The Origin of Novelty

All relationships between extant species reflected in the genetic data points to and is expected by baraminology. You would see closely related nested hierarchies from within baramins (eg human racegroups, genus canis, genus felidae) nearly every modern organism is part of a recent nested hierarchy. Then you would see vast gulfs of genetic differences (eg chimp/human differences of 120 million base pairs) between baramins of similar phenotype. This is what is observed. So I need more evidence than your opinion, that genotypes do not reflect baraminology. How about some links/studies to support your position. surely if baraminology is so wrong, there would be numerous studies that easily contradict the view of recent evolution from baramins. I don't recall you giving me any example of evidence for long term hierarchies. If you could kindly back up your claims with links/studies then we could gain ground in the discussion instead of repeating ourselves.Remember I am not claiming that baraminology is the better empirical view, I believe observations currently fit in with both views. MY argument is against evolutionist assumptions that your view is better, any evidence to show that your view is better than baraminology would be greatly appreciated. It is only because of your overconfidence in the evidence for your position that more evidence is actually required of you. I say both views fit in with observations and neither view can currently contradict the other. You keep making big claims without giving me your links/studies to prove your position. Which particular group of transitional fossils is a problem for my hypothesis? Give me an example so we can see how it contradicts the baramin view.

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All relationships between extant species reflected in the genetic data points to and is expected by baraminology. You would see closely related nested hierarchies from within baramins (eg human racegroups, genus canis, genus felidae) nearly every modern organism is part of a recent nested hierarchy. Then you would see vast gulfs of genetic differences (eg chimp/human differences of 120 million base pairs) between baramins of similar phenotype. This is what is observed.

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Well, as lies go, that's a whopper! You know perfectly well that the only argument about chimps and humans is over estimates of divergence time and there isn't any uncrossable bridge there.So no, we DON'T see these "vast gulfs of genetic differences". Not at all.

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I don't recall you giving me any example of evidence for long term hierarchies. If you could kindly back up your claims with links/studies then we could gain ground in the discussion instead of repeating ourselves.

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Have you forgotten the cytochrome C example already ?

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Remember I am not claiming that baraminology is the better empirical view, I believe observations currently fit in with both views. MY argument is against evolutionist assumptions that your view is better, any evidence to show that your view is better than baraminology would be greatly appreciated. It is only because of your overconfidence in the evidence for your position that more evidence is actually required of you. I say both views fit in with observations and neither view can currently contradict the other.

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The idea that the evidence COULD "equally" support the two positions is a bit odd. If we had the genetic evidence you claimed baraminolgy would win, easily. The fact that the data is nothing like that and we can't find one single clear example of a baramin equally goes against baraminology.We have other evidence, such as transitional fossils which are completely unexpected if baraminology is true, too.So you've been given the evidence, and it looks very much as if that was not what you wanted at all.

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You keep making big claims without giving me your links/studies to prove your position. Which particular group of transitional fossils is a problem for my hypothesis? Give me an example so we can see how it contradicts the baramin view.

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Actually it wasn't a particular group it's ALL of them considered together. Although I have pointed out the fossils illustrating the evolution of the mammalian jaw as a particularly awkward example for you.

Just because your common ancestor goes further back in time and involves many more complicated steps to get to modern organisms, does not make your single common ancestor any less unlikely than my recent multiple common ancestors. Your extensive wordplay is trying to place an extra step in baraminology, whereas abiogenesis is no more proven than creationism. Put aside how we have organisms (prokaryote/baramin) and then let's compare parsimony of the two theories on the assumption that life did somehow appear, and on the assumption that multiple creation is no less unlikely than the statistical joke of abiogenesis.Therefore if we put aside theories on origins of life forms (abiogenesis/creation); long term evolution therefore has less parsimony (its a longer more complicated procedure with some processes lacking in evidence). But I've said this already haven't I? And you keep bringing up creation don't you. So let's agree to disagree, I believe the parsimony argument favors baraminology. I could be wrong, but I would assume that the obvious answer is that bats are stronger flyers, better able to handle the extra placental weight. (they fly in "low gear", more strength, less speed). Generally the extra weight would reduce fitness in flying organisms, but because of the extra bones in the bats wings (mammalian "hands") it is stronger in flight, even if less efficient and slower. Birds are vulnerable to exhaustion, relatively lighter in body, proportionately to wing size. They need specialized lungs, emphasizing their vulnerability. You are incorrect, the coral example is mix and matching among specific and yet diverse animals.You also failed to address what I said regarding the mix and matching not being as required as you are emphasizing, I believe your whole point is a strawman argument: I said the following:

