Where are all the missing links?

Hi Chiroptera.Nearly forgot about this. Er... it would? Perhaps I misunderstood your scenario so correct me if I'm wrong, but beginning with a single individual and given that every individual would "descend" to two new individuals, would it not simply be a matter of the population doubling each generation?If so then it should proceed as follows:Generation 1: 1
Generation 2: 2
Generation 3: 4
Generation 4: 8
Generation 5: 16
Generation 6: 32
Generation 7: 64
Generation 8: 128
Generation 9: 256
Generation 10: 512The way I figure it, by the time we reach generation 8 the total number of posts in the thread would be 255. Going to generation 9 would push it up to 511, well over the limit. So it would appear that the most generations we could fit evenly into a single thread would be eight, requiring a total of 255 "individuals." But, again, I may have misunderstood your proposal.Just to clarify, though, I wasn't actually referring to the feasibility of the large numbers required. As I said, rather than expecting 255 unique posters on the forum to participate, perhaps after several generations have gone by and the population numbers have become considerably large, the participants could start replying in multiple branches. I don't know how well this would work but if there were, by this time, a significant difference between the messages of corresponding "individuals" within each given generation then it may work well enough.What I thought was not particularly feasible was performing such an experiment in written form. Reading a message and then relaying it in writing is one thing... hearing a message and then relaying it verbally is quite another. I think your idea about relaying the message by memory the following day is a good one, though. That could go part of the way to achieving the desired effect. The key to making the thread's development resemble descent with modification would be to assure that the "replication" process is imperfect. I've only played it once that I recall, and that was in about grade seven. I'm probably changing the details even more by relaying this now, but to the best of my recollection, it began with a message about some kind of competition that you could send away for, and ended up being about a place where you go to learn calligraphy.This was after passing through everyone in our class which consisted of perhaps 25 - 30 students. To be honest, I was quite surprised that even that number of steps was enough to change the original message so significantly.EDIT: My apologies, Chiroptera. I've just now re-read your message and I made an obvious error. I was only taking the tenth generation itself into account. In retrospect, I assume that when you said "ten generations" you meant the total number of individuals (i.e. up to, and including, the tenth generation). That would indeed require more than a thousand people.Sorry about that. I really shouldn't post when I'm half asleep.This message has been edited by Tony650, 09-09-2005 12:52 AM

is getting way OT for this thread.From a practical point of view it also will not work unless you could somehow get assurance from each participant that they only look at the last message.Would be fun but in a written, archived format such as this media, not possible from a practical point of view.And further discussion of D'sT should probably go in a separate coffee house thread.edited to house the hose.This message has been edited by AdminJar, 09-08-2005 10:36 AM

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If there is little or no evidence that can back up a theory then it is not a theory anymore, surely. Is such an entity not a hypothesis or maybe only something that is postulated?The trouble with ToE to my mind, is that it is presented as a "whole thing". When I arrived on this site I quickly get the impression (although I am open to correction) that:- no branch in itself supports the theory by itself. All branches need to be considered together. "Take the global view" I am urged. But if I want to design a machine that works it's important that the cogs and gears fit will together. So I don't take a global view- I've been talking with AEA about speciation and in the course of that thread found out (thus far) that there appears to be no clear observation that speciation occurs in nature. Man can force something to happen in plants and flies but it's very much like creating life in a lab - it says nothing objective at all about whether it could happen in nature. The experiment achieves a result because it is designed to achieve the result. As soon as it does, the manufactured result is inserted in as supporting the theory. But only as artifical sweetener is to sugar.- folk here seem to hold the view that fossils don't support ToE in and of themselves. The evolutionary tree has no basis in fact. The tips of the tree are all that we know: distinct species. Due to scarity of link data, there is nothing to show us the shape of the branches and roots that bind these nodal points all together. When we are presented with an evolutionary tree we are seeing a projection of an illusion. Not anything that has actually been established as fact.- I'm not a scientist but can't help thinking that ToE reliance on the assumption of uniformatism is a fundemental weakness. How many strands of ToE science rely on something which cannot it itself ever be shown to be the case (except if one assumes that evolution occurred in a uniformist world).When folk say the theory is well-substantiated they never include the degree to which every piece of evidence is considered in the light of the assumptions on which it is based. And on the assumptions on which other branches of science on which it relies is based. Assumption seem to be the glue which holds the whole thing together. Assumption piled upon assumption.The oft heard statement (defence) "theories remain tentitive forever" does nothing to describe how tentitive they are.Question: How tentitive is ToE due to missing links and everything else and how does one measure that. Is ToE a 2% explaination or a 925 explaination and how do we know which?Queston: Is there anything anybody actually 'knows' about evolution that is true in and of itself. Anthing, which doesn't rely on some other sub-theory or assumption. Any evidence that the glue holding this whole thing together is anything but a branch and root jumble of assumptions. Anything concrete which shows evolution happened - not could happen?I'd sure like to know if there was...

