EvC Forum: Some Evidence Against Evolution

I thought this was relevant:

quote:
"Biogeography

This final section is perhaps the most straightforward, and certainly one of the most persuasive stand-alone bits of evidence that support Descent with Modification (in other words, even if it weren't corroborated by all the independent lines of evidence we've discussed so far). Based on Descent with Modification, if one species is the descendent of another, then there had to be some geographical continuity from where the parent species is found to where the child species is foundthey had to be able to get there.

Of course, if this geographical continuity was broken at some point in the past, then there are predictable consequencesbut only if Descent with Modification is true. Without going into the many examples of biodiversity that support Descent with Modification, I will focus only on the Australia example, since it alone is such an overwhelmingly persuasive exampleparticularly against any notion that all of today's air-breathing species came from one point on the globe, such as from an "Ark."

Deeper layers of the fossil record show that marsupial mammals (pouched mammals like the kangaroo) were more common than placental mammals (mammals like us that gestate their young inside their bodies with the use of a placenta). During this time (i.e, in these layers) some parts of the world were populated only by marsupial mammals, including the land mass that would eventually become Australia. Shallower (more recent) layers of the fossil record show that placental mammals had displaced the marsupials over much of the earth.

But what if a barrier appeared before the expanding placentals could invade a particular area that had been occupied only by marsupials? For example, what if a peninsula that had been occupied only by marsupials, became an island before the new placentals migrated there? Well, Descent with Modification would predict that the marsupials might not only survive, but they might fill all the same ecological niches (on just their protectionist island) that placental mammals occupy elsewhere in the world. In other words, they would evolve some analogies to placentals, and only in one place: their isolated island.

Of course, this is exactly what we see in Australia. In the table below[10], keep in mind that all of the animals in the Marsupial column are more closely related to each other than they are to their counterparts in the other column. This is an extremely telling observation; it really should make you say, "Wow!"

Consider that the Tiger cat is more closely related to the marsupial mouse than it is to the Bob Cat, which looks superficially almost the same. The same can be said about the Tasmanian Wolf, which looks almost identical to a "regular" wolf, but is also in fact a closer relative to the Marsupial mouse, who for all the world looks like a "regular" mouse.

Placental
Marsupial

Wolf
Tasmanian Wolf

Flying Squirrel
Flying Phalanger

Mouse
Marsupial Mouse

Mole
Marsupial Mole

Anteater
Numbat

Bob Cat
Tasmanian Tiger Cat

Lemur
Spotted Cuscus

Keep in mind that all these marsupial species exist in only one part of the world. Fascinating to be sure, though this is not only explained by Descent with Modification, it is practically expected. Moreover, it adds yet another independent cross-check of the tree you get based only on the comparative anatomy of marsupials and placentals, which, in turn, is independently cross-checked by the tree drawn only from the layer positions of fossils.

On the other hand, this is not only completely inexplicable under the creationist "model," but it actually falsifies that "model." What can the creationist say about such a pattern in biogeography? All they can say is that God created parallel versions of each of these animals (which alone contradicts "similar structures for similar functions"), that they left the Ark at the same time from Mt. Ararat and that somehow the marsupial mouse, Tasmanian wolf, Tiger Cat and the many, many other marsupial species (not shown in the table) that exist only in Australia all cooperated as a group to get to get to Australia ahead of all placental mammals. As Philip Kitcher puts it,

Some marsupialswombats, koalas, and marsupial moles, for examplemove very slowly. Koalas are sedentary animals, and it is difficult to coax them out of the eucalyptus trees on which they feed...The idea of any of these animals engaging in a hectic dash around the globe is patently absurd (On the evolutionary account, of course, they are all descendents of ancestral marsupials who had millions of years to reach their destinations)[11]

If they all started at the same time in the same place, as the creationists claim, what was it about their lack of a placenta that made them move as a group, predator and prey, large and small ahead of very fast placental predators to just this one part of the globe? Without a direct Divine assist, it's hard to imagine a coherent explanation."

-from Freethought Debater – Naturalism, Critical Thinking, and Atheology

I don't see why you would think that an intelligent designer would produce two creatures that are "virtually identical" on two different continents. Can you explain why? Why wouldn't he just use the same creature on both? Why would he use the same wolf "design" in the rest of the world, but not in Australia?

I'm afraid if you can't answer these questions, as well as the other ones raised in the excerpt, you simply have a "God of the Gaps" theory, such as:

ID-"Evolution can't explain it, but God can"
Evo-"How?"
ID-"He made it that way for some reason"
Evo-"Brilliant!"

[This message has been edited by JustinCy, 12-13-2003]

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