Patterns and Tautologies (The Circular Logic of Homologies)

In RAZD's forum about dogs and horses, AlphaOmegakid has taken it upon himself to challenge the theory of evolution on the basis of logic. He has presented the following claims: I would like him to defend these claims, but to do so on RAZD's thread would probably drive RAZD to the psycho ward, so I propose this thread to discuss AOkid's claims about tautologies in evolutionary thought.I suspect that, when he makes these claims, he is referring to evolutionists’ tendency to find some phenomenon (such as a trait or fossil) in the natural world, interpret it in terms of evolutionary theory, then hold it up as evidence of evolution. Taken as I have laid it out in the preceding sentence, it does indeed appear to be circular logic.To this, I respond that any study written today about a homology or vestige is resting on a long history of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of similar studies that have already established the pattern that we are using to interpret our new data, and more additions to the pattern are being unearthed every year. Furthermore, when we uncover new data, we sometimes find how our pattern needs to be adjusted, and we adjust it accordingly.As an example of such a pattern, I present a few examples of transitional fossils that have been highlighted just this summer here at EvC, all of which are very similar in nature to the equid fossil series AOkid is arguing against on RAZD’s thread. There is a definite and distinct pattern of transitional fossils and even extensive transitional series in the fossil record: any competent biologist or cognizant evolution buff could list off several more well-known series of fossils that line up nicely in a transitional series.FOCAL POINT:In order for AOkid (or any other creationist) to prove that evolutionary thought is tautological, he must show that a pattern like the one I presented above does not exist. Or, if the pattern does exist, then he must show either (a) how the pattern supports an alternative interpretation better than, or at least as well as, it supports the theory of evolution, or (b) how the pattern is coincidental and meaningless.Edited by Bluejay, : Added to Title.Edited by Bluejay, : Changed Title againEdited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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Darwin loves you.

In the absence of creationist comment, I'll put in a little addition of my own.In my opening post, I chose to focus on the pattern of transitional series, of which there are many in the fossil record. To go along with this, I would like to present an overall picture of the fossil record, as presented by Alfred Russel Wallace:

quote:

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...new species come into existence coincident in both time and space with a pre-existing, closely allied species...

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This quote is actually taken from Hull, DL (2005). Deconstructing Darwin. Journal of the History of Biology 38:137-152.Basically, all armadillos, hummingbirds and tarantulas are found in the Americas, all kangaroos are found in Australia, etc. Of course, none of this really deters from the baraminology ideas of creationism. However, when the fossil record is taken as a whole, the pattern continues unabated right across any boundary that can be constructed around a “kind” of any magnitude. Tetrapods don't appear in the fossil record until after Tiktaalik; dinosaurs don't appear until after Euparkeria; mammals don't appear until after therapsids; birds don’t appear until after Archaeopteryx; etc. (insect evolution is even more interesting, and shows such patterns perhaps even better). It’s very hard to support anything but transmutation of “kinds” when the entire geological column shows the same trend: new “kinds” do appear rather often, but they don’t appear until after something else, which is suspiciously similar to them, but allied to a different, pre-existing "kind."But, do scientists then just assume that there’s a pattern there and stop working on it? No, not really: we go out on expeditions to find more evidence to solidify or modify the pattern, and, next year, we go and do it again, each time building on what we did last year or five years ago or whatever. Eventually, we get to the point where the pattern is so pervasive in all of our studies, that we no longer wonder whether it’s correct, but switch over to wondering how it is manifested in other, as-yet unstudied facets of our science. But, even as we do that, we are still testing, confirming, modifying and building upon the pattern as we already understand it.That’s how simple observations build into a solid theoretical framework like evolution, and how the framework gives us reason to accept the implications of the framework, such as the observed natural history.Edited by Bluejay, : I liked "suspiciously" better than "unusually"

