Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complexity

[Aught3]

This debate is between Proteus and miccah1116 over the topic "Is the Modern Synthesis of Evolution Capable of Explaining the Complexity of Life?"

Standard debate rules.

Debate analysis found here.

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

About a month ago the youtube user micah1116 and I had a debate in the comments section of Donexodus2's video "Irrefutable Proof of Evolution-Part 1 (mtDNA, ERVs, Fusion)". The topics we discussed include the ability of evolutionary mechanisms to produce new features, and significantly affect an organisms morphology to produce the diversity in life hence the title. Topics we also wanted to bring up include the origin of new genes, how creationists define genetic "information" and "kind", and finally the definition of macroevolution.

I will now turn it over to micah1116 issue his first series of challenges.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Hey proteus, sorry it took so long to finally post. Anyway, I'll start off with a couple challenges for you.

My first challenge is for you to supply evidence that changes in allele frequency can cause evolutionary change. Evolution contends that fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods. This would obviously require a new body plan such as digits and limbs. Changes in allele frequency only change the frequency in which already existing genes are expressed. This process has led to changes such as a wolf to a domestic dog, but structurally they are EXACTLY the same. In order for something to be considered evolutionary change, there has to be new structures present, this is exactly what evolution contends, that all forms of life originate from one body plan. How can selecting from already existing genes, produce new genes for entirely new structures. This process of changing allele frequency is callled micro evolution, how can micro lead to macro? When micro isn't evolution at all and results in no structural changes and produces no new informaiton.

My second challenge is for you to show me one example of a transitional fossil. By transitional fossil, I'm talking about two fossils that are identical except for a new structure, atleast the beginnings of one. For example, if fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods, you would have millions of years of fossils of just fish, then lets say a mutation occurs, or whatever you think will do it, and it begins to evolve limbs, even just tiny traces of limbs since it's supposed to be a slow gradual process. The fish with the partial limbs will breed, die, and leave behind fossils. After a period of time, you would have fossils of the normal fish, then you would have identical fossils except they have partial limbs. Show me one example of this, it can be any organism you can think of.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Also, I'd like to make a few more points that I would like you to respond to:

If fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods, why would thier fins continually evolve into limbs when it would be a dissadvantage to a fish to have limbs which make it more difficult to swim with agility while at the same time being unable to walk on land with grace. Evolution contends that Natural Selection weeds out dissadvantages and passes on things which are advantageous. If fish evolved into tetrapods, a transitional form would be dissadvantageous since it would not be idealy suited for either the water or land for a vast measure of time, perhaps millions of years. Why then would not Natural Selection weed out such supoosed transitional forms?

why would a fish evolve to seek food on land when the water provides a greater food source, and attempting to hobble around on land to catch something to eat would be more difficult than a fish's remarkable ability to quickly catch bugs and smaller fish in the water. If you say because of a diminishing food source in the water, or the water drying up and turning into land, I'd like to know how the environmental pressure of a drying environment or reducing food source can effect the homeobox genes so that a fish's fins would turn into legs.

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

My first challenge is for you to supply evidence that changes in allele frequency can cause evolutionary change. Evolution contends that fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods. This would obviously require a new body plan such as digits and limbs. Changes in allele frequency only change the frequency in which already existing genes are expressed.

One of the key points of the modern synthesis developed in the 1940's was that mutations are the original source of variation for evolution. Should these new variants be beneficial nature selects them and this variant becomes dominant through out the population. These traits can also spread, and thus increase the genetic divergence between two populations, via genetic drift. This can happen even when the trait is completely neutral. For example in 1993 Uppala Radhakrishna and colleagues published a paper studying a family in rural India in which a common ancestor with preaxial polydactyl (other structural changes were observed in other individuals as well) spread through out the populations onto dozens of descendants. I'll answer the rest of your question through the rest of this post.

How can selecting from already existing genes, produce new genes for entirely new structures.

Even in the case of more drastic changes involved in the evolution of tetrapods from lobbed-finned fish a change in alleles, can produce novel structures, without creating new genes. Fish in the evolution of tetrapods display a trend to lose bones, which fuse, making the fin stronger. This series of intermediates also shows the development of our own basic limb structure, that is a humerus/femur, followed by an ulna & radius/tibia & fibula, and lotsa other bones, which make up the wrist/ankle and phalanges.

The earliest transitions in this series limbs, resemble chondrichthyans, like skates and rays, who's fins are essentially a giant fans which splay out on both sides of the body. A study in 2006 found that mutating a gene involved in embryonic development, called sonic hedgehog, produced a dorsal fin morphology which is suspiciously similar to the limb-like fins of our fishy ancestors.

So new genes aren't needed to produce novel changes, all though that can happen as well. It evidently did according to genetic research which indicates hox gene duplication events which produced new raw material for evolution to act on. Even in the case of major structural changes, organs can evolve from a lose of genes. In a recent study researches identified genes (And1-4) partly responsible for the development of the median fin and pectoral fins in zebrafish, as well as fin regeneration. These genes are also found in chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fish), but are absent in tetrapods. Predicting that the lose of these genes played a role in tetrapod evolution, researchers observed that inactivation of and1 & and2 resulted in reduced and truncated fins, however the tail was not as severe effected. This is exactly what is indicated in the fossil record, where we see the fins reduce in length, but the "fishy" tail is retained even in early tetrapods, like Ventastega curonica.

The authors of the study go on to note that other changes in gene expression, including polydactyl mutations seen in mammals, would lead to multiple distal limb elements which appear to be identical. Again this is exactly what we see in the fossil record, such as the "almost-tetrapod" Ancanthostega which has eight symmetrical digits, followed by Tulerpeton curtum a "true" tetrapod which bears six digits, and this is reduced even further on all tetrapods after, which have five or fewer, differentiated fingers and toes.

This process has led to changes such as a wolf to a domestic dog, but structurally they are EXACTLY the same.

Then according to you humans and chimpanzee's "are EXACTLY the same".

In order for something to be considered evolutionary change, there has to be new structures present, this is exactly what evolution contends, that all forms of life originate from one body plan.

Wrong. Now you are disagreeing with your previous definition of evolution. All evolution is is a change in allelic frequencies over generations.

How can selecting from already existing genes, produce new genes for entirely new structures. This process of changing allele frequency is callled micro evolution, how can micro lead to macro? When micro isn't evolution at all and results in no structural changes and produces no new informaiton.

First, I will ask you to define exactly what "information" is, how we can quantify it, and what would be an example of new "information" arising. Second, the only difference between micro- and macroevolution, is the number of generations between speciation events, or, as you insist, some arbitrarily assigned morphological difference between an ancestral and derived state. But even if we were to use that defintion these macro changes always occur through repeated microevolutionary events. For example in the case of the evolution of the eye, computer simulations have shown that only small but beneficial, random mutations when selected for, can produce a complex seeing eye in a relativity (on geologic timescales) short amount of time. So where is the barrier to macroevolution?</COLOR>

If fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods, why would thier fins continually evolve into limbs when it would be a dissadvantage to a fish to have limbs which make it more difficult to swim with agility while at the same time being unable to walk on land with grace.

<COLOR color="#00FF00">
To quote Richard Dawkins, "evolution is a blind designer". Traits don't evolve with the specific intent to serve some purpose into the distant future, only to help the organism at present. These changes can be modified later to produce other features though, and I'll discuss this at length below.