Indeed. That's why I'd previously suggested some kind of "invisible post" implementation in the respective thread, a la Charles Knight's Randman script. I wouldn't know how to execute it but I thought that might be one way of making the whole thing more workable.But, yes, I am getting off topic. Just wanted to clarify that point. My apologies, jar.

Bad choice of wording on my part.There is usually a huge amount of evidence that the theory makes excellent predictions. There is often little or no evidence that the theory is literally true. We judge theories on their goodness of fit, not on their metaphysical truth (if there is such a thing as metaphysical truth).More later -- I have to rush to a meeting right now.

This is not true. Biology alone can support ToE.However, there are many branches of study which can also support the theory in part. For example, geology, paleontology, nuclear physics, etc. From your analogy, you seem to think if the number 3 on a calculator can't do the whole work of the calculator, then the calculator doesn't work. That's incorrect.Geology is mainly focused on rocks, however the light it does shed on evolution supports what biology has already told us. I've spent some time thinking of good examples for this, but it always comes back to archaeoptrix. It's such a clear example of speciation that it's hard to find something that has such a dramatic punch.Today, all birds have feathers. Only birds have feathers. Anything with feathers is a bird. Feathers, as a feature, are a very good identifier. Birds also have beaks rather than teeth (so do turtles).Archaeoptrix clearly has feathers. But, if you couldn't see the feathers (as was the case in the earliest finds of archaeoptrix) you would certainly think it's just another dino-lizard. The teeth, the head, the forearms. Looking just at the bones, it's clearly not a bird. But, then there's those feathers.If Archaeoptrix was a single find, it'd still be a fantastic example. But there are now several archaeoptrix fossils, and the work being done in the volcanic ash in China is producing several of the species that fit in before and after in the time line.If you can not accept this find as a transition between dinosaur and bird, it's hard to believe that any amount of evidence would convince you. I believe you are misunderstanding the statement. We are not saying "that fossils don't support ToE in and of themselves". What we are saying is "ToE doesn't rely soley on the support of the fossil evidence." The fossils DO support ToE, but they don't stand alone in their support.Yes, there are gaps missing in the tree. We'd expect there to be gaps missing. But, if you've ever put together a puzzle, you know that even without looking at the box, once you have a certain number of pieces in place, you can tell what the picture is going to be. All science relies on uniformatism. Without it, NO SCIENCE would work at all. Hell, our world would completely collapse.A doctor tells you to take aspirin for your headache ASSUMING that aspirin has not spontaneous changed from a cure for headaches into a cyanide like poison.You go to work ASSUMING that the building, the people, the job, will be there.You type on your computer ASSUMING that the letter combinations you use to spell certain words will be consistant from day to day.You drive ASSUMING the internal combustion engine works the same today as it did yesterday.If you want to discard ToE based on the idea that there is no evidence that the world behaves with consistancy, then I would suggest you take that principle and apply it to the rest of your life.It may very well be true that nothing that exists is real, but how is that useful for science, or even everyday life? I would say that evolution is a 99.99% explaination. The reason we say that everything is tentative is this -Unlike religion, science is willing to change its possition to fit the facts. If, all of the sudden, every tree on the plant sprouted rocket pods and flew off into space, we'd have to reassess our conclusions. Meanwhile, religion would simply say - "It didn't happen". I'd be happy to answer this question, but I need a better foundation in what you are asking and what you are considering "assumptions". As I said above, all of science relies on the "assumption" that what we see happening is in fact happening. That, if we had witnessed it yesterday it would be the same as today. That, if we were to witness it tomorrow it would still be the same.If you hold that basis to be an unacceptable assumption, then your question is impossible to answer.I would also like to counter with this - Is there anybody who actually "knows" that YEC is true in and of itself? Not based on some book, not based on theories presented by that book.Basically the debate comes down to this, I guess -One group - ToErs believe that reality is real, has been real and continues to be real. That's their primary assumption.The other group - Creationists believe that reality is not real, that it was not real in the past, and that in the near future it will stop being real again. That's their primary assumption.Given these two assumptions, there is no basis for compromise. They are completely incompatable.I would simply suggest that one of these two assumptions has a great deal more to do with everyday life than the other one.

