"Best" evidence for evolution.

quote:

---

Weird it may be, but the case can be made. I think I made it somewhere here a while back.

---

No sensible case that takes that actual morphological variety of trilobites into account has been made. Even if we consider the variety that can be seen through simply looking at photographs of fossils without the detailed study of the anatomy that is required.The scientists who have done the work have classed trilobites as an Order. Reducing that to a species is a big step that requires serious work. You haven’t come close to even starting to make that case.

quote:

---

The anatomical differences are accidental. The basic morphology is identical

---

Which is entirely consistent with trilobites being correctly described as an Order. Ignoring major differences in anatomy by calling them accidental is not even an argument. You could make exactly the same argument for humans and monkeys being the same species.

quote:

---

The morphological similarities are of the sort that would be built into the genome, and the accidental features normal variations of the genetic material.

---

You’re just making things up. You have no evidence for this assertion at all.

quote:

---

The basic morphology of chimps and humans need entirely different genomes.

---

In fact the human and chimp genomes are very similar. We’ll never know but it’s very likely that trilobite genomes differed far more,

quote:

---

Sorry but your ability to judge the similarities and differences is ...lacking, to put it nicely.

---

Says the woman who argued that sharper claws were a major difference while the strange proboscis found on a few trilobite species,, the massive size differences, the many variations in trilobite eyes as well as the significant differences in proportions are all minorReally Faith you need to stop making up this nonsense. It is not productive discussion, it is not honest and it does you no good at all.

quote:

---

WHAT? I never said such a thing about "sharper claws."

---

Sure you did, back when you were arguing that the differences between cats and dogs were bigger than the different cues between trilobites

quote:

---

Size differences are built into the genome of EVERY creature, that is no problem whatever

---

But there are limits on the size differences within a species. Even with selective breeding. The proportionate differences within the trilobites are far bigger than your examples - and you have to pull in selective breeding and even a different genus to get those!

quote:

---

We get Clydesdales and we get ponies and we get Eohippus.

---

Clydesdales are the product if artificial selection and Eohippus is a genus in itself.

quote:

---

There are no differences in proportions,

---

Sure there are, and quite major differences. It appears you have no concept of the differences within the trilobites.

quote:

---

The spines can take many forms from the same genome, the eyes also, without violating the basic trilobite shape.

---

Which shows that the basic shape defines a far larger taxonomic group than a species.

quote:

---

The genome of any given creature has only the stuff that makes that creature and no others. Mutations may change some of the particular expressions of some of its particular code, but it cannot do anything beyond the parameters set by the genome.

---

Mutations change the genome. By definition. That’s how they can produce traits outside the parameters set by the [previous] genome. As seen with the pocket mice and the Scottish Fold cat.

quote:

---

Which you'd know if you weren't under the spell of the ToE and were free to think instead.

---

It is funny how your idea of thinking seems to equate to mindlessly agreeing with you.

quote:

---

And of course you don't bother to say how "evolution" is some kind of real alternative, which of course it isn't. Evolution can't happen. You have this strong faith that it can and does but that's all you have. It can't happen

---

We also have plenty of evidence that evolution is the explanation and that it can happen. All you have is faith in your own failed arguments.

quote:

---

If the genetic stuff isn't built into the genome of the "evolving" creature all you have is trial and error despite your "not by a long shot." How many millions of trials do you think it would take to get from the reptile type of ear to the mammal type of ear? It can't happen.

---

First, evolution has no specific targets. The changes that happen are those that happen. Second, millions if trials are available. Consider population sizes and timescales. Third culmulative selection is in play. Not only is it all but inevitable, the existence of intermediate forms is strong evidence of it.You say that it can’t happen, but offer no strong reasons to think so. The evidence strongly supports the idea that it did happen. Why should we prefer your opinions to the evidence?

quote:

---

Mutations usually change the sequence of a gene and only affect what that gene does. It they affect something structural like a HOX gene they rearrange the parts, they don't add anything new.

---

Mutations can also add genes - usually copies of existing genes, but not always. And let me remind you that what a gene does is encode the structure of a protein that may be used in many places and for many purposes.I will also add that the change from the mammalian to the reptilian ear is a change in the arrangement of parts - with changes to the shapes and sizes and uses of those parts.

quote:

---

If a mutation gives you a four chambred heart in a creature with three normal chambers it's going to be a useless addition, not a step to a new creature.

---

Or so you assume. I think that a little more argument is required. Although the ear would be better since we have more fossil evidence to identify the actual changes.

quote:

---

No, millions of trials are NOT available

---

Of course they are. Mutations are not rare, and the populations involved must add up to truly massive numbers.

quote:

---

That means millions of weird useless changes, including many lethal, and even if you get one that could lead to a useful new functioning organ you need millions more to add to it. YES I KNOW for pete's sake that evolution doesn't have an AIM, but the task here is to imagine how a mammalian part COULD HAVE evolved from a reptilian part.

