I don't think you can really substantiate that. While it is true that there are commonalities to all of life, we do not see organisms just slightly altered. We see great differences in many organisms with major, not slight, differences and no traces of the creatures they supposedly evolved from that they would just be slightly altered from.
I already
have supported it with several examples. If you would like to try to refute it, then name one feature - just one - that is completely unique to a given species, and NOT a slightly altered version of the same feature on another. Until you do this, your "opinion" of whether I can support it or not is irrelevant - I have. If you think I'm wrong, PROVE me wrong.
Now, we do see instances of micro-evolution and thus the slightly altered thing works there, but once you get into differences past the family level, and definitely at the Order level, you see massive differences with no close, just slightly altered groups in-between.
This demonstrates that you really don't know what you are talking about. Of
course different Orders will have massive differences! But evolution does NOT make a jump between orders. A rhino will never give birth to a snake! You're missing the point. These small changes over millions of generations eventually result in a species branching off. Several more species will branch off of that one, and have similar but slightly altered features from the last species. This continues until species whose ancestors branched off long ago in the evolutionary tree will have wildly different features from
each other, but every feature they have will still be a slightly altered version of the same feature in another species close to it in the evolutionary tree.
Of course, the argument of commonalities does not exclusively point to universal common descent since commonalities can also be explained via common physical and chemical laws exerting a common force, convergent and parallel evolution, common designs, and a common Creator or common Designer.
You're right. But those explanations DON'T explain why some features have no purpose at all. The human appendix is useless, and is removed with no changes to body function when it becomes infected (a relatively common occurrance). This feature is very similar to the cecum of the alimentary canal of many other mammals. The appendix is a
vestigial organ. If a Creator or "intelligent designer" were at work, why would He insert a completely useless organ that runst such a high risk of infection, and make it look very much like an organ in related creatures? Common descent predicts these occurrances. Do you have some evidence that refutes this? Because as I see it, it still has not been falsified.
In terms of every single trait or feature as a stand-alone issue, there are some very strange creatures with strange habits, and I think you would be hard-pressed to demonstrate every single one appears with a clear ancestral trait from before it, and I am not even sure you can do that with major traits in common creatures.
As an individual and a layman, yes, I would be hard-pressed if you pulled a very strange freature of a very strange animal and asked me to identify what features are similar on other related creatures. I, personally, can't do them ALL, but I can give you example after example after example until I turn blue in the face. Matter of fact, I've already given quite a few. I find it interesting that you have thus far
ignored every single example I have shown. Either refute my evidence or conceed, randman. You can't just ignore it.
Take the mammal ears supposedly developing from the jaw bone. There is a considerable break in the suppossed chain where we don't see some feature "slightly altered" to produce the ear, and there are other features which I suspect you cannot demonstrate some form prior to it, that produced it but just slightly altered.
Well, with the caveat that we don't HAVE a fossilized representation of every single generation in the chain (that would simply be impossible to expect from a rare process like fossilization), I'm willing to take a crack at it. Why don't you actually
post some information about this supposed break. Until you tell me specifically what you're talking about, you haven't provided any evidence for me to refute. My point stands until you can PROVE that it doesn't, and you need more than your personal opinion to do it.
I'd like to see you explain how and why you came up with the idea so we can compare with real data.
For example, can you show the form existing before the wing that was just slightly altered to produce the wing, in flies, birds, and bats?
It's not the same feature. They are different features that evolved sperately in the evolutionary tree that happen to perform the same function. All three types of wings are vastly different from each other - but are very similar to features in other species which are actually related.
Here's a link.
quote:
Insect flight evolved about 330 million years ago. There is genetic evidence that wings evolved from articulated gill plates on the limbs of aquatic ancestors, rather than being novel outgrowths from the body wall (Carroll, Weatherbee, and Langeland, 1995; Averof and Cohen, 1997).
Early insect wings appear to be slightly modified versions of the articulated gill plates of certain aquatic species.
quote:
Generally the arboreal hypothesis for the origin of flight in birds has been the more popular, but a recent paper by Burgers and Chiappe (1999) suggests that the apparent gap between the running speed of Archaeopteryx (2 metres per second) and required take-off speed (6 metres per second) could have been made up by the thrust produced by flapping its wings - a cursorial origin of flight. They point out that the structures and functions necessary for wing-generated thrust were already present in the flightless ancestors of birds.
Bird flight evolved from flightless birds who used their primitive wings for additional thrust to run faster. Eventually the wings developed until they were able to reach sufficient velocity and generate enough lift for flight.
quote:
The first bats appeared about 50 to 60 million years ago, which means that they have been evolving for less than half the time that birds have been evolving. The fossil record for bats is rather patchy, probably due to the delicate nature of the bat skeleton and because the early bats lived in tropical forests where post-mortem preservation was poor. It is not yet clear whether the microchiropteran and megachiropteran taxa are derived from a common bat-like ancestor or whether they evolved separately from earlier mammalian forms. So far, 27 genera of fossil bats have been found. It seems probable that the earliest bats were gliders, and that powered flight emerged later.
The fossil record is incompelte for bats due to their delicate skeletal structure. However, bat wings are very similar to features used by species such as flying squirrels to glide.
The fact that, for each of the three types of wings (insect, bat, and bird), each species has a slightly altered version of the same feature. All bats have wings, but they are not identical. All birds have wings, but they are not identical.
Winged insects are a better case, becuase we have wildly different species that still have wings, and the wings are not always used for the same purpose. Flies use one pair for flight and the other as a type of biological gyroscope for stability. Beetles use one pair for flight and the other as a protective covering. Dragonflies use both pairs for flight.
We don't
need to see every generation in between to have evidence of common descent. All we need to see are features that are slightly altered in different species. We can see that all bat species are related, though they are not identical. We can see that insects are all related, though groups of species branched off at various parts of the tree and are wildly different from other branches.
Common descent predicts every last bit of this evidence, and we find it every time. If you can soundly refute the idea of common decescent, then please do so. Your Nobel Prize is waiting, if you can do it.
Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.
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