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, onifre. Dude, what a profound insight! Does this happen often when you smoke pot? Oh wait, that's Bill Hicks, not you. You know, I've long since given up hope that what I do on this forum will change any creationist's mind: I debate now for the practice for myself and for the hope that someday, some honest searcher will see the logic in evolution and stop criticizing science. I actually won my father over (partially), believe it or not! This is what concerns me the most. The Kid claims to have produced definitive proof that biogenesis is a valid law in science, even though we've refuted his Huxley quote a good dozen times or so, and he hasn't provided anything else.The same thing, I fear, is happening with this tautology argument he used. They just don't see beyond what they want to see, so they conclude that our premises are just assumptions and wail about how we're basing our ideas on a belief system, when in fact, our "assumptions" are the work done by people who went before us, whose work is in turn based on the work of people before them.That's how we've established our pattern, and that's why we're so confident in it that we rarely consider it possible that it's all wrong.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Stile.Thanks for your input. Well, I think the Kid was just in a bit of a hurry and left off the "-ly" at the end of "circularly," as Bluegenes pointed out with Elvis and "Love Me Tender."So, I think he's saying that we first build up an evolutionary perspective, then, when we dig up fossils, we automatically try to squeeze it into our already-existing, philosophical mindset of evolution. Then, once we've jammed it crudely into place, we praise the fossil as the new, great proof of evolution.In some ways, he's quite right: we do try hard to make everything fit the evolutionary picture.But, where his argument goes awry is that the assumption of evolution did not predate the evidence for it. We've already published hundreds of solid evidences for evolution and natural history across many subfields of the natural sciences. Therefore, we've already established a good pattern of the history of life on Earth, and it's that pattern that is driving our attempts to fit each fossil into its place, not an over-arching, philosophical presumptions that he is seeing.He's seeing it as: "We must make it fit! Because our whole philosophy falls apart if it doesn't!"When it's really more like: "It must fit somehow! Because, everything else fit just fine!"

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. True. I understand where you're coming from, too. I thought about basing this thread on some of what you brought up, but it seemed to me that it was (or would quickly turn into) more of an issue with how he said it than with what I thought he was trying to say, and I didn't want it to turn into a semantics battle like all the bigotry topics that Hoot Mon's involved with (by the way, your line of reasoning with definitions and tomatoes is probably the best attack on Hoot Mon's position that I've seen yet: you got to the heart of it, I think). This is really what I'm getting at with this topic. AlphaOmegakid does not agree with you, and I'd sure like to know why, because I'm in full agreement with you, and most of science is in full agreement with you. I'm also having a little trouble getting at his reasons for disagreeing, and I'd sure like to know them.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Lucy, and welcome to the thread. Well, I haven't met any scientists that use this reasoning, but, if they did, I would call them on it and come here directly to tell you about it.We don't say something is alive because of natural selection, and we don't say we know it was naturally selected just because it's alive. True, that second part would be our first hypothesis, but we're always fully willing to accept genetic drift or sexual selection as an alternative. Actually, you got that backwards: "survival of the fittest" is just natural selection rephrased (and rephrased poorly, I might add). I would accept the phrase as accurate if it said "survival of the fit." Because, you don't have to be the best to survive, you just have to be good enough to survive. I have suggested that scientists do not assume the pattern: we accept that there is a pattern because there is evidence of a pattern. Do you believe that there is no such pattern? Can you show me why you believe this? Well, I'd like to think we would reject it if we found it to be completely invalid. But, science will always keep the good parts of any theory, even if the theory at large is rejected. What kind of work do you do?To me, a theory is simply a pattern. If a certain model can explain a good portion of the available data (maybe 75%, 85%, even 98% or more) without a ridiculous amount of deviation, the model is considered statistically significant. From there, the remaining work is to find out what other factors or patterns could be incorporated to modify the model until it explains an even greater amount of the data.So, I don't believe a 25% anomaly is enough to reject a theory. But, I'll agree with you that, if a 25% anomaly could be found, the single pattern is not sufficient to explain enough of the data, and modifications/additions would be required. I would gladly do so if there was enough evidence to reject evolution. As of right now, it appears that just minor modifications to the theory as it currently stands (28 July 2008 in USA) will suffice to explain all the evidence, and a complete rejection of the theory is not needed.Thanks for your input.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. You mean, post off-topic... on RAZD's thread!!?. Have you any idea what he'd do to me?I have been trying to keep posting with his name in the message title, and reiterating the main focus of the argument, like this: {AbE: I also changed the topic title now. Maybe he'll see that.}Edited by Bluejay, : Addition (marked)

