Feathers and the Appendix

Wouldn't feathers have gone the way of man's appendix before they every became useful on the heavy boned creatures? Lung/gill transitions would seem to be a pretty bold undertaking for the creatures that made use of them the first time. And those poor starving animals who lost their teeth before their beaks took off. Looking at transition through the eyes of a historical timeline, it makes some sense if we never find the fossils of both species side by side (past and present state of each). But let's take it to a Simon and Peebody style of viewing evolution. Could you imagine as many species as there are today surviving such transitions with the handicaps of the transitions themselves? Not to mention trying to get a mate to continue the transformation over time. Unless all of one species changed in the same way, all at once, the "higher evolved" would have the same chance of spreading seed as a man born with flippers hooking up with Angelina Jolie. "Really, Baby, everyone will have these soon! You don't know what you're missing."

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

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Wouldn't feathers have gone the way of man's appendix before they every became useful on the heavy boned creatures?

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No. Feathers are useful as insulation.-

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Lung/gill transitions would seem to be a pretty bold undertaking for the creatures that made use of them the first time.

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One word: lungfish. Lungfish have both lungs and gills at the same time.-

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And those poor starving animals who lost their teeth before their beaks took off.

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Don't know much about bird evolution, so I'll let someone else handle this. I think, though, that bills and teeth can exist at the same time.-

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Could you imagine as many species as there are today surviving such transitions with the handicaps of the transitions themselves?

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That "transitions" would never have been a handicap. In fact, quite the opposite. Each individual step in the "transition" would become fixed in the population because individual organisms with that feature would be better able to survive and pass this feature to its offspring.-

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Unless all of one species changed in the same way, all at once, the "higher evolved" would have the same chance of spreading seed as a man born with flippers hooking up with Angelina Jolie.

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One word: incremental steps. Okay, that's two words. But still, these features don't come about all at once. Besides, look how different different breeds of dogs are, and yet they'll all mate with each other at the drop of a hat. So even large physical differences doesn't necessarily preclude interbreeding, and the actual differences between individuals in the same generation are apt to be even smaller than that.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

I'll submit on the first few. On the dog item, I have a few words. Domestic dogs don't need each other's strengths to survive. Wild animals Always take physical traits in mind when choosing a mate. They have to be healthy, have the appropriate combat tools to fight for mates in many cases, while domestic dogs have the leisure of mating someone's calf without risking extinction. Symmetry has even been discovered to be a uniform signature of beauty in all species. The only wild animal that sees an abnormality as an attribute is (I can't remember the name) a South American bird who showed a preference for males of its own species that has artificial crests attatched to their heads. I guess I just don't buy the "All from one" theory and don't understand why it is insisted on anyway. If we know something had to be there in the first place, why not many things. The only undisbutable evidence of evolution is living finches on the Galapagos that had made minute changes in the shape of their beaks (ie. one kept injuring large birds to drink their blood and a few developed a more narrow beak). Though these may have always been around cooexisting without our knowledge just as fossils we haven't found.
Here's where my habit for straying kicks in. What if the bones are missing in layers are due to them being consumed? Thanks to hyenas, if the written word was lost and the chacma baboon became extinct there would be many missing links on the savannah. "We found the remains of chacma baboon in one layer of rock, it never showed up again. In its place, we found vervet monkey which survives still." Text books would say that the baboon evolved to a vervet to be more capable of escaping to trees. When in fact, the baboon just became extinct and the vervet's bones were never found in the right layer of rock because nothing was wasted of the corpse once killed. Guess waht I'm saying is that even if the text books were flawless, I'd still consider the theory less important to drill into kids' heads than practically any elective course. I don't feel at a loss by not knowing my 3rd cousin and am even less handicapped by not knowing who the deer in my yard are related to. And with that, I'll stop cluttering the boards. We all have different interests and opinions and I doubt minds will change in a forum very often. But I do appreciate everyone's ability to debate without the expected attacks. You guys ain't too bad for hethons. hehehe Later

I'm afraid that I don't understand your response, evolutionimpaired.You made some specific points in your OP, and I think that I answered to them. I don't see how this last post is related to your original points.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

I was just saying that I disagreed that animals (in your example: dogs) will breed with their own species regardless of appearence. I was saying that domestic animals differ because they do not need the uniform traits of their species to survive. They get fed and protected by a completely different species (us) and thus do not need to be selective based on the favored traits of their species. I gotta go to a birthday party. I might be back sometime, not sure. It's impossible to, within topic, dispute evolution science when it seems a requirement to use evolution science as the only tool. That pretty much leaves me unarmed for debate. I see both creation and evolution as a theory of choice , even a faith based science, as neither has been proven completely and are only accepted as fact by majority acceptence. Anyway, gotta go

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I was just saying that I disagreed that animals (in your example: dogs) will breed with their own species regardless of appearence.