Evolution contends that Natural Selection weeds out dissadvantages and passes on things which are advantageous. If fish evolved into tetrapods, a transitional form would be dissadvantageous since it would not be idealy suited for either the water or land for a vast measure of time, perhaps millions of years. Why then would not Natural Selection weed out such supoosed transitional forms?

We still have fish today which either retain, or have convergently evolved, traits similar to those seen in the ancestors to tetrapods and they seem to get along just fine. For example mudskippers have dorsally located eyes, can spend hours out of the water, catch prey and compete for territory on land. Some researchers have even seen them climb trees! Lung fish, which are close relatives of the sarcoptergyii transitions I previously listed, can survive in oxygen depleted water during the dry season with the use of their lungs (or in one species lung) while rival teleosts asphyxiate and die.

why would a fish evolve to seek food on land when the water provides a greater food source, and attempting to hobble around on land to catch something to eat would be more difficult than a fish's remarkable ability to quickly catch bugs and smaller fish in the water.

In order to understand the selection pressures involved in this transition, it's important to understand Devonian paleoecology. But first a general point about evolution to remember is that extinctions leave vacant niches which will be filled by invasive or newly evolved species. Part of the Devonian-Carbiniferous extinction, involved a drop in aquatic oxygen levels, which put pressure on larger marine organisms who need more oxygen, but not smaller lung bearing sarcoptergians.

At the same time tetrapods were evolving, large armor plated fish, were stalking the rivers and oceans through out the Devonian period. These animals would have easily out competed the much smaller, armor-less sarcopterygians in open water. But the first primitive trees, such as Archaeopteris, were growing on land near rivers and streams. The fallen branches from these trees would have produced weed chocked, oxygen poor swamp environments ideal for small, lung-bearing, bony limbed "fishapods", like Tiktaalik . These fish would have been at a greater advantage if they were able to support themselves on their fins allowing them to conserve energy while stalking winged insects or small fish croc-style. These modified fins would have also been useful for navigating through mazes of branches and decaying vegetation, as well as "walking" through the muddy substrate, rather than wasting energy swimming in short bursts. Modern Australian handfish do this too, but have evolved this feature in a different way. Later, when the Placoderms were dying out, the first primitive sharks had appeared, and began invading the territories of primitive tetrapods, who in response adapted (although not consciously) their feety "fins" for life on land to escape predation, and exploit new niches.

If you say because of a diminishing food source in the water, or the water drying up and turning into land, I'd like to know how the environmental pressure of a drying environment or reducing food source can effect the homeobox genes so that a fish's fins would turn into legs.

Environmental pressures do not cause mutations. You are thinking of evolution in a Lamarkian sense where organisms want to evolve. That's incorrect, and we've known it for about three hundred years. Instead, the environment selects for variants which are present and continues to select new variations which arise.

Since you are so interested in tetrapod evolution, I suggest you read "Your Inner Fish" by Niel Shubin. He brings up some of the studies I've linked to, and discuss other aspects of tetrapod evolution and other anatomical changes which led to the modern human body.

My second challenge is for you to show me one example of a transitional fossil. By transitional fossil, I'm talking about two fossils that are identical except for a new structure, atleast the beginnings of one. For example, if fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods, you would have millions of years of fossils of just fish, then lets say a mutation occurs, or whatever you think will do it, and it begins to evolve limbs, even just tiny traces of limbs since it's supposed to be a slow gradual process. The fish with the partial limbs will breed, die, and leave behind fossils. After a period of time, you would have fossils of the normal fish, then you would have identical fossils except they have partial limbs. Show me one example of this, it can be any organism you can think of.

I believe I've already shown that above, but ignoring the previous examples I gave there are other transitional forms which meet the criteria you offer. Just look at the fossil record of horses.

In the late Oligocene and early Miocene equids began to adapt to life out on the open grass covered plains, coming from dense forests. The genus Miohippus which is very similar to Mesohippus display similar morphology to each other. While Miohippus is slightly larger, it isn't very different, with the exception of the ankle joint which displays the beginning of the "spring-foot" structure seen in more derived horses. Various individuals also display an extra tooth crest located on the upper cheek teeth, but the trait varies in this genus. This toothy adaptation is also found in the next horse in the series Parahippus in which this trait has become fixed, and also shows the beginning of ligaments under the foot. After this another speciation event took place (the line between the two is so fine that paleontologists can't agree when P. leonesis ends and M. gunteri begins) leading to Merychippus which is essentially identical to Parahippus. The only major structural change other than an overall increase in body size and leg length, is the fusion of the ulna and radius, to produce a more efficient runner.

Now according to your definition of morphology changes in the length, shape, or proportion of bones and other features do not make different organisms distinct, only organisms with completely different structures, right? And according to your restrictive definition of a transitional form (which is different from the one we agreed to before the debate) an organism must be the same "structurally" with the exception of the development of a new feature, right? So even though multiple features typically evolve at the same time, doesn't this series of animals fit exactly what you asked for?

My last question is as follows, when we were organizing the debate, you brought up the creationist concept "kind". I've found a variety of creationists definitions for this term, ranging from the taxonomic rank of species to order. Could you please define exactly what a "kind" is?

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Correction: the text at the bottom of the second image should read "Credit: Dahn et al 2007".

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Humans and chimps are not the same according to my definition. We have different ribs, the part of the brain that allows for speach, opposed thumb, etc.

The fossils you showed me do not meet what I was asking for, they might have some similariy such as number of digits, but will be totally different in other ways. I'm looking for exactly the same except for a new structure.

"We still have fish today which either retain, or have convergently evolved, traits similar to those seen in the ancestors to tetrapods and they seem to get along just fine. For example mudskippers have dorsally located eyes, can spend hours out of the water, catch prey and compete for territory on land. Some researchers have even seen them climb trees! Lung fish, which are close relatives of the sarcoptergyii transitions I previously listed, can survive in oxygen depleted water during the dry season with the use of their lungs (or in one species lung) while rival teleosts asphyxiate and die."

Now show me the transitions of the mudskipper before it full had lungs and walked on land.

The evolution of horses idea you mentioned has been debunked as of about 50 years ago, and hardly and books still talk about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v5/i3/horse.asp


"First, I will ask you to define exactly what "information" is, how we can quantify it, and what would be an example of new "information" arising. Second, the only difference between micro- and macroevolution, is the number of generations between speciation events, or, as you insist, some arbitrarily assigned morphological difference between an ancestral and derived state. But even if we were to use that defintion these macro changes always occur through repeated microevolutionary events. For example in the case of the evolution of the eye, computer simulations have shown that only small but beneficial, random mutations when selected for, can produce a complex seeing eye in a relativity (on geologic timescales) short amount of time. So where is the barrier to macroevolution? "

A computer simulation is not science, it's imagination, it's how they imagine it happened. Show me an example of a complex eye forming by natural processes.

You'll have to give more time to respond to the rest, most of the names you gave me I'm not familiar with.


I think your trying to give me a lot of information to make it look like you've said something. You know I haven't heard of most of the things your even talking about, so are we going to debate about each individual organism you are talking about, or are you going to give me a short and to the point answer?

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

"One of the key points of the modern synthesis developed in the 1940's was that mutations are the original source of variation for evolution."

