Duck Billed Platypus

Well, obviously it isn't a missing link - it's not missing and it isn't ancestral to anything at this time. It does still utilize a strategy that was employed by our ancestors but that we now have a heavily modified variant. That strategy is transitional between early land vertebrates and later land vertebrates known as placental mammals. Yes it is incredible. It's a bit like us being able to sense reflected electromagnetic waves and discern between various frequencies with stunning accuracy. And how we can use vibrations of air particles to detect sound waves. It's a bit like we use receptors on the tongue to discern various ingredients in a mixed up dish or how we can sense the heat of an object using sensors on our skin. Or perhaps navigating using magnetic sense. All incredible. If it's there to be detected and some kind of advantage is to be had in detecting it...you shouldn't be surprised to see an organism detecting it.Unfortunately for your point, it is not obvious that this is not the result of natural selection - a system which is known for exploiting environmental input to its advantage. Depends on the electrical engineer I suppose. Most would probably put you in touch with someone who was working on evolutionary algorithms in the study of sensor evolution. Perhaps someone like Jon Bird. After all, he describes a system that accidentally developed a sensory system to detect radio waves of all things! It also developed the ability to detect the existence of a soldering iron plugged into the mains. So, an electrical engineer would be unlikely to think you mad, and if they kept up to date with their field they might even suggest some studies to look out for or perhaps just the relevant fields to investigate. You know what they say: intelligent beings are notorious at getting things wrong. Though your statement that everybody knows is patently false. I know differently. As Darwin says, "throughout nature almost every part of each living being has probably served, in a slightly modified condition, for diverse purposes". TRULY AMAZING.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Omigod, I'm so happy for you. I don't usually follow the news, but after your last post I looked up the fire on Google News the next day, and what I read sounded pretty bad as far as your home. I was sure it would be gone. This is wonderful news! Best of luck to your friends and neighbors who weren't so lucky!--Percy

"it is not obvious that this is not the result of natural selection - a system"You like to talk about "random tapping on the computer" so to speak but now about who made this system. If you think any system including this natural selection one, can be made by chance, then I shalln't talk to you anymore."As Darwin says, "throughout nature almost every part of each living being has probably served, in a slightly modified condition, for diverse purposes". TRULY AMAZING."When one reads Darwin books one notices the common usage of words like "probabably" ... "maybe" ... "what if" ... "this could of" etc etc. You then realise this is not truth but just philosphization by an old man.

Of course the things that make up Natural Selection can be the products of Chance. If lightning strikes and starts a fire it is chance. If a meteor falls and creates a world-wide cloud cover, it is chance. It is pure chance that the Tunguska strike happened when it did and so was over desolate parts of Siberia instead of several hours later when it would have been a strike on heavily populated Europe.To imply that even Natural Selection does not involve chance is simply to deny the obvious. Au contraire. It is indicative of someone seeking the truth as opposed to the Untruth and down right falsehoods that are Biblical Creationism.BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This thread is on the Duck Billed Platypus and whether or not it presents any problems to the Theory of Evolution. Actually, it does not and in fact, helps answer many of those "probables" and "maybes".Some examples.The inner ear bones were originally part of the jaw, and in the monotremes, we see the bones have migrated from the jaw, but the opening for the ear is also very close to the base of the jaw as predicted.The eggs spend far more time internally that in birds and reptiles. In the Platypus, the eggs spend about 28 days in utero and only about 10 days externally, while with birds like chickens it is more than reversed, the egg being internal for about one day and then external for twenty or more days.The eggs themselves are not hard shelled like those of birds, but rather leathery like those of reptiles.The Platypus produces milk from mammary glands but has no teats. Instead the milk is simply secreted from glands like sweat glands.No, the Platypus is not a problem at all for evolution of the Theory of Evolution, but it is yet another nail in the coffin of the bankrupt nonsense called Biblical Creationism.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, on this thread we like talking about the duckbilled platypus.If you have any nonsense relevant to the duckbilled platypus, then you should be sharing that. Your more generic brand of "I don't understand science or logic, so it all must be designed" nonsense belongs in a different thread.Don't get me wrong; I find your constant nonsense quite interesting, and I would love to join you in a "WS-JW General Nonsense" thread -- it's just that it's not particularly relevant here.Edited by Chiroptera, : This was meant to be a reply to WS-JW's message #48