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In your OP you seemed to be of the opinion that if an individual is too different than the other members of its species then it would have a hard time finding a mate. That may or may not be true, depending on the species, but it is irrelevant; the variations that come about in the theory of evolution are small variations -- if an individual acquires a new feature or characteristic, that new feature or characteristic will only cause a slight difference from the other members of its species.-

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It's impossible to, within topic, dispute evolution science when it seems a requirement to use evolution science as the only tool.

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I'm not sure what you mean here. Here is the way any theory is confirmed or falsified in any science; in fact, this procedure is the defining characteristic of science.You have a theory that explains your data. You make a prediction, you state what you should observe if your theory is true, and then you check to see whether you actually observe it. If you observe it, you say that the observation confirms the theory. If you do not observe what you are supposed to, then you have a problem: either you must explain what problems prevented the observation from being made, you must modify the theory to take into account that this observation is not made, or you discard the theory. This is the way all scientific theories in all fields are tested.Take the theory of common descent -- that many species share a common ancestor and that perhaps all species have a single common ancestor. What can we predict from this? Well, species that have a very recent ancestor will not have evolved very much since then, and should be very much alike. Going further back in the family tree, more distant ancestors might have more descendents, and these should be a little more different; and species that only share a very distant ancestor should be very different. In other words, one should be able to produce a classification scheme in which the species fit into a nested hierarchical pattern -- and this is exactly what we see. In fact, Linnaeus first started this classification long before Darwin came along. This is very important -- no other known idea about the history of life would predict a nested hierarchical classification scheme. Certainly one could not have predicted this pattern from the idea of a single creator -- a single creator could have created any pattern she chose, and, in fact, I would have expected a single creator to have mixed and match features in such a way to make a single nested hierarchy impossible.Here is another example of a prediction. It is known that whales are mammals. The vast majority of mammals are four-legged land animals -- whales are an odd bunch compared to mammals. So, according to the theory of common descent, whales evolved from land mammals, slowly, gradually, over time. Therefore we can make a prediction: there used to exist a continuum of creatures that had characteristics in between those of modern whales and ancient land mammals. There is no reason to assume that such animals ever existed -- certainly there is no reason that the original creator would have decided to create such creatures. But according to the theory of evolution these creatures must have existed. There is no way to avoid this conclusion if evolution were true. So did these creatures ever exist? Well, in general it is a hard question to answer -- except that in this case we do know that such creatures did in fact exist. There is no reason to suspect that half-whale/half-land mammals should have been created, yet here they are.Finally, let us take one more example. Birds as a group and mammals as a group are very different. So different that, if evolution were true, their common ancestors only lived long, long ago and was neither very mammal-like or bird-like. Bats are definately mammals. They are the only mammals that fly, so we assume that bats evolved from a four-legged mammal ancestor. Bats and birds did not share a common flying ancestor. So, if common descent were true we would expect that we should never, ever find fossils that are in between bats and birds. So far we have never found fossils of such creatures. Surely a creator who would have created animals in between whales and land mammals could have also created creatures that are in between bats and birds, but she didn't. Now evolution says that such fossils should not exist; if fossils like this are ever found that will be a problem for the theory of evolution and a potential falsification.Edited to add:
Oops. I hit "submit" instead of "preview".Now I fear that this exchange may be going off-topic. We do try to keep threads focused on a single topic, at least until that topic has been played out. It appears, from the OP, that your concern is over "transitional species" -- that is, you seem convinced that "half-formed" species could not exist. Is that your problem? We should deal with that before we move on to these other ideas.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 24-Oct-2005 07:49 PM

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

You have missed the most important evidence of all. And that is the evidence from reproductive biology. This shows that there are biological processes that produce change, and pass some of that change down the tree of inheritance.

