Transitional fossils and quote mining

"the Creation model" as though there were a single coherent model out there which enjoyed consensus amongst creationists.

The first suggests that natural selection is incapable of acting upon mutations.

Your second link waffles on about "kinds".

Why does CMI accept these phenomena? Because CMI know full well that they have been proved to so high a degree that refuting them is a waster of time. They are left to flail around with nonsensical quibbles like "kinds".

me writes:but where it was found fits in with flood theory.

you are using it as a general argument against the ToE

But you have already admitted that you know far fewer facts than the appropriate experts.

Feduccia believes that archaeopteryx was a flying, tree-dwelling animal, not an earthbound animal. Is that clear enough?

Postscript: Feduccia v Creationists
Evidently some evolutionists have ‘got to’ Feduccia for the fact that creationists have cited his damaging arguments against dino-bird evolution. Discover therefore tried to close the ranks by asking a leading question.3 So we had better head this off at the pass in case skeptics spout all this as ‘evidence’ for their paranoia about creationists ‘misquoting’. This and Feduccia’s response is indented, and my point-by-point response is interspersed.
Discover: Creationists have used the bird-dinosaur dispute to cast doubt on evolution entirely.A misrepresentation when it comes to Feduccia’s work. Rather, blame the evolutionists, e.g. the Skeptics at the Australian Museum, for using the dino-to-bird ‘evidence’ as ‘proof’ of evolution and against creation. It is perfectly in order to cite Feduccia’s severe criticisms as evidence against this specific evolutionary argument; after all, there can be no doubt that he is a world-class expert on fossil birds.Also, Feduccia used dissimilarities in the development of bird and dino digits to argue strongly against the dino-to-bird theory. So it was totally legitimate to apply the same logic to the development of amphibian and amniote digits to argue against a far-bigger—picture aspect of evolution, i.e. that amniotes descended from amphibianssee Ostrich eggs break dino-to-bird theory.Discover: How do you feel about that?
A tug at the heartstrings.Feduccia: Creationists are going to distort whatever arguments come up,
He should grace us all with a specific example, rather than an assertion.and they’ve put me in company with luminaries like Stephen Jay Gould, so it doesn’t bother me a bit.
Once again, see what we actually say about the late Dr Gould (Did Creationists ‘hijack’ Gould’s ideas?). Our main point is, there are a number of creationist alternatives consistent with both the Bible and available evidence, while the supporters of various evolutionary camps score mortal blows against the other camp. E.g. supporters of ‘jerky’ evolution (saltationism and its relative, punctuated equilibria) point out that the fossil record does not show gradualism, and that the hypothetical transitional forms would be disadvantageous. But supporters of gradual evolution point out that large, information-increasing changes are so improbable that one would need to invoke a secular miracle. Creationists agree with both: punctuational evolution can’t happen, and gradual evolution can’t happenin fact, particles-to-people evolution can’t happen at all!The same logic applies to the dinosaur-bird debate. It is perfectly in order for creationists to cite Feduccia’s devastating criticism against the idea that birds evolved ‘ground up’ from running dinosaurs (the cursorial theory). But the dino-to-bird advocates counter with equally powerful arguments against Feduccia’s ‘trees-down’ (arboreal) theory. The evidence indicates that the critics are both rightbirds did not evolve either from running dinos or from tree-living mini-crocodiles. In fact, birds did not evolve from non-birds at all! This is consistent with the Biblical account that distinct kinds of birds were created on Day 5, while land animals were created on Day 6 (Gen. 1:20—25)Note, we always make it very clear that Gould and Feduccia are evolutionists, and explain what they believe. E.g. my book Refuting Evolution has a chapter on birds which includes Feduccia’s support of the arboreal theory of bird evolution. It is also perfectly appropriate to quote them as ‘hostile witnesses’ who can’t be accused of believing what they do because of any creationist bias. However, to many evolutionists, a creationist quoting an evolutionist presenting evidence against a specific evolutionary ‘proof’ is ‘out of context’ by definition, because the person quoted still believes in evolution!Archaeopteryx is half reptile and half bird any way you cut the deck, and so it is a Rosetta stone for evolution, whether it is related to dinosaurs or not.
Once again, when dino-to-bird dogmatists claim that Archaeopteryx is a feathered dinosaur, it is perfectly legitimate to cite Feduccia’s comment that this is ‘paleobabble’ because ‘Archie’ was clearly a ‘perching bird’.9 See also An anatomist talks about Archaeopteryx.These creationists are confusing an argument about minor details of evolution with the indisputable fact of evolution:
This is double talk, and merely closing ranks against creationists. This is the old trick of claiming ‘there is no doubt that evolution occurred; the only disagreement is about the mechanism.’But modern evolutionary theory is all about providing a plausible mechanism for explaining life’s complexity without God. If the disputes undermine favoured mechanisms, then the materialist apologetic crumbles. The supporters of various evolutionary camps score mortal blows against the mechanisms proposed by rival camps, as shown above, so it’s perfectly reasonable for creationists to point this out.Animals and plants have been changing.
This is a classic equivocation or ‘bait-n-switch’. Of course, we have long pointed out that we don’t deny that things change (the Bible even predicts this); rather, we point out that evolution ‘from goo to you via the zoo’ requires changes which increase genetic information in the biosphere. See Definitions as slippery as eels. But in Feduccia’s case, it’s not likely to be conscious deception, but merely ignorance of what creationists actually say, because he’s never been an aggressive anti-creationist to my knowledge.The corn in Mexico, originally the size of the head of a wheat plant, has no resemblance to modern-day corn. If that’s not evolution in action, I do not know what is.
Wow, so the best proof of goo-to-you evolution he can come up with is corn turning into corn?! But he has yet to prove that this is an increase in information, which would be required to turn scales into feathers or a reptile lung into a bird lung (something Feduccia never explains in his encyclopaedic book The Origin and Evolution of Birds10). Rather, this is yet another example of sorting or loss of previously-existing genetic informationthis sort of change is in the opposite direction from evolution (see The evolution train’s a-comin’).Note also a common phenomenon. An evolutionist who is an expert in one field thinks that the best evidence for evolution is in a totally different field, in which he does not speak as an authority. For example, a palaeontologist says, ‘The fossil record shows that most creatures appear fully formed, and an extreme rarity of transitional forms. But the embryologists have shown that early embryos look alike, which proves evolution.’ But an embryologist says, ‘Richardson showed that Haeckel faked the drawings purporting to show embryonic similarity. But the molecular biologists have shown that the similarity of DNA points to evolution from a common ancestor’. However, the molecular biologist says, ‘There are huge differences in DNA sequences; contradictory phylogenies; and intricate biological machinery, e.g. the rotary motors of the bacterial flagellum and F1-ATPase. But the paleontologists have shown that the fossils show an evolutionary sequence.’Earlier in the dialogue, Feduccia stated:The difference between feathers and scales is very, very small. You can transform bird scutes [the scales on bird feet] into feathers with the application of bone morphogenic protein.
This totally misses the point that the cells from which scutes are formed have the genetic information for feathers already present, but turned off. Somehow the chemical induced the genes coding for feathers to switch back on. Feduccia’s ‘evidence’ offers not the slightest support for the idea that the genetic information for feathers arose where none previously existed. It would be a totally different matter if bone morphogenic protein could transform scales into feathers on a reptile, which has no genetic information for feathers! Feduccia’s claim parallels an earlier misinformed claim that retinoic acid (vitamin A) could turn scales into feathers. See Putting Feathers on Reptiles and The strange recurring case of the feathered reptile for further explanation, and for electron micrographs showing the immense differences between feathers and scales. Also, feather proteins (-keratins) are biochemically different from skin and scale proteins (-keratins).11These simple mistakes by Feduccia once more illustrate the fact that even world-class experts are usually laymen outside their own field. So creationists have nothing to fear from them. Conversely, the major propagandists for evolution tend to be atheistic story-tellers like the eugenicist Richard Dawkins or ‘political animals’ like fellow atheistic anthropologist Eugenie Scott.