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Q: If science doesn't know where this comes from, then couldn't it be God's doing?A: The only difference between that kind of thinking and the stereotype of the savage who thinks the Great White Hunter is a God because he doesn't know how the hunter's cigarette lighter works is that the savage has an excuse for his ignorance. -- jhuger

But why didn't evolved in platypus teats? Like in placental mammals and marsupial? It seems that natural selection which led to development of teats in mammals and marsupial somehow preferred staus quo of milk oozes in platypus. Or is platypus still in it's evolutionary journey towards teats? But it looks like all mutations towards teats were selected against. I would say Natural selection is sometimes as great mystery as other religious concepts are.

Natural selection needs something to work on, and only selects among existing variations, as you'd know if you'd studied it instead of wasting your time and embarrassing yourself by pretending that it's a "religious concept".

Yes, I do not doubt that YOU might say that. That of course, is simply an incorrect statement. Natural Selection does not lead anywhere, it is only after the fact. The platypus, like every other organism, is still on its evolutionary journey but not towards anything except reproducing.

JAR, but do you agree with a statement that mutations leading to teats in platypus were selected against and mutations leading to teats in placentals/marsuplias were selected for (by natural selection)?

No.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So there weren't mutations leading towards teats in placental/marsupials? By what mechanism teats arouse if rendom mutation and natural selection are excluded? Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

Totally irrelevant. What does that have to do with mutations in monotremes? Please show where I excluded either?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So on your opinion random mutation and natural selection are not excluded but they are also not included in origin of teats in placentals/marsupials. You don't exclude them but you also disagree that mutations leading towards teats were "selected for". Nice dialectic.

Nice misrepresentation of what I have said.Mutations are random. What happens in one line is unrelated to what happens in another.The facts are that certain mutations happened and were NOT Filtered Out and that led to splits in the descent.It is not a zero sum game. If something is not fatal, and fatal before the critter reproduces, it can be carried forward.If a critter is adequately suited to live long enough to reproduce, it will continue to do so. If some of those critters have a mutation which gives them some advantage, they will also reproduce.That does not mean that the earlier form disappears.The result is two lines, a branching, but both forms are still "good enough" to live long enough to reproduce.Natural Selection does not play favorites. It does not select the "better". If a life form is "good enough" it passes through the filter.The second big mistake is to assume that the mutations for forming teats that may have occurred in monotremes were selected against. That is simply false.If at some time long in the past, some monotreme had a random mutation that led to teats, it too passed through the filter and those critters became something new, perhaps marsupials.The monotremes of the original population that did not have that mutation still kept evolving into the modern monotremes, but those with the mutation became something else.It is not that Natural Selection selected for and against the same mutation. The new mutation passed through the filter of Natural Selection and so did the critters without the mutation.Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There is no need for someone to create a concept such as 'something that replicates better than everything else, will make more copies of itself than things that don't replicate as well'.It's kind of a necessity, rather than a created thing. It cannot happen by chance - it is something that has to happen under certain circumstances. I know know, damn those open minded philosophers. Bring back the dogmatically closed minded philosophers. They brought us wonderful things in society and life! None of this 'probably' or 'what if' I want somebody to declare reality to be a certain way and leave it at that.*grumbles* Bloody scientists and their methodology that insists its own conclusions should only be considered tentative. Don't get me started on the scientists that use their methodology to delve into historical events. They won't stop with the 'probably' this and 'most likely' that. Quacks the lot of them.

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So...about those Duck Billed Platypuses huh? Since you have decided to stop talking about them I guess your participation in this topic has come to its close?