"Best" evidence for evolution.

Well I'm the only one here trying to figure out what a Kind might be so I guess for this discussion I'm the "arbiter," yes.

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Tangle changed the subject as it is usually discussed, that's why I said what I said.

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No he didn’t. He just disagreed with an assertion you made. One that you now say is irrelevant. And I still don’t see why you had to invent that claim about moving the goalposts (more accurately I don’t see an honest reason).

We bow to your knowledge and intellect. What are your thoughts on worms? When is a worm not a worm?We know with certainty that you'll do absolutely nothing about the Faith Classification System while thinking that you have.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

What makes you think EvC is the only place I make use of my thoughts or that I say everything I think here?

Oh, silly me, you've already published your taxonomy? Please provide a reference.

So you accept the fact that there has been radical change, even to the change in the number of chromosomes? Even to the extent that a population can diverge so much that it may form multiple groups that cannot interbreed and so are different species? I'd hardly call that "depletion"!Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't just say that all of this was "unnatural" selection, intelligent interference in the genome by breeders! Is that because you know the natural world can impose selective pressures on populations of living creatures much more stringent (and for far longer) than human breeders?Over time, of course, there has been enormous change. The first fossil evidence of mammals is from the Triassic Period, when the reptiles still ruled. The early mammals were small (often described by paleontologists as "shrew-like" or "mouse-like" animals) and certainly far different from the horses, whales, elephants and other mammals we see today. So we have evolutionary change over many generations. The most important evidence for evolution is the simplest: go from point A, an ancestor, to point B, a creature living today of much different form than that ancestor.Unless, of course, you are willing to believe that there have always been horses, whales, elephants and all the other mammals, since the beginning of life on earth. Is that it? Were there kangaroos and aardvarks and lemurs on earth billions of years ago?

It's published in Genesis with expansion in the flood myths.

Sorry, I edited my post to add the morphologial data that I forgot to include: they are identical morphologically.Why don't they interbreed? This is important to the control of malaria.Enjoy

Google won't show you the differences between placental and marsupial mammals, for starters.No wonder you lump things in nonsense manners.enjoy

Best evidence? Orthologous endogenous retroviruses. Veritas: Endogenous RetroViruses - Frequently Asked Questions

Replying to Message 479

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Paul, you can say it over and over again, but it doesn't
make it true.The fossils do not support evolution.

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You can say that over and over again, but it will still be false. The fossil do support evolution.

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Fossils are piles of bones that were deposited in great
heaps by a global flood.

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That is certainly not true.

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Let me tell you a little secret: fossils do not come
With tags on them, stating how old they are.

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I guess you’re easily impressed, since everyone knows that. They don’t have little tags saying that they were deposited by a flood either.

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A worldwide flood would sort many of the fossils into
size and density before depositing them.

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And since this is not at all the order we see, we can be sure that a worldwide flood did not do it. Dinosaurs for instance are a hugely diverse group ranging from huge herbivores to tiny insectivores. Yet (apart from birds) they are only found in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous systems, not earlier or later, no matter what size or shape they are.

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In any event, the bottom layer would contain fish fossils.
Above these would be amphibians, then reptiles
(Including dinosaurs). Above these would be birds
and mammals, including humans.

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But this is not at all the order that we see. Fish continue on to the present day. Early mammals are found with dinosaurs, as are early birds. The great marine reptiles are found in the same geological systems as dinosaurs while marine mammals like whales only turn up in later-deposited strata.

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This last group would be on the highest ground;
Thereby, assuring that they would be last to die.
And, less likely to be covered by sediment, which
would leave minimal fossils.

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I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t expect to find whales on high ground.

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Fossils are open to interpretation. Observable
Science (kind of animal reproducing the same
Kind of animal for all of recorded history) is not.

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Again I point out that mutations and natural selection are observed - and there is further evidence which strongly favours evolution.

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We have now observed that many dinosaur
fossils have significant amounts of C-14 in
them. Being generous to a fault, C-14 should
be undetectable after 100,000 years.

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To the best of my knowledge only trace amounts are detected which could be added in situ, or by contamination at any stage between being dug up and processed. If you have serious evidence to support this claim I’d like to see it.