Since the 1930's however, even to this day, millions of mutation experiments have been performed. Perhaps hundred of thousands between the 30's and 40's, asnd they continue to this day at most universities in the world. Not once in all of these experiments has a change to morphology been reported due to random mutation. Mutations may cause deformity in the individual, but these deformities dissapear in thier offspring, typically in the fisrt generation of offspring. No new structures that are permanent in any species has been observed due to random mutation. It is therefore unscientific to claim random mutation is a mechanism for evolutionary change, as there is no evidence that morphological change can be derived from random mutation. In fact, the certainty with with offspring revert to wild type after deforming mutations indicates random mutation not only does not, but cannot cause change to morphology. Why then if no mutation experiment has been reported to cause morphological change that is permanent in a species is it scientific to claim that mutation is a mechanism for the evolution of one kind into new kinds, such as fish into amphibians, which would require countless permanent morphological changes?

"Should these new variants be beneficial nature selects them and this variant becomes dominant through out the population. These traits can also spread, and thus increase the genetic divergence between two populations, via genetic drift."

Changes to color, size, pattern, and muscularity or robustness are reported due to mutation or adaptation. These are not morphological changes however. No number of changes such as these can transform fish into amphibians, which requires new structures, not merely the deformation or addition of more tissue to extant structures. Changing the shape of a fish any number of times cannot turn it into an amphibian. Such transition would require countless morphological changes - new structures not present. Mutation has never been reported to have caused such change, thus there is no morphological change for Natural Selection to make prominant in a population, and no transition from one kind into new kinds can be had. Why do you call it science to claim that cosmetic changes can be evolutionary change and suppoirt evolution theory's claim that all of the body plans and morphologies of life have arisen by random mutation acted upon by natural Selection when no evidence of morphological change is observed to occur by random mutation?

As for your reference to Genetic Drift, it must be understood that Genetic Drift is drift is the change in the relative frequency in which a gene variant. However, changing the frequency of any given gene within the genetic material causes a loss of genetic information by gene redundancy of expression. This is a negative to the imagined process of evolution. Furthermore, Genetic Drift does not cause change to morphology any more than random mutation. There is no evidence that changing the frequency of existing genes or alleles can somehow develop new strucutres by generating new genetic information. Why do you call it science to claim that changes to gene frequency can develop new morphological structures when no evidence of this is observed and Genetic Drift is the opposite of new information arising in the genome which might define new morphological structures?

"For example in 1993 Uppala Radhakrishna and colleagues published a paper studying a family in rural India in which a common ancestor with preaxial polydactyl (other structural changes were observed in other individuals as well) spread through out the populations onto dozens of descendants."

Firstly, Polydatyly in humans is a negative. Secondly, the trait, though dominant, is dissapearing in humans which carry it because of selection, in exactly the same way that countless animals reject deformed flies as mates, as is observed regarding flies in the laboratory which have become deformed and are rejected by others for mating. Thus, their deformity is doomed and a dead-end. Those who have the feature are not marrying as often as in the past, and the trait is being reduced to a smaller population continually, and thus will eventually be gone one day. Thirdly, the additional digit is not a new morphological strucutre. Those persons already have fingers and toes. A fish cannot become an amphibian by gaining additional bones in it's fins, nor a human transform into anything new by gaining digits. Evolution contends that new morphological strucutres have arisen in transition, as fish do not have the same morphology, not even all of the same bones or organs or, and often not even in the same location in ther body plan as mphibians. Thus, the evolution of fish into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into mammals, cannot occur by reproduction of extant structures. More eyes does not transform a fish into an amphibian. Neither do replication of extant fingers in humans support the claim of evolution. Why do you call it science to claim that replication of extant structures in humans is evidence of evolution when it does not cause new structures and is cannot support evolution's claim that new structures have arisen?

"Even in the case of more drastic changes involved in the evolution of tetrapods from lobbed-finned fish a change in alleles, can produce novel structures, without creating new genes."

That is scientifically unsupportable. Your statement demonstrates the anti-science of evolutionists. You have just made a statement of faith that something for which there is no evidence today has taken place countless millions of times in the past. There are no observed examples of morphological change in any species. Again, changing allele frequency causes a loss of genetic information, the opposite of evolution's requirement of new information which defines new morphological structures. There is no evidence of any "novel structure" as you put it, arising in any species without accompanying dormant genetic information being re-expressed, such as is the case with Italian Wall Lizards. Genes can be turned on or off by tuning epigenetic information (the existance of which alone discredits evolutionism). As for your statement "without creating new genes", this is also antiscience. There is no known mechanism for the development of new information in genetic material, no mechanism for it exists, and nature cannot produce information, which is a product of intelligent process - a product of mind conveyed from one intelligent source to another via communication. There are no examples of the repackaging of extant genetic information having produced new morphological structures not already present in any species. Why do you call this science when there is no example to use as evidence to support your claim?

"Fish in the evolution of tetrapods display a trend to lose bones, which fuse, making the fin stronger. This series of intermediates also shows the development of our own basic limb structure, that is a humerus/femur, followed by an ulna & radius/tibia & fibula, and lotsa other bones, which make up the wrist/ankle and phalanges."
The series you provide demonstrates the absurdity of ev0olutionism, for in it we are expected to believe that Sauripteris had somehow acquired additional, new bones in it's fin, then Eusthenopteron lost many bones, then Tiktaalik again lost bones, then Acanthostega somehow gained many new bones, then Tulerpeton lost bones, etc. This imagined gaining and losing, gaining and losing of bones illustrates that evolutionism is lunacy. At such a rate or morphological change, the sheer number of deforming, illness-causing, and biochemically degrading mutations that would occur would have made each and every one of these species extinct, since we know that the overall effect of random mutation upon life forms is degrading. To imagine that 100K negative mutations would be somehow overcome by the imagined single beneficial mutation is perposterous. Scientists such as William A. Dembski (Multiple PhDs in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science) have demonstrated with mathematics that the imagined rare beneficial mutation cannot overcome the overwhelming negativity of mutation in general, and that accruing mutation is a death sentance for all life forms.

"The earliest transitions in this series limbs, resemble chondrichthyans, like skates and rays, who's fins are essentially a giant fans which splay out on both sides of the body."

That's your assumption, but does not qualify as science, as there is no observed or repeatable example of new morphological strutures arising in any species. Please conform your claims to that which is scientific. We are not here to share assumption. This is a disscusion of science. Any claim you make must conform to science and the Scientific Method. Please do not posit that your assumptions are evidences in science. If you want to claim that such morphological change has taken place, you need to provide an observed, testable, and repeatable example of new morphological strutures arising and becoming permanernt in species, and these examples should be common enough that one can make Strong Inference that it takes place commonly and has done so countless times in the past. Else it cannot be considered evidence and cannot support your statement, and your statement is mere assumption. Please conform your claims to science.

"A study in 2006 found that mutating a gene involved in embryonic development, called sonic hedgehog, produced a dorsal fin morphology which is suspiciously similar to the limb-like fins of our fishy ancestors."

The study you cite describes variety within the kind. It does not discuss the observation of new morphological structures arising. Variation is not a new morphological structure. Varyious patterns of fins ins not a new fin, nor is it a new bone. There are dogs with long hair, dogs with short hair, and because of man's intervention, dogs with little hair at all. This is not evolutionary change. One cannot transform a fish into a tetrapod by causing or observing that variation in fin patterns arise. Fish-to-amphibians requires new morphological structures that do not exist in the ancestral species. Variation in fins is not a new morphological structure. It is merely the expression of new or different patterns in existing structures.

