Oolon Colluphid

And don't forget that these skulls are very fragile three-dimensional jigsaws. If I were doing a fragile 3D jigsaw, I'd sure as hell use some plasticine (or whatever) to support the bits while I fitted them together.

In the interminable threads here, Ed has claimed that the skulls are too fragmentary to tell anything much about them. So I'm noting again that it's not mere guesswork; there are sensible assumptions like lateral symmetry (got only one side? then you can say what the other was very probably like), that two separate pieces of cranium very likely do arch together (rather than suddenly bulging radically in the missing intervening three inches), and so on.

Cheers, Oolon

Azathoth

Ah,yes.I forgot to mention that.

As for not being able to tell what they are,Ed is mistaken.

I've done a more than a few three dimensional jigsaws,and it's quite easy to tell what the finished product will look like,just by looking at the shape of a few assembled sections.

If you know what the object is,that you're putting together,such as a skull,it becomes even easier,due to the fact that you can make certain assumptions,like you have already mentioned.

Dr Rick

It's obvious you are not arguing against ID.

You are claiming that "God made the species " and TE is false, and then claiming that TE methods are "not science" and your "objections are based on science" because you are "primarily interested in science" and that "there is no question that ID is asking a scientific question and using scientific means to get at the answer" because "the idea/theory does not make religious claims as, say, evolution does" even though it relies on a supernatural entity and is neither falsifiable nor verifiable, and evolution can't be right because we "don't know all the details" and yet when asked about the details of ID reply that "I hope you do not expect me to come up with an explanation for the motives of God for imagined problems such as these."

Yes, your argument is quite clear.

NottyImp

But you're not, are you Charles? Because you believe in a non-naturalistic creationist model that you have admitted is scientifically untestable in and of itself. Thus, no science there.

Your only use for science is to selectively quote and interpret those finding that you think invalidate TE, thus hoping to leave us believing that creationism is the only possible alternative.

Frankly, its a pretty poor strategy.

Charles Darwin

What convinced me that common descent was inescapable was its explanatory power. When comparing special creation with common descent, the latter neatly explained too many phenomena that the former could only take ad-hoc stabs at. Certainly, an all-powerful Intelligent Designer could do anything s/he/it decided to do, e.g., give five fingers to a dolphin and amorphous cartilage to a shark for much the same function. Or give humans sparse body hair that rises on end in the face of cold or fear, just as apes have fur that stands out to insulate from cold or make the body appear larger when threatened.


God could do this, but wouldn't we prefer for Him to make all the species unambiguously different so we'd know for sure that evolution is impossible? Why would He make hairs on humans and apes have the same function.

The problem with this reasoning is that it strains at the gnat of similarities and swallows the camel negative evidences for common descent, and of how the ape or human could have arisen all by itself in the first place.


Or place apparent tooth-making genes in modern birds.


This is evolutionary mythology. We've gone over it in this thread. Doubting D. wants to stick to the myth because that is what the authors of a paper concluded. But since evolution is the going paradigm, conclusions are routinely given evolutionary spins. Whether or not the data actually support evolution is another matter.


Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees.


But the HERVs argue against common descent. You need a just-so story to explain the data.


Or put a telomere in the middle of the second human chromosome, suggesting the fusion of two ancestral telomeres (which must have happened in one of the first generations if humans are specially created, since we all have these telomeres).


Genotype changes can become fixed without being in an early generation. The explanation for human chromosome 2 does not entail common descent or macroevolution.


Yes, the Intelligent Designer could have done all these things, and many more, and if we are to follow your counsel, we should refrain from making any conclusions from these phenomena.


You are mischaracterizing my point, which is that the scientific data argue *against* evolution and common descent. Secondly, if you want to make arguments about what God should do, then, yes, I would argue that you need to be open and clear about your religious beliefs. I am by no means arguing we ought to turn a blind eye to all those evidences which are, according to you, obviously explained by evolution or common descent, but require a just-so story under creationism. I think you, in practically every case, misinterpret the data so it fits evolution very well.


Yes, s/he/it may have had reasons we cannot comprehend. Yet, if the Designer is not impotent, s/he/it could have created in any of an infinite number of other ways without so much as offering the slightest suggestion that common descent was at play. It wasn't the brutality of nature that concerned me as I contemplated God's role in creation, but rather the sense that s/he/it began to appear deceitful if s/he/it had not in fact used evolution as a tool of creation. In denying evolution, I began to feel like the proverbial creationists who suggested that God deliberately planted fossils of extinct fauna in the earth to test our faith. This was the crux for me: If God, who could have created in any way s/he/it saw fit, chose to create in such a way that common descent made sense, when in fact common descent did not happen, then how could I possibly trust God in any other matter?


