Oolon Colluphid

Thanks for the clarification, Ed... and for not addressing the point, as usual. Take another look at those pics. Are you honestly claiming that Ametrida and Chrotopterus, as different as they are, are a single kind, ie derived from a common ancestor, and yet the Phyllostomid and Molossid examples cannot be similarly related?

Ed, please could you PM me. I am constantly amazed by your apparent obtuseness. So I’d very much like to know, please please, whether you are actually, genuinely serious, after all that’s been discussed in this thread. Please let me know if you’re just having us on. I promise -- hence posting this publicly, so you can hold me to it -- that I will not divulge the answer to any poster here, but for my own sanity, I’ve got to know! You accept evolution really, and are just stringing us along, aren’t you?!

Cheers, Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

Bloody hell, Jack, you mean this thread still has a track?!

Oolon

Duvenoy

Depending upon the definition of 'kind', I'd say ok. One kind. But should I go along with that? Consider:

These small snakes, of two genera, are found in wildly differeing habitates -- The Pig (4 sub-species) in the southern US lowlands and Mexico, the Ridge-nosed (3 ssp) in pocket populations in western forests and one in Mexico, and The Rock (2 subspecies) in dry, desert rock formations, also in only a few pocket populations. In appearance and scale counts, they also vary wildly. One could never be mistaken for another, no matter how many beers the observer might have consumed. Of the three, only the Pigmy has an extended range (there is some discussion as to the Mexican ssp, but here is not the place to argue it). The other two have been in relitive isolation for a very long time.

Now then, two very different genera. from three very different habitates. Where is the kind line drawn? The only similarity among these snakes is the buzzers on their tails and that their bites hurt like hell. Could you draw the kind line at the species level, or at the genera level? Do not let the rattle influence the decision. Lots of snakes posessing no rattle will shake their tails when alarmed. Further, I don't think that the 'kind' decision can be made without taking the other nearly eighty ssp of Crotalus into account. What relationship is there between the tiny (24 inches is a big one) Rock Rattlesnake (C. lepidus) and the the huge, over seven feet long and thought to be the world's heaviest, venomous snake, Eastern Diamondback (C. adamanteus)?? Both are Crotalus, are they not?

doov

Ed

I took out my trusty ruler and measured the distances on your excellent drawings from the foramen magnum to the back of teeth and the australopithicine is still far from basal. Although closer than the gorilla, it is still at the anterior of the skull, thereby demonstrating the facultative bipedalism of the Australopithicines. While the gorilla is facultative quadrapedal and the human is obligate bipedal. Also you contradict yourself. You state that "australopithicines are basically bipedal chimpanzees", but if that is true then they are 100% ape and cannot be "fossil C." Also how does one transition form disprove creation? God may have allowed some organisms to metamorphise more than others. But the fact is if there is just one major gap in the fossil record then evolution is in serious trouble.

Doubting Didymus

WHAT!?!

Evolution would be a fine theory without any fossil record at all!

Jack the Bodiless

So it's a transitional form.

And did you scale your measurement for the human skull to account for the non-protruding jaw of Sapiens, bringing the back teeth closer to the foramen magnum?
Making it a transitional form between facultative quadrupedalism and obligate bipedalism. Keep going, Ed, you're getting there...
Chimpanzees aren't bipedal, humans are. Therefore a bipedal chimp isn't "100% chimpanzee", it's maybe 80% chimp, 20% human. A transitional form.

Unfortunately for the creationists, we have a range of transitional forms from this point on. I hereby nominate Homo Habilis as "Fossil C".
There are MANY transitional forms in the fossil record, and they utterly destroy creationism. It isn't just their mere existence: their chronological position is also proof of common descent. For instance, there are no modern humans among the australopithecines or habilines.

And are there any "major" gaps? What is a "major" gap, exactly? There is no reason why we should expect the fossil record to be entirely gap-free. The general structure of the evolutionary "Tree of Life" is very evident in the fossil record, and in the pattern of similarities between living organisms today. This has been recognized by all biologists, even before Darwin: it is the basis of the Linnaean classification system.

