Some Evidence Against Evolution

Once again there are two things to check here:
1)How "identical" (or perfect duplicates) are the skulls?
2)How alike are the genomes?The evidence is NOT what Milton says. It is the skull similarities and the genome similarities.You haven't directly answered the question (sorry, but I'm used to a certain degree of slipperiness) but it seems you are saying both are "almost perfect duplicates".I suggest that, since the evolutionary pressures are the same in the case of the marsupial wolf and, say, a grey wolf the skulls will be similar but by no means "almost perfect duplicates". They will I would expect be obviously for the same niche at a quick glance but different enough that a layman like you or I could sort a pile of mixed skulls into the two species without a lot of difficulty once we had been told that there were two to be sorted out.I also suggest that the mutations will not be the same because the ancestors of the two split before the convergence took place. (unfortunately I doubt that we have a sequence for two comparable creatures form Milton's list yet)There are my predictions (and I'm not an expert in any of this). What are your's?

Have a look at
The Thylacine Museum - A Natural History of the Tasmanian Tiger
to disabuse yourself as to the "virtual identity" of wolves and "marsupial wolves" = thylacines. They ain't......
and the site won't allow cut'n'paste.

Well, that is as I expected. They are, indeed, similar, they are also not identical even to an unexpert eye. On point one Milton is wrong.I'm pretty sure point two will remain unknown. We need to consider another pair where the genomes may someday be available.Can you suggest such a pair, WillowTree? Or perhaps you would like to suggest another pair to compare at the skeletal level?

from:http://23.1911encyclopedia.org/P/PH/PHALANGER.htm

quote:

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Several possess flyingmembranes stretched between their fore and hind limbs, by the help of which they can make long and sustained leaps through the air, like flying-squirrels; but the possession of these flyingmembranes does not seem to be any indication of special affinity, the characters of the skull and teeth sharply dividing the flying forms and uniting them with other species of the non-flying groups.

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(bold added)I took the liberty of picking on Milton's second example. Wrong again!

Well, it seems that the phalanger example is wrong. You might begin to understand that the statements Milton makes are not the evidence. They just point to what he considers to be evidence.We find that he is wrong on two out of three so far. I can't find anything that allows a check on the jerboa case. Can you find appropriate pictures or details analysis? That would be supplying real evidence to support the assertions that Milton is making.

A very good question. There is, of course, a ton of research done on exactly that question. I don't think there is anything like a definitive answer yet.Is that supposed to be "evidence against evolution"? In what why is it such evidence?

I should have started off this series of posts with a note that what you have posted is at least starting to be a bit more like evidence. If the facts were as Milton suggests I think that it would be evidence that would have to be answered. I would have to be stubborn enough to suggest that it would have to be much augmented with more than one or two part way there examples considering the amount of support it has to overcome. But you are starting, finally, to get to evidence of a sort. Thank you and sorry for not noting that right off.It is, however, unfortunate for your thesis that the facts are not as Milton is asserting. This is why it is so nice to work with evidence. It means we can stop going around in circles and look and resolve some issues.To make it clear, I say that a non-expert can sort work and thyacine skulls once they are told there are two species to sort. Which is in contraction to "When the skulls of the two wolves are placed side by side, it would take an experienced professional zoologist to tell them apart." I can tell them apart from pictures without even having the skulls in my hand. (at least from the samples given, maybe they are extreme individuals of the species or something) (maybe one of them had arthritis? )

Perhaps by "marsupial gerboa" he means the bettong.Jerboa: http://96.1911encyclopedia.org/J/JE/JERBOA.htmBettongs are structured like kangaroos, and not only share marsupial reproductive characteristics, but everything else, even at the most microscopic level, such as a complete absense of brown adipose tissue (it's much rarer in marsupials). The entire genetic structure, and consequently the proteins made, are marsupial - there's no controversy. Besides, they don't even look all that similar, so I'm not sure why Milton even bothered.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Your first two paragraphs wonder aloud how does the exclusion of the supernatural not make sense ?I respectfully say that the answer to this was the exact subject of my posts #112, 136, 237.As a creationist all I/we are saying is that God is the ultimate Creator - the Intelligent Designer and every scientist that concludes for whatever reason that He does not exist or did not create the universe is wrong, mistaken, confused, dishonest, or lying or a combination of any of these. To use scientific data as a proof and a basis to deny the existence of God is a leap of bias originating from one of their starting assumptions. Do all scientists do this ? Irrelevant, the issue and subject is the ones who do and the ones who do are the evolutionists of neo-Darwinism - this is why the "theory" exists - as an alternative explanation for the origin of life because the creationist account is deemed "irrational".You write, " might He not have worked through the natural laws and mechanisms He Himself set up ?" Yes !!! Of course, this is what we are saying that these natural laws and mechanisms that you brilliant scientists have discovered were designed and created by God. Things do not mutate by random chance - improvement by chance is not random or by chance it is God programmed or directed. This is what infuriates God, that Scientist credits a dunce called Random Chance instead of Him. God wants credit just like any scientist wants credit for his discoveries. Post #112, and 136 says this lack of credit triggers God to react a certain way which has already been covered by me in the aforementioned posts.The next segment of your reply quotes the Bible verse in question, then makes an illogical observation.Your point is to focus on to what you believe are "sadistic" or senseless abnormalities in nature, which is offered to say "If God is the creator and He is intelligent then why ...." are there cave dwelling rodents born with no eyes or this or that.....etc. etc.In other words just because you do not understand the reason why then we must conclude that an intelligent Creator would not do this , therefore this is evidence that He is not the Creator.You are placing God in a box that you constructed previously (it must make sense to me) or I will deduce what I already believed (that He does not exist or is not the Creator).There are an endless amount reasons as to why God might have purposely allowed the mechanisms that He designed to produce an eyeless rodent, perhaps to be defenseless prey as a food source to another animal ? I don't know and it is not the point.Now I quote you exactly " Please could you tell me on what grounds we should not make these deductions about this God of yours ?"The context of the above question was asked in lieu of the design "flaws" of nature which I have just answered.Question : IF you deduce that God does not exist or that creation was not intelligently designed from the so called flaws ( that was your point) then how come you cannot deduce the reverse from all that is not flawed ?

