Always talking about micro-evolution?

deleted[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-03-2004]

I think what you meant to say was "coyotes and wolves evolving from a common ancestor." Just a quibble. Micro-walking is walking to the store. Macro-walking is walking to the next town.Is there a difference? Sure, but it's just the same process operating over different periods of time, so there's hardly any good reason to draw a distinction. Same with micro/macro evolution.

Because there's a known, observable barrier that prevents you from walking between those two points.What's the barrier between species (or even "kind") transformation? You can't just assume there is one without some evidence.

Well, it's like this. When we're doing work on modern or fossil organisms, we have a set of tools at our disposal that answer questions related to evolution - population genetics, comparative anatomy, etc.But if you look back far enough, a lot of those tools stop working. Population genetics only make sense when you have a population with genetics. Eventually, the study of life ceases to be biology and starts to be organic chemistry. That's about where the theory of evolution starts to not apply.Evolution is a biological theory that explains the diversity of life on earth. It's not a blanket attempt to construct a history of the universe. Therefore evolution can't apply until you have a biology to apply it to.

Sure there is. It's the fact that there's never been an observed limit to species change except for time.It's you who's approaching this from the wrong direction. You claim there's a barrier? Prove it. Otherwise, I claim that since 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. Small genetic changes can add up to big ones. Don't believe it? Prove me wrong. I don't find it absurd in the least. The fact that there's no observed barrier is not why I conclude that it did happen. For that, the fossil record. But the lack of a barrier is why I conclude that it could happen. No flaws that I'm familiar with. I think you're making them up. Ah, I see. You've confused the continual advance of scientific knowledge with some kind of vascilation on the issue. Your error, not science's. Says who? You? I'm just supposed to take your word for it? By analogy you've proposed a barrier. Now it's up to you to support that claim or withdraw.

Well, so document them. Go to PubMed.com and search around. Let's see some peer-reviewed primary literature. Are you going to be able to find any "inconsistencies" that can't be explained by procedural error? DNA doesn't type itself, you know. Like any scientific test you get bad data if you do it wrong. Hell, they'll admit that on the record. What's your point? We don't know everything, so we know nothing? I'm not impressed. You're not really living up to your username. I'm surprised that they're able to give an estimate. Do you know that the microbes in and on just your body - just you - outnumber the total number of human beings 10 to 1?That doesn't sound like microbiology is dropping the ball. That sounds like they're at the tip of an astronomically large iceberg. Honestly, what's your thought process here? "I don't understand how microbiology is done, so it must be easy."

Bzzt! Procedural error. Analysts didn't type enough of his DNA. You'll notice that it was DNA evidence that ultimately cleared his name. Procedural error again. The DNA database didn't store an in-depth enough profile to determine if the match was actually positive or negative. Without a name, we can hardly verify your story, now can we? Of course, the standard for evidence in the courtroom and in the field of science are vastly different. In the courtroom, the "theory" of innocent is assumed until the "theory" of guilty is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In the field of science every theory must be supported by a sufficient weight of evidence. One more example of the fact that a courtroom is a bad place to do science. Too many ulterior motives.I'm not really impressed. There's far too much genetic data linking us to apes (for instance) to ascribe to simple procedural error or bias. It may be easy to mistake one human for another if your test is based on few enough genetic markers but surely you don't think it's possible to mistake human and ape genetics?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-04-2004]

Absolutely unbelievable.You may have noticed that this is a science board, where we talk about scientific theories and make reference to the scientific literature. Or rather, you would have noticed this had you paid attention to any of the prior discussion before charging in headfirst.You also would have noticed that Mammuthus is one of the longer-term participants here, and that he's actually a scientist.And now you're complaining that, unlike any of your posts, he substanitated his arguments with evidence from scientific, peer-reviewed literature? Absolutely ludicrous.Quite frankly, that's how things are done here. Statements are supported with evidence. If you don't want to play by those rules it is suggested that you take your ball and go home.I don't think anybody gives a damn if you apologize or not. I think NosyNed was giving you the benefit of the doubt - he was willing to accept, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that you were an intellectually honest, earnest seeker of truth. How he was able to arrive at that conclusion in the face of your escalating game-playing is beyond me.Take the "last word", as it's apparently so important to you. There's clearly no other reason to have any more words with you whatsoever.

That's a reasonable point, and I think I can answer it. The reason that Mammuthus's copy-and-paste was allowable stems from several reasons:1) It's not just copy-and-paste. He included his own annotations; it's generally accepted that the guideline discourages wholesale plagerism, not useful citation to support one's own arguments.2) He didn't actually quote the entire articles, just the abstracts and bibliographical citations. It's assumed that you would be able to find the whole article from the material presented.3) Each of the abstracts was relevant to your point.So in fact, Mammuthus's post was a perfect example of the proper use of copy-and-pasted material at this site. That you're not a scientist? That insinuation was hardly inadvertant; I've seen nothing to convince me that it's in any way inaccurate, either. Heck, I'm no scientist. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I literally have no idea what you're talking about. I realize that you think you're about to checkmate us; a delusion on your part, I'm sure. But I just don't understand what you think Mammuthus tried to do. Your first responses insinuated that you thought Mammuthus was trying to confuse you, or prevaricate in some way. Now I just don't understand exactly what you're accusing him of doing.If it's mate in twelve, or whatever, can we just skip ahead to the denoument? I hate chess.As far as I'm concerned, you asked a question; Mammuthus answered and supported his claim with peer-reviewed research. Apparently you think that constitutes some kind of disingenuous dodge. So, fine. Let's drop it. By all means, let the discussion continue. I'm curious to see the operation of the trap you're so convinced you've set for us.

