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Author Topic:   Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win.
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1981 of 2887 (831420)
04-17-2018 1:06 AM
Reply to: Message 1977 by edge
04-16-2018 11:23 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Just trying to get you to SEE that there is a logical order.
Aw heck, I KNOW there is a "logical" order, at least it seems so to the naked human mind in the absence of any kind of scientific criteria. There's not one iota of empirical evidence for it, it's all a construction of the mind without any correspondence to the actual physical world, and in all this discussion nobody has proposed such a thing, only elaborations on the logic and belief and theory. Which seems to be what Moose is engaged in as well -- but I haven't read through his whole post yet. Nobody is trying to show any kind of actual gradation from one level to the next to justify the idea of its being an order, not even a principle one could try to apply to it, not increasing complexity, not actual genetic relatedness, nothing you could actually prove by scientific means, it's all imagery, no reality.

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 Message 1983 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2018 6:36 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1982 of 2887 (831421)
04-17-2018 2:27 AM
Reply to: Message 1980 by Minnemooseus
04-17-2018 12:16 AM


Re: Grand Canyon stratigraphy not representitive of the Earth as a whole
At the bottom (oldest) is the high grade metamorphic rocks. The conventional appraisal (not "God created with apparent age") is that these rocks were originally sediments that were deeply buried and subjected to quite high temperatures and pressures. High pressure means deep burial - The pressure is the pile of material on top.
Oh I completely agree. And as you say, of course they were originally sedimentary, which is indicated by the sedimentary strata of the Supergroup for one thing. And all those rocks were buried under three miles of strata from Cambrian to Holocene, that's pretty deep, and that pressure generated heat along with the heat from the volcano whose magma fingers are seen in the cross sections extending up into the schist, and which was obviously also the source of the granite alongside the schist, also formed by the pressure of the weight of the stack above. Yes, we agree absolutely, isn't this fun?
Now I don't know the metamorphic grade of these rocks (nor am I a metamorphic petrologist) , but I must think that the burial depth was of the order of many miles.
Oh so do I, and the strata above were laid to at least three miles.
Then this many miles was eroded off (lots of time) to expose the metamorphics to being at the surface. This surface would become the non-conformity.
Well, sadly, now we must disagree, because I believe the Great Unconformity was formed beneath the stack of strata that we see still in place in the Grand Canyon, and the "erosion" is the evidence of friction between those rocks and the underside of the Tapeats when a tectonic force came low from the side and rammed into the then-sedimentary rocks, pushing them up against the Tapeats, which is evidenced by the uplift just above the Supergroup that extends all the way to the Kaibab into which the canyon was cut, also causing the whole shebang to slide for a quarter of a mile at that contact, causing the erosion, and causing the quartzite boulder to move that distance embedded in the Tapeats sandstone {abe: Actually it was the lower rock, not the boulder, that moved}. The only part of the rocks beneath the Tapeats that isn't confined completely beneath the Tapeats is the extra hard Shinumo quartzite which was apparently hard enough to penetrate through the Tapeats while all the other sediments weren't hard enough to do that and so remained confined below. Where the Shinumo is exposed above the Tapeats perhaps it should be understood as the cause of the disappearance of the strata above the Tapeats at those locations.
At the same time all this was going on the pressure and the heat turned most of the sedimentary rock beneath the Great Unconformity into schist and granite. This makes a LOT more sense than the idea that those hard rocks were eroded down to near horizontality.
The metamorphics were then re-covered by the supergroup sediments, which were in turn folded/tilted and faulted, and then eroded. Again, much time needed. This surface that would become the angular unconformity (and it isn't a fault).
The problem with this idea that the Supergroup re-covered the metamorphics is that the actual Supergroup is only present beneath the Great Unconformity in a very limited area while the great majority of the rock beneath the GU is granite and schist. The schist had to have been the result of the heat and pressure transforming the rest of the Supergroup type strata into metamorphic rock, and then there was the magma from the volcano beneath it all that was released by the tectonic force and whose heat contributed to the formation of the schist and rose up to form the granite also seen all over the Grand Canyon beneath the Great Unconformity, and for that matter all over the continent as well and even the world. That all this happened after the strata were in place is shown by the magma that spills out over the exposed layers above, in the Grand Canyon but also at the far north end of the Grand Staircase where the exposed surface is way up at the top of the Claron.
