What would a transitional fossil look like?

Of course you have trouble with facts that contradict your fantasies.Let me put them more simply.First, trilobites1) trilobites vary considerably.2) species in the wild do not vary to anything like the same extent.3) therefore trilobites are obviously not a single speciesSecond your “kind” criterion:1) you do not apply it to any other “kind”2) in recent discussion you were quite happy to accept minor differences as distinguishing “Kinds” e.g. cats having sharper claws than dogs - while rejecting bigger differences between trilobites.3) the double standard is so glaringly obvious that you can’t expect anyone to believe you.

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Second, I am here because I genuinely believe I can show, and have, shown, the falseness of the ToE in many ways, yes with evidence, and offered some reasonable creationist alternatives, and that, truly, nobody has answered me effectively.

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That is a long, long way from the truth.Your recent argument about trilobites, for instance, is simply based on taking the differences between trilobites as insignificant - no matter how big they are - and the differences between dogs and cats as being significant no matter how small they are. That is not a good argument - it’s just an expression of extreme bias.

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Just to assert that evolution occurs from microevolution times hundreds of repeats is no answer because I've argued that the species genome is naturally limited to the characteristics of the species and to get anything that doesn't belong to that species from that genome is impossible.

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And we know that you are wrong because antibiotic resistance can appear in clonal populations of bacteria.

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I've asked how you think that could happen and so far nobody has really come up with a way it could, some kind of genetic change that would even start the process, like getting a human hand from a chimp hand etc.

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So you’ve asked for huge amounts of detail from non-experts. And is a chimpanzee hand really that different from a human hand ? By the standards you use for trilobites isn’t it the same ?So let us be fair. You explain how we can get the massive amounts of variation we can see in trilobites - and if we can explain how to get from a chimpanzee hand to a human hand to the same level of detail you will accept that. Good enough ? Or will you demand more from us than you can give ?

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I'm not going to address your usual false statements...

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What false statements ?

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As I said, I "GENUINELY BELIEVE" what I said, and your flatly contradicting that does not deserve a response.

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But I did not just flatly contradict your statement, did I ? I pointed out serious problems in your arguments. I could point out more - like your dismissal of the order in the fossil record by flatly asserting that the Flood has to account for it - no matter that the idea makes no sense.But thanks for showing - yet again - how dismiss serious points against your arguments.

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I have mine, it's a historically valid definition. You all have the Rationalist anti-supernatural definition. There is no way we are going to agree and no way I'm giving in or you are giving in.

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But essentially your point is that you get to dictate what definitions are permitted. Obviously that is an unreasonable demand and you should give in.

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You are misusing the terms I use. Dogs are a species, cats are a species, chimps are a species, human beings are a species, trilobites are a species, etc etc etc.

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I note that you do not quote what RAZD actually said: And that seems to be true. We have seen no valid criteria for identifying species which allows us to say that trilobites are a species - and still keep cats, dogs, chimps and human beings as separate species.Edited by PaulK, : Correct qs tag

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I don't care what you've "seen," the definitions I gave are my definitions.

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You haven’t got a definition of species that supports your claims.

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As usual this "discussion" has become a farce. I will resist the impulse to leave this popstand and go on Inactive for a while nevertheless because the stupidities do keep temping me back.

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Then maybe you should use your intellect from something better than creating stupidities you want to post here.

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No I'm not dictating what definitions get to be used

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Sure you did. Eg: You were called superstitious, you denied it based on your choice of definition, and when an alternative definition was pointed out you tried to shut it down.But you don’t get to choose the definition someone else uses - even though you often try. That is even worse than making up your own definitions (or worse, pretending to have done so, as in the recent case of “species”).

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They are identifying mere varieties as species.

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Really ? What actual evidence do you have ?

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Body plan is what defines trilobites as a species all together.

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But it doesn’t define any other species, Why just trilobites ?

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They do complicated things with their spines but it's all of a sort that the genome itself would govern, not a new species.

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Aside from all the many differences you are ignoring, the variations in spines alone would indicate that trilobites had multiple species by normal standards. How do you know that the variations all come from a “single genome”, whatever you mean by that?

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As for chimps etc I already said why I consider their body builds to be too different from the human

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i.e. you don’t use the “same basic body plan” criterion in that case.

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And the question is still on the table how you get from the gemetic basis fpr chimp characteristics, i.e. the chimp genome that makes chimps and only chimps and nothing but chimps -- how you get from that to anything that isn't a chimp, by mutations or any other means. Mutations are only going to vary the gene they change, how is that going to get you from chimp to anything else?

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Mutations include the gain or loss of genes, and include changes to regulatory sequences. Regulatory sequences control when genes are switched on and off. Neoteny is an example, and one relevant to the evolution of humans.And let us note that nobody is suggesting that modern chimpanzees - either species - has evolved into anything else.

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Are you imagining transitional phases? Where might we find any of those?

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If you are talking about the hypothetical future evolution of chimpanzees then obviously any stages will be equally hypothetical.If you are talking about the past evolution of humans, there are quite a number of species at least related to that line, including the australopithecines and the other species assigned to genus homo.

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Normal alleles are enough to distinguish one genome from another.

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Really ? What is a “normal allele”? And are you talking about individual genomes or something more complicated?

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Mutations just muddy things up.

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If you mean that they mess up one of your favourite arguments you are exactly right.

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If they do anything viable at all they change an existing allele which affects a single gene that is part of the genome of the species, they don't do anything at all to introduce anything new to the genome that could ever begin the process of producing a completely new species.

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Why not ? And how can you tell ? And why isn’t a new allele something new ? What about a new gene ? Mutation can produce those, too.

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Think of how many things would have to be changed by your mutations even if they did change such basic things...

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If you mean “basic body plan” that doesn’t have to change at all to get a new species. Closely related species don’t vary an awful lot.

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...and don't forget to take into account that most of the changes are not going to be beneficial and many will be deleterious, and somebody here recently pointed out that mutations to HOX genes that govern basic structure tend to produce monsters.

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Neither of those are real problems at the level you are discussing. It’s only when you get into the details that they matter.

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The whole theory is just impossible.

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That’s your opinion. And your opinions are very often wrong. So it isn’t surprising that this one is, too.