I'm in a different time zone so have to rush homeChoice of wording understood. A theory poses a model for the way things are and thus by default makes predictions about what we will find. For the theory to be worth anything I imagine it should predict something that isn't equally explainable by something else. Particle theory of light is demolished when something else (wave theory) explains the evidence. Light is not a particle AND a wave - it must be something else.Is there any clear evidence which is predicted by ToE and not by something else. Species mutating in nature but not turning into something else can be better explained by Species Mutate But Don't Change To Another Species Theory. Link species (of which there is a dearth) which attach to nothing at either end (an embarkation point and a destination) can too be better explained by the immutablity of species that that theory predicts (given that origins of life for both are equally indeterminate). Survival of the fittest can stand equally well in both theories - both predict that species will become extinct.Things like age of the earth and partition of species due to continental drift or whatever don't impart particular advantage (as far as I can see) to one theory over the otherWhat has ToE got that the other hasn't?

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Romans 10:9-10: " if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved....."

I've posed a question to NWR above which you may like to answer to. It has to with the above quote. I haven't spent as much time but archaeoptrix is one I oft heard mentioned. As often as I've heard the expression "one swallow (sic) doesn't make a summer". Archaeoptrix had feathers. What does it have in particular however which demonstrates it evolved as opposed being designed. You don't see many amphibious vehicles around but when you do you know they were designed that way. Just a rearrangment of features and componants found elsewhere - which is what I, when I am designing machines do. As I've said to NWR, evolution of Archie would be demonstrated to be such if he were linked to something concrete at either end: Archie-but-with-scales-turning-into-feathers and Archie-with-bird-like-teeth. What is it about Archie that says he is not a stand alone species. I imagine many wierd and wonderful creatures have existed and become extinct. Archies is weird and wonderful. Who can say anything more than that. Which goes to show how little can be gleaned from a fossil. I don't know if Archie flew. Maybe he glided. Whatever, the feathers would not convey advantage if he was stuck on the ground (otherwise many non-birds would have feathers and you say none do). To glide or fly means being in possession of things that dino-lizards don't have. Muscles suited to the purpose, a central nervous system that could provide some basics of aeronautics: trim, weight distribution, landing skills. You don't get to glide and fly by sticking some feathers on Archie, Icarus-style. Where are the precursors and why are they presumed when there is no evidence to say they can exist I have done puzzles and I know that you have to get some pieces to link together before the picture starts to form. Having pieces which don't link together but are placed on the table on the basis of a predisposed notion of what the picture is going to look like eg: arrange the pieces according to colour, in an arc,on the presumption that the picture formed is going to be a rainbow - is a recipe for anything. Each new piece upturned leads to excitement because it fits the puzzle your making. It says nothing about the puzzle as it is. I think you are mis-interpreting uniformatism as meaning the world is predictable and ordered. It's doesn't mean that. Uniformatisim says that the processes we observe today are the same as the processes that have occurred for ever. If the half life of Uranium changed over time due to natural processes, the world would be predictable - Uranium is changin it's half life according to the immutable and predictable laws of nature. But Uranium would be a useless clock with which to determine the age of rocks if the half life it has today is not the same half life as it had 50,000 years ago. We presume the clock doesn't lose or gain time. We don't know however - unless we presume uniformatism. That Uranium might lose/gain time wouldn't impinge in the slightest on the body of science as a whole. It would just mean we can't date rocks accurately. So what. There is plenty we don't know and it doesn't stop us...Presuming uniformatism is okay for something which can be observed to be uniform. It is not okay to presume it of something we cannot know. Chiroptera earlier used the 'fact' that species produce more offspring that are required for survival of that species - in describing a thumbnail sketch of ToE. But what conditions prevailed then which might totally change that fact? If one doesn't know, one cannot presume - without weakening the theory. Theories derive their strength when evidence is found which matches the prediction it makes (see post above to NWR if you feel you have some evidence). A thoery is not strenghtened by adding unfounded and untestable presumption.This message has been edited by iano, 08-Sep-2005 09:48 PM

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Romans 10:9-10: " if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved....."

