"Best" evidence for evolution.

But the bones in the case of the chimp vs. human are much more similar to each other than the flesh is, that's why I brought up the flesh differences which seem enormous to me. Hard to get it said.

Yes, if it's a goat variety it would be a goat to me, not a separate species, the way the trilobites are all trilobites. Although listing separate parts might be necessary, my focus is more on the general appearance as what makes separate species or not. Yes I know there are exceptions, including in trilobites, so this definition isn't perfect yet. But the goat just LOOKS like a goat and not like a horse. Proportions? Muscle distribution? I don't know how to pin it down but those two factors seem relevant. Certainly relevant in the case of chimp vs. human.

I'm afraid I'm sorry I asked. Too much information and most of the pictures are hard for me to make out. And I'm not even sure what the point of it all is supposed to be any more. I'm sorry RAZD, you do tend to overwhelm with your posts.

I'm going to get lambasted as usual of course, but those are not very convincing pictures of "intermediate" or hominid feet. When I see a bunch of bones laid out like that as if they all belong to the same skeleton though there is nothing to prove that they do, I take it as the usual evo wishfulness.You want to believe there is such a thing as a hominid, you want to believe there is such a thing as feet or any other body parts showing transitional forms between apes and humans, so you get a bunch of bones laid out that seem to show that. Perhaps you actually believe it, I won't say you don't, but I certainly don't believe it.I thought maybe there's a genuine human foot somewhere that shows a somewhat splayed-out big toe that could suggest something transitional, but all I see is the usual definitely ape type of big toe that's completely designed for grasping. A bit smaller a bit tighter but otherwise nothing intermediate at all.I admit that since my eyes are getting worse all the time maybe I missed something in that array of pictures, so if I did please select and repost the specific photo I missed. Thanks.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I can't see that picture at all, RAZD, barely make out parts of some of the words. I don't think I can do anything to improve it for my visual problems. Can you?

I said I think chimps are less similar to humans than goats are to horses so there's my disagreement. I also have to note that the picture you posted of the foot doesn't show what I was referring to about the big differences in the flesh of chimp versus human. But this is going nowhere.

And this takes me back to my original point which is that this sort of change is impossible by trial and error of random mutations, let alone their having to be coordinated with similar staged changes all over the body. What you are calling intermediates in the sense of their having supposedly evolved to that position, are really just built-in genetic variations of the creature, whether ape or human being.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm sorry, but trial and error of mutatiobns is obviouslyu the only possible way evolution could ever occur and it's impossible and that's the end of that.

I'm not going to spend any time on this right now. Just one thing: selection of normal variation just gets you normal variation within a species, if artificially selected it gets you new breeds; it's what I'm always talking about as what eventually leads to the point where further evolution is impossible as it leads to fixed loci.Evolution that could get from species to species HAS to be based on mutations, therefore, and that means bazillions of trials, because the variability is NOT built in, it's all random, the changes have to be created from scratch as it were. And as I've thought it through the errrors involved and the numbers of trials required are impossible; evolution is simply impossible.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Actually conducted? Make it per generation rather than ten years. And of course I don't know but what I think would have to occur to get any kind of evolutionary change is thousands per gene at least, and getting a beneficial change just in one gene wouldn't accomplish much anyway, you still have to have beneficial mutations in all the other genes. And even defining a change as beneficial is very iffy until you have the whole genome changed in a new beneficial direction.Here's an interesting article I found that tries to compute how many mutations occurred in the human population over some time period or other but I haven't been able to read the whole thing. To me it's basically open and shut that such trial and error which is the only possible thing that COULD bring about evolution from one species to another, is impossible. The usual idea that normal variation with natural selection is sufficient is utterly ridiculously impossible. All you can ever get is the same species, and eventually you do run out of genetic diversity which makes further evolution absolutely impossible.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thank you for your argument based only on bias against the researcher.

How many trials is hard to estimate because the whole shebang is random. Just to get one beneficial mutation at any given locus could involve hundreds of trials as it were, and meanwhile the same hit-or-miss process would be going on all over the genome, hundreds per locus perhaps. And the changes have to be coordinated with each other to produce a coherent phenotype. Above all, to get an actually new species you have to have changes in the structural parts of the genome, otherwise all you'll get is variations on the species itself rather than any kind of changes that could lead to something completely different.I guess I could try to describe all the misses I expect would have to happen, the mutations that would have to be weeded out by selection because they are deleterious in some way. Some mutations would have to be like those that put the fruit fly parts in the wrong positions.Think it through yourself. The whole thing is simply impossible. We keep getting these flat statements about how evolution is just the continuation of normal microevolution. It can't be. You run out of genetic variability at the point you get a "pure" breed or subspecies. There is no way to get from there to something the genome does not have instructions for. That would require all this trial and error because it isn't built in, and that is simply impossible.

OK, to you it's all about microevolution and I can't get across what I'm talking about. Way it goes.

Interesting, Nosy, an enormous number of mutations in the human population, no doubt similar in other species.And not a single hint of any partcularly special new phenotype that could build to a new species. Bazillions of failed trials in other words.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm very aware that mutations must be heritable to contribute to new phenotypes.changes to whole members like a foot couldn't possibly be sudden. The trial and error that must happen is going to make tiny changes over huge swaths of time, and my point is that these tiny changes can't contribute anything beneficial to the creature that could lead to a new kind of body part that would be useful. A human foot is not going to benefit a chimp.The WEASEL program and others like it assume open-ended genetic variability so that changes can just go on and on and on and on, but they can't. The example I give all the time is how we get purebred domestic animals because the genetics has to be the same in the wild too although random. As you isolate animals for their chosen characteristics you eliminate alleles for other characteristics until you finally have fixed loci for whatever pure breed you've chosen. This is the old fashioned method of breeding which is now considered to be bad for the animals' health but the genetics is the point here.In the wild you get the isolation of some limited number of members of a population which means you have new gene frequencies,including many fewer of some alleles if the population is small. The more such population splits occur the more genetic variability is reduced in the new populations until finally you can get a situation similar to a pure breed from domestic selection. Selection is what brings about the reduction in genetic diversity because it forms smaller populations that develop new phenotypes by breeding their new gene frequencies among themselves.This is how we get all the variety within species in the wild or in breeding: isolation of a smaller number of individuals.You will never get anything BUT variation on the species by this normal means.To get evolution beyond a species would mean getting something breand new from a genome, which reallyh is impossible but I play with the idea since it's the only way it COULD happen although it can't. So you have to get mutations upon mutations to make any changes at all, most mutations making no changes, some making deleterious changes and maybe a very very few causing a change that survives. It's all hypothetical and in reality it can't happen. The best you ever get is maybe an interesting anomaly like the cats' curled ears, but you'll never get changes that could make a new species. As I imagine it and keep seaying you can get changes all over the genome, and yes I'm talking about heritable changes, but they aren't going to do the creature any good, many of them could be like the changes that put the fruit fly body parts in the wrong positions. I don't know how to describe this any better.