I think you're considerably mistaken about this. The fossil record is littered with transitional organisms: Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQwhich is what you would expect - almost every organism is a transitional form in a situation of continuous evolutionary change. Justlike you're the transitional form between your parents and your children. Examine a specimen of Archeopteryx. You can read about many of its features here: All About Archaeopteryx(Hopefully you won't complain about being sent to links; these pages are quite well-written, well-documented, and lay it out considerably clearer than anything I could probably write. Nonetheless if you have any questions or would like to dispute some points I'm sure we'd be happy to address them; that's probably for another topic, though.)You can see that it has the most obvious feature of birds: feathers. But it also has indisputably reptilian, or at least non-bird features: no bill, free trunk vertebrae (bird trunk vertebrae are fused), and a neck that attaches to the rear of the skull, not the bottom as in birds.It's difficult indeed to view Archeopteryx as anything but a transition between reptiles and birds, and certainly impossible to view it as simply a variation on bird "kinds" unless you're stretching the meaning of the term "bird" so far as to render it meaningless. Why would it? Dogs didn't evolve from frogs, nor dogs from frogs. Rather, the common ancestor of all mammals (including dogs) evolved from a reptile, which shares a common ancestor with all reptiles, which itself evolved from an amphibian.The fact that you can't find transitional forms between any two given modern species is not evidence that they don't share common ancestors at some point. You need to see evolution as a bush, not a ladder.

Do you have an opinion on who it was that uncovered the fraud, and how it was uncovered?

You've mistaken healthy debate for a theory in crisis.Certainly many of the minutae of the ToE are under debate; the precise operation of the mechanisms and the precise details of the historical narrative are always under constant revision.What's not under any kind of scientific dispute is that the Theory of Evolution is an accurate theory, or that it satisfactorily explains the broad strokes of the history of life on this planet.It's difficult to see how a reasonable person could mistake a debate about "is this the ancestor of that, or the other way around?" as some kind of failure in confidence of the whole thing.

Apparently you might want to read closer. She makes it quite clear that she shows both the large number of transitional forms that have been found, and, as a nod to fairness, the remaining gaps in the fossil record.Nobody's saying that there's aren't gaps. But to say that there are no transitional forms, as you did, is obviously incorrect:

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I've tried to make it an accurate, though highly condensed, summary of known vertebrate fossil history in those lineages that led to familiar modern forms

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The gaps in the fossil record. Again, nobody has claimed that there are no gaps. But the existence of some gaps is not a refutation of evolution. That's your second straw man in this post. Again, we agree that heated debate occurs. Like I said, though, you misconstrue that as some kind of crisis in confidence with the theory. Nothing could be further from the truth.It would help the debate considerably if you restrict yourself to arguing against only the claims that we're actually making, not the straw men that you're making up. I can't speak for the author, but I imagine that she would assess the claims of these "heretics" to see if they're founded on false premises, fallacious reasoning, or a prior commitment to Biblical inerrancy. And it hardly helps creationists that they've never been the ones to uncover the hoaxes. Of course, they try not to mention that. To the contrary - that's peer-review at its best, debunking unsupported claims and exposing fraud scientists driven more by noteriety than a need for accuracy. One more claim debunked not by creationists but by a scientist's evolutionist peers. That's how it's supposed to work. All exposed by evolutionists when these fossils contradicted, not supported the evolutionary timeline. A perfect example of the predictive value of the Theory of Evolution; I'm glad you're bringing these up. Fraud scientists driven by noteriety, or simply good judgement clouded by fame. Same reason you find crooked televangelists.

Ad hominem? Exactly how do you think I insulted anybody?You seem to bandy that phrase "ad hominem" about without giving any kind of indication that you know what it means.Oh, maybe you think I'm about to cast dispersions on the fraud-uncoverers or something. Why would I do that? Nobody's trying to defend the Piltdown fraud, or any of the others - I'm just pointing out that these frauds were uncovered by evolutionists guided by the evolutionary model, not creationists. Now that's an ad hominem, at least by implication. Evolutionists are rapists? Or is this just a non sequiter? I fail to see the connection; perhaps you'd be kind enough to elucidate it. Here's a brief overview of the Piltdown Hoax: No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/piltdown.htmlI love this quote:

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"I remember writing a paper on human evolution in 1944, and I simply left Piltdown out. You could make sense of human evolution if you didn't try to put Piltdown into it."

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And that's rather the point. The hoaxes you refer to weren't last-ditch efforts to shore up a theory. The hoaxes were uncovered because they contradicted the evolutionary model,not supported it - and certainly not as the result of the work of any creationists, who you'd think would be the most tenacious about getting to the bottom of this.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-09-2004]

I took that position because that's exactly what occured. No creationist "applied pressure" or any other such nonsense. Ludicrous. I challenge you to support this claim with evidence. Wrong again. Creationist literature didn't even mention the specimen in question until it had been debunked by evolutionists. I know, because I was searching the literature at the time. I've addressed this several times in several different threads, so I don't feel the need to do so again. You're starting to repeart yourself - running out of things to make up? Ah, I see. You're just in the habit of making non sequiter references to rapists. A puzzling affectation but one I'm prepared to ignore, then.