And then you've got the Supergroup being tilted and faulted, but you don't offer an explanation for what caused that. Just a local event of some sort? Don't you think my theory is so much more elegant and explanatory? Then what you explain as surface erosion taking a Looooong long time, a major tectonic event explains easily as friction caused by an enormous jolt from the side pushing it upward while sliding it under the Tapeats, and tilting and faulting it all at the same time, pushing up the entire stack of strata above it all into the Kaibab Uplift, taking a lot less time, while also at the same time releasing the magma from beneath which metamorphosed much of the strata once part of the Supergroup, into schist, and forming the granite as well.
Isn't it lovely?
The supergroup was then covered by Paleozoic and later sediments, of a wide range of depositional environments. More time taken.
Not just the Supergroup, which really doesn't cover much territory, but also the granite and the schist, which somehow or other got planed off to near horizontality by mere surface erosion? But in the conventional paradigm time is magic.
Na, the whole column of Phanerozoic strata was already there when the tectonic force hit, causing not only all the goings on beneath just described but also shaking things up in the upper reaches of the strata, breaking them up down to the Kaibab as the Flood was receding, which washed them all away, much of it into cracks that became the Grand Canyon, and also removing huge amounts in the Grand Staircase area, leaving only the cliffs known as the stairs.
SO elegant, SO explanatory, SO comprehensive. No "depositional environments" and relatively brief time.
The big picture - The Earth's continental crust is a 3 dimensional mosaic of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, all to some lesser or greater degree deformed or otherwise modified by folding, faulting, metamorphism, and other processes.
I agree.
To attribute this vastly complex 3 dimensional mosaic to being entirely the result of a single flood event is silly.
The Big Picture based on the Flood is that there was a lot more to the Flood event than a lot of water. The entire Earth and even the cosmos were all undergoing massive trauma. Events on the sea floor occurred along with the prodigious rain that began the eventful year, the water rose and all life on the land died along with much in the oceans, and was buried in the sediments scoured off the land and churned up from the depths, and at or toward the end of it all the continents split, the plates started moving, volcanoes were released by the movement, the water started receding, mountains started being pushed up by the continental resistance to the movement of the plates deforming much of the just-laid sedimentary strata and so on and so forth.
ALL THE STRATA of the Geologic Column were already in place when this massive upheaval started to occur at the end of the Flood. So much of it was broken up and washed away leaving partial stacks that you misread those areas as caused by different events. Salts in the layers over time collected at the bottom, causing the whole stack of strata to sag into hammock shape, and when enough salt had accumulated it began rising as salt domes up through those strata -- the timing since the Flood is right for that to happen, but millions of years not. There are other places where you can see the whole range of rocks from Cambrian to at least Permian all tilted as a block. Angular unconformities HAD to have been formed at this time too, just had to, and the later tectonic force that pushed up the Supergroup forming the Kaibab Uplift is the best explanation for all of them, buckling part of the strata beneath a weak spot in the stack, often leaving part of the upper stack still horizontally in place. The worldwide extent of the Great Unconformity fits perfectly into this picture.
Yes, the Grand Canyon stratigraphy IS representative of the Earth as a whole.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1980 by Minnemooseus, posted 04-17-2018 12:16 AM Minnemooseus has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 2311 by edge, posted 04-27-2018 9:56 PM Faith has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 1983 of 2887 (831422)
04-17-2018 6:36 AM
Reply to: Message 1981 by Faith
04-17-2018 1:06 AM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Faith writes:
Aw heck, I KNOW there is a "logical" order, at least it seems so to the naked human mind in the absence of any kind of scientific criteria. There's not one iota of empirical evidence for it, it's all a construction of the mind without any correspondence to the actual physical world, and in all this discussion nobody has proposed such a thing, only elaborations on the logic and belief and theory.
Here's a very simplified picture of how the scientific criteria has observed and recorded order in the fossil record. All you have to do is find a handful of, well any animal and plant group really, in a different order and you've disproven evolution and great lumps of geology. Can you do that? If there is no order - if it's random - this should be really easy to do.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1981 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 1:06 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1985 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 1:33 PM Tangle has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(1)
Message 1984 of 2887 (831423)
04-17-2018 7:33 AM
Reply to: Message 1959 by Faith
04-16-2018 4:45 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Faith writes:
The best we can do is suppose that there is some unknown principle of physical sorting that accounts for it that may never be known.
That has been your answer for every example that has been raised.
BUT...
we have known principles of physical sorting that account for what is seen in the geology, the biology, the radiometric evidence, the isotope evidence, the physical positioning and that are observable and happening today.
This is the difference Faith.