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, AlphaOmegakid. Fair enough.I will change the name of the thread to "The Tautology of Homologies," just to help narrow the focus.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Mike. I understand. Feel free to stop by if you ever get the time, though. Well, my intention on this thread is to show that evolution is in fact based on several well-supported patterns of evidence, and not on a philosophical paradigm or worldview. I'm not so sure I agree that there is evidence for creation, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument.-----I'd like to take the opportunity to use your comment as a springboard into my basic argument on this thread, because it presents a great segue.To me, it isn't so much about the evidence itself as it is about the patterns in the evidence. When you see a series of fossils that can be lined up into a progression in which each step features a few changes, and you see it happen in dozens of different places across the fossil record, especially when the data is backed up with radiometric dating techniques, molecular clocks and what-not, it's really hard to argue against transmutation of species.Likewise, in relation to the Kid's desired topic of homology, there is a very similar pattern emerging. Let's take it from the horse perspective that he and RAZD have been arguing. Modern equids share many things in common: shape of the skull bones, tooth formula, single hoof, etc., which, as Stile has shown upthread, were called “homologies” before they were thought of as the effects of evolutionary relationships. Extrapolating the homology concept outward, we see that each animal groups closely with some, then more loosely with other groups, forming a pattern of nested hierarchies. Tapirs and rhinoceroses, for instance, share several homologies with equids (hooves, skull features, odd number of toes, etc.), but also have several distinctions (more toes, horns, trunks, differences in tooth formula, etc.). And, both of these groups can be linked to other animals based on fewer and fewer homologies, which sets up the pattern of nested hierarchies.Then, there are genetic patterns, which, contrary to the Kid's claims on other threads, have largely confirmed with morphological patterns, and still show the pattern of nested hierarchies. I will grant the Kid that there are still many instances in which genetic phylogeny contradicts morphological phylogeny, but these are still in the minority. They sometimes appear more prevalent because they are the big discoveries in biology today, while confirming the old pattern isn’t anything exciting, so news reports aren’t written and Science and Nature magazines aren’t interested in publishing them, etc.But, since we've shown how modern organisms can be arranged into nested hierarchies, it made good sense to see if the fossil organisms could also be arranged thus. And, interestingly, the fossils and extant organisms arranged into a single, contiguous pattern with a nested hierarchical structure, indicating that taxonomic hierarchies have always existed, and that modern animals are united to extinct animals by this pattern. Futhermore, transitional series like Panderichthys-Tiktaalik-Ventastega, Pakicetus-Ambulocetus-Rhodocetus-Basilosaurus, Maniraptora-Archaeopteryx-Aves, Blattaria-Cryptocercus-Mastotermes (although, granted, these series are probably not perfectly linear), show how the pattern persists unabated across any boundary a creationist could try to put up around distinct “kinds.”That is the stuff that ToE is based upon. How else could this pattern be interpreted?You would be correct, as would the Kid, in saying that evidence occasionally seems to contradict the pattern, such as in the case of convergent evolution. But again, when such contradictions arise, intensive, detailed study can generally produce enough data to strengthen on pattern and weaken the competing patterns.The giant panda, for instance, is, to all outward appearances, a bear, but shares several bafflingly similar traits with the red panda. It was long thought a procyonid, or maybe a distinct family. A rigorous, detailed series of studies throughout the eighties and nineties (such as this one), which included morphological, genetic and ecological angles, eventually determined that the giant panda is, in fact, a bear. As far as I know, the jury is not entirely in on the red panda, which may be a procyonid (raccoon-relative) or its own distinct family somewhere between bears and raccoons.And, just like you said, you'll note that there is still evidence that unites the two pandas (the sessamoid "thumb" is the best). But, when more and more data was analyzed, the pattern supporting the 'bear' hypothesis became stronger and stronger, and the pattern supporting the alternative became weaker and weaker.Likewise, creation science has been very good about bringing up anomalies and bits and pieces, but they have not been able to produce a pattern of evidence. On the other hand, evolutionary biology has produced several patterns in genetics, the fossil record, morphology, ecology, behavior, etc. in support of it.Edited by Bluejay, : Link provided twice; couple typographical errors