I can see how you say this, but even the thought that reduced complexity is the more observable process among fitness enhancing mutations, should lend its own credibility to the theory that life is devolving from complex organisms, rather than evolving from simple organisms. I believe that biological life started 6500 years ago, I have no problem with an old earth. I dispute dating techniques that show fossils in old layers due to empirical reasons, not because of religion.There is a lot of evidence of a worldwide flood at the PT boundary , including the fountains of the great deep opening up, and so that "scientific conclusion" is no longer valid. Please refer to my post 295 in the following thread:
EvC Forum: Where Did The (Great Flood) Water Come From And Where Did It Go?This particular thread is enough evidence for any observer to see that the theory of evolution is based on circular reasoning and a few weak arguments. I believe I'm more committed to science than those on this forum. I believe in good logic and good points and the search for truth, even if it contradicts my position. How I would love to be challenged by a few good points from a reasonable and logical truth seeker. I love to continuously adjust my view to the truth as I learn it, something I do not see in others. I have been criticized for adapting my views in the past and even on this website, I see this as the correct scientific approach and always take the criticism as a compliment. I wish others would also rapidly adjust their views to the truth, you can find out a lot that way. Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

When I say vast differences, I am referring to 120 million base pairs differences, and 83% difference in protein production between humans/chimps. You think you made a point with that example? The claim that a wide range of organisms have retained an exact sequence over 300 million years without mutations or evolving, is ridiculous. The evidence points to recent intelligent design, but I already said that, and we are repeating ourselves. What evidence? The Cytochrome example points to intelligent design and I have noted that your aguments are repetitive and lack supporting evidence. You repeat the same statements yet refuse to back them up. The complete dearth of any decent arguments or evidence against baraminology speaks volumes. Where's the hundreds of links I was expecting that would easily disprove baraminology? Repeating weak points adds no strength to your position. Could you kindly give me a link regarding the evolution of the mammalian jaw. I would like to see why you say that these fossils are a particularly awkward example for me.

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When I say vast differences, I am referring to 120 million base pairs differences, and 83% difference in protein production between humans/chimps.

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Which are far too small to suggest anything other than - in evolutionary terms - a very close relationship.

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You think you made a point with that example? The claim that a wide range of organisms have retained an exact sequence over 300 million years without mutations or evolving, is ridiculous. The evidence points to recent intelligent design, but I already said that, and we are repeating ourselves.

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I know that I did. Again the differences fall into a nested tree, strongly consistent with evolution. Why is that ? Coincidence ?You haven't even come up with any reason WHY an intelligent designer would keep arbitrary elements of the sequence constant and that would be necessary to even have a plausible alternative, let alone for your claim to be true.

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What evidence? The Cytochrome example points to intelligent design

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Yet another obvious falsehood.

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and I have noted that your arguments are repetitive and lack supporting evidence. You repeat the same statements yet refuse to back them up.

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If I have winning arguments - and I do - why should I give up on them ?

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The complete dearth of any decent arguments or evidence against baraminology speaks volumes. Where's the hundreds of links I was expecting that would easily disprove baraminology? Repeating weak points adds no strength to your position.

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Well given the fact that we have quite a number of strong arguments against baraminology the problem would seem to be with you/

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Could you kindly give me a link regarding the evolution of the mammalian jaw. I would like to see why you say that these fossils are a particularly awkward example for me.

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THe reason why it is particularly awkward is that not only is it a transition that clearly crosses baramins, but that it's rather odd to have intermediary stages for such an unusual transition - the "twin jointed jaw" is a perfect transition for moving from one joint to another, something that some argued was impossible. Until the fossils showed otherwise. Wikipedia's writeupHere's Steven Jay Gould's discussion as a bonus (bitmapped pdf)
An Earful of JawEdited by PaulK, : Fixed URL

This topic is about how those complex features evolved. You need to start giving some examples of possible beneficial mutations that could lead to the formation of an ear. What evidence do you have for these beneficial mutations occurring randomly and sporadically through species?Dr. A has already admitted his defeat in not being able to give any examples. Are you doing the same?

I am sorry that you are unable to follow a conversation.

This is, of course, a lie.

That's a lie, that's gibberish....You standard come backs when you have no evidence for the things you believe.Start naming some of the examples of random beneficial mutations cropping up sporadically in advanced organisms?Or just accept your defeat.