We have the fossils and societies and geology and radiometric samples and isotope samples and the model, method, mechanism, process and procedures that explain the evidence.
All you have is the dogma of your Cult.
Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

My Sister's Website: Rose Hill Studios My Website: My Website

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1959 by Faith, posted 04-16-2018 4:45 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1985 of 2887 (831424)
04-17-2018 1:33 PM
Reply to: Message 1983 by Tangle
04-17-2018 6:36 AM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
But that's kind of silly, Tangle. You almost could replace any of those fossils with any other fossils at any level and you'd still have the same kind of "order." (At least you could exchange some of those in the lower levels with each other, or any trilobite with any other, and I'm not sure it would matter a whole lot if you put mammals before reptiles either). I KNOW there is THAT kind of "order," meaning a series of fossils found up the layers all over the world. What I'm disputing is that that kind of order means anything beyond that, beyond an accidental or random predictable appearance at predictable levels of predictable fossils. It looks like it could have meaning just because of the similarity to the Linnaean groupings, and because it has to look like it has that sort of meaning at least, but you'd have to show that there is some kind of actual functional (not sure that's the best word) relationship between the different levels, something that ties them together beyond their mere predictable location one above another, say increase in complexity or some such principle. Far as I can see there is no increase in complexity and I can't even think of another principle. Genetic relationship is assumed wherever it looks even remotely plausible, but it can't be proved, it remains mere appearance or theory or mental arrangement, and as I've sketched it out it's not even possible between the reptile ear and the mammalian ear..
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1983 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2018 6:36 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1987 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2018 1:55 PM Faith has replied
 Message 1989 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2018 2:28 PM Faith has replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 1986 of 2887 (831425)
04-17-2018 1:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1812 by Faith
04-13-2018 8:24 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Faith writes:
By cousins you mean that all trilobites are the same species? If so, what is your evidence that all trilobites are the same species?
It should be based on the basic structure of the creature. As you pointed out you can't tell a tiger from a lion by its skeleton, they are both of the cat Species.
No, that wasn't what I said. I said that tigers and lions are not the same cat species. They are different though closely related cat species.
So with the trilobites you can tell by their structure that they are of the trilobite Species no matter how much their incidental characteristics may vary.
Different trilobite species are not at all analogous to tigers and lions. Tiger and lion skeletons are virtually identical. That identical skeletons can be from different species means that identifying species from fossils alone will result in misidentification of some fossils as being the same species when they are not. This means we undercount the number of fossil species.
It also means that when fossils are different that they are very likely not the same species. A wide variety of different trilobite fossils have been found, and it is highly likely that they all represent different species. For example, these two trilobite fossils very likely represent two different species, and are in fact classifed as Phacops rana and Cheirurus ingricus. They're not only different species, they're even different genera, and they're also different families (Phacopidae and Cheiruridae respectively):
According to Wikipedia there are thought to have been around 17,000 different trilobite species over the roughly 270 million years of their existence.
So with the trilobites you can tell by their structure that they are of the trilobite Species no matter how much their incidental characteristics may vary.
Why would you think that? How do you know which characteristics are incidental and which are not? How often do you find species today where individuals are as different as those trilobites but are still the same species?
That would be the basic rule I'd have in mind. But there was an interesting segment of the film "Is Genesis History" where three sea creatures were said to be the same Species although they look entirely different: the starfish, the sea cucumber and a little round creature I forget the name of.
Pollux touched on this point already, but to emphasize again, sea stars, sea cucumbers and sea daisies are not the same species. They cannot interbreed. They're the same phylum - that's as close as they get.
The scientist had to pick them up to demonstrate what made them the same Species, which was their many little poison tentacles and the location of their mouth in the center bottom of their form, and the fact that they are all segmented although not in the same way. Yet they are three entirely different shapes, one spherical, one like a cucumber and one shaped like a star.
Well, then, since you have the same number of limbs, since your mouth is in the same place, and since you have segmented vertebrae, I guess you're the same species as a chimpanzee.
Seriously, Faith, after all these years, do you really not understand that for sexual organisms that populations incapable of interbreeding cannot be the same species?
So I guess you wouldn't be able to tell from their fossils that they were the same Species but there are always exceptions to any rule.
What we would be able to tell from their fossils is that they are definitely different species.
But trilobites all have the same basic structure of three lobes, a central lobe and two side lobes, and the same basic shape.
See above about you and the chimpanzee.
"Kind" means species in the sense I'm using the term above.