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta.Thanks for your reply. Yeah, and it goes back to the circle again: how do we know it was unfit? Because it went extinct.The point is that natural selection is just a way to describe nature as a struggle for survival, and to tie that concept in with the concept of evolution (which, despite popular perception, was a growing scientific view long before Darwin came around). Much of the world saw nature as a magical thing created and maintained by gods, and natural selection presented what was really the first completely naturalistic explanation.So, really, what this tautology argument is saying isn't that NS is a tautology, but that it's common sense. You know, you could very well be right. However, in the “Beretta’s designer” thread, you haven’t been able to show that there’s a designer, so the alternatives to the ToE concept of homology kind of violate parsimony.Furthermore, the tactic I am using on this thread is to show that ToE simply interprets the evidence according to the best pattern that can be found. Using the assumptions and predictions of ToE, scientists constructed a pattern of nested hierarchies from the information gleaned in fossil and anatomical studies. Interestingly, a pattern based on morphological homologies is also largely supported by a pattern based on genetic homologies, and the nested hierarchies line up quite nicely with the patterns in the geologic layers and their radiometric dating patterns.That makes three or four patterns that largely tell the same story. That’s what evolution is based on. So, if you take the concept of homology (in the evolutionary sense) in isolation, it looks a lot like circular reasoning, but, once you compare it to the broad spectrum of other patterns, it turns out to be rather well-supported and logical.That’s what ToE is based on. I don’t know enough about human anatomy to say what may or may not be vestigial in us, but I’m pretty sure a kiwi’s wings count as vestigial. I’m also pretty sure that the dodo’s, the kakapo’s, and the lyrebird’s wings also count as vestigial, among many other kinds of birds. I’m also certain that hundreds (perhaps thousands) of species of insect have vestigial wings, centipedes have vestigial eyes, blind cave fish have eye sockets without any eyes, etc.Vestigial features follow logically from the concept of homology. When you compare a whale to an ungulate, you see a lot of similarities in metabolism, internal organs, reproduction, etc. Then, you find a fossil that shares features with both groups, which, according to radiometric dating, comes from a timeframe shortly before either specialized group appears in the fossil record, then compare the two crown groups genetically, and you once again have about three or four patterns that are all telling a similar (if not identical) story.Again, that’s what ToE is based on.It’s not perfect evidence, and each of your claims against each idea may have merit in isolation, but, when all the imperfect patterns are superimposed, and a compromise between them is worked out, the imperfection begins to erode away. That’s what science does. No, that’s what science is.You, like every creationist, are likely going to argue that “vestigial features” must be completely without function. This argument is based completely on semantics, because “vestigial” implies uselessness. But, that doesn’t change the fact that a whale’s hindlimbs are much smaller than any other mammal’s hindlimbs, which, given the three or four patterns of development I have shown you, suggests that the whale’s limbs have atrophied. “Vestige” means something akin to “remains,” which is an excellent description of the tiny hindlimbs of the whale. You’re right: that’s what every palaeontologist drills into the minds of his interns and student employees before each dig out in the desert. And, that’s the only thing that’s holding the fragile frame of ToE up.In case you couldn’t tell, that paragraph was sarcasm.Once again, the overarching patterns in the evidence show that older rocks generally rest below younger rocks, and that older rocks hold fossil organisms that are less evolutionarily derived than younger rocks. The patterns show this remarkably well (although not perfectly), but, once again, each pattern can be used to bolster the weaknesses of each other pattern, and each task can be solved “democratically,” as in my panda example two messages upthread. In this way, we can establish which bits of evidence are anomalies and which are normal: by comparing each to this network of evidence patterns we have established. Gradually, we come to see where the evidence strongly favors a certain explanation, and that is the explanation we go for.So, all these things that the Kid brought up are just attempts to isolate pieces of a vast, well-supported mosaic of largely conforming evidence, and ignore all the outside support. You just can’t do that, because, the evolutionary model is based on patterns in all fields that conform to one another, whereas the creationist model is based on anomalies in all fields which do not conform to one another.How can you explain that? Granted. But, what about the parts of the