Furthermore, the study states, "Here we demonstrate that chondrichthyans share patterns of appendage Shh expression, Shh appendage-specific regulatory DNA, and Shh function with ray-
finned fish and tetrapods2--10" Gene expression is a remarkable example of Intelligent Design, and provides no evidence to support evolution, but instead supports Intelligent Design. Furthermore, the expression of extant genes does not create new genetic information which can define new morphological structures. Why do you call this science when variation within a kind is not evidence that life has acquired new morphological ctructures to become the various life forms? Why do you call it science to claim that existing genetic information can be expressed to define new morphological structures, such as bones and organs that are not present in the ancestral species? Please, conform your claims to science. To do this regarding this claim, you must provide the following evidence:

1) That extant genetic information can be expressed and produce new morphological structures no present in a species
2) That fin rays can transform into new bones
3) that appearance of variety in fin rays can be extrapolated with evidence to demonstrate that new morphological featurees can arise

Changing the shape of fins any number of times cannot move a fish towards becoming a tetrapod. To evidence this, you would need to provide observed examples of the following:

1) that gene expression can produce new, permanent cartiledge in a species
2) that gene expression can produce new, permanent bones in a species
3) that the expression of genes which define fin rays can cause the rise of other morphological structures, such as bone

Your evidence must be common enought that we can make Strong Inference that it has occurred commonly in the past and overcome the observed negativity of random mutation upon the structures of life forms as we observe them.

There is no evidence that the expression of extant genetic information can cause the rise of a morphological feature which is defined in other homeobox genes, such as those which define bones.

Lastly, the study you cite is an example of intelligent engineering, as the researchers induced these changes biochemically with the use of retinoic acid. I quote their study: "The ability of retinoic acid to exert dose- and stage-dependent" Why do you use an example of intelligent engineering and man-induced changes to life forms as evidence that such changes occur naturally as part of evolution? It is not scientific to do such a thing. You are producing hegemony when you cite intelligent causes as evidence of natural causes, then claiming it's evidence for evolution. Furthermore, it's not even an example of evolutionary change for variety within a feature to be observed. It is an example of Intelligent Design, in that the intelligent processes of gene expression are the cause. The epigenetic ant meta-information properties of DNA discredit evolution, they do not support it. Please, conform your claims to evidences in science. Putting forth intelligent engineering as evidence of naturally occuring evolution and putting forth claims that variation within a feature is evidence that new morphological features can arise naturally is antiscience. Please conform your claims to science.

"It evidently did according to genetic research which indicates hox gene duplication events which produced new raw material for evolution to act on."

Your claim here is antiscience and hegmonic. The appearance of duplicate genes is observed. This is however a negative, as the duplicate feature is typically a hinderance or death sentance to the organism, and may cause the organism to be rejected as a mate, thus ending the existance of the duplicate gene, as is the case with flies which acqire duplicate wings, a leg where an eye should be, etc. Also, the existance of a duplicate gene is entropic for the genetic system, as it causes the cell to expend more energy managing the genetic material, and provides a breeding grounf for negative mutation, and the overwhelming number of mutations which effect form and srtructure are indeed negative. It is your statement "for evolution to act upon" that is hegemonic. It posits that mutation will transform a duplicate gene into new information which will define new morphological structures. Therefore, I require that you provide evidence of the following to support this claim:

1) that mutations are capable of creating information (which is impossible, as information itself is a prodoct of intelligence)
2) that random mutation will transform this duplicate gene into information which defines a new morphological feature
3) that random mutation which effect morphology produce new morphological features

Your evidence must be common enought that we can make Strong Inference that it has occurred commonly in the past and overcome the observed negativity of random mutation upon the structures of life forms as we observe them.

Please conform your claims to science. Assumptions are not acceptible as evidence in science. I am not here to be indoctrinated.

"Even in the case of major structural changes, organs can evolve from a lose of genes."

This is a perposterous claim. The continued loss of genetic information would have caused all life to become extinct iof your claim were true. Please provide4 evidence that losing genetic information causes the rise of new morphological features, specifically, organs, or cause existing organs to "evolve", and I assume this to mean create new biological functions and interdependancies with the other organs of the organism. Without this evidence, you are speaking antiscience assumptions and presenting them as evidences in science. I must insist you provide evidence to support this outrageous claim. Your evidence must be common enought that we can make Strong Inference that it has occurred commonly in the past and overcome the observed negativity of random mutation upon the structures of life forms as we observe them.

"In a recent study researches identified genes (And1-4) partly responsible for the development of the median fin and pectoral fins in zebrafish, as well as fin regeneration. These genes are also found in
chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fish), but are absent in tetrapods. Predicting that the lose of these genes played a role in tetrapod evolution, researchers observed that inactivation of and1 & and2 resulted in reduced and truncated fins, however the tail was not as severe effected."

Your claim is perposterous and hypocracy. You have already claimed that duplicate genes provide the material for random mutation to transform into new morphological features, now you claim that a loss of genes does even more astounding things - that it creates new organs and transforms existing organs into more complex ones with new biochemical processes and interdependance with the body's other organs. There is no evidence in science to support this gross assupmtion that loss of genetic information can generate something new. Observed examples of loss of genetic information, as in the case with contual breeding of dogs, causes weakness of the varieties, loss of features (such as hair or a tail) and is a dead-end for the organism. All of the evidence of a loss of genetic information demonstrates the exact opposite of your outrageous claim that a loss of genetic information can produce new, stupefyingly complex, interdependant systems and morphological structures. I must therefore insist that you provide an example of observed loss of genetic information causing the rise of such structures. Your evidence must be common enought that we can make Strong Inference that it has occurred commonly in the past and overcome the observed negativity of the loss of genetic information upon the structures of life forms as we observe them.

"This is exactly what is indicated in the fossil record, where we see the fins reduce in length, but the "fishy" tail is retained even in early tetrapods, like Ventastega curonica."

The fossil record does not provide evidence of transition, which is why the majority of prominant evoluytionist scientists who have written books have stated in their own work that the fossil record of life demonstrates stasis predominantly. There are no evidences of transition. Placing extinct varieties within a fkind next to each other, then adding an organism which is not of the same kind but has a similar homology, does not provide evidence of morphological transition.

You have made many claims without providing evidences, and expecting us to accept your assumption as evidence. You have claimed:

1) random mutations create new information
2) random mutatiuons transform duplicate genes into new genetic information which defines new morphological structures
3) that gene expression constitutes evolutionary change (though it is not new morphological structure)
4) that a loss of genetic information creates new morphological structures, even organs
5) that Genetic Drift and (presumably) changes to allele frequency cause new morphological structures to arise
6) that random mutations are beneficial to the morphology of life forms,

...and perhaps a half-dozen other implied claims. Please provide evidence for these outrageous claims that conforms to science - that is observed, repeatable, and testable.

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Humans and chimps are not the same according to my definition. We have different ribs, the part of the brain that allows for speach, opposed thumb, etc.

So you admit that you have contrived your own definition to satisfy your creationists presupposition, that humans cannot be apes. Unfortunately for you we are. Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis happen to have different ribs (although slightly), does that make one species an ape, and the other not? Humans and chimps both have opposable thumbs (as do all primates), chimps have the same basic neural hardwiring as do humans and are capable grasping concepts like language and abstract symbolism.

The fossils you showed me do not meet what I was asking for, they might have some similariy such as number of digits, but will be totally different in other ways. I'm looking for exactly the same except for a new structure.

I've already presented that, both according to your made up definitions of transitional form and morphology.

Now show me the transitions of the mudskipper before it full had lungs and walked on land.

I suggest you check the source I provided for the bit about the mudskipper, because if you had, you would know they don't have lungs.

The evolution of horses idea you mentioned has been debunked as of about 50 years ago, and hardly and books still talk about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v5/i3/horse.asp

Interesting you link to AiG considering that even they accept the evolution of horses even though on a scale of hundreds of years, not millions.

Your source also claims that an ancient three-toed horse was found in the same strata as a uni-toed horse, and this some how falsifies evolution. For one, no part about evolution suggest that an ancestor must go extinct when it produces a daughter species. Also, the evolution of horses, as in most clades, not a single anagenic line. There were several lineages of horses which went extinct through out the Cenozoic.

Traits (like toe number, dental formula, tooth morphology, ext) were variable in many of these species, as I stated in my previous post. Further more we still have horses which are born with vestiges sets of two extra side toes. So if horses were created as is, and never evolved from smaller, primitive, tree toed runners, why do they have the genes for making extra toes? And we do some horses still have two or even four canines, while some don't have any at all, even though we have dozens of proto-horses with four canine teeth? And why is that the genera Homo and Pan are more closely related to each other, than either is to orangutans, if humans aren't supposed to be apes at all? And why is it that creationists can't deciede among themselves which of these transitional species are "just apes" and "just humans", even though every species listed here is 100% both!

Note: For the sake of simplicity I used the "lumper" classification.

A computer simulation is not science, it's imagination, it's how they imagine it happened. Show me an example of a complex eye forming by natural processes.

Wrong. This is proof, in the actually academic sense, of evolution. This is one example of how gradual changes can lead to novel, complex organs with random variations coupled with a non-random selective process, which is how evolution works. And if you'd like we have all the transitions in nature in one class of animals, the mollusc's, which demonstrates that steps involved in the evolution of the eye.

I think your trying to give me a lot of information to make it look like you've said something. You know I haven't heard of most of the things your even talking about, so are we going to debate about each individual organism you are talking about, or are you going to give me a short and to the point answer?

I've been trying to do exactly that. You are the one who boasted that you had been in hundreds of debates and presented evidence before so I thought that the way I countered your challenges would suit you. I've also listed links to peer reviewed publications as well as websites and books written for laymen so you can verify that what I'm saying is accurate and learn about the details if you wish. You are the one who asked for specific transitional species and I appropriately responded to your request. I only hope that you will do the same.

Since the 1930's however, even to this day, millions of mutation experiments have been performed. Perhaps hundred of thousands between the 30's and 40's, asnd they continue to this day at most universities in the world. Not once in all of these experiments has a change to morphology been reported due to random mutation.

Wrong. First off, mutations have been studied since the 1900's, by the father of modern genetics, Thomas Hunt Morgan. Second, I've already listed mutations which affect morphology, even according to your definition of that term, so are you or are you not going to recognize the points I made in my previous post? Third, universities have reported other mutations which even effect body plan and go a long way to explaining what we see in biology. For example Wolfgang Jakob and Bern Schierwater conducted an experiment in which they changed hox gene expression radically alter the body plan of hydrozoans. The two noted that some mutant phenotypes led to, among other things, body plans seen in living hydozoans:

"Notably, some of the observed gene inhibition phenotypes look like direct links to the bauplan patterns found in other hydrozoan taxa. The multiple oral poles (or multiple heads) phenotype is strikingly suggestive of colonial hydrozoans, or colonial cnidarians in general. Many colonial cnidarians form colonies by adding oral poles to a common stalk (stolon or hydrocaulus). Each head is functional in feeding and connects to a shared gastrovascular cavity, just as in some Cnox-2, Cnox-3 and Cnox-5 inhibited Eleutheria medusae. Other cnidarian bauplans derive from multiplication of tentacle structures or whole tentacles. The already bifurcated tentacles in Eleutheria duplicate further if Cnox-1 or Cnox-2 is inhibited, and the resulting phenotypes are similar to those found in several hydrozoan groups such as Cladonema radiatum. As a working hypothesis, it seems to us an intriguing idea that Cnox genes in Cnidaria may provide a very efficient means for macroevolutionary bauplan alteration, for example by multiplication of body parts."

Credit: modified from Jakob & Schierwater 2007

Now compare their findings with what we actually see in biology.

The multi-headed hydrozoan, Obelia, in its polyp form.

Mutations may cause deformity in the individual, but these deformities dissapear in thier offspring, typically in the fisrt generation of offspring.

Yes, some mutations do, and those variants are typically removed from the gene pool via natural selection.

No new structures that are permanent in any species has been observed due to random mutation.

Wrong. We have.

It is therefore unscientific to claim random mutation is a mechanism for evolutionary change, as there is no evidence that morphological change can be derived from random mutation.

Wrong. Mutations are the raw material for evolution, not the mechanism. Genetic drift and natural selection are the mechanisms.

In fact, the certainty with with offspring revert to wild type after deforming mutations indicates random mutation not only does not, but cannot cause change to morphology. Why then if no mutation experiment has been reported to cause morphological change that is permanent in a species is it scientific to claim that mutation is a mechanism for the evolution of one kind into new kinds, such as fish into amphibians, which would require countless permanent morphological changes?

Do you just parrot Nephilimfree videos and think that people like me have never heard this creationists rhetoric before?

Changes to color, size, pattern, and muscularity or robustness are reported due to mutation or adaptation. These are not morphological changes however.

So the transitional horses I listed earlier were the same morphologically, with the exception of the single traits, you asked to see arising. I'm glad we can agree.

No number of changes such as these can transform fish into amphibians, which requires new structures, not merely the deformation or addition of more tissue to extant structures.

I suggest you go back and re-read my second post, as well as the links I provided to understand why you are wrong.

Changing the shape of a fish any number of times cannot turn it into an amphibian. Such transition would require countless morphological changes - new structures not present.

Evolution modifies existing structures to find new functions. And in the case of the "fin-to-feet" transition, bony fins and skull elements were modified, via fusion and fission to produce the scapula, humerus, ulna, radius, ext. which was modified further by later tetrapods. Nothing was really added, nor needed to be, and a lot of skeletal elements were lost! However all these animals, despite their superficial external differences, share the same basic skeletal pattern.

Homology, it's a beautiful thing, ain't it?

Mutation has never been reported to have caused such change, thus there is no morphological change for Natural Selection to make prominant in a population...

Why are you repeating the same assertion?

Mutation has never been reported to have caused such change, thus there is no morphological change for Natural Selection to make prominant in a population, and no transition from one kind into new kinds can be had.

We don't know until you define exactly what a "kind" is. Now would you please do so as I've requested for the third time?

As for your reference to Genetic Drift, it must be understood that Genetic Drift is drift is the change in the relative frequency in which a gene variant. However, changing the frequency of any given gene within the genetic material causes a loss of genetic information by gene redundancy of expression.

How does this cause a lose of genetic "information" when the trait is being spread through out a population? And again, how do you know this since you refuse to define exactly what "information" is.

This is a negative to the imagined process of evolution. Furthermore, Genetic Drift does not cause change to morphology any more than random mutation.