Oolon Colluphid

Okay, let me lay this out for you.

1. Creation claims that, though organisms might vary, this variability is within certain (undefined) limits. (These limits are also unexplained: if things can vary by descent with modification from a common ancestor as much as between dik-diks:



... and elands:



... both within -- well within, since it also includes cattle, sheep and goats -- the family Bovidae ... then just what is stopping things morphing into something even more different over a longer time?)

2. Therefore creation predicts that there should be no transitional fossils. That is, one might find a fossil that is different from known forms, but still fairly obviously of the same ‘kind’. All fossils should fall into neat categories. Creation predicts, then, that it is impossible for there to be fossils with characteristics of two separate kinds (and when evolution claims they existed).

3. Therefore, if such fossils be found, creation is refuted. Since they cannot, under creation, exist, it takes just one ‘transitional’ fossil to refute creation, provided creation is formulated in a refutable (ie scientific) way.

Now, we ‘evolutionists’ claim that such fossils have been found, in profusion.

But, Ed, you are trying to find a loophole. By claiming a lot of latitude in morphological variation within kinds, you potentially make your claim untestable, and so unscientific. “It’s just an extreme variant on so-and-so kind.” (That just happens to be varying in precisely the ways that evolution expects .)

You need to be able to draw a line -- and ought to be able to, if kinds are ultimately immutable. So for your claim to be verifiable -- and I take it you want to demonstrate its veracity? -- you need to tell us where the line is.

So, despite this being a return to territory already covered, let’s use hominids. Please tell us what characteristics mean that, say, the Homo habilis, OH24:



... is ape, or human. Bear in mind that it has a human-orientated foramen magnum and human-like palate, a face that protrudes far beyond any normal modern human, and a cranial capacity of just 600cc.

This is precisely the sort of creature that evolution predicts should have existed, and evolution is therefore verified.

But we’re trying a different tack here. Creation claims that fossils of creatures intermediate between apes and humans are impossible. Therefore finding something like OH24 refutes creation, falsifies it, disproves it, shows it to be wrong.

Using your attempted loophole, you will doubtless claim that it is just a variant on the theme of ape (or human). This is a scientific claim. Therefore you must tell us how this might be falsified. What might prove it incorrect?

Surely its face, and tiny brain little bigger than a chimpanzee’s, disqualifies it from being human. Yet its palate shape and dentition mark it as not being an ape either. What are we to make of a creature that combines features of both ‘kinds’, at a time and in a place where evolution expects? Why does the presence of such a creature not refute the claim that ‘one kind cannot change into another’?
Ed, this is patent nonsense, and I cannot believe you say that with a straight face (hence, see my earlier post: I’m still waiting for that PM). You want us to discount all the evidence that there is, and rely on what there isn’t. How is what we do not know supposed to be representative?

Suppose someone is accused of murder. We do not know how the accused may have travelled to and from the killing, nor how he gained entry to the victim’s house (through the unlocked door, or the open window?), nor did anyone see him arrive or leave -- in fact, nobody who has yet come forward had seen him that day at all. Those things we do not know.

Yet, his fingerprints are on the knife; the blood of the victim is on his clothes; his trainer-print is in the mud of the victim’s garden; a hair matching his is in the victim’s pooled blood; the knife sticking out of the body is the same make and size as the one missing from the knife-block in the accused’s kitchen, and there is a possible motive. Those things we do know.

Ed would have us acquit this person.

TTFN, Oolon

Inconnu

Is this the biggest thread in the world? I am amazed, god must have made it!

ps418

Australopiths were not at all well suited for quadrupedal locomotion, if thats what you are suggesting, although they did not have a "fully human" bipedal gait either. Their extraordinarily human-like pelvic anatomy and bicondylar angle make that abundantly clear. Regarding the placement of the foramen magnum, the relevant landmark to consider is the bitympanic line. In chimps and gorillas, the FM is behind the bitympanic line, whereas in australopiths the FM is partially forward of the bitympanic line, and in humans it is still further forward. From an old post of mine of australopith anatomy:

Patrick

ps418

double post