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Author | Topic: Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But this can be deceptive. Common traits would of course have common DNA because the finished house follows the plan. Similar plans, similar houses. But crocodiles and birds don't have a similar plan. And yet molecular phylogeny puts them together just as one would expect from the fossil record.
. But descent from one to another cannot be known from these comparisons. But the results of these comparisons can be predicted on the basis of common descent.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Yes, it's certainly not just an inadvertent assumption, but it does function as an untested assumption when you get into postulating how particular sets of bones could have changed over time into another arrangement of bones. Please read my post again, the one explaining the difference between prediction and interpretation. --- As for this stuff about genetics, we've seen your theory of genetics, and pointed out how it's contradicted by (a) the theory of genetics as used by geneticists (b) reality. So if your best argument that the fossil record doesn't show evolution is that your own private version of genetics says that it can't, then that would be just one more reason to think that the Faith Theory of Genetics is inferior to the theory adhered to by geneticists.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
You are going to have to stop talking in riddles and innuendoes and actually say something substantive if you want me to understand you. I am not talking in riddles and innuendos. What is it that you don't understand?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Nature is likely to have all sorts of anomalies that no particular analogy is going to cover, but make up your minds here: I was responding to the statement that the morphological tree is neatly paralleled by the genetic tree. Perhaps not so neatly then. Taxonomists put the marsupial mole together with the marsupials. But what do you do?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I would suppose the therapsids evolved whatever differences there are among them within decades or hundreds of years at most of normal microevolution ... You know the term "therapsids" includes all the mammals, right?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But, once again, that's just what species means. If you want to deny the evolution of new families, which apparently is what you want to do, then try doing that, don't demand that the English language should be rewritten to accommodate your feelings. There are about eight hundred million English speakers, and we're not going to change what a word means just because it makes you sad.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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But of course the point is that it DOESN'T mean what it's supposed to mean ... You what? It means exactly what it means. If you mean something else, you need to use a different word. The word "species" is taken.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Whatever the taxonomic classification, I'm objecting to the idea that the bones could evolve in that fashion, because genetics doesn't do that sort of thing. Once again I would point out that if your private personal unique theory of genetics is in conflict with the fossil record, then that's just one more reason to reject the Faith Theory Of Genetics in favor of the theory of genetics that has been developed by geneticists on the basis of studying genetics and knowing stuff about genes.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
d.p.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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You say a great deal that amounts to nothing, Dr. A. Sure, fine, but genetics DOESN'T make transitionals by rearranging bones increment by increment, that's all Evo Fantasy. Genetics makes dogs that are all structurally and behaviorally dogs even if they differ enormously in size and overall appearance. None of the breeds has structural differences from the others. The bones all fit together the same way. And you've said nothing to prove that rearranging bones as required by the fossils being talked about here is genetically possible. Nada. For that, see any textbook on genetics written by a geneticist who knows something about genetics 'cos of having studied genetics. Or just consider the fact that you can get from any genome to any other by a sufficient number of mutations. This is trivially obvious. To find out whether this has actually happened in any given case ... well, finding intermediate forms in the fossil record would be a big clue. Oh look, we do.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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This is a message board and it's your job to make your case, not refer your opponent to the literature instead. I admit I lose track of former arguments, so I have to ask your indulgence in repeating arguments you think I'm supposed to know. In any case it IS your job to make the case and not mutter hints and innuendoes. That's why I also took the time to point out the bleedin' obvious.
The intermediate forms are an illusion. In reality what you have is fossils of different creatures that have their own unique genetic makeup, and it's sheer imaginative cobweb-spinning to invent the paths the changes would have to take to get from one to the other, all just mental juggling, no reality. "No reality"? We have the fossils, Faith. Genetics tells us that it can happen, and the fossil record looks exactly like it has happened. Hence the gloating and the pointing and laughing at creationists. We have the fossils. We win.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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No. Yes. Let's ask the Genetics Society of America about evolution and creationism, shall we?
Genetics and evolution are two very closely interwoven disciplines. In fact, evolution might be summarized as population genetics over time. [...] Without evolutionary theory, we would be forced to completely discard much of what we understand about fields such as genetics, botany, zoology, paleontology, and anthropology. Perhaps they know something you don't. Genetics, for example. I think they know that.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Oh, and one more quotation. It's from you:
I do not claim to be a geneticist or even to have more than the most rudimentary understanding of genetics. In fact population genetics operates in a much shorter time frame (though Pod Mrcaru lizards and Jutland cattle may illustrate the shortest possible), and in millions of years no living thing would still be living. Mutation couldn't possibly keep up with the loss of genetic diversity through normal evolutionary processes, being so rarely beneficial, besides which, as I've shown many times, whatever the source of new genetic material it has to succumb to genetic reduction if new phenotypes are to result, a formula that absolutely defeats the continuation of microevolution beyond the species. But this is just crap you've made up 'cos of being ignorant of genetics.
Since so much of evolution is just imagined, along the lines of this transitional fossil discussion, nothing has ever been established as a fact, it's just been assumed to be a fact because the theory is believed:
Evolution is true, therefore this creature must have evolved into that creature, and for that to be the case this arrangement of bones had to have evolved over millions of years into that arrangement of bones although nothing that is known about how genetics works could have brought that about. But this is just crap you've made up 'cos of being ignorant of genetics, paleontology, evolution, and the scientific method.
I'm so convinced of this I actually feel bad and sometimes wish it weren't true just because so many nice smart people ARE involved in it. And so many dumb jerks on the other side. Truly this is a tragedy. Why couldn't the smart people be right about science and the scientifically illiterate people be wrong about science. That would be both fairer and more plausible. Way more plausible. Way, way more plausible.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Thank you for finally posting that after I don't know how many hints and veiled threats about something I supposedly wrote that to you means I should never say a word about any of this. Yes, I've never claimed more than a rudimentary understanding, but of course I claim to understand enough to make the arguments I make. And this is awfully, you know, Ad Hominem of you ... Yeah, a bit. Look, this thread was set up --- by me --- to talk about the fossil evidence for evolution. Then you butt in to say that no matter what the fossils look like, they can't be evidence for evolution, because the Faith Theory Of Genetics says that evolution can't happen. Only you don't call it that. You say "genetics" says that evolution can't happen. At that point, you are arguing from authority, and I am perfectly entitled to point out that you are not an authority. And then I might ask you to look again at the fossils.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 285 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
So to my mind the next task on this thread is for someone to give evidence that the necessary rearrangement of bones to show an evolutionary connection between those fossils is really genetically possible and not just assumed and imagined. But look, it works the other way round. If we just think about genetics, then there is certainly a chain of mutations that would get from a monkey to a man. Or from a hippopotamus to a butterfly. If we just look at genetics, without natural selection, all things are possible. But the intermediate forms show that being intermediate is possible, practically. And that it looks exactly like it happens. We have the fossils. We win. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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