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Instead of changing their beliefs to fit the facts,
evolutionists insist that iron is responsible for
the C-14 amounts, even after 75,000,000 years.

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I wonder why you assume that the other evidence of age should be thrown out. It would not be scientific to do so.

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Evolution is faith-based, and a really weird one
at that.

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Evolution is science. It doesn’t require faith to disagree with the ignorant teachings of your cult.

Yes, fossils have been found in all kinds of situations. Yes, there are piles of unarticulated bones from major localized floods. There are also individual fossilized specimens with its bones still articulated. As well as fossilized delicate structures. As well as multiple delicate environments (eg, systems of burrowing, forest floors with intact complete root systems) layered one on top of another many layers deep, intact dinosaur nests with all the eggs in place and intact (try to find eggs like that in the grocery store). IOW, things that could not have possibly have survived such a massively destructive single world-wide flood as candle2 is claiming.The funny thing that creationists don't realize is that geologists are not all drooling idiots (must be a case of creationists projecting their own condition onto others). Geologists can tell whether sediment was deposited rapidly or slowly: basically, lots of rocks in the matrix would indicate rapidly moving water causing rapid depositation (the larger the rocks, the faster the moving water) whereas the layer consisting of fine pariticles, no rocks or pebbles, would indicate slow moving water causing slow depositation. We find both kinds of layers, rapidly and slowly deposited, dispersed even within the same formation.A few years back a creationist promoted a YEC video here, "Is Genesis History?". In response, I watched it and took notes. From my notes (including time marks from the video; sections edited out for brevity):

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0:23 -- Andrew Snelling, geologist

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0:31 talks of need for rapid sedimentation of the Coconino Formation
yet examination of a layer will show how rapidly it was deposited by the size of its component particles, such that rapid depositation will contain larger particles and slow depositation smaller particles
Coconino sandstone is fine-grained, hence slow depositation

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candle2's overly simplistic views simply do not reflect reality. This tired old canard simply does not match the facts. The overall pattern of fossils throughout the strata clearly does not match what would be the actual results of such hydrodynamic sorting. A wild claim that yet again does not match reality.Interestingly though, hydrodynamic sorting can happen, but it's restricted to individual localized floods. From my notes for that creationist video:

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0:50 -- Arthur Chadwick, paleontologist
interviewed at a dig of the Lance Formation

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he described a one-meter thick bone bed
from his description of it, the burial had to have been a single event because the bones are sorted as we would expect from hydrodynamic sorting with large bones to the bottom and small bones to the top
that also means that the bones must have already become disarticulated, meaning that the soft tissue had to have already rotted away
he spoke of the rarity of fossils and the conditions needed

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Note that that sorting had happened within that single pile of fossils. Not only were all those fossils associated together by being within the same layer (and hence were around at the same time, but that association within the same layer contradicts that the creationist hydrodynamic claim requires that all those bones be distributed among many different layers throughout the geologic column. Instead, there they are piled together in the same layer. Yes, the other old false claim of locality which is clearly, to quote Capt. Blackadder, bollux -- see that Blackadder clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGxAYeeyoIc.Fossils' location within the geologic column does not agree even remotely with the elevation at which they lived. As per the whales, even bottom dwellers appear at virtually all levels within the geologic column. Creationists try to tweak this claim with the "fleetness of foot" argument, that the "more advanced" animals ran uphill to try to escape the encroaching Floode Waters. Even the bottom dwellers and whales.But forget the animals! What about the plants? According to creationists, the more advanced plants, even the ones that lived right next to the shoreline (eg, mangrove trees), pulled up roots and hightailed it uphill, outracing the Floode. There's even a cartoon showing those trees and shrubs running uphill.Kind of tells us that candle2 has never ever given any of his ridiculous PRATTs any thought at all. We all know that he will never provide any evidence to support any of his claims, let alone this one.He has no evidence. Nor does he have any clue what he's blathering on about.Edited by dwise1, : Corrected Blackadder's rank from Lt to Capt.