I don't mean to sound like I totally dicount all evolution. From the physical description of God in Revelations, we look nothing alike and were made in his/her image. I could even see us sharing ancestors with apes. We are closer related to apes than tigers are to lions (though ligers and tigons cannot form a population.The parts I have problems with are the developement of usable new organs and other materials not found in the original creature (lungs or means of breathing under water, extra digestive parts that are accidentally formed and happen to work and are properly connected). It's a one in a billion chance of it happening once and in that one time, it had to pass on that trait to offspring even though only one of the pair possesed that trait. This then had to continue until a lastable population was achieved without the the trait being dilluted to square one. And I'd be suprised if this could happen once in the life of a solar system, let alone forming this same chain over and over successfully.Under controlled conditions and even by purposely injuring wolves in a certain way were we able to make a bulldog from a wolf. A short wolf with a pudgy appearance after 2000 years. Each time, the same treatment had to be done to both male and female to keep the trait alive. For evolution to do something as small as making a bulldog would require at least 100 animals displaying this trait for the first time in their lineage all in one lifetime for the trait to begin evolving to someting more distinguishing.I believe in evolution of species as I sited one bird that has evolved in a 25 year period. I just don't believe the big steps could be achieved so many times by a random chain of events. And I don't see why it has to come down to there had to be only one type of species in the beginning for evolutionary science to be justified. Even with the big bang theory (of which I'm not a big fan), life was a mess of random bits of the building blocks of life.Isn't it likely that the forms that were born of this event were different? My motivation for this line of thinking (evolution with more animals in the beginning) is so evolution, until proven fact cannot be taught as fact, leaving the only disagreement between creationist and evoltionists is the existence of God, which never has to be brought up. Not all Christians are crazy and closed minded and would be more accepting of a science that seems less in their minds as just a means of destroying their belief through speculation.Evolution should be an option in schools and God should be taught in churches. As a gift, I'll give you something you can use as evolution evidence from the Bible (though it wasn't random) that gives the link between snakes, lizards and birds. You may already know this but the snake that was possesed by the devil used to have feathers and lost them as well as its legs, leaving the vestigial legs on boas and anacondas as remains. Strange that those 3 animals are related by science as well. That actually works to sway the most stubborn Christian to believe in a small part of what you believe. Yikes Late for work! added random paragraph breaks to make this easier to read - The QueenThis message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 10-25-2005 10:40 AM

Do a google on "weiner dog humps lion"Dogs will go at it with anything that will hold still

No physical changes after birth don't get passed down to the offspring. If you chop off one of my hands I won't father one handed children.

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If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

Don't use "evolution science", just use science. That's all we're using. Science cannot, by definition, be faith-based. Science is based on empiricism, which is the opposite of faith.

You are walking down a path of misunderstanding.Evolution does not suggest that there is a lizard walking around who gives birth to a lizard that has fully formed feathers. It doesn't suggest that the fully feathered lizard gives birth to one with wings. Fish don't spontaneously develop lungs, etc.A fish with a swim bladder produces offspring that can suck air into said bladder. Can they breathe? No. Can that air bladder bubble oxygen into water around the gills? Maybe. Does that make this fish better able to survive? Maybe? Is this what happened? Doubt it. I'm no marine biologist, I'm just suggesting one of probably hundreds of different ways this could have evolved incrementally.

I have a suggestion for you, evolutionimpaired. Use paragraphs. They are wonderful things invented to make it easier to read text. When you get to a point where there is a natural break, or a change in emphasis, just hit the ENTER key twice. Hmm, this is a science forum. In the science forums, you are not supposed to use biblical references as evidence. Stick to the facts, please. I'm glad you see that. Where does the theory of evolution suggest "extra digestive parts that are accidentally formed and happen to work"? It is more likely that an existing digestive part develops a new functionality, and then (after further evolution), the digestive part divides into two components with the new functionality in one of them.The idea that new parts just pop up, and just happen to connect together, and just happen to all function together, isn't anything that evolutionists expect. This sounds too much like the discredited "hopeful monster" idea. The bulldog arose through artificial selection. Yes, it requires continued selection on the same characteristics. With natural selection, the environmental circumstances that cause the selection are likely to persist for a long period of time, so this continued selection on the same characteristics is to be expected when this is part of nature. I'm not sure where you get that idea. One pair with the right genetic makeup could be the start of a multi-generational family all sharing similar characteristics.I would say that you are partly on the right track. But your ideas are a little confused as to how evolution is supposed to work. Maybe with some further reading to try to better understand the theory, you might find that it doesn't suggest anything unreasonable. There is a lot that is unknown about the early history of the cosmos. And, technically, the theory of evolution doesn't say anything about big bang theory. You might want to look at Big Bang and Cosmology for discussions on big bang cosmology. There isn't much known about the origins of life (the problem of abiogenesis), and that too isn't really part of the theory of evolution. You might be interested in the discussions in Origin of Life.I don't know if you are aware of this, but many supporters of the theory of evolution are Christians. They usually consider themselves theistic evolutionists. They believe that God created the various creatures, and evolution is the means that God used in his creation.By the way, welcome to EvC. I hope you find it an interesting place. And maybe we can help you learn to better understand evolution.Did you see how I made that into several paragraphs. Most people find it easier to read that way.Hope to be seeing you around.

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The parts I have problems with are the developement of usable new organs and other materials not found in the original creature (lungs or means of breathing under water, extra digestive parts that are accidentally formed and happen to work and are properly connected). It's a one in a billion chance of it happening once and in that one time, it had to pass on that trait to offspring even though only one of the pair possesed that trait.

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I will repeat: small variations per generation. One individual is born that is slightly different from its parents. No organ arises all at once, and since the the difference between that individual and the other members of its species is tiny there is no problem with breeding (and passing this trait on to the next generation).

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt