Oolon Colluphid

Of course he is. He already knows that there's little in the way of bat fossils, and has his god-of-the-gaps ready to step in...

Keith, as Socratic dialogues go, yours isn't getting very far, is it?

DT

Oolon Colluphid

I am perplexed by this question, because all mammals have ears, though not all have external ones. Okay, I pick the Rodriguez fruitbat, Pteropus rodricensis. It looks like this:



Those look pretty much like yer bog-standard mammalian ears to me! What�s your point? Want to ask how long mouse ears took to evolve next? Why does that need a separate timeline?

Okay, let�s try a thought experiment. Say that the lifecycle of a bat is a year. Suppose a cumulative series of mutations is required to turn a near-non-existant flap of skin into a pinna. Ten thousand enough? Suppose, further, that it takes each mutation ten generations to spread through the population. We�re looking at a minimum of... wow, 100,000 years! Keith, you do realise that 100,000 years is practically invisible in the fossil record... don�t you?

Try a million. A million years... a million generations. Keith, how long do you think it might take?

Keith, let�s cut to the chase. You are talking about echolocation. And yet you ask about ears rather than noses; you don�t differentiate between pinnas (which are an evolutionary �so what?�) and the middle ear, where bats do the really clever stuff; you ask for any old bat, clearly not knowing the difference between microchiroptera and megachiroptera. Let�s face it Keith, you don�t really know what you are on about.

Meanwhile, since I like this pic so much, here�s a bat skeleton:



Notice anything... mammalian... about it?

�How do I look Mammalian? / Let me count the ways...�

Nah, don�t have that long.

TTFN, DT

Marlowe

As I said in my last post - you are using "information" in a rather specious way. "Information" is the physical structure of the universe. As far as we know the physical structure of the universe has always existed, though current cosmological theories are still arguing over the exact form that structure took at the 'beginning' of time, and whether there was a beginning of time at all.

Starboy

This just SCREAMS evolution of forms. TOE may not be a completely accurate explanation of the emergence and variety of species but it has got creationism beat, unless of course you want to believe in a creator that likes to f*uck with our heads or has very limited imagination and ability.

Starboy

Keith

In that case, can you give me an example of something that doesn't, or at least hasn't been observed, to evolve?

Keith

Starboy

Keith, I don't know if this is what you are looking for but hydrogen atoms are the same today as they were when they first came into existence over 13 billion years ago.

Starboy

Oolon Colluphid

a) Define 'evolve'.

b) Rocks.

DT

Godless Dave

Granite

Water

Helium

Oolon Colluphid

Lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen... certainly nothing this side of radioactive elements doesn't seem to change much... and you'd be hard pushed to claim that C14 --> C12 is exactly evolution...

Like I say, our Keith doesn't know what he's talking about. Hey Keith, a little challenge. Could you define evolution for us, just so we know what you mean by it? Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes...?

DT

Keith

Right, I'm talking about complex structures such as the ear, as a system for collecting information, not merely the pinnas.

Keith