Given your premises I agree with your conclusion.


As E.O. Wilson put it:

"Perhaps God did create all organisms, including human beings, in finished form, in one stroke, and maybe it all happened several thousand years ago. But if that is true, He also salted the earth with false evidence in such endless and exquisite detail, and so thoroughly from pole to pole, as to make us conclude first that life evolved, and second that the process took billions of years. Surely Scripture tells us He would not do that. The Prime Mover of the Old and New Testaments is variously loving, magisterial, denying, thunderously angry, and mysterious, but never tricky [with the possible exception of the story in which God sent a lying spirit to the prophets--Ken] (Consilience, p. 141).


This is evolutionary mythology. I could turn that argument around and arrive at a much stronger conclusion. How deceptive it would be for God to use evolution when the very species defy evolution. It is a wonder that man could come up with evolution given what we know. Even moreso, that he would claim it to be fact. Even moreso that he would accuse God of deception.


Are you willing to give up truthfulness as an attribute of the Intelligent Designer in an effort to paint evolutionists as theologically motivated? ... I'd like a straight answer from you on this.


Of course not. I don't need to. I'm not painting evolutionists as theologically motivated, they did a fine job of that themselves. Just read through this thread.


In what ways could God have pre-empted the appearance of common descent, and by so doing, nipped any possible theory of evolution in the bud? In other words, what kinds of show-stoppers could s/he/it have planted? Here are a few:

1) By creating the universe with the appearance of youth, thereby unmistakably denying evolution the time it needed to happen. Instead, we witness supernova explosions up to 9 billion light years away.
2) By making the fossil record follow any of millions of possible sequences other than the one that it in fact follows, with complex forms appearing in only the higher layers.
3) By taking care not to introduce apparent atavisms like hen's teeth and horse toes (to quote the title of a Gould book).
4) By not putting morphologically similar (but significantly different) extinct species in the same geographical location as extant creatures.
5) By creating an inseparable gap between humans and the creatures most closely allied with them genetically. As it is, we share between 95 and 99% of our genome with chimps, and the fossil record provides morphologically intermediate forms between the chimps and us. If cows or dogs were the most similar creatures to us, modern evolution could never have gotten off the ground.
6) By using similar forms (e.g., cartilaginous fins) for similar functions (aquatic maneuvering), rather than different forms (e.g., a pentadactyl structure) for similar functions, differentiated by lines of descent proposed on other independent grounds.
7) By tightly constraining the variability of populations within species such that, for example, the striking variety of dog breeds developed within human history, or human races themselves, could not have arisen.
8) By taking care not to introduce any of the other 29+ evidences of macroevolution discussed in the article of the same title (sans any real theological considerations).


You greatly underestimate man's creativity and will to believe. I suspect that evolution is one of many false tales man could tell about origins. Furthermore, I doubt many of your items above could stop the evolution roller coaster. You want a different fossil record, but the fossils appear planted there. Isn't this good enough for you? Oh, you don't like those transitions. You want God to make every single species completely independent of each other. Sorry, but this is hardly a case for deception. All of us species have to live in the same biosphere under the same natural laws.

There is no hen's teeth atavism, you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.

You want an inseparable gap between humans and chimps? I cannot fathom what this complaint is about. What more of a gap could you ask for? The chasm between chimps and humans is enormous. Do you really think a few point mutations here and there in protein coding sequences are going to make a chimp become a human?

You want tightly constrained variability in populations. But this would entirely change the nature of adaptability. Aren't you satisfied that adaptability is the result of an incredibly complex machine? The more we learn, the more we're amazed.


The list could be endless. That things are the way they are does not prove macro evolution, but note that evolution could not be true if reality were significantly different than it in fact is.


You underestimate evolution's adaptability. It is hardly narrowly contingent on the specifics of biology.


The world didn't have to be old. It is. Dolphins didn't have to have five fingers. They do. Complex forms could have been found in the lower strata. They haven't been found, nor will they be. If a rabbit skeleton is some day found in the pre-Cambrian, then we can all give up this debate and take a rest, acknowledging the creationists were right all along.


C'mon God, dazzle us with things that make no sense. Pull a rabbit out of a hat; show us just one more miracle, then we'll believe. Right ...


You may protest that none of these phenomena really prove common descent, and that we only come to our conclusions by "connecting the dots."


