A Whale of a Tale

So you suggest I not discuss evo frauds, but stick to the topic, eh?When have you stuck the topic on this thread, percy?You and others are the ones demanding I give an answer to my views on ID and all sorts of things, and then when I honestly tell you why I focus on criticizing evolution, because I think it's rife with overstatements, frauds, illogic, etc,..., you come back retorting it has nothing to do with this thread?

So you admit you were way wrong on 2 points. Let's deal with the fluke claims. First, my point is that it swam not like a whale does, and it's tail was not whale-like in motion or really in any regard. If it had a fluke on the end, that seems somewhat anamolous, but it still didn't swim like a whale.Keep in mind that it wasn't too long ago you guys swore Basils were near proof whales evolved from Mesochynids. http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/Basilosaurus1.htmlSo it's best to take things evos say with a grain of salt.A note from that same site on how common the fossils are. Your questions: My own beliefs involve speculations I feel are strongly supported in physics, that the time-line aspect of space-time is so interwined with space that there are causal effects not simply forward in time but towards space-time as a whole, and some effects from our perspective backwards in time. We have hints of these things now, but will discover them more plainly, I believe.In order to comprehensively answer your question, I think we need to more fully understand how space-time works in reference to the issue of non-linear effects raised above. So perhaps an answer of we don't know for sure is the best answer. The YEC answer is that they escaped higher in the Flood. I am not sure I buy that, but at the same time, based on my experience with "evo facts", I am not ready to concede that evo interpretations are correct in claiming we do not find more ancient aquatic mammals, but for sake of argument, let's assume your claim is correct.Why would we not see mammals earlier?One answer is that they had not been created yet. I think as scientists are willing to consider that the fossil record does not show what one would expect from random mutation with natural selection in the fact we have such rapid and repeated evolution taking place with whales such that what we see is their appearance somewhat magically in the fossil record, I think scientists may begin to look for other mechanisms. Perhaps there is a creative force within the design of the universe that could explain the data?For example, I think some areas of research, such as adaptive mutations, indicate a decidedly non-random mutation process, and so we could well be seeing what one might call a program embedded within the universe and life on earth directing and triggering super-rapid, non-random evolution.Another possibility, of course, is progressive creation, and still another is more of a hybrid, which gets into my own beliefs, that there is a design embedded by an intelligent cause manifesting the reality we experience. In this scenario, we may well have had a different set of events in the past, but the pattern would remain the same, and so as the universe was affected as a whole, there would be changes, but still the same pattern.

If the variables are such that we cannot know, then it is foolish for evos to have claimed the fossil record supported ToE.Imo, you guys need to verify your claims first, and the variables are not astronimical since we have data we can use with comparitive studies. You don't have to plug in all the specific variables since we can use statistical analysis of similar situations to show a range. We can study the range of species with living whales compared to the range of differences, and do that with other mammals, and then extrapolate that with the larger range between land mammals and whales.We can also look at ranges with things like horses and their ancestors. There is a 28 to 1 range with previous horse forms and modern horses. So, considering the fact we could well have an incomplete fossil record, I would say that per that range, we should see a 28 to one ratio of forms, right?There are lots of ways to do an analysis. Evos have never done one, it seems. Just like with the Biogenetic Law, evos have developed a completely unsubstantiated claim, and have presented it as fact, with the evo community as a whole insisting that the claims of fossil rarity can explain why we don't see the whale transitions.

You say I have not responded. You said it before as well, and I responded and you did not. Here is the same post again.qs Then please do so again. If we've failed in the past to point out the fallacies in your approach, I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.[/qs]Here is a response on this thread to Belfry suggesting how evos could verify their claims. When are you going to deal with the issues raised here?This message has been edited by randman, 01-06-2006 09:51 AM

