What would a transitional fossil look like?

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...I do claim to be a creationist and I'm trying to think like a creationist

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And you sometimes do a very bad job of that. For example on this thread you argue that creationists should sabotage their idea of Kinds by pretending to believe in fixity of species. Just because you don’t like the idea of speciation actually happening. Why creationists should care so much for your feelings as to deny something even you believe I have no idea. I very much doubt that you have any idea either.

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...if evos are wrong they are wrong.

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But you don’t care about the truth. You only care about your opinions - right or wrong.It is obvious now that your “structural versus superficial” criterion has no objective basis - any difference between cats and dogs is considered structural, any difference between trilobites is considered superficial. That is not a rational argument, it’s just an extreme and irrational bias.

For example chimps and humans. Identical, not merely similar, except varying in proportions: size and length and that sort of thing.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Claws aren't structural. Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

vs the exact same argument re dogs and cats: I note that you changed from trilobites all being one species to all being one class ... in your ever evolving position.This is why we think your criteria are not consistently applied nor adequate to explain your position.Also by your argument above, horses, donkeys and zebras are more similar than trilobites.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..

Continuing from Message 214 ... Aside from the erroneous description of how HOX genes work, lets look at the same simplistic criteria of "structural" differences you have delineated for trilobites vs cats and dogs, but instead compare the "structural" differences in DNA between donkeys vs horses and then between humans vs chimps:

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Donkeys vs. Horses: Differences & Similarities

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Chromosomes

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Donkeys and horses differ on a genetic level: horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62. When a horse is bred with a donkey to produce a mule (male donkey, female horse) or a hinny (male horse, female donkey), the offspring have 63 chromosomes. Because of their parents' incompatible chromosomes, these creatures are generally sterile. So if you try to breed two mules with each other, you're not going to have much luck.

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Now we look at humans and chimps:

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Chimpanzee genome project

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Starting the chimpanzee genome project

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Human and chimpanzee chromosomes are very similar. The primary difference is that humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than do other great apes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and other great apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes. In the human evolutionary lineage, two ancestral ape chromosomes fused at their telomeres, producing human chromosome 2.[3] ...

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Genes of the chromosome 2 fusion site

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The results of the chimpanzee genome project suggest that when ancestral chromosomes 2A and 2B fused to produce human chromosome 2, no genes were lost from the fused ends of 2A and 2B. ...

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So based on the (simplistic) criteria of the "structural" differences of chromosome numbers, humans are more similar (more closely related) to chimps than donkeys are to horses. Especially when further investigation shows that human chromosome 2 compares structurally to combined chimp chromosomes 2A and 2B, with evidence of fusing remaining in the chromosome 2.Additionally, when we look at the fusion site (above ref continued):

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The results of the chimpanzee genome project suggest that when ancestral chromosomes 2A and 2B fused to produce human chromosome 2, no genes were lost from the fused ends of 2A and 2B. At the site of fusion, there are approximately 150,000 base pairs of sequence not found in chimpanzee chromosomes 2A and 2B. Additional linked copies of the PGML/FOXD/CBWD genes exist elsewhere in the human genome, particularly near the p end of chromosome 9. This suggests that a copy of these genes may have been added to the end of the ancestral 2A or 2B prior to the fusion event. ...

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Diagramatic representation of the location of the fusion site of chromosomes 2A and 2B and the genes inserted at this location.

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These fusions and the rearrangement of these genes are rather obvious mutations, as the added genetic material was existing in other chromosome structures, so this should not be a problem for your view on new "species that are varieties not species using existing DNA" argument.And I have no problem with these evidence based conclusions ... perhaps you should think about it.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

Sorry for not being clear - HOX genes are regulatory genes; by which it's meant that they regulate the expression of other genes. Yes, I am Genes do not make proteins for a particular trait - you're thinking about HOX genes in the wrong way. Their 'role' is not to produce a flipper in one creature and a leg in another. It's to produce an arm in one creature and a leg at a different place of the same creature. It's exactly the same genes making an arm as making a leg, but the same genes can produce quite different structures depending on the pattern of their expression. Hox genes were first discovered by scientists playing around with fruit fly genetics; who noted that mutations to HOX genes could do things like this: In case you can't see it well, that's a fruit fly with legs growing where its antenna should be. There are not different genes building legs to building antennae; it's just a matter of changing their pattern of expression. If the same genes can produce legs, antennae, mandibles and pincers, then why not a leg and a slightly different kind of leg (eg, a dog's leg and a cat's leg). After all, dogs' and cats' legs are much more similar to one another than a fly's leg is to its antenna.To see that genes do not code for specific traits in the way you seem to think, it's good to look at specific examples. OCA2 is a very well-known gene in humans, because it's the gene 'for' blue eyes. What we mean by that is that one of the first things uncovered about OCA2 back in the early days of genetics was that people with a certain form of the gene usually have blue eyes.To conclude from this that OCA2 is a gene 'for' eye colour is to completely misunderstand genetics, however. What the gene is for is a protein involved in the transport of small molecules across cell membranes. Changing how it works can have an effect on pigmentation; because one of the molecules it helps to transport (tyrosine) is a precursor of melanin - the pigment responsible for darker colours in a lot of organisms.There's a fantastic website which maps the expression of genes across different tissues in humans. Here you can see the expression pattern for OCA2. Note how it's significantly expressed in gonads, ovaries, bone marrow and the gastrointestinal tract. This is nothing to do with eye colour, because there are no genes for eye colour. There are genes for proteins, and the same proteins do all sorts of different things. We are built of the same proteins as cats and dogs are.Edited by caffeine, : typos