No, you've missed my point. If common descent or evolution is compelling, then that is sufficient. Connecting the dots is fine.


Granted. But this isn't about mathematical proof. For me, it's about looking at the data and thinking, "What really happened?", regardless of what I want to be true, or how capable I might be in highlighting the difficulties in the theory. It's not a game! It's about truth.


Regardless of what you want to be true? You've got to be kidding? You've made all sorts of requirements for God. He isn't supposed to make the higher life forms last (#2), or put similar species in similar locations (#4). It seems to me that this very much is about what you "want to be true."


The predictive power of evolution impressed me the more I learned of the facts. For example, Nikishimi searched for and found an apparently non-functional vitamin C-producing gene in primates based on the fact that primates do not produce their vitamin C like other mammals. Here is my take on how the discovery proceeded:

1) It was discovered that most mammals do not need vitamin C in their diet;
2) Therefore, there must be a gene that produces vitamin C;
3) Based on (2), we've looked for and found the gene
4) Other mammals, i.e., guinea pigs, primates and humans, require an external source of vitamin C in their diet
5) These mammals therefore must not be able to produce vitamin C on their own.
6) On the theory of common descent, humans and primates share a common ancestor
7) On the theory of common descent, that common ancestor was a mammal
8) On the theory of common descent, that common ancestor or a predecessor, like other mammals, must have a vitamin C gene similar to that shared by other mammals.
9) On the theory of common descent, primates and humans (the descendants of primates) would be expected to have a non-functional vitamin C gene at the same location in the genome as that in other mammals.
10) On the basis of (6) thru (9), we look for that gene and find it in both primates and humans. Furthermore, we discover that this non-functional gene varies among species (humans, chimpanzees, orangs, macaques, etc.) in proportion to the distance between them in the standard phylogenetic tree.


#2 is wrong. There is a set of genes the comprise the vitamin C synthesis pathway. But that is an aside. Otherwise, that is a good example of evolution's predictive power. However, one doesn't need evolution to follow this trail. You are exaggerating its importance. C'mon, one hardly needs evolution to think to look for homologous genes in homologous locations in allied species (more below on this).

And like the HERVs, pseudogenes have their problematic cases, and in fact they do not align with other phylogenies as well as you seem to think. Indeed, there are rather interesting similarities between pseudogenes. Perhaps you missed our earlier discussion on this. I'll paste in my relevant comments:

These are similarities that evolution does not predict. Under evolution we must say, "gee, what a coincidence."


My point here is to show how integral the theory of common descent was to the reasoning that led to the discovery in (10). The kicker is not that humans and primates share some genes in common (like they share many other features), but that the existence of a non-functional (at least in respect to the production of vitamin C) gene could be predicted ahead of time before knowing whether it existed in either primates or humans. It is that specific prediction that sets apart the theory of common descent from its competition. Note that I am not making any of the metaphysical claims you accuse evolutionists of. I am simply saying that, in this case, and in many others, the theory is productive.


You are making a big to-do about nothing. No, you are not making the metaphysical claim, but you are short changing creationism and for some reason elevating evolution beyond warrant. It would be altogether natural for the creationist to ask the same questions. Indeed, though life scientists always make the obligatory evolutionary interpretation, it is rarely necessary. Someone went and asked a slew of life scientists if evolution was important and if it was important in guiding their own research. The answers were routinely, "yes" and "no," respectively. It is thought to be important generally. I'm not saying the vitamin C pseudogene research was not guided by evolution, but I'd be surprised if it was. The question is so obvious; it is simply absurd to think one needs evolution to guide us around else we'll be clueless in our research.


From an ID or creationist standpoint, there is no reason to predict that primates should have a vitamin C pseudogene without already knowing it.


Why not? These species obtain vitamin C from dietary sources, crippling mutations would therefore not be so serious and could become fixed in the population.


From an evolutionary perspective, we would think it likely that the genetic remnants of a functional vitamin C-producing gene should exist in the primates if the primates are descended from mammals that have a functional vitamin C-producing gene. What evolutionary theory predicts is the simple existence of the vitamin C pseudogene in primates (before even looking for it under the microscope), not its underlying mechanism.


You are fooling yourself. Do not think for a moment that failure to locate the GLO pseudogene would have falsified evolution. That could have been easily explained away.


As a former missionary linguist-to-be-Bible translator in Africa, I was impressed by the similarities and differences between the language I studied and a neighboring related language. I often thought about the principles I had learned in my one historical linguistic class, and I was fascinated by the patterns I could uncover, and puzzled by the instances that ran counter to the rules. But I never once doubted that the two languages shared a common ancestor. The geographical and morphological proximity of the two languages made it impossible to argue otherwise, in spite of the puzzles. What really happened? In broad lines, they descended from a common ancestor. Exactly how it happened, I have no clue.