No, I wasn't and had you bothered to read and respond to my points instead of constantly ignoring them, you would know that. You want me to respond to you, but you ignore posts like 149 on this thread, and then misrepresent me when you do respond.I do not question a species having a small population and range. I question theorizing that among large aquatic, semi-aquatic, and near-water terristial mammals, that we would have one small species in a small habitat evolve into one small species in a small habitat evolve one small species in a small habitat, on and on, hundreds of times and not ever evolving into branches that spread out and grow in sufficent numbers to leave fossils, for say, 5 million years.In other words, as I stated before, the PE scenario may work for some species. If we had 30-40% of the actual transitionals represented in the fossil record, the scenario that we don't see the others because they were in smaller populations would make sense, but it doesn't make sense that continual subgroups among very small groups and habitats could continually evolve to fill the missing areas where we don't see whale features gradually emerging. This is especially true considering the habitat is the most favorable in many respects to fossilization. Care to explain that? This is a generality, once again. Maybe you could argue that some subgroup evolved into freshwater and then back again into salt water, but we are dealing with areas with a lot of mobility, being aquatic, and areas with good likelihoods of fossilization occuring. Most of all, you are not doing anything but posting generalities. There is no data related to whales in your posts at all. That doesn't add up. We are talking periods of millions of years. The idea that for millions of years, for example, that conditions in an aquatic environment were different so no fossils occurred, but then again, we got back into fossils for 30 million years is prepostrous. Moreover, that can be checked. Evos can see if fossils occurred during this time.Same with the idea of other predators. All of this stuff you claim is impossible with the "who knows?" could be verified if evos wanted to, instead of making claims that are unsubstantiated.But if you guys just want to chalk up whale evolution to "who knows?", that would at least be better than every few years presenting a whole new theory just as dogmatically as the first one, such as the Mesochynid theory. I don't think asking evos to actually show that their claims are true is so much to ask for, and I think an answer such as "who knows" indicates evos need to be far less dogmatic in their claims. Otherwise, they are just relying on overstatements. Then what took Basolosaurus' place for 5 million years? Then, what are they saying happened? Who knows???? So we should expect to see then within a given population, gradual emergence and shifting of features, not species appearing suddenly and fully formed, right?

Bernd, I am not asking for full species to species sequences necessarily, although I do think it's important that it is pointed out that such sequences largely do not exist in the data, and that no one should have any problem stating that the actual transitions are not seen in the fossil record. Rarely though have I ever met evos that will just own up to that, and so I ask for that sometimes so that we can see that when evos talk of gaps, there really is not a large bit of the process with just gaps missing, but we don't see the transitions taking place in the fossil record.However, I do think it reasonable to see the major features evolving, and while we may not see species to species, unless one takes a gradualistic approach, I think we should see something of species to species or forms to forms, but with gaps.We don't see that however.I think we should also see more change within one species, and we don't typically see that either.Let's imagine that if we recorded the morphing of a land mammal to a whale with every single change in features consisting of one frame. How many frames would there be?Now, compare that to the actual "frames" or fossils of sets of distinct features we do have, and I think one can then get a proper understanding of just how large the so-called gaps are, and begin to see that it is somewhat deceptive to speak of gaps when so little of the movie is seen. I think that while we should expect to see some aspects of the morphing absent from the movie, we should expect to see most of these features emerging. In other words, we should probably see something like 40%, and we see maybe 1%.Imo, the argument then for the other 99% of the frames in the movie is more based on an assumption the movie had to occur as evos claim rather than just looking at the evidence to see what it says and does not say.

Why is this allowed? Clearly and unequivocally, it is a personal attack without a shred of substantiation.Had Nosey the foggiest notion of telling the truth about exchanges related to this area, considering I have repeated this fact, he would know that Brukner and Vedral have indeed presented papers that entanglement occurs across segments of time, and moreover, the mere fact of what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" raises the specter, considering GR, of time not exactly working in a perfectly linear fashion.Wheeler pointedly addresses this very fact in his proposed delayed-choice experiments relating to QM.Moreover, not a few evos here have at times advanced the transverse wave interpretation of QM which involves accepting as real the mathematical proposition of waves that do indeed travel backwards in time.But hey, ad hominen attacks totally uncensured from Nosey are not exactly new.