genome that aren’t part of the genetic “recipe” you’ve proposed? Such as the parts that don’t really do much at all. How come those consistently reflect the evolutionary pattern provided by the morphological and functional genetic patterns? Surely it has nothing to do with your morphological “recipe?”Furthermore, do organisms that look alike on the outside have to have similar suites of immunological proteins and what-not? Because, they generally do have similar suites of immunological proteins. It seems to me that those genetics should more reflect the environment in which the organism lives than it’s morphological similarity, because the immune system should be geared toward the pathogens in its environment, right? But, nope, a coyote’s immune system produces proteins like an African hunting dog’s, not like an American jackrabbit’s, or a rattlesnake’s, or a pronghorn’s.It seems to me that genetics and morphology actually, legitimately do represent two distinct patterns, which just happen to have a broad level of overlap due to the large amount of control one has over the other. But, the unrelated portions also tend to conform to one another’s pattern.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta.Thanks again for your response. I’m not quite sure I understand what this sentence is getting at. At the time NS was first proposed, it was huge: no one had come up with it before, even though, to us today, it seems completely obvious. It told a whole lot of note back in Darwin’s day. The fact that nobody sees it saying anything of note today says a lot for our progress as a civilization away from superstition and towards a natural, scientific understanding of the world. So, what you’re saying is that the nested hierarchical patterns do exist, but that there is no evidence linking this pattern to mutations? I thought that was what I addressed very clearly at the end of the post you just responded to. Here’s the concluding paragraph: There is a pattern of genetics that conforms to the hierarchical pattern of morphology, even in parts of the genome that are not involved in morphology. In fact, cladograms that use genetics rarely (if ever) use morphological genes. They use proteins that are involved in cellular functions. This clearly divides morphology and genetics into separate patterns.And, the pattern that we see is that closely-related animals have vast overlaps in the base-pair sequence of their genes. There are a few differences in random places. We have shown, in stacks of laboratory experiments that would fill an apartment waist-high, that these changes that we see can and routinely are caused by normal, everyday environmental phenomena, such as solar radiation. Indeed, we even see that some apparently have no particular cause that we can determine, at all (check out arabidopsis.org and flybase.org for hordes of such information). The different genes you will see include insertions, deletions, point mutations, fissions/fusions and any other kind of mutation. And, most of these will only be morphological mutations, simply because the easiest way to screen large populations of Arabidopsis and Drosophila for mutations is to find individuals that look different.Your point about beneficial mutations is extremely trivial. If you could show me the difference between a non-beneficial allele and a beneficial allele, I could take you to a biochemist who could systematically show you how each base-pair difference could easily be the result of UV radiation, a free radical, a random replication error, an awkward crossing-over, an inversion or whatever. It fits seamlessly into the pattern. Creationists keep pointing this out, but you don’t seem to realize that this fits the pattern we see in cladistics very well. The vast amount of gene sequence differences between, for example, a human and a chimpanzee, have no major effect at all, and only a few are beneficial. Many harmful sequences also persist, but these generally appear at lower frequencies for obvious reasons. The pattern is extremely consistent with a mechanism of random mutation, but it is not consistent with a pattern of purposeful, specific creation. Why did you ask for vestigial traits, in the first place, if you were just going to dismiss them as irrelevant when we provided them for you? I find that rude and totally unacceptable in intellectual debate. (Please note the color-coding) But, the fossils are in the rocks, and radiometric dating dates the rocks from the time they solidified, which means the fossils could really only be older than the radiometric dating says.Only if you're a RATE project researcher who thinks a hundred years of improvements upon dating techniques are invalid simply because they give consistent dates.What assumptions?You’re still attacking each individual pattern as if it were in total isolation from the others. Despite your claims here, the patterns are largely in agreement, and you can keep arguing that each individual method is imperfect, but I can always turn it around and bolster my argument with any of the other half-dozen patterns I can think of right now (geological layers, fossil succession, morphological nested hierarchies that continue