers all possibilities. They are. The problem is it took a few million years for humans to evolve from their ape like ancestor, the time scale you are observing on is too short to expect to see large scale evolution. On the other hand there are numerous examples of speciation that are observable on our timescale.How do explain the fossil record, & the intermediate forms, & transitional series that are found within it? Because we outcompeted the others, is the short answer, but this is an inappropriate question. So what if we are the only "very" intelligent animal, why is this a problem for evolution? Some animal has to be the cleverest, the fastest, the largest, the smallest.This isn't evidence of anything. Why are you ignoring vast quantities of corroborative evidence that points to evolution having occurred on the strength of a question that ultimately poses no problem to evolution anyway? Me neither, & nor does the Theory of Evolution (ToE). Among other mechanisms, random mutation culled by natural selection is what gives the appearance of design. In a lab experiment (Hall 1982) effectively destroyed the ability of a clonal population of bacteria to metabolise lactose. After xx generations the bacteria had not only re-evolved an enzyme to cleave lactose, but an expression control system (so that the enzyme was only made in the presence of lactose), & a protease to facilitate the entry & transport of lactose into the cell. This didn't happen via purely random processes, the original mutations may have been random, but the best ones were kept & improved upon by natural selection.The argument you just made is what we call a strawman. This is where you (deliberately or not) misrepresent an argument (the ToE in this case), & because of that misrepresentation you reach the wrong conclusion. Can you show me a fossil species of starfish from the Mesozoic that is alive today? What about a frog, or shark even? What about the creationist staple, the coelacanth? In truth there are coelacanth fossils, but not the living ones today. In fact Latimeria chalumnae has an extra pair of ventral fins plus a double tail. An analogy would be creationists of 70 million years in the future saying that our four legged cow is identical to their six legged bovines!This question needs tackling on two levels, firstly, I assume you are generally familiar with the classification system? As you probably know, it is a heirarchical system that has big groups full of smaller & smaller subsets. Take frogs, for example. They belong to Order Anura (along with toads). An Order is a fairly high level taxa, the equivalent to Therapsida, containing monsters such as T.Rex, Velociraptor, Allosaurus, etc. Or the Primates, containing mammals as diverse as humans, bush babies, lemurs, & marmosets, for example. Now, the higher the level of taxa, the longer you can expect members of that taxa to have hung around, since a high level taxa has MANY smaller taxonomic levels within it, & therefore has a greater taxonomic survivability than smaller taxa. Order Anura contains families, genus', & species. What could we reasonably expect of the pattern of survivability of different taxonomic levels, then? Families are the larger of the taxonomic scales (that contain genus' & species), so we could reasonably expect fossil members of Anuran families to go back further than the genus or species level. That is what we see. There isn't a single genus or species living today that is represented in the Mesozoic (251-65 mya), yet families are. So to say frogs are found unchanged in the fossil record is disingenuous. The further you go back the more basal Order Anura becomes, which is by itself strong evidence of evolution. In fact this is a trend in the fossil record. Creationists always claim that taxa appear with no precursors (with justification), yet fail to take into account that when they do appear, they are very primitive versions of what they eventually become. Take Order Carnivora, for example, containing the canines & felines. Today it's fairly easy to tell any one canine skeleton from any one feline. The further you go back, however, the features that makes felines felines, & canines canines become more & more less pronounced. But I digress....To put it another way, Order Anura may survive, but many smaller sub-groups do not, & are even replaced by newly evolving organisms that are different enough to be placed in