magda in message 58 writes: This is miRNA that would have been present in the most recent common ancestor of monotremes and birds, but has since been lost in placental mammals.

No, they are charging money for something that could easily be made available for nothing. Either they are on the take or they are astonishingly inept at the dissemination of information.

the creationists' {interpretation} is false

What Patterson was saying to Sunderland was that, of the transitional forms that are known, he could not make a watertight argument for any being directly ancestral to living species groups.

Genetic drift is a good way to drive devolution by eliminating genes by chanceeven beneficial mutations. Most mutations have small effects and the rare beneficial ones will mostly give a small selective advantage. This is expressed by the selection coefficient s. If a mutation has s = 0.001 or 0.1%, a supposedly typical value, then the number of surviving offspring is 0.1% greater for organisms with the mutation than without it. But the smaller the selective advantage, the more likely that random effects (e.g. genetic drift) will eliminate itits probability of survival is about 2s.3 So the above mutation has only one chance in 500 of surviving, even though it is beneficial.Even if a beneficial mutation survives, for it to become fixed in a population (that is, all individuals have it, so it cannot be lost), the organisms not carrying it must be eliminated. This is the cost of substitution. This limits the amount of substitution which can occur in a given time. This is known as Haldane’s Dilemma,4 after J.B.S. Haldane, one of the world’s leading evolutionists (and a Stalin-supporting communist for a while). He wanted evolution to work, but couldn’t get around his dilemma.Take a population of 100,000. If only a male and female pair have the new trait, natural selection must eliminate the other 99,998 and all their heirs. If there is perfect selection (s = 1), this can happen in one generation. But this means that for every new trait, 49,999 individuals must be eliminated without offspring. Then the population must be regenerated with these survivors.Anyway, even if evolution happened at the maximum speed (s = 1) for 10 million years, how many traits could be substituted in a creature with human-like generation times of say 20 years? Only 500,000. This small number of nucleotides is only a small fraction of the forty or more 500-page books worth of information (120 million base pairs) which are needed to transform an ape into a man. And in real life, selection is far less intense, meaning that only about 1700 substitutions could occur.