seamlessly into the present, along with genetics data, plus biogeography, which is the patterns of distribution of organisms, and probably others that other people can come up with). That’s the beauty of having lots of data that agree with each other. Any snapshot of the past is going to look like stasis, Beretta, and all we’re ever going to get are snapshots. You can’t see gradualism in a single fossil: you can only see it over significant amounts of time. You should spend some time studying in detail the fossil remains of hominids in Africa. I think you’ll find that everything is not clear-cut and easy to classify, as you seem to think it is. Most fossil specimina that you may find could easily have as many different identifications as scientists who have tried to identify it. It’s not clear-cut. It isn’t easy to tell the difference between a Homo habilis and a Homo ergaster. Some people believe many H. ergaster should be called a different species, H. rudolfensis, and some people see Australopithecus as more than a single genus.Do you wonder why there’s such a big debate in recent years as to whether H. floresiensis (the “hobbit”) is an erectine or a dwarf H. sapiens? It’s because the ways to tell the two lines of our genus apart are not all that straightforward and clear-cut. There isn’t a distinct dividing line between the various species of Homo; there is kind of fuzzy, blurry line that we have decided to assume is sharp just to make things easier to understand.But, even our snapshots show us a nice progression in several dozen locations: flatfish, frogamanders, fishapods, equines, whales, sauravians, therapsids, etc. How can you argue with these? These are just high-resolution microcosms of the entire big picture: we see a gradual accumulation of whale traits in a series of fossils beginning with hoofed land mammals and ending with a streamlined, giant marine animal, and the period of change is verified, not only by morphology, but by non-morphological genetics and radiometric dating. None of these is perfect, but they all tell the same story.The same goes for the Tiktaalik series, the horse series, the theropod-bird series, and lots of others. When we see the fossil record as a whole, we see fish early in the record, then we see lines of fish that gradually accumulate features associated with land vertebrates until, eventually, land vertebrates begin to show up. Then, we see land vertebrates that gradually accumulate reptile features, until, eventually, we see reptiles. Then, we see various lines of reptiles gradually accumulate the characters of turtles, squamates, birds and mammals, and, eventually, we see these crown groups appearing.And, you keep saying that every step shows stasis, and not gradualism. Yet, all the steps together show a progression, and we have enough fine resolution to show that the gradualistic details can be found. What do you mean, “imagines change”? Beretta, we have seen the changes occur: we are not imagining it. You have admitted that the changes occur. It isn’t imagination to take our observations and extrapolate them into a pattern that conforms to all the other patterns we see in the physical world. That’s the very essence of science: you expand the horizons of knowledge by extrapolating the data that you do have into a testable hypothesis about something you don’t have.And, that’s how technology is done, too. We started with some basic observations about, for instance, electricity, then we pressed the envelope to see what we could make of what little we knew. Then, we pressed the envelope again, each time making a more and more complex circuit and a more and more powerful application arose. Now, we have powerful and portable computers, all because scientists kept pushing the envelope for new designs.We’re doing the same with biology, but, because it isn’t as concrete or as applicable or as popular, people think we’re just fudging it all. The fact is that we follow the same protocols and the same methodology. I’ll let Wounded King field this for the most part, if he wants to. But, you are still using the incorrect definition of “vestigial = without function.” A limb that is much smaller than its ancestors limb is vestigial, whether or not it has a function.And, yes, I’m pretty sure there is a sizable chunk of the genome that doesn’t have a lot of function.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta.Thanks again for your response. Yes, they have. They even have a name for it: “evolution.” To be more precise, they call it, “genetic drift.” Well, we don't know where the "missing" ones are, but I could tell you where the "found" ones are. You can go right ahead and believe that if you want. “It’s all a matter of perspective” is about the best defense that can be mustered for any religious belief.You have been flinging the word "assumption" around pretty liberally. My intention in this thread is to show you that the basis of our theory is not an "assumption" or "worldview," as you insist, but the many converging patterns of evidence that can be found in the physical world.Given you arguments, you do not believe that such patterns exist. Which of the patterns I have listed do you agree with?

