Animals with bad design.

Hi Aaron, and welcome to the fray. So you would agree that the best conclusion regarding design would be that it starts with the creation of a universe set up so that the universe would behave according to what appear to be natural laws, where life would occur and then evolve ... and then leave the system alone for billions of years, having already done the necessary design work?See Is ID properly pursued? for more.Enjoy.

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Hi Aaron, thanks. Sorry, I missed where that was part of the previous discussion. Can you point that out in what I said?

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"So you would agree that the best conclusion regarding design would be that it starts with the creation of a universe set up so that the universe would behave according to what appear to be natural laws, where life would occur and then evolve ... and then leave the system alone for billions of years, having already done the necessary design work?"

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The evidence shows that organisms evolve at different times in different places, and that all organisms are part of a continual process of evolution from the time life first appeared on this planet, 3.5 billion years ago. Curiously, what you believe has no ability to alter reality in any way.What endows (I presume this is what you meant by endued) individual organisms with the genetic ability to adapt to new ecologies is mutation. Unfortunately, for your belief, mutation is random and not directed.Enjoy.

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Hi barbara,you had a double post
zenmonkey made the same answer
message deletedEnjoy.Edited by RAZD, : No reason given.

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Hi Aaron

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1. To provide with a quality or trait; endow:

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So you meant endowed, but want to appear learned by using abnormal words? Or do you mean the second definition?

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2. To put on (a piece of clothing).

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That would be like putting on airs. Taq has adequately answered (see Message 40) this portion of your post. Let's go back to the previous statements: Curiously, if you believe in separate individual creation of organisms (special creation) then you disagree completely with the main premise - that life came into existence billions of years after the universe was created and then left alone - because the universe was set up for life would occur.I titled the sub-thread deism for a purpose.Enjoy.

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Hi barbara,

1. Pelycodus ralstoni
2. P. mckennai
3. P. trigonodus
4. P. abditus
5. P. jarrovi
6. P. frugivorous (additional descendant species not shown)
7. Notharctus venticolis (additional descendant species not shown)
8. Copelemur proetus
9. C. feretutus
10. C. consortutus (additional descendant species not shown)

These are all extinct species. There are more, however these are all nicely shown on the following graphic showing fossil distribution in time at specific locations. From Phil Gingrich and R.A. Haskin, U of MThis shows the fossil evidence of each species descending from the previous ones that go extinct. This is exactly the pattern that is expected from - predicted by - descent with modification: not just successive generations of fossils, but gradual change in hereditary traits from one generation to the next, with the "trendency" of overall evolution showing the staggered "drunken" walk expected from - predicted by - evolution as a response mechanism rather than a directed process with a goal.Note that this shows a speciation event in the fossil record. From evolution we would not expect to see good design, rather we would expect to see transitions of organisms with varying degrees of success at adapting to the opportunities of the ecologies where they live -- ecologies that are always changing, so that the target is always moving. Couple this with evolution being a response mechanism that takes generations to select traits so evolution is always a step behind. We would expect to see organisms capable of existing, not survival of the fittest, but survival of the able to survive.This is the pattern we see, over and over and over. It's not so much that there is "bad design" compared to some poorly defined "expected ideal" design, that is the problem with the argument from design, as it seems that any Intelligent Designer/s involved just can't make up their mind/s what they want to accomplish. It's like design by committee with changing members. ... not how evolution works: individual organisms do not evolve.Each generation gives birth to individuals that are slightly different from the parent generation/s: evolution is the change in frequency of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities.

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Hi Aaron, I had a whole post all ready, and then my computer glitched me. Since then Bluejay has also answered this, but I want to add some details. Evolutionists only harp on some of the similarities - the ones that come from homologies.Evolution 101 - Understanding Evolution
Homologies and analogies - Understanding Evolution

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Since a phylogenetic tree is a hypothesis about evolutionary relationships, we want to use characters that are reliable indicators of common ancestry to build that tree. We use homologous characterscharacters in different organisms that are similar because they were inherited from a common ancestor that also had that character. An example of homologous characters is the four limbs of tetrapods. Birds, bats, mice, and crocodiles all have four limbs. Sharks and bony fish do not. The ancestor of tetrapods evolved four limbs, and its descendents have inherited that featureso the presence of four limbs is a homology.

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Not all characters are homologies. For example, birds and bats both have wings, while mice and crocodiles do not. Does that mean that birds and bats are more closely related to one another than to mice and crocodiles? No. When we examine bird wings and bat wings closely, we see that there are some major differences.

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Some similarities are analogies rather than homologies:

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Bird and bat wings are analogousthat is, they have separate evolutionary origins, but are superficially similar because they evolved to serve the same function. Analogies are the result of convergent evolution.

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Interestingly, though bird and bat wings are analogous as wings, as forelimbs they are homologous. Birds and bats did not inherit wings from a common ancestor with wings, but they did inherit forelimbs from a common ancestor with forelimbs.