First off, this is totally off-topic, and the threads started to discuss this, you were noticeably absent from, I believe. So your off-topic comments here, as far as I am concerned, are not appreciated and not very helpful in that they do not properly characterize my position or things I have posted. Secondly, had you been on some of the threads discussing these ideas, you would see that WK had provided a link to a peer-reviewed article making that exact proposition, specifically that mutations are governed by quantum mechanics rather than classical mechanics.But unfortunately, you have not really taken the time to learn what people are saying in this area. No one has ever suggested that things like a Yak travel backwards through time per se. That comment is based on ignorance of the issue. This is a false claims about your opponent's argument. Are you attempting to address my stance in good faith, or simply trying to insert ridiculing comments to the lurkers, because after all, this process is best understood, as you have stated, as something akin to the Jerry Springer show?One of the theories related to QM is that of the multiverse. Personally, and I freely admit that this is tentative from a science perspective, but I believe we will discover not so much distinct multiverses not connected to one another, but more of a blended set of multiverses. I realize for any knowledgeable lurkers or posters out there that the initial concept for the multiverse in QM does not necessitate interaction as I am proposing, and on a different thread, we can get into this (see Moving Towards an ID mechanism thread).But one thing is clear, the assumption of a single static past is unproven, but is a mere assumption, sort of like imo the assumption of a constant rate of time for all things equally in the universe (before GR).So the issue is that if we look at data based on an assumption, and we later find that assumption is wrong, we will have to review our conclusions of the data.I'll give you an example where this line of thinking is relevant. Let's say you are arguing that the Bible is incorrect because it states the earth is 6000 years old. Of course, the Bible does not state that, and it is a silly argument evos make, but assuming one is arguing against the Bible in a YECist context, let's look at that claim.Well, if the past is changing, then is entirely possible that both situations of a young earth and old earth could be true. There could well be an expansion of time as time progresses, or there could be events that massively change and expand space-time or change it (such as the Fall).Or to be less extreme, let's say 3000 years ago, the universe was 4 billion years old, and now 3000 years later, it is 15 billion years old or whatever it is. The idea the universe exists in a linear progression of time, or even that this is the only universe and not part of a larger multiverse, are mere assumptions and assumptions increasingly undermined by more advanced physics in the past 100 years.This message has been edited by randman, 01-09-2006 01:59 PM

Feels good to say it, doesn't it? Catchy, on target, etc,...

Hey nuggins, I had edited out some of those comments before your response.And in fact, I was forced to mention my views because guys like you keep diverting thread topics demanding, well, if this is wrong, what is your position.Imo, as I state often, it really doesn't matter what or if there is an alternative if the facts don't mesh, which is why I tend to stick to looking closely at the data, but that doesn't stop you guys from always trying to divert the topic and claim I am dodging you or something.But this is way off-topic. There are threads where this has been brought up. Modulous mentions one of them.

No, but it is important to realize that physics underlies chemistry which undergirds biology, and that if one has a mistaken paradigm in terms of what constitutes the material world, then that will affect the evo/ID arguments and does affect them.Imo, a more modern definition of reality includes and necessitates a deeper framework than was presupposed when ToE was formed, and in many ways, the principles and behaviours of this deeper reality and framework coincidentally match up with the principles related in spiritual traditions, so much so, I would argue that what people called spiritual is really a part of our universe, and the deeper reality physics indicates is the spiritual realm.I think people are hung up on semantics, and so the argument seems wrong to them a priori without thinking it through.Now, I could go on and on because there are lot of things to learn and understand before you are probably even seeing what I am talking about, but my stance is this "spiritual realm" which can be and imo, is being tested for, but without really recognizing it as spiritual contains within it principles that match up well with the idea of Intelligent Design, but not with the idea of randomness and things not being the result of an intelligent cause. In fact, I would argue that things are always a design, but only sometimes "physical" in terms of being an observavble discrete form in "reality", and that is something many physicists such as Wheeler have claimed in stating that physical things exist in an "inherently undefined state" prior to observation.So if we see ID in physics, and integral to physics, then imo, it is reasonable to think ID can occur in biology.