Oh look, I found a bunch of modern trilobites for Faith:

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Augochlora Sweat Bee (Augochlora pura)

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Ant, Bee, and Wasp Anatomy

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1 Antennae: Ants and Bees both have a pair of antennae on the head that senses their surroundings.
2 Head: The head contains the insect's compound eyes, antennae, and mandibles.
3 Thorax: Contains various vital parts such as the aorta and nervous system.
4 Abdomen: Contains various organs including the heart, gut, venom glands, and anus.
5 Legs: Ants and Bees have three pairs of legs attached to the thorax (center-body section).

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Where 2, 3, and 4 are the unmistakable 3 lobes arranged as they are in all the trilobites and the primal characteristic of all trilobites ...Gosh this really overturns centuries of scientific thought.Enjoy

I have been thinking about trilobites since "The Lumper*" led us down this rabbit hole. Her argument has the purity of absolute ignorance. She has basically only made 2 valid statements about them. 1) Their general body plan has 3 characteristic lobes. 2) Something strange about the arrangement of legs or something. That's it. She has seen pictures of maybe 5 species or at most a dozen or two.A while back I gave a short review of Trilobite, Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey, 2001. I saw somewhere, but can't put my finger on it, that there are more than 20,000 species of described trilobites with more being added every year. The people who spend their lives studying them not only show us what the adults look like, but in many cases they show us the immature stages as well. Often many clues about their habitat is also fossilized.The Lumper's substance free posts about trilobites provides us with absolutely NO useful or interesting information and she has not made any effort to learn any factual information about these fossil organisms. I think all insects make a better surrogate for trilobites. They have been around for about 100 million years longer. They are far more diversified with almost 2 million described species which by some recent estimates is only 10-20 percent of the total number of species.Like you said, 3 major body parts, 2 antennae, mandibles (but there are other important mouth "appendages" also), 3 pairs of legs always with 1 pair on each thoracic segment, and 2 pairs of wings always with a pair on each of the rear 2 thoracic segments. (Some insects have only one pair of wings and some have none, most can develop wings if HOX signals to develop wings.)The thing that I find the most striking about the insects is the mind blowing array of modifications evolution has made to every single external feature of insects. Just the differences in mouthparts in the single clade Diptera (True flies) is astonishing. There is huge variety in the fore legs, mid legs, hind legs, fore wings, hind wings, eyes, head, thorax, and abdomen.Taxonomists have grouped insects into taxons or clades or orders mostly based on shared basic characters of the wings.Looking at insects as models of evolution focusing on the variety of mouthparts or legs or antennae or wings would probably make an interesting discussion thread. I also think it is interesting to look at examples of evolution solving similar problems in completely different ways in different insect species, but then there are also cases where different species hit on very similar solutions.If we think of the development of diversity as a measure of success then insects are the most successful class of animals on the planet. * Among taxonomists there are are sometimes 2 groups, the lumpers and the splitters. The splitters often describe individual species based on a very narrow variation of features, sometime single features and the lumpers tend to disregard narrow variation in features and lump various related populations as a single species. I am not aware of anyone lumping together a whole taxonomic class of organisms like trilobites. It is as stupid as lumping together ALL THE FUCKING INSECTS AS ONE SPECIES. Trying to engage in any discussion about this with Faith is futile because as she said multiple times in this thread, her mind is closed and she possesses absolutely no knowledge about trilobites or evolution. She will never give us any information, only insults. Edited by Tanypteryx, : spelling

Faith thinks that her 2 minute glance at photographs of half a dozen trilobites on the internet makes her educated enough to tell the world's experts that have been studying them all their lives that they're wrong. (Which she does on every subject from geology to micro-biology.)It's a necessary common trait amongst creationists; they have to believe that their opinion is as good as anyone else's otherwise they'd have to confront reality.

Being lied about is such an invigorating experience, no wonder I can't leave EvC alone.

That assessment should be left to the people who are lied about.

Maybe you would care to explain what lies are being told about you. All I see is people exposing the utter bankruptcy and dishonesty of your arguments.

I've always thought that you must enjoy the drubbing that you take here. It's really the only explanation.

She doesn't just say they are wrong, but arrogantly insults their intelligence and education, and her reasoning is so ridiculously flawed and stupid that a 3rd grader could see it. Classic Dunning-Kruger effect. Every time her arguments are just so fucking stupid.It really is hard to understand what she gets out of her participation here at EvC, maybe self appointed martyrdom.

“Self-appointed martyrdom.”Bingo!!