As I said in my second post, drift increase the genetic divergence between two or more populations, making them more and more distinct, both on the level of the phenotype and genotype. This mechanism is also responsible for accelerating the process of speciation.

There is no evidence that changing the frequency of existing genes or alleles can somehow develop new strucutres by generating new genetic information.

Even though I've presented evidence that it does happen. And again what is "information", why do you refuse to define it, and why does evolution require an increase of it to take place?

Firstly, Polydatyly in humans is a negative.

Not really. Typically in mot species it tends to be neutral, and has been maintained in some cat breeds via artificial selection. Some of the first American sailors also valued polydactyl cats because they were said to be able to navigate snowy terrain, and catch more mice. Also this answers your challenge to show an example by which organisms can get new digits/change morphology. Are you going to deny that too?

Secondly, the trait, though dominant, is dissapearing in humans which carry it because of selection, in exactly the same way that countless animals reject deformed flies as mates, as is observed regarding flies in the laboratory which have become deformed and are rejected by others for mating. Thus, their deformity is doomed and a dead-end. Those who have the feature are not marrying as often as in the past, and the trait is being reduced to a smaller population continually, and thus will eventually be gone one day.

Fortunately for the chaps who inherited the mutation in this family, you are wrong.

Credit: Radhakrishna et al 1993

Next time please take a look at my sources, so we don't have to waste time.

Thirdly, the additional digit is not a new morphological strucutre. Those persons already have fingers and toes. A fish cannot become an amphibian by gaining additional bones in it's fins, nor a human transform into anything new by gaining digits.

Problem with that is is that this mutation accounts for the peculiar digit formula in Anchanthostega, but you would know that if you checked the source I provided.

Evolution contends that new morphological strucutres have arisen in transition, as fish do not have the same morphology, not even all of the same bones or organs or, and often not even in the same location in ther body plan as mphibians.

Yes, some of them do. Amphibians, mammals, and repitles do have any of the same bones as the sarcoptergians I listed previously and as the illustration I presented earlier clearly shows.

Thus, the evolution of fish into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into mammals, cannot occur by reproduction of extant structures.

For the record, mammals didn't evolve from reptiles or amphibians for that matter. But I'm not going to go off on a cladistics tangent and distract from the rest of this debate.

More eyes does not transform a fish into an amphibian.

What amphibian has more than two eyes?

Neither do replication of extant fingers in humans support the claim of evolution. Why do you call it science to claim that replication of extant structures in humans is evidence of evolution when it does not cause new structures and is cannot support evolution's claim that new structures have arisen?

Because in your first post you asked this:

"My first challenge is for you to supply evidence that changes in allele frequency can cause evolutionary change. Evolution contends that fish evolved into amphibian tetrapods. This would obviously require a new body plan such as digits and limbs."

"Even in the case of more drastic changes involved in the evolution of tetrapods from lobbed-finned fish a change in alleles, can produce novel structures, without creating new genes."

That is scientifically unsupportable. Your statement demonstrates the anti-science of evolutionists. You have just made a statement of faith that something for which there is no evidence today has taken place countless millions of times in the past.

I've already presented evidence of exactly that. You simply refuse to acknowledge it. And no aspect of "evolutionism" uses or desires faith.

You have just made a statement of faith that something for which there is no evidence today has taken place countless millions of times in the past. There are no observed examples of morphological change in any species.

Are you going to keep repeating the same mantras, or make a valid point, which I haven't yet refuted.

here is no evidence of any "novel structure" as you put it, arising in any species without accompanying dormant genetic information being re-expressed, such as is the case with Italian Wall Lizards.

I've been waiting for this. Point one, since you want to bring up atavisms, please explain why humans have the atavistic genes for making tails, why chickens have the genes to make teeth, why cetaceans have the genes for making hind legs, ext. Point two, present evidence that this trait is an atavism(I'm calling your bluff), because I've heard this Nephilimfree crap refuted already.

Genes can be turned on or off by tuning epigenetic information (the existance of which alone discredits evolutionism).

No, it doesn't. In fact it helps explain some of the changes which have happened in the evolution of some organisms.

As for your statement "without creating new genes", this is also antiscience.

:lol:

There is no known mechanism for the development of new information in genetic material, no mechanism for it exists, and nature cannot produce information, which is a product of intelligent process - a product of mind conveyed from one intelligent source to another via communication. There are no examples of the repackaging of extant genetic information having produced new morphological structures not already present in any species. Why do you call this science when there is no example to use as evidence to support your claim?

I'll again ask you to define genetic "information" and to stop repeating yourself.

There is no known mechanism for the development of new information in genetic material, no mechanism for it exists, and nature cannot produce information, which is a product of intelligent process - a product of mind conveyed from one intelligent source to another via communication.

Wait, so "information" is something which is passed from one intelligence to the other? Then in that case a genome is defiantly not "information" for the simple reason that most organisms aren't intelligent and don't inherit their genome from an intelligent source either. Shit, by that definition, some information written by humans doesn't qualify either. After all any book, say a diary, written by someone can contain information which will only be read (ideally) by one intelligence, the author.

"Fish in the evolution of tetrapods display a trend to lose bones, which fuse, making the fin stronger. This series of intermediates also shows the development of our own basic limb structure, that is a humerus/femur, followed by an ulna & radius/tibia & fibula, and lotsa other bones, which make up the wrist/ankle and phalanges."
The series you provide demonstrates the absurdity of ev0olutionism, for in it we are expected to believe that Sauripteris had somehow acquired additional, new bones in it's fin, then Eusthenopteron lost many bones, then Tiktaalik again lost bones, then Acanthostega somehow gained many new bones, then Tulerpeton lost bones, etc.

I've addressed all this above and in previous posts so I won't repeat myself again.

This imagined gaining and losing, gaining and losing of bones illustrates that evolutionism is lunacy. At such a rate or morphological change, the sheer number of deforming, illness-causing, and biochemically degrading mutations that would occur would have made each and every one of these species extinct, since we know that the overall effect of random mutation upon life forms is degrading. To imagine that 100K negative mutations would be somehow overcome by the imagined single beneficial mutation is perposterous.

Wrong. Most mutations are completely neutral since they are so common and most don't have any effect on fitness. Besides, as I've said before, natural selection sweeps away the ugly ducklings and favors those with beneficial mutations, so the scenario you imply goes against not only evolution, but common sense as well.

Scientists such as William A. Dembski (Multiple PhDs in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science) have demonstrated with mathematics that the imagined rare beneficial mutation cannot overcome the overwhelming negativity of mutation in general, and that accruing mutation is a death sentance for all life forms.

Can you come up with an argument that isn't almost word for word recited transcript of a Nephilimfree video? For one, beneficial mutations don't have to "overcome" anything, they are just selected for by the environment. So the number of negative mutations, even if they were as high as you say, wouldn't matter thanks to natural selection. Dembski has been refuted on this point and many others. But I challenge you, if you really think that deleterious mutations are accumulating in all organisms, make a prediction as to when all life should go extinct, and the rate at which species should go extinct.

I also find it curious that you assert the already disproven maths of Dembski, but refuse to acknowledge the source I provided for the maths around the evolution of the eye and the computer model calculating the rate (based on observations of the real world, not creationist strawmen) at which one could evolve.

