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Author Topic:   How did Monkeys get to South America?
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 61 of 137 (499181)
02-17-2009 1:22 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Engineer
02-17-2009 12:02 AM


Re: Again I ask what is your alternative
Hi, Engineer.
Engineer writes:
Actually I do, Tell ya what -- I'll give you a dead man with all his RNA and DNA perfectly in place and all you have to do is bring him back to life. That should be easy enough for a scientist with a plan, and I'm even conceding all the other points about putting the right chemicals together in the right place to make it easier for you.
No doubt this is meant to prove a point about the limitations of science.
I think Dr Adequate and Theodoric and every other scientist you'll ever speak with will agree with you that there are innumerable scores of things that scientists currently do not know or cannot do, and, indeed, may never be able to know or do.
But, this doesn't in anyway vindicate a position of cynicism towards science. There is a lot of merit in the work we do, and I humbly submit that it deserves a great deal of respect. The continued existence of questions and mysteries is not evidence of the shortcomings of science, but rather an indicator of a vibrant future. But, the future has to be built on the present, and, presently, there's only so much we can tell you.
The current "flotilla" hypothesis was arrived at by process of elimination, not by process of overwhelming positive evidence. As unsatisfying as that sounds, it really is the best we can offer at this current time. But then, that's all science ever is: the best we can come up with so far. Part of the trick of becoming a great scientist is learning to live with tentativity.
As Theodoric has incessantly repeated, your best recourse is to come up with something better than the flotilla model, because it's going to be difficult to find direct evidence for or against the flotilla model (maybe monkey fossils at the bottom of the sea in the central Atlantic would do it, though).

-Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus
Darwin loves you.

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Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 62 of 137 (499186)
02-17-2009 6:02 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Engineer
02-17-2009 12:02 AM


Re: Again I ask what is your alternative
Actually I do, Tell ya what -- I'll give you a dead man with all his RNA and DNA perfectly in place and all you have to do is bring him back to life. That should be easy enough for a scientist with a plan, and I'm even conceding all the other points about putting the right chemicals together in the right place to make it easier for you.
If you put all the chemicals together in "the right place" then your dead man will be alive. The only difference between alive and dead is the arrangement of chemicals in the body. The problem with bringing them back to life is the sheer impossibility of re-arranging the chemicals of the billions of cells in the human body back to the required arrangement or even measuring it to know what it should be.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 63 of 137 (499192)
02-17-2009 7:16 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Darwinist
02-16-2009 10:46 PM


Re: The Magic Koala theory
Island hopping would reduce the distance to travel. Hence, more animals can be considered.
But if you can show the concept is feasible without hypothetical islands (that there are no record of), the argument is stronger. What happened to the hypothetical islands?
Enjoy.

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Replies to this message:
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Darwinist
Junior Member (Idle past 5516 days)
Posts: 22
From: Two Rocks, Western Australia
Joined: 02-15-2009


Message 64 of 137 (499199)
02-17-2009 7:33 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by RAZD
02-17-2009 7:16 AM


Re: The Magic Koala theory
Islands erode just like cliff faces, from the power of the waves.

Always wanting to hear other peoples opinions about God and evolution. Email me.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 65 of 137 (499202)
02-17-2009 8:08 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by RAZD
02-17-2009 7:16 AM


Islands unnecessary and unlikely
RAZD writes:
But if you can show the concept is feasible without hypothetical islands (that there are no record of), the argument is stronger. What happened to the hypothetical islands?
I'm with you on the Islands. Being washed to sea clinging to a raft of vegetation two or three times and making lengthy ocean voyages in the same direction for a couple of monkeys (minimum) is less likely than a pair making the complete voyage.
Now, to aid the imagination, and for the irresistible cuteness factor, let's use these.
The smaller the creatures, the better their chances. These are about 6" long (excluding the tale), and weigh less than 5 ounces. Their raft was a tree draped in vines uprooted in a flash flood roaring down a river valley which washed it (and its clinging occupants) into the estuary and out to sea.
This might happen quite often, but our little pair have the right prevailing currents and the right prevailing winds, so they do the 2,000 miles in about 40 days. There are leaves for food, water in the leaves, and it rains several times during the voyage, so they can lick fresh water out of cracks in the bark, etc.
Their final problem is establishing a healthy population on arrival, and it's known that a single pair of mammals can do that, a problem that will lead us into the genetics of incest, and which I'll cover in another post if anyone's interested.
Then follows niche filling and speciation which is no problem for what would be the most intelligent and culturally adaptive animals on the new continent.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 66 of 137 (499191)
02-17-2009 7:04 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by RAZD
02-17-2009 7:16 AM


Islands
But if you can show the concept is feasible without hypothetical islands (that there are no record of)
I presume the geologists had some reason for putting them there ... they're not allowed to make stuff up, you know.

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kuresu
Member (Idle past 2513 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 67 of 137 (499218)
02-17-2009 12:52 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by Engineer
02-16-2009 11:41 PM


Well, of course, but your math is wrong.
Since when is 12 mm = .12 centimeters? 12 mm = 1.2cm. Or .012m.
.012m * 40,000,000 = 480,000m. Or 480km. Or 298.258 miles.
Naturally, something doesn't make sense. Either the spread has changed through time (which we can determine by finding two matching magnetic strips, measure the distance between them, how old they are, and divide distance by time), your current rate is simply wrong, or both.
The atlantic ocean did not exist 130mya. So if we use that as our start date, and the maximum width of 2850km (the narrowest part), we get a crude rate of 21.92mm/yr.
The average rate of all spreading is roughly 2.5cm/year. The Atlantic ocean spreads at a rate of between 1cm to 10cm per year.

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Replies to this message:
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shalamabobbi
Member (Idle past 2849 days)
Posts: 397
Joined: 01-10-2009


Message 68 of 137 (499225)
02-17-2009 2:08 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by bluegenes
02-17-2009 8:08 AM


Re: Islands unnecessary and unlikely
a problem that will lead us into the genetics of incest, and which I'll cover in another post if anyone's interested.
Us fallen non-creationist infidels are obviously interested in such topics. No need to ask..

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 69 of 137 (499228)
02-17-2009 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by kuresu
02-17-2009 12:52 PM


Well, what seems to be wrong is that Engineer is only citing the northward component of the drift of South America, and relative to Africa, at that (Africa is also moving north, isn't it?); whereas what he should be interested in is the westward drift.

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kuresu
Member (Idle past 2513 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 70 of 137 (499232)
02-17-2009 3:39 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Dr Adequate
02-17-2009 3:06 PM


I'd be interested to know what values he entered into the model he linked to. It almost seems as if you can build hypothetical spread rates with it.
Of course, claiming 12mm is .12cm is really, really silly.
Africa, according to this (File:Global plate motion 2008-04-17.jpg - Wikipedia) seems to be moving in a northeasterly direction.

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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 71 of 137 (499233)
02-17-2009 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Engineer
02-17-2009 12:02 AM


Re: Again I ask what is your alternative
If human testimony is so unreliable, then why is it used in a court of law?
Because juries tend to buy it, and because often there's no other choice.
The unreliabilitiy of human testimony is well-known. Lawyers aren't out to find the truth, they're out to convince a judge or jury.
From HOW RELIABLE IS EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY?:
quote:
In fact, contrary to popular opinion, circumstantial evidence is often extremely reliable. Blood of the victim that makes a DNA match with blood found on the defendant's clothing, credit card records that place the defendant at the scene of the crime, and ballistics analysis that shows a bullet removed from the victim to have been fired from the defendant's gun are all forms of circumstantial evidence. Yet, in the absence of a credible allegation of police tampering, such evidence is usually highly reliable and informative.
At the same time, numerous psychological studies have shown that human beings are not very good at identifying people they saw only once for a relatively short period of time. The studies reveal error rates of as high as fifty percent a frightening statistic given that many convictions may be based largely or solely on such testimony.
See also Eyewitness Memory is Unreliable and, of course, this famous test.

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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 72 of 137 (499235)
02-17-2009 4:11 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Engineer
02-16-2009 10:44 PM


Re: Age of the earth
The scientific age of the earth has changed a lot in my short lifetime, or I'm a half billon years older now.
Probably not. It hasn't changed noticeably since 1953 (4.5 0.3 billion years). That was the first measurement that wasn't just an estimate. See Changing Views of the History of the Earth.

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Darwinist
Junior Member (Idle past 5516 days)
Posts: 22
From: Two Rocks, Western Australia
Joined: 02-15-2009


Message 73 of 137 (499237)
02-17-2009 4:57 PM


Island Hopping Theory
If I can revisit my island hopping theory for a moment: how many more islands would there be if the present sea level dropped, say 2m?

Always wanting to hear other peoples opinions about God and evolution. Email me.