This is known as Haldane’s Dilemma, after J.B.S. Haldane, one of the world’s leading evolutionists (and a Stalin-supporting communist for a while).

Genetic drift is a good way to drive devolution by eliminating genes by chanceeven beneficial mutations. Most mutations have small effects and the rare beneficial ones will mostly give a small selective advantage.

Scientists are (mostly) not trying to prove evolution is true. That game is over. The evidence is in.

Arphy quoting a website writes:Take a population of 100,000. If only a male and female pair have the new trait, natural selection must eliminate the other 99,998 and all their heirs.

If there is perfect selection (s = 1), this can happen in one generation. But this means that for every new trait, 49,999 individuals must be eliminated without offspring. Then the population must be regenerated with these survivors.

Arphy writes:Great, thank you, something i can work with. So YECs like me, and organisations like CMI, ICR, are actually YEC's as well as evolutionists by your definition of evolution. In this case maybe this forum should be called Philosophical naturalism Vs Creation.

Arphy writes:Wrong. While many arguments that YECs make does devastate large areas of evolution, oops, I mean philosophical naturalism, sometimes we have to break it down into pieces and argue individual details which when added together is then able to show that philosophical naturalism is false. birds evolving from coelurosaurian dinosaurs is just a one of those detail.

OK, maybe YECs is would have been a better word. As for a single coherent model philosophical naturalists aren't any better.

As for kinds: A syngameon is probably the closest term that we have.
Definition: Syngameons are clusters that comprise several morphospecies, i.e., "the sum total of species or semispecies linked by frequent or occasional hybridization in nature".

This is nonsense. These mechanisms are an important part of the YEC model, so yes why would we refute them.

So while we can't predict which modules have been used in which combinations, animals like Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik are no surprise to us.

As in its comparative "depth" not the surface location.

Granny writes:you are using it as a general argument against the ToE

Arphy writes:No I'm not. as explained in response to bluejay.

If the researchers of tiktaalik are holding back information which would completly discredit what YEC scientists on whom i rely, are saying, then this is just dishonest.

Why do the experts have such opposite opinions and yet you guys take the evolution of birds as basically fact when the debate still rages as to how and from where.

Just had another read of this. From an evolutionary viewpoint, I was not saying that platypus' evolved from birds. In a way they do have bird features, if the above is correct, they are just not derived features as you would say.

the trees are a visual representation of philosophical naturalism which as a YEC, I disagree with.

I think this second part {of the Patterson quote - GM} is just as damning as the first part. even theunissen's interpretation

{Patterson's statement - GM} is not very helpful in validating philisophical naturalism.

peepul in 79 writes:Because scientists are in no doubt that birds evolved.

greyseal in 81 writes:Scientists are not arguing over whether Archy evolved, but how and when.

magda in 85 writes:I consider it a fact that birds evolved. I consider that almost beyond dispute. I mean, they must have evolved from something, whether it was a dinosaur or some other reptile.

completely the opposite of what most YEC's will say, which is that ALL mutations are harmful

Another one is that you never get just ONE mutation. You get many - 4, 5? 50? All happening at once.

Evolution is sslllooowwwww - I thought you knew this?

That is to say that humans are STILL apes

Archy was both a dinosaur AND a bird.

caffeine writes:their heirs do not all need to be eliminated. Some of them may mate with the mutated pair or their descendants; or their descendants may do so. This way, many of the descendants of individuals without the mutation may wind up possessing the mutation.

percy writes:Most mutations provide no detectable change at all, and those that do are usually minor mutations that provide a very slight advantage or disadvantage.

Over the course of generations natural selection gradually increases the representation of positive traits and decreases the representation of negative traits within the population

By extension, what you are saying is that, if any two people disagree on soft-core issues, they must also disagree on hard-core issues.

But, I feel it certain that both Feduccia and Bluejay could abandon our respective views on Archaeopteryx without feeling that their hard core (i.e. the Theory of Evolution) would need to be discarded. In fact, Feduccia’s arguments against the mainstream view on Archaeopteryx would actually be completely invalidated if the Theory of Evolution were shown to be false, because his arguments are based on the Theory of Evolution.

because all of those views are built on the premise that birds evolved from something.

And the winner is.....(drumroll)....

(I just love this part "I mean, they must have evolved from something")

you may classify them this way, but that doesn't make it true.

Again this takes time which is not helpful, as my link above supports.

The hard core seems to be that everything evolved from something else (except you might say possibly abiogenesis).

(I just love this part "I mean, they must have evolved from something")
And this is what creationists have been saying all along. Even if evolutionism (is that the correct term now, look, all i want is a term that you guys are happy with that describes the belief that all living things share a commen ancestor) doesn't know how, the underlying BELIEF or presupposition remains.

The book "evolution" by colin patterson was written BEFORE his interaction with creationists and his lecture on "Evolutionism and Creationism". yes he certainly used to have the view as in your quote, however this changed as seen by the quotes i have supplied.

As for Olsen, is he really just a fringe scientist? He holds quite a high position at a reputable institute for being a fringe scientist, especially when his area of expertise is Birds.