Freethought & Rationalism Archive

MrDarwin · 04-19-2002, 12:19 PM

Before Thanatos forgets, I'd like to remind him of that list of papers he wanted us to read:

Quote:

Originally posted by Thanatos:
Read these and then tell me that DNA evidence is consistent with evolutionary theory:

Science, 21 May 1999, “Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?” p.1305

Science, 27 November 1998, “The Abominable Mystery” p. 1653

Science News, 5 December, 1998 “Turtle Genes Upset Reptilian Family Tree” p. 358

Science News, 6 March 1999, “Turtles and Crocs: Strange Relations” p. 159

Science, 1 May 1998, “Genes Put Mammals in Age of Dinosaurs” pp. 675-676

6 February 1999 (Science News page 88) “DNA’s Evolutionary Dilemma

There's more where these came from, but I think this is enough reading for you for now.

And repeat my question, since some of us don't have easy access to these journals:

Thanatos, since you have presumably read all these articles you are citing, can you tell us whether any of the authors of these articles have concluded that DNA evidence is not consistent with evolutionary theory?

Do any of these authors give any hint that their research has caused them to doubt evolutionary theory? You are citing these papers as though they do.

On the other hand, if you have studied their research, and come to different conclusions than they did, I'm curious to know what conclusions, and how.

Mageth · 04-19-2002, 12:23 PM

He didn't even bother to answer my simple question:

Let me ask you this:
Have you read those entire books/articles, or just the quotes?

tronvillain · 04-19-2002, 12:28 PM

Just thought I'd point out this one:

Quote:

Science, 1 May 1998, “Genes Put Mammals in Age of Dinosaurs” pp. 675-676

Not exactly a surprising discovery.

RufusAtticus · 04-19-2002, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thanatos:


Where are the transitionals? Which type of reptile progressed to which mammal? Which fish into which amphibian? Where did sharks come from? Why haven't the tuatara, coelacanth fish, the horseshoe crab, and the native frogs of New Zealand changed for over 200 million years? Did bats and whales evolve from the same ancestor in a fairly short time on your timescale? Do the comparisons of the nucleotides of DNA or RNA sequences provide information that classify organisms with a higher degree of accuracy?

So I guess your answer is "no."

You will not answer my questions. Why should we take your comments seriously if you refuse to respond to your critics. I guess it's easier for your do evade then defend.

-RvFvS

Godless Dave · 04-19-2002, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tronvillain:
Just thought I'd point out this one:

Not exactly a surprising discovery.

"Small shrew-like mammals" is what they told me in 6th grade, way back in 1982. I'm guessing the article is just genetic confirmation of what was deduced from the fossil record.

Mageth · 04-19-2002, 12:57 PM

There are also "mammal-like reptiles" in the fossil record:

<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/exfiles/mammal_reptiles.htm" target="_blank">mammal-like reptiles</a>

RufusAtticus · 04-19-2002, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thanatos:
Where are the transitionals? Which type of reptile progressed to which mammal? Which fish into which amphibian? Where did sharks come from?

Do you even know what a transitional is? You obviously don't since you thing that they don't exist. The <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html" target="_blank">Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ</a> will help educate you, if you actually want to learn more. It has sections on sharks, mammals, and amphibians and will answer your questions with recent research.

Quote:

Why haven't the tuatara, coelacanth fish, the horseshoe crab, and the native frogs of New Zealand changed for over 200 million years?

Evidence please that they haven't changed.

Quote:

Did bats and whales evolve from the same ancestor in a fairly short time on your timescale?

On my timescale? No.

Quote:

Do the comparisons of the nucleotides of DNA or RNA sequences provide information that classify organisms with a higher degree of accuracy?

Yep, DNA evidence, when done correctly, offers higher resolution than the fossil record can right now.

-RvFvS

tronvillain · 04-19-2002, 01:00 PM

Thanatos:

I see you didn't respond to my post. Are you admitting that evolution through gradual mutation is possible, but claiming that it didn't happen?

That evolution is a slow and gradual process does not imply that it occurs at the same rate all of the time. In fact, it would be extremely unlikely unless the pressure of natural selection was constant. Punctuated equilibrium is not an ad hoc hypothesis - there are a wide variety of reasons for accepting it.

Mutations are random and often neutral, but that does not imply that we should "find a whole truckload of useless features on organisms." After all, neutral mutations are those that do not increase or decrease fitness in the environment they are in. Such mutations might produce the occasional useless feature, but in the absence of selection "a whole truckload" seems unlikely.

Did dinosaurs grow wings? See my earlier post about changing one genome into another - exactly the same thing could be accomplished with warm and cold blooded genomes. As far as you know, the differences between warm blood and cold blood are so different that most evolutionists try to avoid the issue? I would guess that you don't know anything about the differences between warm blooded and cold blooded.

Oolon Colluphid · 04-20-2002, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tronvillain:
Thanatos:

I see you didn't respond to my post.

Ditto.

May I suggest to everyone that we try to refrain from responding to Thanatos's latest questions / assertions until he has responded to the earlier posts. The thread will get out of contol, with too much to answer and too much unanswered if we don't pause for breath.

I suggest a cutoff of around the Science articles for now.