"The earliest transitions in this series limbs, resemble chondrichthyans, like skates and rays, who's fins are essentially a giant fans which splay out on both sides of the body."
That's your assumption, but does not qualify as science, as there is no observed or repeatable example of new morphological strutures arising in any species.

Wrong. That statement was based on the obvious fact the the fins of the early sarcoptergians I listed in my previous post do resemble the fins of some chondrichthyians. This objection of yours doesn't make any sense, and yet again your repeating yourself.

Please conform your claims to that which is scientific. We are not here to share assumption. This is a disscusion of science. Any claim you make must conform to science and the Scientific Method...[e]lse it cannot be considered evidence and cannot support your statement, and your statement is mere assumption. Please conform your claims to science.

At this point I am beginning to suspect that you are a troll.

Please do not posit that your assumptions are evidences in science. If you want to claim that such morphological change has taken place, you need to provide an observed, testable, and repeatable example of new morphological strutures arising and becoming permanernt in species, and these examples should be common enough that one can make Strong Inference that it takes place commonly and has done so countless times in the past.

And I have. Will you acknowledge these examples?

"A study in 2006 found that mutating a gene involved in embryonic development, called sonic hedgehog, produced a dorsal fin morphology which is suspiciously similar to the limb-like fins of our fishy ancestors."
The study you cite describes variety within the kind.

Again, define a "kind".

It does not discuss the observation of new morphological structures arising. Variation is not a new morphological structure. Varyious patterns of fins ins not a new fin, nor is it a new bone.

I would ask you to actually read the paper I cited so you would know why you are wrong, but I'm not so optimistic at this point.

There are dogs with long hair, dogs with short hair, and because of man's intervention, dogs with little hair at all. This is not evolutionary change.

Yes, it is a change in allelic frequencies, and thus it is evolution. But because of your creationist presuppositions, and blind adherence to a literalistic interpretation of scripture you cannot admit that, can you?

One cannot transform a fish into a tetrapod by causing or observing that variation in fin patterns arise.

But according to the fossil record it did.

Furthermore, the study states, "Here we demonstrate that chondrichthyans share patterns of appendage Shh expression, Shh appendage-specific regulatory DNA, and Shh function with ray-
finned fish and tetrapods2--10" Gene expression is a remarkable example of Intelligent Design, and provides no evidence to support evolution, but instead supports Intelligent Design.

First off, ID isn't science, but that isn't within the scope of this debate. Let's, instead take the quote you presented from the abstract and look what the rest of it says:

"Here we demonstrate that chondrichthyans share patterns of appendage Shh expression, Shh appendage-specific regulatory DNA, and Shh function with rayfinned fish and tetrapods. These studies demonstrate that some aspects of Shh function are deeply conserved in vertebrate phylogeny, but also highlight how the evolution of Shh regulation may underlie major morphological changes during appendage evolution."

So even in the abstract of the paper you quoted, disproves the assertion you've made several times now.

Why do you call it science to claim that existing genetic information can be expressed to define new morphological structures, such as bones and organs that are not present in the ancestral species?

Because we've seen it happen. Why do you keep repeating the same points over and over again?

Your next series of paragraphs you dishonestly move the goal posts. While this tactic is a logical fallacy, but not unexpected when debating a creationist, it is a bit annoying. Why can't you accept it when you've been proven wrong? Other than that you continue to repeat what you've already said and I've already presented, I'll skip a few paragraphs.

Lastly, the study you cite is an example of intelligent engineering, as the researchers induced these changes biochemically with the use of retinoic acid. I quote their study: "The ability of retinoic acid to exert dose- and stage-dependent" Why do you use an example of intelligent engineering and man-induced changes to life forms as evidence that such changes occur naturally as part of evolution? It is not scientific to do such a thing.

The use of retinoic acid mirrors the effect of an shh mutation without actually altering the genome of the embryo studied. This is a common practice in studying development, and mimics what one would see in a mutation.

The epigenetic ant meta-information properties of DNA discredit evolution, they do not support it.

What are you talking about?

"It evidently did according to genetic research which indicates hox gene duplication events which produced new raw material for evolution to act on."
Your claim here is antiscience and hegmonic. The appearance of duplicate genes is observed. This is however a negative, as the duplicate feature is typically a hinderance or death sentance to the organism, and may cause the organism to be rejected as a mate, thus ending the existance of the duplicate gene, as is the case with flies which acqire duplicate wings, a leg where an eye should be, etc. Also, the existance of a duplicate gene is entropic for the genetic system, as it causes the cell to expend more energy managing the genetic material, and provides a breeding grounf for negative mutation...

Wrong. Most gene duplications are inactivated through mutations and are degraded due to no selective pressure. However when some are mutated they acquire a function which aids the organism, therefore increasing fitness and likelihood to mate or grow to reproduce.

Therefore, I require that you provide evidence of the following to support this claim:

1) that mutations are capable of creating information (which is impossible, as information itself is a prodoct of intelligence)
2) that random mutation will transform this duplicate gene into information which defines a new morphological feature
3) that random mutation which effect morphology produce new morphological features

Define "information". I'll also remind you that you are moving the goal posts, again.

1) that mutations are capable of creating information (which is impossible, as information itself is a prodoct of intelligence)

Are you actually admitting to a presupposition?

"In a recent study researches identified genes (And1-4) partly responsible for the development of the median fin and pectoral fins in zebrafish, as well as fin regeneration. These genes are also found in
chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fish), but are absent in tetrapods. Predicting that the lose of these genes played a role in tetrapod evolution, researchers observed that inactivation of and1 & and2 resulted in reduced and truncated fins, however the tail was not as severe effected."

Your claim is perposterous and hypocracy. You have already claimed that duplicate genes provide the material for random mutation to transform into new morphological features, now you claim that a loss of genes does even more astounding things - that it creates new organs and transforms existing organs into more complex ones with new biochemical processes and interdependance with the body's other organs.

I presented evidence that the changes you asked for can happen through a change in existing genes, a lose of genes, and through gene duplication followed by mutation.

There is no evidence in science to support this gross assupmtion that loss of genetic information can generate something new.

So "information" is a functional gene? If that's the case, then I've already proven you wrong.

Observed examples of loss of genetic information, as in the case with contual breeding of dogs, causes weakness of the varieties, loss of features (such as hair or a tail) and is a dead-end for the organism.

Well the lose of certain features, such as hair or a tail, is adaptive in certain organisms, such as naked mole rats.

"This is exactly what is indicated in the fossil record, where we see the fins reduce in length, but the "fishy" tail is retained even in early tetrapods, like Ventastega curonica."

The fossil record does not provide evidence of transition...

Yes it does and I provided evidence that that is the case. If you are just going to ignore reality then there is no point in debating.

"This is exactly what is indicated in the fossil record, where we see the fins reduce in length, but the "fishy" tail is retained even in early tetrapods, like Ventastega curonica."

The fossil record does not provide evidence of transition, which is why the majority of prominant evoluytionist scientists who have written books have stated in their own work that the fossil record of life demonstrates stasis predominantly.

For one, the fossil record demonstrates both phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Further more there are obvious examples stasis followed by rapid changes with the intermediate fossils in between. I've already given an example in the case of equids and another in the adapid Notharctus demonstrates an case[url] of gradual change in the fossil record. For an example of stasis followed by rapid transition would be one case in the Two Medicine Formation where Jack Horner et al [url=http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v358/n6381/abs/358059a0.html]reported[url] finding morphological intermediates being found after a period of five million year stasis in dinosaurs, followed by rapid change which took place in half a million years.