a new genus, yet are still frogs or toads by definition!!Secondly, why would an organism change in morphology over time? Very simply, because their environment does. Imagine an organism that isn't well adapted to it's environment. It will suffer as many (roughly) mutations as an organism that is well adapted to it's environment. The difference being that all mutations that affect the well adapted organism will be deleterious (because they upset the optimal morphology/chemistry), but the substandard organism is going to get some of it's mutations be beneficial (because there is room for improvement). There come a point where our maladapted organism becomes well adapted, & any further mutations are selected against. This is called stabilising selection. Hence, if an environment doesn't change appreciably as far as our organism is concerned, it will remain in "stasis". Fish do survive on land. Mudskipper & its tracks. Periophthalmodon schlosseriAlthough it is the lungfish that are thought to be the nearest relative of the tetrapods, the existence of mudskippers (&lungfish for that matter) makes your point moot. Fish can & do live out of water.The fossil record shows the transition of fish to tetrapods. Some info here."A 350-million-year-old fossil was labeled a fish, until close examination revealed a pelvis and femurs. Most of the pelvis is on the underside of the fossil, but part of it is visible (arrow, far right), a wide arc of bone above the darker-colored rock and below the vertebrae."
Photo by S. M. Finney, University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. You may also find this interesting. Jennifer Clack, a tetrapod evolution big gun discussing Acanthostega, a fish with arms, hands & fingersThe best & most accessible (IMO) treatment of fish to tetrapod evolution can be found in Gaining Ground: The Origin & Evolution of Tetrapods by Jennifer A. Clack An IC structure is a structure that fails if one component has been removed. It has never been shown that IC cannot evolve, NEVER! It is asserted without evidence by creationists all the time, however. Potential routes of IC evolutionAnds to really be a stick in the mud, it's only fair to show evidence of an IC system that has strong evidence that it evolved, the mammalian middle ear. This consists of three bones, the malleus, incus, & stapes, whose function is to transfer vibration from the outer to inner ears. Remove one of the bones & the whole shebang ceases to function, it is by definition IC. Evidence suggests that two of the three bones belonged to reptilian lower jaws which during the reptile-mammal transition over 250 million years ago, ended up in the middle ear & were involved in hearing.Embryology shows that two of the bones in mammals begins with the lower jaw, then migrates to the middle ear during developement.The fossil records shows a transition from retile to mammals, clearly showing the reduction of bones in the lower jaw. "Figure 1.4.3. A comparison of the jawbones and ear-bones of several transitional forms in the evolution of mammals. Approximate stratigraphic ranges of the various taxa are indicated at the far left (more recent on top). The left column of jawbones shows the view of the left jawbone from the inside of the mouth. The right column is the view of the right jawbone from the right side (outside of the skull). As in Figure 1.4.1, the quadrate (mammalian anvil or incus) is in turquoise, the articular (mammalian hammer or malleus) is in yellow, and the angular (mammalian tympanic annulus) is in pink. For clarity, the teeth are not shown, and the squamosal upper jawbone is omitted (it replaces the quadrate in the mammalian jaw joint, and forms part of the jaw joint in advanced cynodonts and Morganucodon). Q = quadrate, Ar = articular, An = angular, I = incus (anvil), Ma = malleus (hammer), Ty = tympanic annulus, D = dentary. (Reproduced from Kardong 2002, pp. 274, with permission from the publisher, Copyright 2002 McGraw-Hill)"Lastly, molecular evidence also shows mammals had evolved from reptiles, the corollory of which is that mammalian IC middle ear bones evolved from reptile middle ears.Three lines of evidence resulting in clear cut evidence that IC can, & has evolved. It's a vast body of evidence that points to one thing to me. Don't worry what other people think. Examine the evidence & make your own mind up!Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

