lpetrich

I wonder why Ed comes to that conclusion, because the continents and oceanic crust were not much changed from then to now, meaning that the continents would have extended the same amount above the oceanic crust back then as they do today.

In fact, the continents have likely extended that distance above the oceanic crust for as long as they have been in existence, since they have been accreting from island arcs and the like ever since the Archean. Meaning that they have had the same chemical composition and overall thickness for a long time -- meaning that they had had the same average height as a result of isostasy all that time.

ksagnostic

Well, here's another outlook...

<a href="http://www.primates.com/classification/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.primates.com/classification/index.html</a>

that puts us humans squarely into Pongidae. I personally like this system better, since the common ancestor of humans, chimps, and bonobos would doubtlessly be classified as a pongid if it were seen today. I would hate to see the term hominid used with other great apes simply because paleoanthropological literature tends to reserve the term hominid for humans and those fossil (typically bipedal) primates that share with us more recent common ancestry than chimps and bonobos.

Just my opinion, I'm no taxonomy expert.

lpetrich

However, that's simply deciding on "Pongidae" rather than "Hominidae" for the merged Pongidae-Hominidae family. Even though I agree that "Pongidae" is likely a better name than "Hominidae", on account of what the shared ancestors of the living species were most likely like.

Which ought to be equally troublesome for Ed, since he has claimed that each Linnean-hierarchy family is a created kind. Though he has done so without giving any justification for having done so.

In fact, recognition of created kinds or "baramins" is a serious problem with creationism; creationists do not have any clear procedure on how to recognize created kinds other than to check on what the Bible describes God as having created separately. And that's not a very detailed source.

Amen-Moses

Eh? How come my Geology degree didn't mention that fact?

Oh I forgot, it's that great evilutionist conspiracy again!

Amen-Moses

Ed

Being in the field of biology I meet many people who have made those choices and they are very protective of their status and turf.

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lp: And Ed, what makes you so sure about their supposedly different soft biology? Give reasons, not maybes.

I dont have any reasons, just a hunch!

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OC: Is it not odd that the jaw-joint to ear-bones sequence in them is mirrored in modern mammalian foetal development? Ed: Not if the designer used the same blueprint to deliver the message that there is only ONE designer. Also embryological recapitulation is no longer considered valid. lp: WHAT blueprint? I've never seen any such thing.

Its called DNA.

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lp: And Ed misunderstands recapitulation. The stronger versions are definitely false, but weaker ones are still valid. Later embryos may not resemble earlier adults, but they resemble the embryos of those adults -- which do less reorganization to get to their adult form.

Again, a very superficial similarity is expected given similar basic body plans, ie bilateral symmetry, four appendages, central nervouse system, etc.

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lp: Thus, amniote embryos have gill bars and blood vessels to go with them, which then get turned into various other blood vessels. Interestingly, of one of the sets, one of the two drops out, the left one in mammals and the right one in (living) reptiles and birds. The survivor becomes the aortic arch.

Actually many embryonic organs develop in a sequence that conflicts with their presumed ancestry. For example, the notochord, brain, eyes, and heart develop earlier than their appearance in phylogeny would warrant.

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OC: ... That lungfish are our closest gilled relatives. Ed: But lungfish have virtually no structural fins. How could tetrapods evolve from something whose four "limbs" are even less like legs than the coelancanths? lp: That is something that could easily have happened later, though it would have to have happened before 100 myr ago, when Gondwana was still one continent. Lungfish nowadays live in pieces of Gondwana, suggesting that distribution. Nevertheless, there was plenty of time for lungfish to evolve

However, there is no fossil evidence for such evolution.

[b] I have already listed many of the problems, see above.

lpetrich

Ed, be specific. Provide details. Explain how that is supposed to be the case. Act like a wildlife biologist

And why should the rest of us consider Ed's hunches very reliable?

But why a sequence of development that resembles the deduced pattern of evolution? Was it created to look like evolution?

But that does not explain the details -- the patterns of details fit in very well with evolutionary biology.

Why is that supposed to be the case, O Ed? Please be specific and go into detail.

And I wonder what makes Ed such an expert on fossil lungfish.

Where? Which page? And where is your list of problems with creationism?

Doubting Didymus

NO! dont do that!

The most bloody irritating thing about creationists is that you can never pin them down to one specific point until it is resolved. The reason this thread is 20 damn pages long is not that there are any serious points for us to consider, but that Ed keeps dredging up new topics and leaving the old ones behind.