Nor do I doubt that two languages can share a common ancestor. So what? You are not invoking spectacularly unlikely events. A people group split up and their once common language became two different languages. You are making a strawman argument. Creationists don't doubt such events. Or to put it another way, doubting the evolutionary process is not at all tantamount to doubting such events as language evolution.


You are gifted at drawing out puzzles and challenging the logical basis for our conclusions. But your attempts at undermining common descent ring hollow, simply because nature makes sense when seen through the lens of evolution. For all your prowess, effort and sincerity, you cannot change the facts, and the facts as a whole testify to the veracity of common descent.


I cannot say that evolution or common descent is false. I do think, however, that your claim that the facts as a whole testify to the veracity of common descent is false.


By the way, if you do accept the possibility of blind fish having descended from seeing fish, where in my list do you draw the line between what probably did happen and what probably did not happen, keeping open the possibility of an Intelligent Agent to bridge any probability gaps?

quote:
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If cave fish have seeing ancestors, then perhaps beetles with sealed wings have flying ancestors; deep-sea eye-stalk-toting blind crabs that withstand enormous water pressure may have seeing ancestors that cannot withstand such pressure; swift ostriches with powerful leg muscles may have flying ancestors that aren't as fleet of foot; and supremely capable swimmers like the penguins may have flying ancestors that can't match their diving abilities.
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I really would like to know where you draw the line and why...


I do not know precisely where I would draw the line. I would have to look into the details of each case.

Jack the Bodiless

Charles:
Evolution, however, IS a fact. Even creationists don't deny this. It sounds like you've relapsed into a creationist definition of "evolution" again. How, at this stage, can you justify claiming that a change in the frequency of alleles in populations is not a fact? Or that mutations aren't fact, or that natural selection is not fact?
Yes, that IS precisely what science is pointing to. Are you now arguing that the transitional forms between fishes and giraffes do not exist in the fossil record? Maybe you should have checked before saying that?

Furthermore, what is this new scientific principle you're introducing, that "additions are a problem"? How so? Perhaps you should have checked to see whether giraffes actually have any major organs that fish don't have, and checked that we don't have the transitional forms for those too, either in the fossil record or in living organisms?

You are, as usual, arguing from ignorance here.
There are plenty of intermediates between fish and giraffes, and "punctuated equilibrium" IS repeated rounds of small-scale change. Nothing in the fossil record contradicts Darwinian evolution. Again, did you actually check before making this religious pronouncement?
Again, you didn't check. Animal and plant breeders know very well that if they are trying to achieve a specific result, there is often a limit to the progress that can be made from selective breeding from a limited gene pool, until a mutation occurs which adds a desired gene to that pool.
Do you believe that biologists are ignorant of mathematics? Again, you didn't check. The mathematics of probability features prominently in modern evolutionary biology.
Correction: YOU don't know. Again, you didn't check, did you? Do you have even the foggiest notion how many fossil therapsids there are, for instance? Do you even know what a therapsid IS?
Such as... ?

Are you arguing that giraffes have an organ that fish don't have, and which requires multiple DNA substitutions to even begin to function (i.e. it cannot have developed in incremental steps)? What a pity you didn't check to see if the giraffe actually does have such an organ.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
How is this relevant to the issue at hand, which is the evolution of giraffes from fish?
Nope, ignorance isn't science.

Jack the Bodiless

This implies that there is a greater bulk of "negative evidence for common descent" than "similarities". Again, this is a statement of faith borne of ignorance.
Again, the sheer number of just-so stories required to make creationism work is staggering. Common descent is the most parsimonious explanation. But you belive that you, a non-biologist, are empowered by your God to overrule the professional opinion of the actual experts in this subject.
It is a sucessful prediction. Based purely on the difference in chromosome count between humans and chimps, evolution allows us to PREDICT this result. Therefore it is undeniably a small part of the overwhelming evidence for common descent. One of millions of pieces of such evidence.
That is not your "point": that is your fundamentalist religious belief, fradulently stated as if it had a basis in fact.
...Except that they don't.

And so it goes. You have uncritically accepted creationist propaganda because it fits your religious prejudices.
Not "crippling mutations": ONE SPECIFIC crippling mutation, shared by ALL primates because they are descended from a common ancestor.
...What are these "spectacularly unlikely" events?
And we can say that your claim is false. I wonder what the experts say? Oh, wait...

lpetrich

(on making features with lots of underlying similarities...)