Using kind as a synonym for species is completely contrary to how you've used kind in the past. Your scenario went like this. Noah collected two of each kind on the ark. After the flood the kinds, relying upon their built-in store of genomic variation, rapidly evolved into all the species we see today. Sound familiar?
Until creationists come up with a single consistent and tangible definition of kind, they should avoid the term. If you mean species, say species.
The words are synonymous, one the English, the other Latin,...
Look, I'm fine with it if you want to define kind as a synonym for species - I'm just reminding you that isn't how you've used kind in the past.
...and "species" gets used for all levels of differentiation...
No, species does not get used for all levels of differentiation. For sexual species, which is what we're almost always talking about, a species is an interbreeding population.
...("Species of cat" etc, while "Kind" includes all cats)...
A "species of cat" would be a lion or tiger or house cat. If kind is a synonym of species, which is what you just said, then a "kind of cat" would also be a lion or tiger or house cat. But you just said kind would not include all cats.
Were you drunk when you wrote that paragraph, because within it you managed to both contradict what you've said in the past and be self-contradictory?
...so that it's hard to be clear when you use "species."
It's obviously hard for you to be clear when you use species. No one else is having a problem.
That fossils of one era differ modestly from those of the era just before and the era just after is impossible to deny.
But those aren't "eras," they are just the separate grave sites of different branches of a creature's family, the kind of differences I'm talking about above, that are brought about by built-in variability or "microevolution."
What evidence are you looking at that says they aren't eras?
They are rocks; rocks are not eras.
You're doing strange things with the quoting again, I straightened it out when I requoted it above.
I used the word era, and one of Edge's posts reminds mind me that era is a formal geologic term. Eras (Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, etc.) are divided into periods (Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic for the Mesozoic era) are divided into systems are divided into series and stages.
But I wasn't writing geologically. By eras I meant periods of life where enough time has elapsed for evolutionary change to be apparent. But using the term era was perhaps confusing since we only know about evolutionary change in the past through the fossil record which resides within the geological strata, raising the question of whether it would be best to stick to geological terminology when talking about evolutionary history. I don't know the answer to that.
But leaving that aside and avoiding the term era, I was making the point that where the fossil record is continuous for a species that evolutionary change is gradual. The problem is that although life is continuous, the fossil record often is not because the geological strata are not. The Kaibab Limestone, about 300 feet thick, was deposited over a period of at least 2 million years and contains a record of gradual and continuous evolutionary change.
The age of the Kaibab Limestone also increases by millions of years from west to east because it wasn't deposited simultaneously all across its geographic range. Rather the Kaibab Limestone layer moved eastward as the coastline moved gradually eastward.
This means that not only is the Kaibab Limestone a record of evolutionary change from bottom to top, but also from east to west.
The Kaibab is continuous with the underlying Toroweap Formation (i.e., there's no unconformity), so the Toroweap represents a different depositional environment closer to shore. The Toroweap records a transgressing and regressing sea resulting in a mix of deposits of sandstone (coastline), shale (offshore) and limestone (shallow sea far from shore). Because of these different environments the life in the Toroweap was different from the Kaibab, so the Kaibab and Toroweap do not represent a continuous record of life. The species populations inhabiting the sea and sea floor when the Kaibab sediments were being deposited were not the same species populations as those of the Toroweap.
The base of the overlying Moenkopi Formation is an unconformity with the Kaibab. That unconformity represents millions of years. Also, the Moenkopi is sandstone and represents a different environment and would not host the same types of species as the Kaibab, so the record of evolving species is of course not continuous across the unconformity.
So while it is true that fossils become increasingly different from modern forms with increasing geologic depth, one has to select strata of the relevant time period from different geographic regions in order to construct a continuous picture. The Kaibab Limestone only records fossils of species that lived in shallow seas over a period of a few million years around 250 million years ago. For a record of fossils of species that lived more recently or less recently, say 240 million or 260 million years ago, one must seek out limestone layers in other parts of the world. But of course once one changes geographic location then that, too, becomes a factor affecting what species lived there.
This hopefully gives you a better idea of the realities of constructing histories of species change. Piecing together a complete picture of species evolution over time is not only difficult but probably impossible. There are far too many missing pieces to ever hope for a complete picture. But a complete picture isn't necessary for discerning the clear trend that fossil species become increasingly different from modern forms with increasing depth. Rebuttal requires far more than name-calling like "illusion" - it requires an examination of the evidence and a demonstration of how the record of increasing differences from modern forms really doesn't exist.
Radiometric dating, sedimentation rates, evolutionary pace, all say they are eras of time.
