TOE and the Reasons for Doubt

Is it?
Reptiles are cold-blooded and heavy/solid, whereas birds are warm-blooded and very light. Flight depends on several factors being present at one time and Archaeopteryx already had fully developed wings with featheres (no scales), and had special feet equipped for perching. Its bone structure has also been seen to be similar to modern birds. So to tag it as a reptile doesnt seem reasonable. Really? no one ever claimed Darwin's finches as evidence of speciation?except for a brochure published in 1999 by the National Academy of Sciences
A particularly compelling example of speciation [the evolution of new species] involves the 13 species of finches studied by Darwin on the Galpagos Islands, now known as Darwin’s finches.the article specifically calls darwins finches an example of speciation. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

No, it's not called Genetics. Genetics is a field. I'm looking for the name of the phenomena you describe where animal DNA degenerates or "narrows" down over time.

good point mikethat is probably why many evolutionists will qualify their statements about the 'd' with a confirmation of their firm belief in evolutionthey might be in fear of falling out with the fraternity...or worse...being branded a creationist! lolDavid Attenborough likes to talk about how clever evolution is.

I see this claim, or similar ones, from Creationists all the time; the idea that you could just line up modern species and form "transitionals" so it doesn't mean anything. It's just not true.There is no living creature that resembles a transitional like Archaeopteryx, no living creature that forms a transitional like Tiktaalik, no Eohippus, no Australopithecus, the list goes on and on. You can't just say things are transitionals by looking at living creatures, the necessary creatures just aren't there. And even if you could, you'd still be missing any concept of order. The transitionals identified in the fossil record are not found arbitrarily, they're found in order according to multiple, independent dating techniques. In some cases (e.g. Tiktaalik) they were found were they were predicted to be by people looking there specifically because that's where they might find that particular transitional form.

i said i was 'doing a darwin'you know, providing a theory without evidence lolTell me this, Can you have children with your any of your close family relations, and not expect defects of one sore or another?

oh dear, you guys really don't know why what you're doing just makes us all roll our eyes and sigh on the stupidity of it all, do you?Even when it gets pointed out to you that the quote deliberately and incorrectly makes it appear as if (insert name of famous person here) holds a different viewpoint than they do, you cling to that quote like a limpet to rock.The quote, as displayed, is a lie.It is at least a lie of omission - the missing context, the actual viewpoint of said person, the greater relevance of the quotation, new facts brought to light afterwards...I didn't think you'd stoop to saying it was okay to lie.shame on you.

Darwin had proof. Lots of it. Decades of research. You have obviously read none of it or you would understand the magnitude of his work.I understand I cannot ask you to actual give a rebuttal to a lifetime of work by a real scientist, but at least you should have the decency not to pretend it doesn't exist. You can say you don't like it (and we'd like to know why) but you can't say it doesn't exist. I acknowledge the bible exists, but I don't regard it as authoritative (and when quizzed on specifics, I can tell you why).you are also ignoring my request for clarification of the evidence regarding "narrowing of genes", and infact saying it is perfectly ok to bring up nonsense ideas and that you don't have to prove anything.I shall take that as you do NOT have any proof, and I may safely ignore it as irrelevant speculation, and cease wasting my time on it.Of course you may bring it up, but I needn't dignify it with a reply.

i wouldnt put australopithecus as a transitional link either. It has a skull that differs from humans with a much smaller brain capacity
Some say that its skull is simiannot human. They are more like liviing living monkeys and apes then us.and that goes for Lucy too. Robert Jastrow in the 1981 book The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Unverse, says: This brain was not large in absolute size; it was a third the size of a human brain. even New Scientist said that Lucys skull was very similar to a chimpanzees.

With some justification you could say that, for instance, penguins seem to be a transitional form between flying birds and a future species of animal that lives mainly underwater. Modern penguins are classified as birds, they lay eggs, have beaks, and appendages that look like wings. However, they fly like a brick. Their wings are useless as such. On the other hand, their wings are well on their way to becoming perfect for swimming and they consequently spend a lot of time underwater. In fact, penguins are skillful underwater "fliers".This is not to say that penguins are necessarily evolving towards some underwater species. It's not unthinkable that circumstances could change in such a way that penguin descendants will stop going underwater, (re)develop bigger wings and take flight once more.The point is that you don't have to concentrate solely on the fossil record to find species that are "obviously" transitional. In fact, all species, at any one time, are transitional, as I have argued in this forum a time long ago. It's just that some examples are obvious, and most are not. Penguins come close as an answer to the creationist question what good half a wing is. The answer, in this instance, would be: "It depends what they use it for."

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

i put that initial quote there in my msg 13the quote of sagan reveals that he sees design even though he doesnt believe in a designer...perhaps i should have made it clear in msg 13 about the intent of using his quote so for that i apologise.

He used that sentence, Peg, because we are living in a world populated by people like you who think everything was designed, and think that "apparent design" means "design".Sadly, he expected people like you to comprehend the entirety of what he was saying without cutting and pasting and lying for jesus.He was saying it could be but. You read that, apparently deliberately, as it is.Are you lying for jesus, or do you not understand plain English?

I'm not talking about transitionals to hypothetical future species; I'm talking about transitionals between existing species.

That's the point of a transitional, Peg. It can't be that you really don't understand all this, can it?

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. He says "could be" - which is logically correct. He doesn't say it IS design, and doesn't say that any "who" designed it.What you did (maybe unintentionally) was take a quote that made it appear (poorly) as if he believed in intelligent design when he does not.His intent is to say something like "it looks like design but it isn't"* You may disagree with his conclusion
* You may hold the opinion (and defend it) that he is lying about his beliefs
* you may present a different conclusion from the same evidence (after all, that's what science is)but you may not misrepresent what he said.Edited by greyseal, : clarification and addition.

And thus, whatever argument we put forward against this, it will never live up to your expectations. If we propose a transitional that is too much like a human, then you will simply state it's a human, and if we propose one too far removed it's just a monkey. You will never be satisfied.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.