  
Engineer
Member (Idle past 5516 days)
Posts: 65
From: KY, USA
Joined: 02-13-2009


Message 74 of 137 (499253)
02-17-2009 8:50 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by kuresu
02-17-2009 3:39 PM


Continuing On the subject of South American and African continent seperation and new world monkey rafting travels during the Oglicene.(*1)
quote:
Of course, claiming 12mm is .12cm is really, really silly.
I made no such claim, only an honest error past my bedtime.
That's one reason I provided a sample calculation. A simple mistake -- yes, As for "really really silly" nahhh ... just human error. Get used to it, I have to all the time. The error doesn't do very much to help east west seperation however, which was the point I made.
Hence I need to correct the anwer by a factor of 10. The result is 300 miles almost due north. This does something for an east west separation but not much. The east-west separation is circumferential like when a balloon expands.
Here is the model I used:
UNAVCO
I have done quite a bit of research since the last post, and there is a way to figure out the chances of a raft endeavor from africa to south america. I postulate it now for those that want to take it on:
1) Provide the estimated distance beween the continents 40 million years ago, based purely on geology, and include no influencing factors from evolution theory that might bias the answer in some way:
UNAVCO
2) Use a navigation model to estimate ship drift. Figure how long it takes a ship to drifp across on ocean currents. This is the best model I could find and it isn't good enough:
Ocean Motion : Data Resources : Ocean Surface Current Visualizer
3) Tell us how long a monkey can go without fresh water, propose a way it could find water on a floating mass of vegetation. Also, propose a way to convert salt water to fresh water, or drink salt water exclusively and survive for any period of time. Perhaps the monkey was adapted to this -- provide evidence.
4) Most wood that floats is dead already. Green wood can sink rather easyly. Is there any evidence of a massive vegetation floatilla a thousand miles from any shoreline?
5) If the flotilla theory makes sense then there should be plenty of successful transatlantic crossings for many plant species, both to and from South America. A good tidal wave can wash the seeds quite far inland.
Here's an idea for verifying the result and make yourself famous at the same time, win chicks, academic accolades, and public speaking engagements worth a nice sum of money courtesy of an old world creationist that accepts robust species adaptation:
Drop bottles on the african coast and see how long they take to reach the south american coast:
http://www.csun.edu/.../EarthScience/OceanCurrentReading.pdf
from source:
quote:
Indeed, many theories of the colonization of the isolated Pacific islands such as Hawaii and Tahiti by humans and plant and animal life have been based upon the ability of winds, ocean waves and currents to transport them from one island to the next.
Lizards such as the crested iguana of Fiji likely traveled across many kilometers of ocean from South America clinging to drifting trees before landing on a life-saving beach.
these toys traveled 900 miles as the crow flies in about 10 months (unless I crapped on my calculator again):
quote:
Ebbesmeyer's next serendipitous study of the ocean currents in the North Pacific came in late 1992 when a large number of brightly colored bathtub toys were reported on the beaches near Sitka, Alaska. These toys had been part of a shipment of containers headed from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Washington. In January, 1992, the container ship carrying the toys among its cargo encountered severe storm conditions near the International Date Line (44.7N, 178.1E). Twelve containers went overboard as the ship rolled about 40
degrees in the heavy seas. One of these 20-meter containers held a shipment of 29,000 bathtub toys.
quote:
The first landfall of these toys was reported on November 16, 1992.
I calculate Sika Alaska to be 900 miles away using this calculator:
Calculate distance and bearing between two Latitude/Longitude points using haversine formula in JavaScript
more on the same:
Friendly Floatees spill - Wikipedia
I wish you every success. It's a daunting task. I've put enough time into this and I have 23 more posts in my mailbox. I'll have to forgo them. Feel priveleged, and good job checking the math for me!! ;-)
Edited by Engineer, : (*1) added RSS feed search engine key words at beginning of post for search engine magnets.

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Replies to this message:
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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 75 of 137 (499256)
02-17-2009 9:24 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Engineer
02-17-2009 8:50 PM


again what is your alternative theory
You can bring up all the possible difficulties in the theory, but still you offer nothing as an alternative.
All you are doing is following in the steps of classic theistic "science"
-preferring supernatural explanations, even actively filtering out natural explanations or declaring them impossible
-willingness to import theistic ideas into science, placing more importance on revelation than empirical evidence
or the classic IDer
-claim that issues are too complex to understand scientifically and resort to supernatural explanations
Your arguments are week and lazy. Just a version of the fallacy of negative proof.
There is no conclusive proof that this is what happened so therefore it must not have.
We have seen your fallacies before from many IDers and YEC's. Present an alternate theory as to how monkeys got to the New World or move on.
Science knows the New World monkeys are genetically related to the Old World monkeys. The split occurred after continental drift. Therefore, they must have crossed the ocean. Floating on rafts of vegetation is a very plausible hypothesis.
Now it is up to you to present an alternate hypothesis, because the scientific hypothesis conforms to the facts and data.
Is your hypothesis Noah? Aliens? God creating genetically similar but geographically separated populations? Flying Spaghetti Monster?
I am done with this thread. You are a disingenuous IDer or YEC that can only present fallacies and debunked and discredited ID and YEC arguments.
Edited by Theodoric, : Spelling, FSM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Engineer, posted 02-17-2009 8:50 PM Engineer has replied

Replies to this message:
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