Archaeopteryx is - rightly famous - in part because some of the fossis we have are so good. (If you get a chance to see one of the better specimens - take it).But mostly because it is a good example of a transitional fossil. Archaeopteryx isn't a modern bird. Without the feathers it would likely not be classified as a bird at all. (Think about that - if we didn't have these excellent fossils which preserve the feather impressions archaeopteryx would probably be classified as a small dinosaur).Evolution explains why we have fossils like archaeopteryx. Evolution requires that species come about by gradual change (on the human scale - it can be very rapid in geological terms). So birds must have ancestors somewhere that were not themselves birds - and there must have been intermediate stages in their development. So we predict that there must have been creatures like archaeopteryx. Creation doesn't make such predictions - a designer could just have created modern birds without bothering with intermediate forms.Because birds don't fossilise very well we can't expect to find anything like the complete ancestry - archaeopteryx itself is more likely a side-branch than a direct ancestor. But that it exists at all is evidence for evolution over creation. And there are many, many more. k

And you base this on? In fact, the physics involved would require a huge upheaval in what we understand to be the case.However this is not the thread for that. If you wish to discuss it why don't you try the dates and dating threads (especially the correlations one -- I find it amusing how carefully the YEC'ers look the other way and tip toe by those threads ).You have to be careful about the pronouncements you make when you know very, very little about the fields you are discussing.E.g., there are other dino to bird transitional evidences than just Archie. It is discussed so often because it was for a long time the only example, because some of the specimens are so very well preserved and because it is fits so nicely inbetween as a transitional. It is not just the feathers.Your lack of knowledge of the sciences does not constitute any kind of reason for your thinking that you are right.

I have already commented on this in Message 230. The deep underlying question that remains, is "What is truth?" You can search all of the literature in philosophy without finding a clear answer to that question. Scientists are pragmatists. They look for a scientific theory that works, and don't worry too much about whether the theory is true, although they may come to assert that the theory is true. That's actually quite typical of scientific theories. A good theory will tend to define a field of study. The theory is not just a collection of assertions. The theory also defines new terminology, introduces new concepts, defines ways of gathering data. It pretty much has to come as a whole thing. The better statement is that the theory is not based on the fossils. However, the fossils are consistent with the theory, and in that sense they do support the theory. It is easy to imagine fossils that are inconsistent with the theory, but there haven't actually been any such fossils. Most people would take that as support for the theory, although not by itself enough to confirm the theory. That's a misunderstanding. We know the tips (the species). But we also have a pretty good knowledge of the relation between them. Our knowledge of the relation comes, initially, from the systematic classification due to Linneaus. When it turned out that the relationship between species as given by Linneaus was a close match to the relationship as given by DNA, that was taken as strong support for the theory.We also know biological processes, including those involved in reproduction. From those processes, we can infer the kind of change that should be expected, and the kind of evolutionary tree that would result. When the tree we see from the Linnaeus classification fits so well with what we can infer from the biological processes, that's also pretty strong evidence.The lab experiments (creating species in the lab) are mainly to test whether we are correct in our understanding of the processes.Compare to astronomy. We observe gas clouds. We observe young stars. We observe middle-aged stars. We observe old stars. But we never observe a single star being born in a gas cloud, progressing through the stages of young, middle aged, old. Everything happens far too slowly to observe that. We have to use our knowledge of the processes involved to put together a composite life history, based on the parts that we see.Or consider the tree in my backyard that was planted as a seedling. I have never actually seen the tree grow. I do look at it from time to time, to see how it has changed from the previous time. For all I know, every night a fairy comes, digs out the tree and replaces it with a slightly larger tree. Maybe everything I believe about trees is wrong. But it would really be bizarre to assume the fairy story. What we know about the processes involved, together with the periodic observations, is best explained by the traditional theory on how trees grow. When you go shopping at your local Walmart, you just assume that it is your local Walmart. But maybe, overnight, the old Walmart was removed and replaced by a substitute. Maybe the old employees were all kidnapped, and replaced by alien look-alikes. Assumption is the glue that holds your life together. Assumption piled upon assumption.Science does not depend on assumption any more than your every day life depends on assumptions. It really does seem bizarre to question these assumptions. If you want absolute truth, try mathematics. In science, as in every day life, we have to make do with what is available. You really cannot quantify this. Missing links are not any sort of problem. It would be nice if the fossil evidence were more complete, but only because that would satisfy our curiosity. The ToE is not dependent on fossil evidence. That gets us back to the question of "What is truth?"