(My emphasis added)
Since this is the very first time I've ever heard anything about iron being responsible for new C-14 appearing in situ in fossils, I asked candle2 about it with no answer from him. I believe you have done the same. Uranium or radon, I could see, but iron?But what this demonstrates is that whenever a creationist claims to speak for "evolutionists", our first and best reaction should be disbelief.For example, my research into Kent Hovind's solar-mass-loss claim (see my page, DWise1: Kent Hovind's Solar Mass Loss Claim) was triggered by a cold email I got from a young creationist in which he stated authoritatively:

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As any good scientist will tell you, the sun burns half of its mass every year. If you multiply the sun's mass by millions (even though science says it is in the billions) the sun will be so incredibly huge it will stretch out past Pluto. And if you say that the planets would stay close to the sun as it shrank, then why don't the planets still move closer?

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Of course, that is completely and utterly wrong in several ways (which I covered in my reply to him); I cover a lot of this at that page:

1. The rate at which the sun is losing mass through hydrogen fusion is less than 5 million tonnes per second. Since there are about 31,557,600 seconds in a year (using astronomy's figure of 365.25 days per year), that would amount to about 1.57788×10¹⁴ tonnes lost per year.
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2. The sun's mass is about 1.98855×10²⁷ tonnes. That would make the annual mass loss due to fusion as one 1.2602669×10¹³-th of the sun's mass. Immensely smaller than half the sun's mass as claimed.
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3. Taking the claim at its face value, we would not be talking about mere millions or billions (US/UK billions, not real European ones which would be US trillions). But that has no bearing on reality anyway, so just quibbling here.
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4. If we extrapolate that 1.57788×10¹⁴ tonnes per year loss back for the life of the sun so far, it amounts to a few hundredths of one percent of the sun's total mass. For that calculation I assumed Hovind's slightly inflated figures of five million tonnes per second over five billion (5×10⁹) years -- see my page. That are also reasons to believe that the rate of mass loss was less in the past and is slowly speeding up as the sun's core is becoming increasingly hotter.
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5. Those calculations show that that slightly more massive ancient sun's gravity would have been a few hundredths of a percent greater and its size would have been very nearly the same as it is at present.

The kid's story was that he was a high school student who had just attended a Christian summer camp and he was given that claim by a camp counselor (I had requested that he ask his source for that guy's source, but he'll never see that guy again). The kid was wondering whether that claim was true, so he emailed me because my website indicated that I should be able to give him a straight answer. Which I did, though perhaps not very gently -- I took him through a step-by-step analysis to show that none of it could pass the smell test.Part of that claim might be based on an actual fact (albeit grossly misunderstood): the sun's core (about 5% of its volume) contains half of its mass and fusion only happens in the core where it gets hot enough and dense enough. That tells me that someone must have read or heard that fact and misunderstood it. After formulating the first draft of the claim then more and more error kept accumulating with each person it was retold to (AKA the Game of Telephone). It's even possible that it started as a different claim altogether which included that valid fact, but then in the accumulating corruption of the claim the emphasis shifted to a corruption of that fact.The point to that is that these claims are little more than urban myths that keep circulating about in the wild, mutating as it gets passed on.The other point which started this is that this completely and utterly and flagrantly false claim started with the proclamation, "As any good scientist will tell you, ... ". Uh, no, absolutely no competent scientist would ever tell you such complete and utter nonsense! That is just yet another creationist lie.And I have no doubt that the same applies to candle2's "evolutionists insist ... ". Just yet another creationist lie that had been fed to him and that he passes on like a COVIDiot mask-hole.Edited by dwise1, : US/UK billions, not real European ones which would be US trillions

A biblical "kind" may refer to a phylum. The various phylum appear suddenly (no evidence of a line of gradual evolutionary progression) in the fossil record, and contrary to the evolutionist propaganda, there is no fossil evidence of "branches" connecting phyla to form the single "tree" of common ancestry of Darwinist folklore. The fossil evidence looks more like an orchard than one lone tree.In short, the creation of separate "kinds" explains the fossil evidence better than universal common descent.

The Bible uses the word "kind" pretty loosely, much like we do. "What kind of dog is that?" (Dogs are not a phylum.)Compare

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Genesis 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.

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with

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Genesis 7:13-14 On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds.

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Note the equivalence of kinds and sorts.