DGE, Doolitlle is one step ahead of Behe. He showed that the evolution of the blood clotting system is plausible. If it's plausible, it's not impossible, is it?At the bottom of this, & every other post is a "reply" button (rather than the big button at the bottom of the page). If you click this then it shows to whom you are replying to. I responded to EXACTLY this issue in my last post. Given I spent a lot of time writing & researching message 10 for you, & you still raise points as if I never answered them, why should anyone respond to you if you aren't going to read responses to the issues you raise?I would like a point by point response to message 10, please.I have shown you that IC is evolvable, that living fossils aren't what creationists claim they are, that fish can live out of the water, & that your own idea that evolution is purely random is false. Are you not going to factor this into your thinking?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 07-30-2003][This message has been edited by mark24, 07-30-2003]

DGE,But they are not the same. Similar, yes, same taxonomic group, yes. But not the same. I have explained in message 10 why taxonomic groups survive. The same species has not survived unchanged. There isn't a SINGLE fossil of Latimeria chalumnae (the modern ceolacanth).This does not refute evolution.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 07-30-2003]

DGE, I dealt with this in message 10, too. That natural selection occurs at the genetic level has been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt.If you don't think mutations are random (in a non-predictive sense), then you'll have evidence that mutations are guided, right? What you believe isn't evidence.Mutations are random, & natural selection acts upon them & ultimately produces structures, systems, & functions that have the appearance of non-randomness & design because they ARE a product of a non-random mechanism.Can you explain Halls 1982 experiment (message 10) where an enzyme, an expression control system, & associated protease EVOLVED VIA RM&NS. How is it possible to come up with something so ignorant as "random mutation, well I don't believe it", in the face of vast contradictory evidence. The statistical spread of mutations has been studied to death, & yet no one is really able to say mutations aren't predictively random? Might I suggest you consult a geneticist for your genetics?I've noticed a lot of your arguments centre around "I don't believe it", or, "I believe it has problems". Interestingly, the only time you support your argument it isn't from a scientific source you seek support your argument, but a religious one.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Thanks Brian,BTW, good post over on Mikes thread.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

DGE, Wrong.Behe's claim is that Hall didn't knock out a multipart system at all: In fact Neither Barry Hall nor Ken Miller (whom Behe is responding to) claimed he did. What they are claiming that in knocking out a single component of the operon, the entire operon was rendered inoperable. So, in summary. All of this occurred because random mutation culled by natural selection allowed it. You can find the rest of the rebuttle here.Behe is being disingenuous & missing the point, & so are you. Even if a three part system hadn't evolved, even Behe admits that a Galactosidase enzyme DID evolve. This is my point, random mutation & natural selection can produce function, & the appearance of design, it is not pure chance. In disbelieving that this occurs, you are shutting your mind to evidence, & substituting your incredulity.On the key issue, that random mutation & natural selection can't produce "design", even your own cite agrees with me.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

DGE, Here we go again......!Read Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins. It's cheap, in print, & easily read. It also contains an excellent chapter on eye evolution.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

DGE, You are wrong.See message 10 re Mammalian middle ears bones. Three independent lines of evidence point to them having evolved, four if you include cladistics.It is not implicit in the definition of IC, that IC cannot evolve. Thornhill & Ussery describe four possible pathways for IC evolution & they define it in the same way as Behe. Creationists claim, without evidence, that IC cannot evolve, they're just a little weak on supporting evidence, that's all. Doolittle has provided a plausible pathway for blood clotting evolution. If it's "plausible", it's not "impossible", is it?But so what if you did find an IC structure that no plausible pathway existed? This is still not evidence that IC evolution is impossible.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

DGE, This is precicely where Behe is being disingenuous. No one was making the bacteria mutate, no one was forcing changes at particular places, & no one was forcing bacteria to die at the expense of others. This IS random mutation & natural selection in action. It most certainly could have happened in the wild. What about the Flavobacterium that evolved the ability to digest nylon oligomers in a pond whilst no one was looking? I'm not being rude, you have stated a few times phrases like, "I don't believe it", this is where I gain my insight into your incredulity. I understand you are French, perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of the word "incredulity"?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Warren,Do you have any empirical evidence, other than your non-sequitur that co-option isn't Darwinian, or relies on such unlikely chances as to be unable to account for IC systems in nature?Don't you ever get bored quoting Mike Genes unsupported incredulity? The functional unit that is the mammalian middle ear, described by the malleus , incus, & stapes is an IC unit. The function is to transmit vibration from the outer to inner ear. Remove one bone & the whole unit fails. By both Behe's & Thornhill & Ussery's definition, it is IC.That the mammalian middle ear evolved from reptilian jaw & skull components is not in scientific doubt. It is supported by the fossil record, mammalian embryology, phylogenetic analyses, & cladistic analyses. Was it "raw coincidence" that the angular & articular bones abutted the dentary? If you like, but such a claim of "raw coincidence" in no way dimishes the explanatory power of co-option, especially as it is in this case so well supported evidentially. It's this sort of inappropriate linguistic extention (bullshit) that I find so unpardonable from twats like Mike Gene. You've lapped it up, you must have, you've quoted this passage twice that I know about. You seem to think that denigrating such an evidentially supported theory with cries of, "raw coincidence", actually counts as something evidentially, or even theoretically, come to that, as something that counts against IC evolution. It's like saying that rivers existed before bridges is "raw coincidence". It is a meaningless term, & signifies nothing. "Raw coincidence" does not = incredibly unlikely. If you think it does, then show it. Perhaps Mike Gene already has, in which case feel free to cut n paste away. Excellent. You show your working, & I'll show your flawed assumptions. Deal?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 07-30-2003]

Quetzal,Yup, it was I who got educated that time around. Lungs first, swim bladders second.Mark