The "Species Mutate But Don't Change To Another Species Theory" does preduct extinction. But it does not predict that other species will arise. There is plenty of evidence that species have arisen.

First off, let me just say this -- I really enjoy posting with you Iano. We often disagree about things, but you tend to support what you are saying with rational (although misguided ) arguments.Now, onto your post -- I may have misunderstood what I was answering. I thought you were asking for an example that demonstrated macro-evolution.Is it your position that species can evolve from one to another but only through divine intervention, or is it that they can not evolve from one to another? Sounds like a reasonable assumption, but not true. Downy feathers on hatchlings offer no ability to fly, but offer warmth which is advantageous. A peacocks tail doesn't help him fly (in fact it probably hinders it) but it's a strong sexual attractor and therefore every advantageous.Feathers evolved before flight (actually, pterasaurs were flying without feathers, as were insects) because they offered certain advantages.It may be that every member of the raptor family had feathers. The problem is, as rare as fossils are, its unthinkably rare that one would preserve skin or feathers as well. I bet if we stuck some feathers on this guy, he'd do alright.
Spotted Gliding Lizard - Draco maculatusbut, still, feathers predate flight for above reasons and I'll discuss muscles below.As for landing and aeronautics. Ever seen a blue booby land? They still don't have it down right. Baby birds must "find" their wings before they can fly. Additionally, even just the ability to get the heck away from a predator by a flap assisted jump would be a huge advantage over the guy next to you. Well, they aren't presumed, they are called protoarchaeoptrix, and they have several examples of them. It's just that Archie is super famous. There's also examples from later in the line. Gobipteryx for example is the first non-toothed member.Many of these fossils are coming from a region in China where volcanic ash choked out huge numbers of creatures and preserved them very well.Now, about muscles. The wingbeat muscle structure does seem very specialized, but the wingbone structures needed for it appear before flight. Evidence for ID? Not likely, pre-flight species with this feature have very large hands. Almost comically oversized. The muscle / bone structure supports a "grab" attack motion. Sort of like a praying mantis (if that helps you visualize).Just because a piece of a feature (wing muscles) is used today for a certain thing, doesn't mean that that is what it originally developed for.Now, onto uniformism...Yup, I completely understand the concept. What I'm saying is that it's unreasonable for someone to say that some things conform to uniformism and that somethings don't.If we believe biology behaved differently in the past than it does today, can't we also say that physics was different, chemistry, etc?Where does that stop?Do we have evidence (modern or historic) that the laws of physics have changed radically in the last 10 years, 100, 1000, 10 million?Why would we presume that biology would have behaved radically different in the past? Or chemistry? Or radiology?

The question was clear evidence. Does 'plenty of evidence' suffer from the same problem as "speciation occurs in the lab", ie: is the evidence being interpreted in the light of the presumption that evolution is occuring? Making the facts fit the theory in other words? Uniformatism is a presumption made, under which light the so-called geologic columm is constructed. Finding species which appear 'later' in the column would be fantastic evidence for ToE - but only if the uniformatism is fact not presumption.This seems to be a core problem with ToE, it's theories all the way down. Infinite regression but never landing on something solid on which we can strike out and know the evidence is in fact evidence. Every aspect of it appear to be built on a foundation of an unfounded presumption. That ToE is fantastically complex and interesting doesn't free it from it's position of a bootstrap arguement.I asked somewhere is there anything about ToE which anyone knows with certainty to be true. This would require a firm, non presumed piece of foundation at some point. Is there one, anywhere?

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Romans 10:9-10: " if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved....."

Which makes assumptions about what a designer would and could do and why. Which is a position you cannot comment on in any way shape or form. Animals do strange things and nature programmes are fascinating when they illustrate the reasons behind these strange habits. There is a reason for them. That we do not know the reason doesn't automatically mean we can presume evolution - unless we take the unscienctific route and try and make the evidence fit the theory.What specifically is there about Archie that says he is a product of evoutions and not just a stand alone species. The meaning of missing link is that it can be tied to something concrete at both ends. Does he not fit the theory of Immutable Species better than the ToE precisely because he doesn't link with anything So the theory is now trying to explain why evidence for it cannot be found. Hmmmm. Don't worry about birds fossiling well. Archie fossilised perfectly well it would seem. So when we get Archie mark 0 with scales turning into feathers and Archies mark II with bird like teeth then Archie can be called a missing link. At the moment he links nothing at all. Except in the minds of those who want him to.

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Romans 10:9-10: " if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved....."