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The distinction between homologous features and analogous features is that homologous features follow the cladistic nested hierarchy of descent:

• there are more homologies between bat and mouse than between bat and bird, and
• there are more homologies between bird and croc than between bird and bat, and
• the homologies between bat and bird are also shared by croc and mouse

All four show the same homolgous features in ancestors, while analogous features are later developments of derived features after the lineages have split and that bear some superficial resemblance across lineage lines but show a different development of the derived features within the cladistic nested hierarchies of descent, with different adaptations of previous features to take advantage of a similar ecological opportunity.The wings of the bats and birds both use forelimbs, but in different ways, and the structure particular to the bat type of wing is only found in bats, not in birds, while the structure particular to birds is only found in birds, not in bats. They are different adaptations of the forelimb for flight.The analogous similarities have developed independently using different adaptations to suit a similar ecological opportunity.The differences observed are those predicted by evolution - the change in the frequency of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities. Change the opportunities (by say having one population of a species move into a new environment) and you change how the response mechanism reacts to the different opportunities, selecting different variations in the population as they improve the survival and breeding ability of the individuals that have them. These variations are due to the different mixes of mutations available in individuals in the breeding population in each generation. These differences are derived by mutations from existing structures, not sudden de novo structures, and are called derived traits.This is where the increase in diversity in life occurs, where a newly derived trait branches off from the homologous lineage/s of other organism populations. Once a derived trait has evolved, then it will becomes homologous in the descendents, but not the ancestors. Thus the derived traits are just as important as the homologous traits in determining the cladistic nested hierarchy of descent:

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To build a phylogenetic tree from these data, we must base our clades on shared derived charactersnot shared ancestral characters. Since we have a good idea of what the ancestral characters are (see above), this is not so hard. We might start out by examining the egg character. We focus in on the group of lineages that share the derived form of this character (an amniotic egg) and hypothesize that they form a clade ...

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If we go through the whole table like this, grouping clades according to shared derived characters, we get the following hypothesis:

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Of course, this was just an example of the tree-building process. Phylogenetic trees are generally based on many more characters and often involve more lineages. For example, biologists reconstructing relationships between 499 lineages of seed plants began with more than 1400 molecular characters!

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Would it make a difference if we did this at each stage of the development from packicetus to modern whale to show the different stages of the development?Or would it show the cladistic nested hierarchy of descent that we see in the above example/s?Do you realize that this has already been done?You can contact Phil Gingrich at the Uof M for more information if you want:
Philip D. Gingerich
Philip D. GingerichEnjoy.

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Hi Coragyps, Or even the odds for the first step.Then list how many steps there are ...... or is it a gradual transition with no discernible before/after junctions that could be labeled a step to get from one to the next?Enjoy.

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Hi Aaron, thanks. At first it does seem like circular reasoning, I agree, however, interestingly, I was just reading Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth" on this aspect (which may be his worst book to date - I don't like his antitheist attitude, and it seems like he can't let go of it in this book, AND he keeps telling me when I should be surprised or struck with wonder ). He says that a trait is homologous if it conforms to the mathematical concept of homeomorphism -- that one can be mapped to the other and back with no additions or subtractions.The simplest definition I found was:Homeomorphism Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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Science Dictionary
homeomorphism
2. A one-to-one correspondence between the points of two geometric figures such that open sets in the first geometric figure correspond to open sets in the second figure and conversely. If one figure can be transformed into another without tearing or folding, there exists a homeomorphism between them. Topological properties are defined on the basis of homeomorphisms.

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Dawkins talks about drawing a skull on a sheet of rubber and then mathematically distorting the sheet to produce the homologous shapes back and forth.If I try this with a wold skull and a thylacine skull it doesn't work: the numbers of bones are different and the number & place of teeth and holes are different. Curiously, science does not seek to prove theory/ies, but to test them. That means they look for evidence that would be true if the theory were false and evidence that would not be true if the theory were true. Falsification evidence can "prove" the theory is false, but no evidence can "prove" the theory is true, just that all the evidence known so far complies with the theory.Thus evolution (the process): is the change in frequency of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities. It is opportunistic, and it results in adaptation of existing features for fitness to new or changed opportunities. This means the rubber sheet stretching of bones etc in the development of homologies as evolution occurs.The homologies are evidence that the process of evolution has occurred. They are predicted by the process of evolution in the adaptation of features to changes in opportunities.Thus the theory of evolution: is that the process of evolution is sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from all lines of evidence. That it would not fall into nested hierarchies and other aspects that are predicted and fully explained by evolution but for which there is no predictive need in creation.Why does a sugar-glider (marsupial) look so stunningly like a flying squirrel (eutherian)? Homologies clearly pin the flying squirrel as a eutherian (placental mammal) and the sugar glider as a marsupial, in addition to the other evidence of geological location and the separation of the fossils of eutherians and marsupials.Evolution predicts that similar opportunities can result in convergent evolution of similar body shapes and functions from different lineages. The outside functionality is what is selected in evolution, not the internal structures, they are there due to heredity and because evolution starts with existing structures and modifies them rather than suddenly inventing all new ones. Otherwise known as the principle of parsimony in selecting likely trees from all the possible ones.Seeing as all evidence to date does not show similar mutations in different lineages, it is reasonable to assume this holds for ancestral trees as well.Increasingly we see that not only do these trees fit the fossil evidence, but they fit the genetic evidence as well, another aspect that is predicted by descent from common ancestor populations but that does not follow predictively from creation. I have another thread you may be interested in - and I would appreciate an intelligent creationist participant: see Dogs will be Dogs will be ???. Maybe we can expand on this in that thread. Interestingly, guessing from one set of cherry picked evidence is not how biology investigates relationships.Enjoy.

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