(sorry this was posted under the wrong name -- should be NosyNed)I guess you'll get back to evidence later. That is, you'll comment on the errors in what Milton has to say.You can't seem to decide what you believe or at least I can't figure it out from your posts. Perhaps you can clarify it?First, what "evolution" is it you are arguing with? The fact that it occured over a 3 to 4 billion year period or the explanation of the mechanisms for how it happened? Ok, if this is what you accept then you are operating at the level of the majority of theists who accept the findings of science. God is the ultimate physicist I guess.But then you toss in: This is full of confusion. First, "improvement" is relative to the needs in a particular environmental context. The random mutations and recombinations produce change but that is not the whole of the ToE at all. You can't really do a good job of critising what you keep demonstrating you don't understand.Next, it has been demonstarted that the mutations are random. So you can argue all you want but you will have to offer evidence to the contrary.Then you are also suggesting that God is in direct control of the minute details which now requires some explanation of the how this is accomplished. (note, once again, if you invoke miracluous mechanisms you have stepped outside the bounds of creation science and are into the area covered by religion). In this quote are you saying that all biologists are atheists? It seems to imply that?It is a rare individual scientist who attempts to use the process of science to prove the non-existance of God. I can't see it being a productive thing to do and not likely to be successful. It is you who seems bent on doing that. You seem to insist that if evolutionary theory is correct (and maybe even if evolution has actually happened) then God is disproved in some way. That is NOT what the biologists are trying to do. Some just want to know how things have and are happening and don't care much about God at all, others want to know how God has chosen to allow the life on earth to unfold. Neither group is talking about the existance of God. You keep asserting otherwise without any support for it. I don't believe in a God but I don't think that biology has anything to do with the existance or non-existance of God. All I knew about "evolution" when I was 10 and under was that there were really cool beasts called dinosaurs once. I didn't believe in God then and it never occured to me to connect dinosaurs and God in anyway at all.[This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 12-13-2003]

This topic has been moving too fast for me to even want to try following it. My impression is that it is a mish-mash of random thoughts, generally having little to nothing to do with the theme of the topic title.I'll leave it open, but I'm filling it under "not worth being concerned about".Have fun,
Adminnemooseus------------------
Comments on moderation procedures? - Go to
Change in Moderation?
or
too fast closure of threads

I thought this was relevant:

quote:

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"Biogeography

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This final section is perhaps the most straightforward, and certainly one of the most persuasive stand-alone bits of evidence that support Descent with Modification (in other words, even if it weren't corroborated by all the independent lines of evidence we've discussed so far). Based on Descent with Modification, if one species is the descendent of another, then there had to be some geographical continuity from where the parent species is found to where the child species is foundthey had to be able to get there.

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Of course, if this geographical continuity was broken at some point in the past, then there are predictable consequencesbut only if Descent with Modification is true. Without going into the many examples of biodiversity that support Descent with Modification, I will focus only on the Australia example, since it alone is such an overwhelmingly persuasive exampleparticularly against any notion that all of today's air-breathing species came from one point on the globe, such as from an "Ark."

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Deeper layers of the fossil record show that marsupial mammals (pouched mammals like the kangaroo) were more common than placental mammals (mammals like us that gestate their young inside their bodies with the use of a placenta). During this time (i.e, in these layers) some parts of the world were populated only by marsupial mammals, including the land mass that would eventually become Australia. Shallower (more recent) layers of the fossil record show that placental mammals had displaced the marsupials over much of the earth.

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But what if a barrier appeared before the expanding placentals could invade a particular area that had been occupied only by marsupials? For example, what if a peninsula that had been occupied only by marsupials, became an island before the new placentals migrated there? Well, Descent with Modification would predict that the marsupials might not only survive, but they might fill all the same ecological niches (on just their protectionist island) that placental mammals occupy elsewhere in the world. In other words, they would evolve some analogies to placentals, and only in one place: their isolated island.

