The Origin of Novelty

If you don't like that, let's split the difference. What could be more fair?I share 99% of my DNA with chimps, and you share 99% of your features with the chimps.Fair enough?

If intelligent design were true you could not make any predictions, as each species, and indeed each individual, would be subject to the whims of a capricious and somewhat inept designer.

Here's a good example of mutation reinforced by selective breeding, which results in new genes:Should You Keep a Russian Red Fox as a Pet?

The only place a real tame Siberian pet fox is from is the breeding farm in Novosibirsk, Russia. Why, you ask? The foxes were originally used for a study on domestication, the role of stress in evolution, and other discoveries by Prof. D. K. Belyaev, the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics of Animals, and the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Russia. During the past several decades of the study, the foxes were selectively bred by choosing the most tame foxes to breed. Over time colors changed, some ears started to flop, tails changed, and the foxes became like domesticated dogs. Studies have shown that these foxes now have different genes from wild foxes. The Russian study continues today and kits are available as pets. Money from the sales of the foxes is used to fund the study.

Got that? New genes?And new traits as well.This study alone blows creationists opposition to evolution out of the water quite handily. This is a clear case of speciation and all the quibbling over definitions and denials of the evidence won't change that.Sorry, game over.

Baraminology is nothing but religion trying to masquerade as science.Frair provides us with a series of taxonomic guidelines:

Guidelines

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In accomplishing the goal of separating parts of polybaramins, partitioning apobaramins, building monobaramins and characterizing holobaramins, a taxonomist needs guidelines for deciding what belongs to a particular monobaraminic branch. These standards will vary depending upon the groups being considered, but general guidelines which have been utilized include:

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1. Scripture claims (used in baraminology but not in discontinuity systematics). This has priority over all other considerations. For example humans are a separate holobaramin because they separately were created (Genesis 1 and 2). However, even as explained by Wise in his 1990 oral presentation, there is not much relevant taxonomic information in the Bible. Also, ReMine’s discontinuity systematics, because it is a neutral scientific enterprise, does not include the Bible as a source of taxonomic information. [Emphasis added]

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Source

Because kinds or baramins must follow scripture claims, they are not necessarily related to the evidence. They can be, and generally are, completely refuted by the evidence but folks who are blinded by belief have no choice but to accept whatever nonsense someone comes up with to try and explain away that contradictory evidence.I think this thread is a prime example.

OK, here are three examples for you, all pertaining to high altitude adaptations.

quote:

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Indigenous highlanders living in the Andean Altiplano in South America, in the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, and at the highest elevations of the Ethiopian Highlands in east Africa have evolved three distinctly different biological adaptations for surviving in the oxygen-thin air found at high altitude. ...

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The Andeans adapted to the thin air by developing an ability to carry more oxygen in each red blood cell. ...

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Tibetans compensate for low oxygen content much differently. They increase their oxygen intake by taking more breaths per minute than people who live at sea level. ...

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So what adaptation have the Ethiopian highlanders' bodies evolved to survive at high altitude? "Right now we have no clue how they do it..."

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Moar...

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National Geographic - 404

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So, not only have I supplied you with an example of a random beneficial mutation, but it is one that occurred three times, in three different ways, in three different parts of the world.Don't try and hand-wave this one away.

We have three different mutations for high-altitude adaptation. Scientists don't know how ONE of those mutations works? Big deal! Scientists are surprised by this finding? Big deal! That doesn't make them go away. (Sorry.)Whether these adaptations are from "different founding populations" or "the passage of time" is not relevant. In either of these cases they are the result of "random genetic mutations" and that is the only thing that is important!That scientists don't know a specific mechanism for one mutation does not negate the fact that there are three different mutations that provide high-altitude adaptations in three different groups of humans. That is the fact that you have to deal with. That scientists don't know each and every detail of ONE of these adaptations does not make all three go away, no matter how much you wish it would. But, unfortunately, that is the argument you have made above--and that kind of argument would result in a failing grade in any science class I've ever been in. (That really is the core of your argument!) There are three groups of people, each living in a high-altitude environment. There is no close relationship among those groups (living in East Africa, Asia, and South America), nor is it likely that they share a recent common ancestor. In any case, a recent common ancestor wouldn't make a bit of difference because each group has come up with a different way to live in a high altitude environment. That these adaptations are different shows randomness. That these groups survive, and indeed thrive, shows that they possess a "full working system." Your comments above are shown to be incorrect. It is very likely--I would say absolutely--that these same adaptations also occurred randomly among low-altitude groups, but in those locations there would have been no selection pressure in favor of those adaptations, and they might easily have been lost from those groups. Or they might still be there in a few individuals as part of the range of variation.In either event this makes no difference to the main point: I have shown an adaptation that is random and beneficial, and that adaptation happened not once but three times, and it happened differently in each case. These are the facts that you have to deal with.The fact that scientists don't know every detail of ONE of these is not relevant.The only way these groups could not be more complex than previously is if each group lost some function when they gained the high-altitude adaptation. Did they lose the ability to live in low altitudes? There is no evidence for that.Unless you can show that there was a loss to offset the obvious gains, you must conclude that each of these groups become more complex than it had been prior to the high-altitude adaptation. Also, taken cumulatively, the human race as a whole became more complex with these adaptations than before they occurred. Deal with Taq on the mice.You need to deal with me on the high-altitude adaptations.So far your attempts to deny, obfuscate, and double-talk away the evidence have failed.

I spent a lot of time on that post.Your response to it was garbage.If you're not going to be serious in your responses you deserve all the short snarks you get.And until you can address the issues, that's all you'll get from me in the future.And that's more than you deserve.

No, you were posting garbage in response to my long and very detailed post.Your garbage response deserves only a snarky reply, which I will provide below. Stuff it.

This is absolute nonsense.Skeletal populations allow us to trace racial traits far into the past.Once again you're just making things up.

Incorrect. A IDer could come up with any design, with no need to have even one individual resemble another, let alone any population or species with group similarities.This is not what the evidence shows.

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, Rhodesia man, 300,000 — 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern Look it up yourself. You wouldn't believe anything I would post about it anyway.

You need a link? A quote??? Just look at the name! If you see Homo they are classified in the human genus. Pretty simple when you get the hang of it, eh?And nobody assumes scientists know everything, quite the contrary. But there are scientists all over the world looking to make a name for themselves by proving other scientists wrong! This would be the quickest way for a graduate student to get ahead, and believe me they are looking for any opportunity.Although I now practice archaeology, half of my training in graduate school, to the Ph.D. level, was in the fields of human osteology and fossil man. I have been on the inside of this profession, an area about which you can only speculate wildly (and wrongly).Sorry, but all of your "what ifs" do not rise to the level of one piece of actual evidence.

In case you have never seen one, here is a gibbon skeleton: And here is Lucy: I await your expert analysis of all the similarities.

This first two images are the skull and jaw of a gibbon. Note the dentition, with prominent canines, as well as the prognathism. The final image is a comparison of chimpanzee, australopithecus (e.g., Lucy), and modern human.Your comment is wrong, as Lucy's jaw and teeth resemble modern humans far more than either gibbons or chimpanzees. The prominent canines are gone, and there is a reduction in both jaw size and prognathism. See the images below or google for other images.