Sedimentation rates today cannot possibly be the model for the geologic column.
I don't think anyone has described sedimentation rates as "the model for the geologic column." Rather, sedimentation rates tell us how long it can take sediments of great depth to accumulate.
They are small in area by comparison and they cannot possibly be as straight and flat from end to end as are the geo column strata, and they occur all over the place.
There you go with the pronouns again. What does "they" refer to?
The strata occur on the continents, not under the sea,...
That would be incorrect. Strata exist everywhere around the world, including beneath seas and lakes. Because the fate of most sea floor is subduction, strata beneath the sea are are rarely older than a couple hundred million years.
...where the abyssal plains are not straight and flat anyway.
Abyssal plains are pretty straight and flat. That's why they're called plains. From the Wikipedia article on Abyssal Plain:
quote:
An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) and 6,000 metres (20,000 ft). Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth’s surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest and least explored regions on Earth.
Sediments accumulating on abyssal plains form large flat sedimentary layers. Some sea floor does manage to become appended to continents, but the fate of most sea floor is probably subduction.
{Paradigm Clash Alert}
You don't have a scientific paradigm. You have religious views that you're attempting to dress up in scientific jargon through a process of studied ignorance and fabrication.
Evolutionary pace is a weird one. It only takes a few hundred years to establish a pure breed of anything you like, and you yourself produced the evidence of the formation of different "species" of Jutland cattle by the simple accidental isolation of a portion of the herd for a few generations. The lizards isolated on Pod Mcaru evolved a whole new head and jaw and digestive system in less than thirty years. Millions of years is ridiculous overkill.
By evolutionary pace I meant the rate of genetic change, not to be confused with adaptive evolution based upon existing variation where no genetic change occurs.
Jutland cattle are not a different species - they're a particular breed of cow of the species Bos taurus, the same species as Holsteins and Herefords and Jerseys.
The lizards of Pod Mrcaru are genetically identical to the parent population on Pod Kopiste - they're the same species. I know the articles you've read about the lizards have called it evolution, but more accurately it is adaptive evolution with no genetic change, in other words, microevolution, equivalent to breeding. The technical article Rapid large-scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with exploitation of a different dietary resource explains it pretty well:
quote:
Recent reviews have illustrated how rapid adaptive evolution is common and may be considered the rule rather than the exception in some cases. Experimental introductions of populations in novel environments have provided some of the strongest evidence for natural selection and adaptive divergence on ecological time scales...microevolutionary responses to environmental changes have been well documented,...
Macroevolution requires genetic change to provide additional variation. The pace of evolution is governed by the rate at which genomic change is introduced into the population. With extant species we can estimate the amount of evolution that has occurred between two related species by measuring differences in DNA. With human ancestry a molecular clock based upon mitochondrial DNA is often used.
So when I included the pace of evolution as one of the evidences supporting long eras of time it was because the amount of evolutionary change we observe in the fossil record is consistent with long time periods, and the estimates of the rate of that evolutionary change is roughly consistent (rough estimates are often all that is possible with fossils since DNA is usually not available) with the rates we measure today.
Some of the same kind of fossils show up in different layers,...
Yes, of course. Evolutionary change (beyond drift) is driven by environmental pressures.
{Paradigm Clash Alert}
Again, you don't have a scientific paradigm. You have religious views that you're attempting to dress up in scientific jargon through a process of studied ignorance and fabrication.
There is absolutely no need for environmental pressures.
This is just a silly thing to say, not even wrong. Environmental pressures exist everywhere there is life.
Simple sexual recombination automatically produces changes in every generation.
Yes, that is one source of generational change. Selection of the most fit for existing environmental conditions is another.
Environmental pressures may contribute to the final result in some cases but it is not at all necessary.
Again, a silly way to put it. Environmental pressures are omnipresent for all life.
The environment drives selection which in turn drives adaptation. In breeding (artificial selection) species are forced to adapt to the requirements of the breeder, that is, the breeder controls the environment. In the wild species are forced to adapt to the requirements of the natural environment.
Species experiencing the least environmental pressures will experience the least change, if any at all, while species experiencing the greatest environmental pressures will experience the greatest change, if they don't go extinct.
{Paradigm Clash}
Again, you don't have a scientific paradigm. You have religious views that you're attempting to dress up in scientific jargon through a process of studied ignorance and fabrication.
Oh not so at all.
Yes, so.
You can get great changes by simple sexual recombination in reproductive isolation.
That would be through drift. Drift would be a very, very slow and very directionless way to effect change.
Jutland cattle, Pod Mrcaru lizards, any creature that has been reproductively isolated for many generations.
Jutland cattle were bred, meaning selection pressures were provided by farmers doing the breeding. And the Pod Mrcaru lizards were subjected to different selection pressures than those on Pod Kopiste because (they think) of a different diet.
Whole new breeds of cattle or dogs or whatever.
Breeders impose selection pressures.
Even human beings: that's how we got all the different human races.
And selection is apparently why darker skins are common in southern climes and lighter skins in northern.
And environmental pressure could very well bring about extinction because it could eliminate too much variability from the genome all at once by selecting an extremely narrow set of characteristics.
Yes, that could happen. More generally, and with the exception of sudden extinction brought about by sudden and severe environmental change (a meteor strike, a local volcano, a sudden and persistent drought, a flood, etc.), an unfavorable environment can gradually reduce population sizes which will of course be accompanied by decreased variation. When variation reaches 0, which occurs when only a single individual is left, then in sexual species extinction will result when that last individual dies.
...you know, there isn't always a big difference from level to level,...
I was referring to adjacent eras, not adjacent strata,
According to the geo column/timescale charts, they are identical.
Yeah, I clarified up above that I wasn't using the term eras geologically.
and I said that adjacent eras represent modest differences, at last as compared to those across long timespans.
The trilobites show minimal changes over "hundreds of millions of years" which really means six or seven layers of rock.
When the fossil record shows little change over long time periods then that means that the environment has changed little.
Adjacent eras are not the same thing as adjacent strata which can have unconformities between them that represent millions and millions of years.
I don't want to get into a detailed comparison but eras are dependent on strata and you can get any amount of "change" imaginable from one level to the next because it isn't change, it's just different groups of creatures in their own separate grave sites.
Again, see clarification up above that I wasn't using the term eras geologically. The point here is that the amount of species change within a stratum would tend to be less than the amount across multiple strata.
And how did a flood insure that no rabbit ever got buried with a trilobite, no pterodactyl with a bat?
Unknown factors, hydraulic mechanisms.
Unknown factors and a buzzword that neither you nor anyone else know how it achieves the effect you claim? Really? And these unknown factors and hydraulic mechanisms are so incredibly precise that the fossil record contains not a single anomaly? Not one dinosaur got buried with mastodons? Not one possum got buried with trilobites?
And tell us how you learned of these unknown factors about water behavior.
Process of elimination.
Please describe your thinking as you went through this process of elimination.
But I'm not denying any of the physical facts,...
Sure you are. You're denying radiometric dating, evolutionary change over time, the chaotic nature of floods, the way sediments form and are transported, and the way sediments settle out of water, just to mention a few.
I believe I've answered all that sufficiently,...
You always say you've already answered something when you have no answers.
...most of it is interpretation, not facts.
Ignoring facts doesn't make them go away. It just makes clear you have no answers.
And you are not the one to pontificate about physical facts since you get it wrong so often.
Oh, come now, I can't hold a candle to you. There's nothing I've been wrong about for 17 consecutive years.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1812 by Faith, posted 04-13-2018 8:24 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1988 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:23 PM Percy has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 1987 of 2887 (831426)
04-17-2018 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 1985 by Faith
04-17-2018 1:33 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Faith writes:
But that's kind of silly, Tangle. You almost could replace any of those fossils with any other fossils at any level and you'd still have the same kind of "order."
Science disagrees with you so perhaps you're wrong? But just in case thousands of scientists are wrong, why don't you have a go at doing that?
I KNOW there is THAT kind of "order,"
But you said there was no order, or even order. Order is order Faith - there's no confusion about it. If you say there's no order you also have to say - and demonstrate using the observations available - that order is not present.
What I'm disputing is that that kind of order means anything beyond that, beyond an accidental or random predictable appearance at predictable levels or predictable fossils. I
I've read that three times. It contains no meaning.
The predictable appearance of fossils in predictable levels of, presumably, geology IS order.
You can predict that the appearance of fossils will be random across geological levels - and that would mean no order - but that is observably false.
It looks like it could just because of the Linnaean groupings, but you'd have to show that there is some kind of actuaql functional (not sure that's the best word) relationship between the different levels, something that ties them together beyond their mere location one above another, say increase in complexity or some such.