Up to you all, of course

Cheers, Oolon

Oolon Colluphid · 04-20-2002, 02:23 AM

Let's look at one of Thanatos's quotes. "It's biophysically impossible to evolve flight from such large bipeds with foreshortened forelimbs and heavy, balancing tails," exactly the wrong anatomy for flight. (A. Gibbons, "New Feathered Fossil Brings Dinosaurs and Birds Closer," Science, 274:720-721, 1996)

A misleading quote (of course). Note the article's title!

Ann Gibbons is quoting Alan Feduccia, "the best-known critic of the theory that dinosaurs gave rise to birds". The abstract of the article is:

Quote:

New York--A fossil of a seemingly downy dinosaur, recently discovered in China, strengthens the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Photographs of the fossil were the talk of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting here, where they were first displayed, but some paleontologists remain convinced that birds descended from reptiles that preceded dinosaurs.

This is a journalisty round-up article, not a peer-reviewed paper. Here's the context (again, I hope fair usage, since Science doesn't see fit to let ordinary folks at its stuff... I've trimmed out all I can to still keep context):

Quote:

[After discussing the feathered dino -- I think the one I posted the pics of...]
But [...] the bird-dinosaur link is getting other support. A 75-million-year-old bird from Madagascar sports a distinctive foot with a "wicked looking claw" like that of a dromeosaur dinosaur such as Velociraptor, say vertebrate paleontologists Catherine Forster and David Krause of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, who discovered the turkey-sized bird. Although it lived more recently than Archaeopteryx, it shares so many features with Archaeopteryx, such as a reversed first toe, that it must be closely related.

And paleontologist Fernando Novas of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences has found a dinosaur with a remarkably birdlike shoulder and upper arm. Novas reported that a late Cretaceous (about 90 million years old) dromeosaurid in Patagonia has a shoulder and upper-arm bone that could have been tucked into the body like a wing. Forster adds that the shape of its pelvis also looks like that of the bird from Madagascar.

[...]

Yet another fossil described at the meeting, a fledgling bird the size of a sparrow that lived briefly in Sierra del Montsec, Spain, about 130 million years ago, is offering a glimpse of how flight was perfected. Like Archaeopteryx, this sparrow-sized creature had a primitive, dinosaurian skull, with a depression between its eye socket and brain case, reported Chiappe, who has studied the bird with a team from the University Autonoma of Madrid. But unlike Archaeopteryx, which had a short, primitive wing, this small, Spanish bird and its closest cousins probably had a longer, more sophisticated wing with the beginnings of a "slot"--the set of quill-like feathers that allows modern birds to maneuver better at slower speeds (Nature, 1 August, p. 442). "This is exciting because you see that in the early evolution of birds, the flight apparatus was a priority," says Chiappe.

The new findings haven't swayed Feduccia or University of Kansas paleontologist Larry Martin, another skeptic of the bird-dinosaur link. Says Feduccia: "It's biophysically impossible to evolve flight from such large bipeds with foreshortened forelimbs and heavy, balancing tails''--exactly the wrong anatomy for flight. And as for the suite of other strange-looking characters that link dinosaurs and birds, Martin says that they could have been inherited from an ancient reptilian ancestor that gave rise to both dinosaurs and birds. "In my opinion, the theropod origin of birds will be the greatest embarrassment of paleontology in the 20th century,'' says Feduccia.

But to Ostrom, who 23 years ago breathed new life into the theory that dinosaurs gave rise to birds, the wealth of new fossils speaks for itself: "I'm satisfied I know where birds have come from."

Thanatos, please note that while there may be disputes over details -- this is perfectly normal in science, and if you see significance in it, it just shows how little you know about it all -- NOBODY disagrees that birds evolved from something.

I'll get at the other quotes asap, but I doubt we'll find anything much different from this example.

TTFN, Oolon

PS Once again,

and <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> to Coragyps!

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04-19-2002, 12:23 PM	#62
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	He didn't even bother to answer my simple question: Let me ask you this: Have you read those entire books/articles, or just the quotes?

04-19-2002, 12:57 PM	#66
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	There are also "mammal-like reptiles" in the fossil record: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/exfiles/mammal_reptiles.htm" target="_blank">mammal-like reptiles</a>

04-19-2002, 01:00 PM	#68
tronvillain Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 5,658	Thanatos: I see you didn't respond to my post. Are you admitting that evolution through gradual mutation is possible, but claiming that it didn't happen? That evolution is a slow and gradual process does not imply that it occurs at the same rate all of the time. In fact, it would be extremely unlikely unless the pressure of natural selection was constant. Punctuated equilibrium is not an ad hoc hypothesis - there are a wide variety of reasons for accepting it. Mutations are random and often neutral, but that does not imply that we should "find a whole truckload of useless features on organisms." After all, neutral mutations are those that do not increase or decrease fitness in the environment they are in. Such mutations might produce the occasional useless feature, but in the absence of selection "a whole truckload" seems unlikely. Did dinosaurs grow wings? See my earlier post about changing one genome into another - exactly the same thing could be accomplished with warm and cold blooded genomes. As far as you know, the differences between warm blood and cold blood are so different that most evolutionists try to avoid the issue? I would guess that you don't know anything about the differences between warm blooded and cold blooded.

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