The Origin of Novelty

Well, they look like they do. These nested groupings are what we would expect to see if common descent had occurred.Are they what we would expect from an intelligent designer? No.Consider, for example, the grouping known as birds. Consider the kiwi, the hummingbird, the ostrich, the owl, the penguin. They have widely different lifestyles, as I'm sure you know. Now, if we are to entertain the ID hypothesis, we have to believe either that the designer was jerking us around by making it look as though common descent occurred; or we have to believe that for reasons totally unknown to us, every time it was a good design decision to give an organism feathers rather than, for example, fur, it was also a good design decision to give it an edentate beak, a synsacrum, a pygostyle, etc, and make it oviparous.Meanwhile, when it was a good idea to make another creature which does the same job as a hummingbird, it was the best decision not to give it any avian anatomical features, but instead to give it all the distinctive anatomical features of a moth, producing the hummingbird moth. Now under these circumstances the scientific method compels us to prefer the evolutionary explanation, because it is an explanation. Meanwhile I don't believe that a creationist can honestly say that it's what he'd have expected; all he can do is imagine that there is a reason, although he can't imagine what the reason is.Imagine a parallel case --- imagine someone saying the theory of gravity is correct because the planets etc move exactly as we'd expect them to if it was. "No, no," replies another guy, "my religion tells me that they are being pushed round by invisible angels at God's command." Then we would want to ask him, would we not, why God ordered them to push the planets round in such a way that they should always move in ellipses with one focus at the sun? Is God deliberately trying to fool us into believing in the theory of gravity ... or ...? And if all the chap can say is that God must have a good reason but he doesn't know what it is, God's ways are not our ways, etc, then we would prefer the explanation involving gravity. He might not, but that's religion for you. You seem to be suffering from a common creationist confusion between how evolution is proved and the interpretations we can make of nature once we know that it has been. Well no. Invisible angels aren't considered in their page on gravity, either. It's supposed that the reader has got beyond that point.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You should really find out what the phrase "strawman argument" means before using it. Do any of them look like this? Splendid. Please do what no creationist has ever been able to do, and tell us definitively which is which. Thank you. Are you seriously going to maintain that they're all human? See my "Introduction To Geology" thread. Wrongly. Try assuming less stuff, you'll be amazed how much clearer your thinking becomes.

Could you be more specific?How about you answer my other questions? But you won't, will you? But this is just a standard creationist lie. It isn't even slightly true. It's just one of those dumb lies that creationists have learned to recite. You haven't even misinterpreted something, which might be excusable. You have learned to recite a stupid lie without taking the least bit of interest as to whether it is true or false. I understood you perfectly well. You have made a stupid mistake.Once more, I suspect that you are merely reciting your stupidity rather than thinking about it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And an accurate one. All you are doing here is reciting dumb lies that creationists have made up. You have a moral duty to try to tell the truth, and you're not even trying.

But the expectation that there should be this wide variety, and that this wide variety should include intermediate forms between basal apes and humans, is a prediction of the evolutionary theory.If it was just up to a creator God doing fiat creation, then he could have made no apes at all besides humans, or he could have made no australopithecines, or he could have introduced "variety" by giving some of them antlers and some of them feathered wings, and so on and so forth.Instead, biologists find just those things that the theory of evolution would lead them to expect that they should find.I think as is so often the case with creationists you are confusing the interpretative and the predictive functions of evolution. You accuse the biologists of "cherry-picking". But why are there any cherries there for them to pick?

Well, is it not crucial to the substance of the debate that you should find that out?You can hardly base your argument on the grounds that you personally don't know whether modern humans are more similar to australopithecines or orangutans. Either you should accept the expert views of those who have studied the question, or, if you are still skeptical, you have it open to you to study the question yourself. But instead you seemingly want it to be an open question on the grounds that you personally won't do either. Again, the things you don't know are hardly the basis of an argument.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

(a) What's that to the Almighty?(b) Apes don't swing through trees so much, that would be monkeys. On the other hand, the fact that you made that up is surely of some relevance.

You do. "If"? Well, that was my point. You can't make your case based on ifs and buts about things which are there for us to study. We have the bones. A reference is given. Instead of pursuing it, you sit there complaining about things which you personally don't know. Well, the measure of your personal ignorance is not the measure of our knowledge. Er, no. You just made that up.Why didn't you look it up before saying that? You've got the largest repository of human knowledge ever literally at your fingertips, and instead you came out with nonsense like that.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Why was it logical and efficient to fill the world with creatures which confirmed the beliefs of evolutionists, but were not quite logical and effecient enough not to go extinct? I don't. What you do in your free time is up to you.But it would surely not be beyond the capacity of the Almighty to make apes with antlers that don't swing through trees. For some reason he withheld his mighty hand from that endeavor and concentrated all his limitless energy on making evolutionists happy. However, you did make up the thing you made up. Like this: Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You cannot. Your personal ignorance is not a form of knowledge. Well, they obviously did. Very briefly. They looked at Lucy, and said to themselves: "Clearly not a gibbon". They also didn't do a point-by-point comparison with a tyrannosaurus. The people doing this actually know some stuff about primates, unlike you, Mr. "A male gorilla has the same brain capacity as a human".But if you think that they have failed, then it is open to you to learn something about primates and make your case. Until then, your total ignorance of primates does not constitute an argument.

Oh, silly me. Obviously an all-wise Creator wouldn't make a species that lived in trees and also had wings. That would be stupid. They'd get caught in the branches, as I'd know if only I was as smart as a god made in your image.

Er ... but you said their point was: So if you are right about what they were trying to prove, and if you were right about Lucy being particularly similar to a gibbon, which you aren't, then the gibbon would have been the most convenient ape, and would have highlighted their point better.Would you like to take another run at this? Apparently it , FITS IN WITH YOUR VIEW equally well to claim that gorillas have the same cranial capacity as humans and to admit the facts. Your views are peculiarly indifferent to what the facts actually are.You might want to think about why you made your mistake. When you did so, you were right there on the internet, five seconds away from finding out the actual facts. The cranial capacity of gorillas is not a secret. Why did you make it up instead of looking it up? Well, this is something else you've made up. Let's have some data, shall we?

It always is. He was not the most brilliant thinker ever, but he must surely rank high on the list of the most careful thinkers ever.