1. Do you agree there is a nested hierarchical pattern in morphology?
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2. If so, do you agree that the morphological pattern of living organisms meshes with the morphological pattern of fossil organisms?
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3. Do you agree there is a nested hierarchical pattern in genetics?
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4. Do you agree there is a clustered/nested hierarchical pattern in biogeography (the distributions of organisms)?
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5. You clearly do not agree there is a sequential pattern in radiometric dating.
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6. You clearly do not agree there is a sequential pattern in the geological record.

-----Clearly, you do agree with the first two: Once we have established which patterns you agree with, we can continue to discuss the plausibility of the others.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, Buzz. Since Coragyps is otherwise occupied, I'll answer in his place.Roughly translated, it means, "You're wrong, Buzz."The discussion here is about the use of broad patterns of evidence as the basis of the evolutionary worldview. Your post, however, is about something else. Please stay on topic.Edited by Bluejay, : Added to the last paragraph

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, Buzsaw.

1. You wrote this off-topic stuff in Message 52:
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   Buzsaw writes:

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   Hi Stile. Void of intelligence, what is the source of selective pressure on the species, especially in the early stages of it's existence?

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   As observed in the world, nothing trends towards complexity, design or improvement aside from intelligent pressure. Left to itself, nothing trends towards advancement in design.
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   Coragyps showed an example where rock crystals form complex structures under natural conditions, and you requested that he expound. However, I do want you to discuss this here, and, since you started it, and since you're the one who's online now, I addressed my response to you.
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2. It's my thread, I chose the topic, and I don't want to talk about Buzzmodynamics anymore.
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3. Message 50 lists six patterns that I see in the evidence, all of which I see as largely agreeing with one another. Here are the relevant questions or statements I put before Beretta (one for each pattern):
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   1. Do you agree there is a nested hierarchical pattern in morphology?
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   2. If so, do you agree that the morphological pattern of living organisms meshes with the morphological pattern of fossil organisms?
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   3. Do you agree there is a nested hierarchical pattern in genetics?
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   4. Do you agree there is a clustered/nested hierarchical pattern in biogeography (the distributions of organisms)?
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   5. You clearly do not agree there is a sequential pattern in radiometric dating.
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   6. You clearly do not agree there is a sequential pattern in the geological record.
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   Feel free to discuss whether or not you feel these patterns exist and/or agree with one another, and whether it is these patterns, or philosophical assumptions, that are the basis of evolutionary thought. But, I don't want you talking about intelligent design or thermodynamics, because those are not the topic I wanted to discuss when I proposed this thread.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Hi, Beretta.Thanks for your continued contribution on this thread. I was trying to explain this to you before. Let me try again.You can’t recognize an intermediate unless you see both the before and the after along with the intermediate. So, it’s not possible to see a “developing organ” in a living animal, simply because we’d have to see the future to know what any “developing organ” was developing into.This is safe challenge you’re making of us, simply because it just can’t be answered. I told you before: every intermediate also has to be fit enough to withstand the pressures exerted on it by the environment. So, you are not going to be able to look at something and say definitively that it is not developed. All you will ever see are minor, small organs that don’t do a whole lot (yet), and it could be inferred that they are developing, but we would need a reference point from the future to know for certain. So, until we see what a certain organism or organ is going to evolve into, we simply cannot tell you which of its features are intermediate or “developing.”-----But, when you look at the fossil record, you can see things that have something that is partially between what two other things have. For example, Archaeopteryx has an arm that is long, like a bird’s, with feathers, like a bird’s, but with fingers, like a theropod’s.There. We have a past point, an intermediate point, and a future point. Looking at the point before the transition (i.e. the “raptor” dinosaur), you would not think that the animal’s arm is “developing” into a wing, even if you knew for a fact that birds would evolve from it. How could you tell? Well, you can’t tell by just looking at the single animal: you have to compare the feature across species.When you compare all three groups, it turns out that, not only can we line them up in a sequence of arms-wingarms-wings, but we also find many other trends happening concurrently. The theropod dinosaurs have “floating ribs,” which are little rib-like structures on the belly that do not connect to the main skeleton. Archaeopteryx also has these, but modern birds do not. Also, Archaeopteryx has a tail that is similar in structure to the theropods’ tails, while birds do not: their tails are tiny, shortened stubs. But, there are also traits that unite all three groups: all have a wishbone, and all have a lunate (crescent-shaped) wrist bone (I can’t remember which wrist bone it is, though), and we have never found any organisms aside from these three groups that have these features.Do you agree that this constitutes a morphological pattern that bridges modern and fossil groups?What happens when you find Archaeopteryx in a layer of rock that had, prior to Archaeopteryx’s discovery, been considered later Jurassic in origin, which just happens to be shortly before the first true birds appear in the fossil record?You find that the nested-hierarchical pattern of morphology that unifies fossil and extant groups matches up with the chronological pattern in geology, and you begin to accept that Archaeopteryx was a theropod that was “developing” into a bird.What happenes when, decades later, radiometric dating places the rocks in which Archaeopteryx was found at a date older than birds, but long after the oldest theropods?You find that the chronological pattern of radiometric dating matches up with the chronological pattern in geology and the nested hierarchical pattern in morphology. You solidify your acceptance of Archaeopteryx as the oldest bird, and that all birds only came into existence after Archaeopteryx.And then, what happens when you then get non-morphological DNA from a theropod dinosaur, and that that DNA is more similar to the DNA from a bird than it is to any other DNA collected?You find that the nested hierarchical pattern of genetics matches up with the morphological pattern, and solidifies the whole group together. You begin to accept that birds and theropods actually are related to one another.Well, if you insert “Bluejay” in place of “you” in all those sentences above, you would then be reading the story of part of my conversion to the Theory of Evolution. Naturally, that isn’t the only evidence I read, and there were many parallel stories that I followed for a very long time, until I was convinced of the pervasiveness of these incredible patterns. And, indeed, what I have put forward is what you find when you study these patterns.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix display form of link. There was a " " instead of a "=" after the opening "

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.