---

Why would we need to imagine it when we have evidence showing how it happened?You can start with this Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles (Wikipedia) Really FaIth, you should do the research instead of relying on forcefully presenting your own uninformed opinions and expecting agreement. And to continue on that way when you have been answered is nothing more than bullying. Edited by PaulK, : Fixed url tag

quote:

---

Creationist ignorance is what says the fossil order is defined by increasing complexity?

---

It is certainly ignorance.

quote:

---

I'm sure I got MY "ignorance" from one of you people here. Where else would I get it?

---

Only if you’ve decided to believe the opposite of what we say, which would be foolish and certainly not our fault. I’m pretty sure you seized on it as an excuse to call the observed order of the fossil record an illusion.It is most likely you got it from popular but ignorant sources. But then you have invented sillier ideas and loudly insisted on them even though they are obvious nonsense. For instance your idea that lithification must happen at the surface which is entirely your invention and doesn’t make any sense at all.

quote:

---

What is needed is a GENETIC pathway. How do you get from the GENOME of say reptiles to the GENOME of say mammals?

---

RAZD has asked more than once for a problem getting from a common ancestor to chimpanzees and humans. Which is a better example since we at least have the genomes of chimpanzees and humans. Nobody has ever come up with one.There is plenty of genetic evidence of relationships.If you think there is a problem it is really up to you to make a case for it.

quote:

---

Population genetics actually proves that evolution comes to an end, by the way

---

No it does not, and you know it. That’s just one of your opinions - that has been disproved.

quote:

---

runs out of genetic diversity and can no longer produce genetic changes.

---

It can’t permanently run out of variations unless mutation stops. Extinction is the only likely way for evolution to end in that fashion.

quote:

---

I've argued this to death before, not really up to it now

---

Your arguments are certainly dead. The lack of any significant evidence or theoretical case is rather a serious problem. Did you really think you could get away with claiming to have proved your case when you don’t even have a real case ?

quote:

---

But the point is population genetics isn't going to work for you

---

Well that point isn’t true, is it? You don’t have a proof. You don’t even have much of an argument.

quote:

---

Anything I say about chimps and humans is too easily rationalized away by suppositions about the similarities between the body types without the slightest sense of what in the underlying genetic situation would need to change in ways that are not shared by both species. So I'm not going to fall into that trap

---

If you actually addressed the question and stuck with the differences between the genome that couldn’t happen.I suppose you are referring to your attempt to argue from anatomical differences - and got it wrong.So, ther is no trap. That is just another of your smears - invented because you can’t answer the question.

quote:

---

The reptile to mammal example is therefore more useful

---

Not when we are talking about the genomes for the obvious reason that we don’t have any genomes from the split or even remotely close to it. There has been a lot of change since the Triassic.

quote:

---

It is claimed that the mammals evolved from the reptiles and we have some specific organs such as the ear design that supposedly could be traced if someone wants to try.

---

Because we have anatomical intermediates showing the changes.

quote:

---

When I try it I immediately run into to such a plethora of unuseful mutations I'm immediately struck by how utterly impossible it would be to get from one to the other.

---

Mutations that you assume to be unuseful. You don’t really know, because you would actually have to study the creatures - and do a good deal of reconstruction that would require expert input to even come up with a decent idea of them, since we only have fossil remains.If all you have is uninformed opinion - and that is all you have - you can’t honestly expect us to agree with you when we have so much evidence that the change actually occurred.

quote:

---

They could not occur in the right sequence and the right combination and stay in place for hundreds of millions of years while the whole transformation of the whole creature gets put together mutation by mutation.

---

This is pure assertion. It didn't even take hundreds of millions of years. And it isn’t a planned transformation either - it’s just the changes that did happen.

quote:

---

I believe this is simply intuitively obvious. But you guys are the scientists, you should already have made the case for getting from one to the other genetically

---

Most of us aren’t scientists, the genomes for the creatures are not available. Even working out what a known genome does is very, very difficult and the real scientists have a long way to go there. So, in short what you are asking is completely unreasonable.So again, we have evidence that it happened. If you want to claim otherwise you need more than an uninformed opinion or demands that would be insanely unreasonable even if you were talking to real experts.

quote:

---

What's "documented" in the fossil record is lots of different kinds of animals that lived before the Flood, including different varieties of animals with different organ designs.

---

The evidence does not support your opinions here. And the fact is that we do have anatomical intermediates turning up at the right place in the fossil record. Why do such things even exist - let alone get sorted into the right strata - if your ideas are correct ?Your attempt at dismissing the evidence out of hand is just another evasion.

quote:

---

You are kidding yourself that there is any evidence of evolution there

---

And yet you won’t even consider it.

quote:

---

And not having a clue how you'd get from one to the other genetically pretty much seals the case.

---

Explain why we should be able to do it with current knowledge of the genome. When you won’t even consider a simpler case where we do have better evidence for the genomes? Surely your refusal to touch an argument which is at least conceivably possible tells far more than the fact that we cannot do something that is not currently possible.

quote:

---

Which is only because you assume evolution from one to the other

---

We do not assume it, we conclude it from the evidence.

quote:

---

Which means you don't have to try to explain how it happened genetically, you just "know" from the fossil record that it did.