On the subject of duplication: You haven't looked. There are plenty of examples of situations in which duplication can be advantageous or neutral on arrival. One of the things you could do to test this is to artificially duplicate genes in certain environments, and measure the effects on fitness. It's been done in E. Coli, and the researchers found 115 cases in which amplification alone could increase fitness in toxic environments. In most strains, there was no loss of fitness in the absence of toxins (the duplications would then be neutral). Yes. I was waiting for you to suggest it. Both can happen. Think of AMY1 in humans. Here's what's interesting for you. You say: That would be drift. It's a slow process. If you want a model of humans beginning 6,500 ya with the maximum known number of copies (15) so as to avoid any duplication, then you need a much higher mutation rate than we actually have, coupled with some positive selection on a decrease in AMY1 copies. You'd have the same problem with building up the number of copies by duplication on that time scale. No. The chances of an intelligent designer using an antifreeze protein encoded by a gene that looks like a duplicate of another are slim, given the options available. There are many other antifreeze proteins already in the life system, and our knowledge of artificial proteins indicates that the overwhelming majority of potential functional proteins are not even used in the life system. Evolution is constrained in what it can do in a way that designers aren't. The designer would have to be trying to make it look like evolution.You're still arguing that what looks like a frog could be something other than a frog. When you see an individual apparent frog, do you assume that it came about from the transformation of frogspawn into a tadpole, then a frog, or do you think it equally likely that it could be a Prince magicked into an apparent frog?Don't you understand that duplication events can be "read" on genomes, and that they happen regularly in labs? I'd be happy to, but you keep implying that supernatural beings can make things without presenting a single known example of this actually happening. It's a bit like having a conversation with someone who claims that kangaroos can speak French, but who cannot present any positive evidence of kangaroos speaking anything, let alone a human language, let alone French. Not quite, though, because at least that person could demonstrate that kangaroos exist! No. Natural explanations for natural phenomena aren't dumb. They are "plausible and realistic", as Bolder-dash would say. And just what he asks for in the O.P. I agree. What's that got to do with abiogenesis? Well, you made it! See above. And the original gene was not a good design for anti-freeze, hence the positive selection on the duplication.BTW, are all Zoarcid fish one Kind, in your opinion? And if so, what sort of environment do you think they were created to be in?

How would an eagle be considered a transitional between a falcon and another species. What transitional features does an eagle have?We can also find human fossils below modern falcon fossils, but no one is saying that humans are transtional or ancestral to falcons.You have also ignored the fact that the transitional fossils we do have fit into the nested hierarchy predicted by evolution, a nested hierarchy that sits above the baramin level and is able to explain the relationships between larger clades. Just look at the similarities between humans and chimps. Are they in the same baramin? We share over 200,000 orthologous ERV's with chimps. This is smoking gun evidence of shared ancestry. Either chimps and humans are in the same baramin, or genetics is no help for determing baramins. Each person is born with between 50 and 100 mutations. That's millions of mutations in just one generation for a population of just 100,000. You only need to keep a tiny percentage of the mutations that do happen in order to produce the genetic divergence seen between humans and chimps over a 6 million year time span. Then show that they were swimming around at the same time.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

The very first life form could have been poofed into being by a supernatural deity, and then all life evolved from that point. Guess what, the theory of evolution would be unchanged if this is what actually happened.The only wordplay here is your failed attempts to conflate abiogenesis with evolution and religion with scientific theories. Parsimony has nothing to do with complexity. Nothing. The most parsimonious explanation is the explanation with the fewest unevidenced assumptions. In this case, the production of nested hierarchy by a supernatural deity is the poorer explanation because no one has ever observed a supernatural deity producing life that falls into a nested hierarchy. On the other hand, we do observe the mechanisms of evolution producing life that falls into a nested hierarchy. Therefore, evolution is the more parsimonious explanation. Why don't we find any flight adaptations used in birds being used in bats, or vice versa? Why is a bat more like a mole than like a bird?

Talk about begging the question. So any evidence of shared ancestry dating back millions of years will automatically be rejected, isn't that right?

Sweeping deinals of evidence are not refutations. Exactly conserved? Are you crazy?

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With this in mind, consider again the molecular sequences of cytochrome c. Cytochrome c is absolutely essential for life - organisms that lack it cannot live. It has been shown that the human cytochrome c protein works in yeast (a unicellular organism) that has had its own native cytochrome c gene deleted, even though yeast cytochrome c differs from human cytochrome c over 40% of the protein (Tanaka et. al 1988a; Tanaka et al. 1988b; Wallace and Tanaka 1994). In fact, the cytochrome c genes from tuna (fish), pigeon (bird), horse (mammal), Drosophila fly (insect), and rat (mammal) all function in yeast that lack their own native yeast cytochrome c (Clements et al. 1989; Hickey et al. 1991; Koshy et al. 1992; Scarpulla and Nye 1986).
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 4

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The sequence between human and yeast cytochrome c is only 40% similar. As discussed above, the yeast functions just fine with human cytochrome c instead of its own, so why not use the same sequence when designing both? Why would a designer change cytochrome c genes so that they fall into a nested hierarchy that mimics an evolutionary history that never happened?Quite simply, design can not explain these relationships. Evolution does. We see the exact pattern of divergence that we would expect to see from evolution, time and time again. You will also notice that none of those species violates a nested hierarchy when a designer would be able to easily design a species that would.