Charles Darwin:

God could do this, but wouldn't we prefer for Him to make all the species unambiguously different so we'd know for sure that evolution is impossible? ...

Like a creature with a bird's beak, a bat's wings, insect antennae, etc.

The problem with this reasoning is that it strains at the gnat of similarities and swallows the camel negative evidences for common descent, and of how the ape or human could have arisen all by itself in the first place.

Except that evolution is not about something being poofed into existence, but being produced by modification of something else.

"Charles Darwin" seems to imagine the origin of something as coming into existence with a big *POOF!*, and he seems to be asking "How can the evolution version of poofing possibly happen?"

Ken:
Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees.

But the HERVs argue against common descent. You need a just-so story to explain the data.

Only one HERV seems to be troublesome -- not all of them! And "Charles Darwin" has yet to explain how his pet hypothesis explains the pattern of HERV's that we see.

Furthermore, he has yet to explain why present-day horses are sometimes born with small side toes -- making their feet much like those of fossil "horses" with a toe on each side of each big middle toe. And the older fossil "horses" have toes that look more alike! And otherwise look less horse-like.

The explanation for human chromosome 2 does not entail common descent or macroevolution.

"Charles Darwin" has not explain why that chromosome was created with the appearance of being two fused chromosomes.

You are mischaracterizing my point, which is that the scientific data argue *against* evolution and common descent.

Let's apply "Charles Darwin's" reasoning to plagiarism cases. Let's imagine that he runs a map-printing company that sells a map of his hometown that includes the exact same errors as a map made by another map-printing company. Which decides to sue CD for plagiarism.

Using his arguments on evolution, CD would argue that his suer has no case, because that suer has not caught his company's staff copying that map, and because his company's staff had had good reasons for making those errors.

However, the jury disagrees, and CD's map company has to pay big sums to its suer, and it is soon out of business.

The inference of evolution is exactly parallel to the inference of plagiarism here -- one need not be able to follow all the details, and just-so stories are not reasonable counterevidence.

I'm not painting evolutionists as theologically motivated, they did a fine job of that themselves. Just read through this thread.

Pure projection.

You greatly underestimate man's creativity and will to believe.

You're telling me.

I suspect that evolution is one of many false tales man could tell about origins.

Look who's talking.

You want God to make every single species completely independent of each other. Sorry, but this is hardly a case for deception. All of us species have to live in the same biosphere under the same natural laws.

Except that these natural laws allow a LOT of variation. Where are the creatures with birds' beaks, bats' wings, and insect antennae?

C'mon God, dazzle us with things that make no sense. Pull a rabbit out of a hat; show us just one more miracle, then we'll believe. Right ...

Bertrand Russell once wrote that in the 1820's upstate New York that there was a prophetess who claimed that she would walk on water on a certain date. When big crowds showed up to watch her do that, she asked them:

"Are you all entirely convinced that I can walk on water?"

"Yes!!!"

"Then there is no need for me to do so."

From an ID or creationist standpoint, there is no reason to predict that primates should have a vitamin C pseudogene without already knowing it.

Why not? These species obtain vitamin C from dietary sources, crippling mutations would therefore not be so serious and could become fixed in the population.

In other words, evolution.

Ken

Thanks, JB, for your response to CD's response to me. As a relative neophite, I appreciate any support I can get. I simply wanted to lay out what it was that personally led me to consider evolution more than just wishful thinking. I'm not surprised that CD isn't impressed; I can only say what impressed me and continue following the debate as those more knowledgeable than I have their say.

Prince Vegita

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Originally posted by NottyImp
No, I'd like to scientifically put special creation to the test. You appear to be telling me that I can't.
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CD replied:
The only way I know is to show that evolution is compelling.


Here CD shows his utter ignorance of the scientific method. The only way HE knows.

1. exhaust all plausible naturalistic hypotheses
2. delineate between all creation myths on an objective basis, specifically hypothesis testing.
3. actually test said hypotheses to determine the "correct" creation myth.

Until he does these things, CD is engaging in the ultimate just-so story. He is merely espousing his belief.

Let's get him started: CD, please explain how to distinguish between the various forms of Christian creationism and determine the "correct" one, and also explain how we know Christian creationism is the "correct" religious creation myth. Then, get your fellow creationists to agree with you (haha), do some research that backs your predictions in a non-ad-hoc sort of way (snicker), and maybe then you'll be about ready to challenge what the actual science has to tell us.