---

The actual consideration is practicality. It simply is not possible to work it out. That is not sufficient reason to set aside the evidence. It simply means that it isn’t something that can usefully be considered at present.

quote:

---

Which I believe is the fallacy called Begging the Question.

---

No, it is a simple matter of pointing out that we can’t reconstruct the genetic changes whether we are right or wrong. Maybe there is something somewhere for some small feature, but I don’t know how to find it. Nor do I think you would accept it, if it could be found, even before considering the fact that it would necessarily be speculative and a clear example of historical science.

quote:

---

As a result, of course, you will never have to face the fact that genetically it is impossible.

---

That would be closer to begging the question since it is just an assumption.You can try to show that there is an impossibility. You can offer an alternative explanation that better accounts for the evidence. Either option is valid. Calling your opinions facts is not.

quote:

---

You say this as if it seems obvious to you that such a mechanism must exist, but as you describe all these processes I get the opposite impression: that why and how the same basic chemistry produces such different animals as you say it does remains a huge mystery. If the processes themselves determined the particular structure or phenotypic expression then these would not be different for different species and yet they are VERY different.

---

Well the processes don’t seem to be that different at the basic levels. The same gene sequence will translate to the same protein sequence in almost any living thing. There are some variations but they are small and rare. The important thing is time timing and location - when and where a gene is active.

quote:

---

If, say, a certain gene or gene complex or whatever in chimps makes a particular protein that contributes to the hand-like feet of the chimp, while the same or analogous gene with the same protein product makes the human foot, then it's not about the basic chemistry in DNA, it's about something else that you haven't yet defined.

---

Mostly that will be timing - when genes (and they will be pretty much the same genes) are active and when they aren’t. Not that the differences are that big. Indeed, I would suggest that you might as well talk about the differences between a human hand and a human foot.

quote:

---

I don't know what all the relevant comparisons and analogies are, but if the same basic chemistry makes a hoof in a horse but a flipper in a dolphin, how do you account for the difference?

---

Aside from the fact that the horse has a very large toenail and the dolphin has (as far as I know) none I doubt that there are huge differences at the level of the proteins present. The same elements are present, just arranged rather differently - although we can still identify the bones as being basically the same bones.

quote:

---

And all this makes it even more unlikely that you could ever get the evolution of say a mammal from a reptile by any known genetic processes, or normal genetic processes or whatever the terminology should be. The very fact that the same basic chemistry makes such very different structures makes evolution impossible.

---

The very fact that the same basic chemistry underlies them all makes an evolutionary explanation very much easier. Bigger differences would be harder to explain. And you are overstating the differences - both a horse’s leg - hoof included - and a dolphin’s flipper are variations of the same basic structure (indeed, this is true for all vertebrate limbs).

quote:

---

Exact same parts: no, the digits are shaped differently and the DNA is only going to make that shape digit it's designed to make: chimp genome, chimp digits.

---

Are you really claiming that when you meant that the parts were the same shape when you wrote (in Message 333): Even in dogs, flat-faced breeds like pugs or bulldogs have a different shape of skull from an alsatian or a collie. With trilobites, it’s even more extreme.

quote:

---

No I didn't have the differences exactly in mind, just a general idea about them. I think it may come down to a matter of proportions mostly although even that can vary somewhat within a species genome, as the heavy jaws of the Mrcaru lizards demonstrates.

---

The variation in muzzle length in dogs seems more appropriate here, since it is a larger difference and you insist on comparing the products of artificial selection with wild species. Or, if you just use the lizards, what about the caecal valve ?

quote:

---

But the trilobite spines all look EXACTLY alike despite being arranged in different positions. Some are missing in some varieties but otherwise they seem to be the same organ in every example I've seen.

---

There are a lot more and bigger variations than the spines - so this looks like deliberate obfuscation. And of course there are differences in shape. You might as well say that a toe bone is a toe bone, but that would sink your argument.

quote:

---

The pug and bulldog faces seem to fit with their general body proportions -- the long face of the greyhound goes with its long body. Also the Dachshund. etc.All that seems to me to be derivable from the same genome

---

No. They don’t. Not even close.

quote:

---

But the chimp body despite its basic structure reminding us of human beings, is proportionally completely different, as well as having completely different specific parts like the shapes of its fingers and toes, also soles and palms, position of "thumb" etc.

---

But those are mostly differences in proportion. Longer toes are not completely different - they are still toes. With the same arrangement of bones.

quote:

---

it does seem to me that you couldn't get the human body AND the chimp body from the same genome, although you COULD get all the trilobites from the same genome and all the dogs, pugs and collies and all from their same genome.

---

I guess that if the only differences you are prepared to see are the spines, you might manage to convince yourself of that. But if you have to blind yourself that much you aren’t even trying to get it right.

quote:

---

So to get a human from an ape body would require mutations galore and that's what I call "trial and error" and believe to be impossible because of the huge number of changes that would have to occur

---

I disagree, because most of the differences are in shape and proportion.