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Of course, this is exactly what we see in Australia. In the table below[10], keep in mind that all of the animals in the Marsupial column are more closely related to each other than they are to their counterparts in the other column. This is an extremely telling observation; it really should make you say, "Wow!"

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Consider that the Tiger cat is more closely related to the marsupial mouse than it is to the Bob Cat, which looks superficially almost the same. The same can be said about the Tasmanian Wolf, which looks almost identical to a "regular" wolf, but is also in fact a closer relative to the Marsupial mouse, who for all the world looks like a "regular" mouse.

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Placental
Marsupial

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Wolf
Tasmanian Wolf

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Flying Squirrel
Flying Phalanger

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Mouse
Marsupial Mouse

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Mole
Marsupial Mole

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Anteater
Numbat

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Bob Cat
Tasmanian Tiger Cat

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Lemur
Spotted Cuscus

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Keep in mind that all these marsupial species exist in only one part of the world. Fascinating to be sure, though this is not only explained by Descent with Modification, it is practically expected. Moreover, it adds yet another independent cross-check of the tree you get based only on the comparative anatomy of marsupials and placentals, which, in turn, is independently cross-checked by the tree drawn only from the layer positions of fossils.

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On the other hand, this is not only completely inexplicable under the creationist "model," but it actually falsifies that "model." What can the creationist say about such a pattern in biogeography? All they can say is that God created parallel versions of each of these animals (which alone contradicts "similar structures for similar functions"), that they left the Ark at the same time from Mt. Ararat and that somehow the marsupial mouse, Tasmanian wolf, Tiger Cat and the many, many other marsupial species (not shown in the table) that exist only in Australia all cooperated as a group to get to get to Australia ahead of all placental mammals. As Philip Kitcher puts it,

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Some marsupialswombats, koalas, and marsupial moles, for examplemove very slowly. Koalas are sedentary animals, and it is difficult to coax them out of the eucalyptus trees on which they feed...The idea of any of these animals engaging in a hectic dash around the globe is patently absurd (On the evolutionary account, of course, they are all descendents of ancestral marsupials who had millions of years to reach their destinations)[11]

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If they all started at the same time in the same place, as the creationists claim, what was it about their lack of a placenta that made them move as a group, predator and prey, large and small ahead of very fast placental predators to just this one part of the globe? Without a direct Divine assist, it's hard to imagine a coherent explanation."

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-from Freethought Debater – Naturalism, Critical Thinking, and AtheologyI don't see why you would think that an intelligent designer would produce two creatures that are "virtually identical" on two different continents. Can you explain why? Why wouldn't he just use the same creature on both? Why would he use the same wolf "design" in the rest of the world, but not in Australia?I'm afraid if you can't answer these questions, as well as the other ones raised in the excerpt, you simply have a "God of the Gaps" theory, such as:ID-"Evolution can't explain it, but God can"
Evo-"How?"
ID-"He made it that way for some reason"
Evo-"Brilliant!"[This message has been edited by JustinCy, 12-13-2003]

Post #249 answers your question.Variety is the spice of life, you place God on trial with your standard of what makes sense, which said standard is erected to have only one concluson - that God must neatly fit into your previously decided subjective dogma.How could God and His status as Creator (if true) depend on creation
always making sense to you ? You wrote this comprehensive post that ended with a ridiculous question. What difference does it make as to why there are so many varieties and why does variety or how does variety disprove God ?Maybe I am confused about your final point or question, but the main body of science that you posted is obviously quality stuff.

WillowtreeI've opened a topic called"Quote mining? The Pilbeam quote..."
http://EvC Forum: Quote mining? The Pilbeam quote... -->EvC Forum: Quote mining? The Pilbeam quote...[This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 12-13-2003]I just moved it to the "Human Origins" forum. It's now at http://EvC Forum: Quote mining? The Pilbeam quote... -->EvC Forum: Quote mining? The Pilbeam quote... - Adminnemooseus[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 12-13-2003]D'oh - Zhimbo caught the move, making my above edit unneeded - AM[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 12-13-2003]

I cannot keep up with your replies and I will get back to Milton. There are no errors, if you claim there are then that is your assertion. I believe you are intentionally dodging the simple mystery posed by Milton.If mutation is by random chance then it would be almost miraculous that by chance so many virtually identical creatures could evolve on two different continents.You did mention convergence but failed to prove what that is and how exactly it solves the "mystery".Regarding mutation by random chance : Ok it is random and by chance because that is the way you observe it. Creationism simply says that this process that you call "mutation by random chance" was created and designed by God. What don't you understand ? We have been going around and around on this. I have said it time and time again over and over that I believe that what is made was created by God. Why is it that you associate the process of mutation and its random factor with God not being the Creator of that process ? Like a computer program that decides a winner by random chance - who designed the program ? In this example : God, this is the claim of creationism.For the record the post you replied to was directed at another member. And the quote you quoted was not me but that other member. I simply answered his question with "Yes, of course...."