The existance of Linnaean groupings - as you put it - IS the order. If the animals and plants appearing in the geology was not possible to put into groupings - or clades and nested heirarchies - we would see that nad there would be no order. But we see that animals and plants can be grouped and that those groups are not scattered randomly across geology. We NEVER find a mammal (or any other organism) where it couldn't be if there was no order.
But as you know that you are right, I'm sure you will be able to do it. Maybe right after you've put us right on radiometric dating. (Which confirms the order independently.)

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1985 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 1:33 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1990 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:31 PM Tangle has not replied
 Message 2002 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 8:20 PM Tangle has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1988 of 2887 (831427)
04-17-2018 2:23 PM
Reply to: Message 1986 by Percy
04-17-2018 1:47 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
A lot of this is nothing but semantics, which is why creationists like the term Kind to designate an irreduceable grouping, and I'm trying to define the Kind in terms of shared structure which can be varied in many ways and still be the same Kind. And that shared structure is what I mean by Species, which I capitalize to equate it with Kind although any terms at all are problematic just because they are all linguistically synonymous. So there is a cat Kind, defined by the fact that the body structure of a lion or a tiger or a bobcat or a tabby is always recognizably that of a cat. Apparently you didn't mean to be saying that as I had thought, but to my mind it makes a good definition. "Species of cat" just confuses things. Of course there are "species" of cats, or "kinds" of cats, but if the aim is to define an irreduceable category of animal, I want to stick to Kind and try to define it in terms of shared structure. By this criterion you can tell a trilobite by its three lobed structure, its bodily shape and all those "feet" they all have. Everything else is incidental variation.
The phylum in which are found the sea cucumber and the starfish and that roly-poly one WAS called a "phylum" in the film, but because of the basic structural similarities of the animals I think the man was saying they should all be classified as belonging to a Kind. That one is difficult because the shapes are so different, but he pointed out the structural similarities that make them kin, all of the same Kind, despite the shape difference: the poisoned tentacles, the way they ambulate by all those tentacles, the location of the mouth in the center bottom of the creature and their division into segments, though different numbers of segments. The question is whether those structural similarities outweigh the differences in shape for classifying them as related to each other as the same Kind, and he was arguing that they do, which seems logical to me. If you found another creature of a different shape with poison tentacles it uses in the same way as those three, mouth in center bottom, and divided into equal segments, it should also be considered genetically related to them, another member of the same Kind.
Using kind as a synonym for species is completely contrary to how you've used kind in the past. Your scenario went like this. Noah collected two of each kind on the ark. After the flood the kinds, relying upon their built-in store of genomic variation, rapidly evolved into all the species we see today. Sound familiar?
You may be reading that in some way I didn't intend but I can't tell, and I'm not even sure I put it quite like that, but I guess it's close enough as long as what I meant can be made clear. The original Kinds would not have been on the ark, but some variety or breed or race of the Kind because of the constant variation or microevolution all would have undergone since the Creation, but yes the two of each on the ark would have had all the genetic ability to vary into every race or breed or variety of that Kind today.
I think I have used Species for Kind at many points too. The problem is that there are limited terminological choices and most of them are linguistically synonymous so other differentiations are necessary though hard to arrive at. You seem to want to classify as genetically separated "species" what I would consider to be varieties of the same Kind but it's hard even to be sure of that given the linguistic difficulties.
If I am the only one having a problem with the terminology it would be due to the fact that I'm trying to define a completely different model or paradigm than yours.
The semantic confusions in your post are just too much. I doubt I can sort it all out and not sure I want to try.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1986 by Percy, posted 04-17-2018 1:47 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 2080 by Percy, posted 04-21-2018 4:01 PM Faith has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(2)
Message 1989 of 2887 (831428)
04-17-2018 2:28 PM
Reply to: Message 1985 by Faith
04-17-2018 1:33 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
While you could make some changes to the order you couldn’t have amphibians before fish, or reptiles or mammals before amphibians, or birds before reptiles.
Even the trilobite order could be made worse evidence for evolution.
If you don’t actually know this then you really have no business declaring yourself right. Ignorance of even the basics is not a sound basis for an opinion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1985 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 1:33 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1991 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:33 PM PaulK has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1990 of 2887 (831429)
04-17-2018 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 1987 by Tangle
04-17-2018 1:55 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Can you show any kind of actual physical empirical way the fossils are ordered in relation to each other? If not then they remain an order only in theory or mental classification.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1987 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2018 1:55 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1991 of 2887 (831430)
04-17-2018 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 1989 by PaulK
04-17-2018 2:28 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
If you can't show any actual relatedness of the fossils in the supposed order, the order remains a mere mental construct and not a physical reality.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1989 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2018 2:28 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1992 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2018 2:39 PM Faith has replied
 Message 1995 by Tangle, posted 04-17-2018 3:30 PM Faith has not replied
 Message 1996 by jar, posted 04-17-2018 3:52 PM Faith has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 1992 of 2887 (831431)
04-17-2018 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 1991 by Faith
04-17-2018 2:33 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
quote:
If you can't show any actual relatedness of the fossils in the order, the order remains a mere mental construct and not a physical reality.