Don't invite the sod to make a new list! Try to confine him to a single topic. A few posts back we were talking about the depth of the ocean 65 million years ago, and as soon as it got interesting, Ed moved on without comment.

I'm serious: please please please stick with a single topic until someone, somewhere reaches some kind of conclusion! No one is benefiting from this endless peppering of questions.

Ed

Oolon.

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morpho: Lungfish (both Protopterus spp. and Lepidosiren paradoxa) are modern organisms - not somebodies ancestor. What they can show us is an analog for the air/water breathing adaptation. Modern lungfish are Sarcopterygians - fleshy finned - rather than the probable tetrapod ancestor from the Actinopterygian - ray finned - teleosts that ultimately became tetrapods. Here is a good photo of a modern Antenariidae (frogfish or angler fish) showing a ray-fin adaptation for support and locomotion:

No, the angler fish is 100% bony fish, it is not evolving into a tetrapod. Its fins are just modifed bony fins. Also, there is no evidence that any "ancestral" fossil fish had lungs.

[b] Yes, but there is no evidence that such an animal ever existed.

Oolon Colluphid

I’m pretty bloody sure I have never said any such thing. Against my better judgement (hey, I’m replying to the bloody arguing-bot again &lt;slaps self on forehead&gt; ) I’ve checked back through this thread to find where you got this from. It seems it may derive from the stuff on page 13... and I can find no such claim. So, I demand that you quote my saying that lungfish are ancestral to tetrapods, and the page it is on.

For the record, modern lungfish are not ancestral to anything. By definition.
Mitochondrial DNA analyses (eg Roush 1997, Science 277:1436, which I quoted before) indicates that lungfish are our closest gilled relatives. Cousins, not grandparents.

You have shown yourself incapable of grasping this simple distinction before. Please learn from your mistake this time round.

Oolon

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Ed

Of course we can deduce that they may be grouped in the same taxonomic group, but deducing that one is descended from the other is not based on any empirical evidence.

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Ed: It is similar to comparing placental and marsupial dogs. OC: You think that, given just the skeletons of a wolf and a thylacine, anatomists would put both in the canidae? No dog has a tail that tapers from the hind quarters. Would there be no sign, skeletally, of the total absence of the webbing that hold a dog’s toes together for running, nor of the fusion of the thylacine’s interdigital pads? Would the fact that a thylacine’s limbs are more similar in structure to cats such as leopards have no bearing? That a dog’s limbs are lengthened in the wrist and ankle, unlike a thylacine’s? Would the thylacine’s dozens and dozens of similarities to marsupials be ignored? Ed: A dog's tail does taper from its hindquarters. OC: Not in the thylacine manner: it’s the creature’s fundament that tapers with the tail.

I have seen many dogs whose tail tapers from their fundament.


[b] [quote]
Ed: No there would be no sign of webbing or fusion of pads because those are soft tissue characteristics that are unlikely to fossilize.

OC: Yeah, perhaps. But soft tissues such as ligaments attach to bones in characteristic ways, which might be revealed, or not. But you can have that one little point if you like, it’s not worth my time to find out. And the other points?

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Ed: Some slight differences in leg structure may just mean it is a different species of dog. What skeletal similarities do marsupials have? OC: Oh, go bloody look it up for yourself. Try an epipubic bone (which placentals lack), for starters. And their dentition: marsupials have three premolars and four molars; placentals have three to five premolars and three molars. Not that I expect you to know the difference...

Well maybe the Tasmanian wolf is not the best example. Unless you just had skulls. Because some placental dogs have weird tooth counts. A better example may be the sailfish and the swordfish, their skeletons are very similar and yet they are totally unrelated.

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Ed:The first three in the Hopson series are contemporaries from two separate orders. And rather than older the fourth is more recent than the fifth and the final therapsid is more recent than the mammal presented as its descendent. OC: Blah blah blah, and if we’re descended from monkeys why are there still monkeys...? You do realise that it’s a basic principle of cladistics that we are extremely unlikely to be dealing with the actual specific ancestral species or even genus, don’t you? What we get from the fossil record is examples of the sorts of things that are around at a given time. It’s like, in the absence of wolves, finding jackals before Dobermans. We very probably will only ever find the offshoots from the lineage, not the direct ancestors. This is why the organisms found have their own unique derived characteristics, as well as the ‘transitional’ characters that mark them as related.

Being related is not the same as being descended from. So you are basically admitting that they are not transitional forms. I will take that as a point for me.