That looks like a demand tailored to discount any evidence that we could actually have.
However the fact is that the observed order - which is not merely a mental construct - strongly agrees with the pattern predicted by common descent. In the absence of any other remotely reasonable explanation for this pattern and given that evolution invokes no unknown processes it makes a pretty good case.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1991 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:33 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1993 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:56 PM PaulK has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1993 of 2887 (831432)
04-17-2018 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 1992 by PaulK
04-17-2018 2:39 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
However the fact is that the observed order - which is not merely a mental construct -
In what way? As long as it has no empirical or physical relatedness from one to another in the order it is in fact only a mental construct, a theory.
...strongly agrees with the pattern predicted by common descent. In the absence of any other remotely reasonable explanation for this pattern and given that evolution invokes no unknown processes it makes a pretty good case.
I grant the logic of it and the persuasiveness of the pattern, but it still is only a pattern, and since there is a whole other way of classifying many of the fossils in the "order" as members of separate Kinds without any genetic relatedness between them, and since between many of the classifications evolving from one to another is impossible by many criteria, it remains a theory that looks to me like it has no justification whatever in actual physical reality.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1992 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2018 2:39 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1994 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2018 3:19 PM Faith has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 1994 of 2887 (831433)
04-17-2018 3:19 PM
Reply to: Message 1993 by Faith
04-17-2018 2:56 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
quote:
In what way? As long as it has no empirical or physical relatedness from one to another in the order it is in fact only a mental construct, a theory.
An empirically observed fact is clearly not a mere mental construct. You’re only supposed to be arguing against the interpretation, not the actual order remember ?
quote:
I grant the logic of it and the persuasiveness of the pattern, but it still is only a pattern,
Inference from observed patterns is a major basis for science. So only a pattern is hardly an objection.
quote:
...and since there is a whole other way of classifying many of the fossils in the "order" as members of separate Kinds without any genetic relatedness between them,
Let us note that you are already reduced to dragging in complete irrelevancies. Constructing a classification system is nothing. Linnaeus discovery that life could be classified as a nested hierarchy is significant (and it certainly need not be if Creationism were true). That we have an explanation for it, and for other evidence and that the fossil record strongly supports that explanation is very important.
An alternate classification system whose sole interesting feature is the assumption that life consists of unrelated kinds is not important.
quote:
and since between many of the classifications evolving from one to another is impossible by many criteria,
It is not known to be impossible by any valid criteria. Your poorly-informed judgements are frequently wrong, and that is all you have.
quote:
it remains a theory that looks to me like it has no justification whatever in actual physical reality.
And yet you already admitted that it did. The fossil record is actual physical reality. Linnaean classification is based in actual physical reality. The agreement between the two is equally based in physical reality. And that is before we get into all the other evidence. I’ll explicitly mention the transitional fossils which are frequent enough to raise a very big question mark against the idea that there is no connection - because fossils are the topic. But there is more evidence in the present day world, too.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1993 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:56 PM Faith has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(3)
Message 1995 of 2887 (831434)
04-17-2018 3:30 PM
Reply to: Message 1991 by Faith
04-17-2018 2:33 PM


Re: The Imaginary Fossil Order is a false interpretation
Faith writes:
If you can't show any actual relatedness of the fossils in the supposed order, the order remains a mere mental construct and not a physical reality.
What on this blessed earth makes you think we can't show relatedness of fossils and order in the fossil record? There's a whole biological discipline devoted to it, it's called palaeontology. The mere fact that I can show you the diagram is the proof of it.
Underpinning the diagram is a couple of hundred years of painstaking research which you can read. You can see the fossils and study the science. It's all there for you to prove wrong - in fact.
That's fact, not rhetoric and semantics. Tangible fact. You can personally touch these things. You can order them yourself or find no order. Over to you. But you have to either do the work or point us to where the work has been done. You simply saying that there is no order is utterly pointless; not worth the pixels.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1991 by Faith, posted 04-17-2018 2:33 PM Faith has not replied

  
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