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Ed:that the mammal-like reptiles which have left no living representatives OC: What about the ones that do have living representatives, like your good self? Ed:Uhhh, it may surprise you to learn that humans are not mammal-like reptiles. OC: Well duh. Uhhh, it may surprise you to learn that humans are members of the Synapsida. Also of the Therapsida, Mammalia, Eutheria, Primates and Catarrhini.

No, the first two are reptile families. Humans are not reptiles.

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OC: Along the way there were lots of dead-ends. Evolution predicted long before they were found that fossils of reptiles with mammalian characteristics ought to exist. They have been found. You said there were no living representatives. You are wrong: you are one. Please explain the barriers to kinds that mean this is not possible.

No, you have failed to demonstrate that we are living representatives of an extinct reptile. For one we are classified as mammals not reptiles or even mammallike reptiles.

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OC: There is also the possibility that you are an arrogant whatsit for thinking that a trawl of the internet means you know better than people such as James Hopson. Maybe you do. Perhaps you’d like to ask him about it? Ed: So now you begin the ad hominem attacks. Very intelligent of you. OC: How is that an ad hom? The definition in my Chambers dictionary of an ignoramus is one claiming knowledge without possessing it. If you do know better than people such as Hopson, it’s up to you to demonstrate it; show that your claims are not the arrogant pronouncements of an ignoramus. In other words, put up or shut up.

I gave the problems of his series above.

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Ed: possessed features in their soft biology completely different from any known reptile or mammal which would eliminate them completely as mammal ancestors OC: Have you ever heard the term ‘irrefutable hypothesis’? This is a non-argument. Sure, it’s possible, but we can’t tell about that. Based on what we do know, there’s no reason at all to doubt that the therapsida were the reptile-mammal transition in action.

See above about the problems with the series.

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Ed: Not to those with a career stake in it and other life choice stakes in it. OC: So they know it’s nonsense really, but want to keep their jobs. It’s all a cover-up. So do please share your vast palaeontological expertise with us, O Ed. Explain why the therapsids are not exactly what evolution predicts.

No, they dont think its nonsense, even I dont think it is nonsense, it is just strong desire to not be accountable for how you spend your time backed by some evidence that appears to point in that direction. It is usually subconscious, because their whole lifestyle is impacted by it not just their career.

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Ed: But you are entitled to your opinion but I think future studies in this area will confirm my comments above. OC: Pinning your hopes on future revelations again eh?

No, there are not going to be any future revelations, I am referring to future research.

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OC: Is it not odd that the jaw-joint to ear-bones sequence in them is mirrored in modern mammalian foetal development? Ed: Not if the designer used the same blueprint to deliver the message that there is only ONE designer. OC: So the same basic embryological structure -- the first pharyngeal arch -- going off to make different things according to what genes are present and turned on/off shows what, precisely. Evolution works, remember, but modifying existing embryological processes. And, uh, different designs show different designers at work? Bat, bird an pterosaur wings are all differently constructed... different designers? No, you’ll say, he can do things differently if he likes. So your ‘explanation’ explains nothing. It’s the same blueprint, except when it isn’t.

No, the blueprint is DNA, all embryological development is controlled by gene expression. Also, there are many similarities between those cretures even though different bones are used for wings.

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Ed: Also embryological recapitulation is no longer considered valid. OC: Bwahahaha! Ooh, what a revelation! But are you claiming that you can tell a six-week old human embryo apart from the equivalent stage embryo of a rabbit and chick? I’ll find some pics if you’d like to try.

I am not an embryologist, but I am sure an embryologist could quite easily tell them apart.

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Ed: But lungfish have virtually no structural fins. How could tetrapods evolve from something whose four "limbs" are even less like legs than the coelancanths? oc: Erm, gradually, from something a little less like legs, and that from something a little less like legs again...? While you’re at it, why not ask “how could something with complicated mammalian lungs evolve from something with so little structural similarity as the lungs of lungfish? And how can a fish develop lungs anyway?”

Yes, but there is nothing in the fossil record showing either one of those series.

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OC: Did it refute one particular hypothesis? Probably. Did it refute evolution? Not in the slightest. Your point is nothing more than yet another 'maybe'. Ed: This is just one area of problems for evolution. OC: Huh? Where’s the problem? How was evolution undermined? Please explain how adapting one’s theory to fit the facts as new ones turn up is anything except science in action.

The problem is evolution tends to become unfalsifiable. Even though there is no empirical evidence for the macro version of it.

[b] Another ad hominem....hmmmmmmm