Also, morphological stasis doesn't imply evolutionary stasis. For example tuataras were long considered to be living fossils. That is until scientists found the remains of an ancient tuatara with their DNA revealing them to be [url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080320120708.htm]one of the fastest evolving animals.

There are no evidences of transition. Placing extinct varieties within a fkind next to each other, then adding an organism which is not of the same kind but has a similar homology, does not provide evidence of morphological transition.

Science does not recognize the creationist concept "kind". And unless you specify what a "kind" is there's no way we can test whether or not the evolution of new "kinds" is possible.

In closing I find it frustrating that you want to change the definitions which we already agreed to and refuse debate for a set of common definitions which both wanted to agree on as a main part of the debate. If you cannot agree to what we set out to do in the first place and accept when you've been proven wrong, then there's no point in having this debate.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

I've already defined kind, it's not hard to understand. A wolf and any domestic dog are the same kind, they are exactly the same structurally. If you were able to get a wolf or dog to evolve a new structure, it would be evolving into another kind of animal.

Let me respond to the rest of your claims before I move on to your others:

"Then according to you humans and chimpanzee's "are EXACTLY the same"."

Humans and apes do not have the same morphology. They have a different number of ribs, different bone and muscle and tendon numbers, humans have a locking knew joint whereas apes do not, the ape olfactory nerve passes through a different hole (along a different bone process) than in humans, apes typically have 1 more thoractic vertabrae than man, and a different number of caudal and sacral vertabrae than man, apes do not have deciduous molars like man, the Foramen magnum is in a different location in human and ape skulls, In most animals, including apes, the surface of every cell, except brain cells, carry glycoproteins that contain one particular member of a family of sugar molecules called sialic acid. In humans, this sugar is not present in any cell other than red blood cells, which is a cellular mporphology difference.

"Wrong. Now you are disagreeing with your previous definition of evolution. All evolution is is a change in allelic frequencies over generations."

Evolution claims the various life forms have arisen by morphological change. Without evidence of morphological change, how can a fish become a tetrapod or an amphibian become a reptile or reptile become a mamal? No, you see, morphological change is a tenant of evolutionism. Biochemical adaptations or changes of any kind do not promote evolutionism. But let's have you support your claim. Tell me how the form and structure of life forms changes because of biochemical changes. How does that work? What evidence is there that the rise of new protiens or enzymes will cause morphological change so that a fish can become a tetrapos, an amphibian become a reptile, or reptile become a mamal? What evidence is there for this outrageous claim of yours that mere chemical changes cause the rise of new morphological structures, such as new organs, or transform extanf structures such as fins into limbs? What is this imagined mechanism by which chemical changews transforms structures?

"First, I will ask you to define exactly what "information" is, how we can quantify it, and what would be an example of new "information" arising.

Do you not have a dictionary? Here's the Webster's Medical Dictionary definition - the most accepted definition of information in the world:

1 : the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
2 a (1) : knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction (2) : intelligence, news (3) : facts, data b : the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects c (1) : a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data (2) : something (as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (as a plan or theory) that represents physical or mental experience or another construct d : a quantitative measure of the content of information; specifically : a numerical quantity that measures the uncertainty in the outcome of an experiment to be performed
3 : the act of informing against a person
4 : a formal accusation of a crime made by a prosecuting officer as distinguished from an indictment presented by a grand jury

You are not allowed to redefine information to suit evolutionism. Creationists are not either. Goalpost movbing is a losing proposition. That's the definition above. Evolutionism cannot produce information, as it requires intelligent process of mind.

"Second, the only difference between micro- and macroevolution, is the number of generations between speciation events, or, as you insist, some arbitrarily assigned morphological difference between an ancestral and derived state."

I have made no such claim that time and generations is the only difference between micro and macro evolution. That's what evolutionists do.

"But even if we were to use that defintion these macro changes always occur through repeated microevolutionary events."

Nonsence. You cannot provide such an example.

"For example in the case of the evolution of the eye, computer simulations have shown that only small but beneficial, random mutations when selected for, can produce a complex seeing eye in a relativity (on geologic timescales) short amount of time. So where is the barrier to macroevolution?"

Nonsence. No computer simulation using preestablished data to derive the desired end result can provide evidence of the evolution of the eye. The eye's complexity defies evolutionism. You ask where is a barrier for macroevolution. I will provide one. But first, I ask you for evidence that macroevolution is possible. Where is this evidence that mporphology can change by new genetic information, loss of genetic information, gene expression, or ellele frequency? As for evidence of a barrier, again I point to the 70+ yrs of random mutation experimentation which have not provided a single example of permanent morphological change to a species. Also I point to the processes of DNA Repair, which replaces mutated homeobox genes with a backup typically stored from the grandparent's genome, so that hox genes which experience mutations are not changed so as to allow morphological change.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Revolutionary-discovery-in-genetics-16165.shtml

http://www.springerlink.com/content/mpu6235734734v82/

http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/168/1/351

Before proceding, I must insist you provide evidence of the outrageous claims you have made:

You have made many claims without providing evidences, and expecting us to accept your assumption as evidence. You have claimed:

1) random mutations create new information
2) random mutatiuons transform duplicate genes into new genetic information which defines new morphological structures
3) that gene expression constitutes evolutionary change (though it is not new morphological structure)
4) that a loss of genetic information creates new morphological structures, even organs
5) that Genetic Drift and (presumably) changes to allele frequency cause new morphological structures to arise
6) that random mutations are beneficial to the morphology of life forms,

We cannot debate by merely tossing out unsubstanciable claims and expecting each other to believe them. Please provide the observable, testable, and repeatable (scirntific) evidence of these claims before we continue.

As for the claim the eye evolved, in what evolutionists claim is the "Cambrian" era, were different species of Trilobites and many other species with eyes - the greatest variety of eyes found in the earth. In fact, the Trilobite Opipeuterella has the most complex eyes of any creature known to exist on Earth. This creature is found Cambrian strata, which demonstrates that the Darwinian phylogenic "tree of life" is upside down since we see stupefying complexity and diversification in the lowest strata, instead of an increasing complexity and diversity moving upward in the strata.

"We still have fish today which either retain, or have convergently evolved, traits similar to those seen in the ancestors to tetrapods and they seem to get along just fine. For example mudskippers have dorsally located eyes, can spend hours out of the water, catch prey and compete for territory on land."

Much assumption there. You have not provided evidence that any of these claims are ture. Where is the observed examples?

Mudskiippers are lungfish. There are no transitional forms for lungs in the fossil record of life.

"Lung fish, which are close relatives of the sarcoptergyii transitions I previously listed"

That is your assumption, but there is no evidence of a mechanism for evolutionary change, and no evidence that Sarcopteryii are evolutionarily related to any other phylum of life. The existance of lungfish acturally works against evolution, since it is a creature that is found in the fossil record and living (a living fossil) which demonstrates like tens of thousands of living fossils, that life simply does not change morphologically over time. Furthermore, it is an example of a creature which already has a feature that evolutionists claim evolved, while there is no transitional form for lungs. Please provide fossil evidence of the development of lungs in stages to support your claim that lungs have evolved.

"In order to understand the selection pressures involved in this transition, it's important to understand Devonian paleoecology."

These is no mechanism by which environmental pressures can cause morphological change. We know of no mechanism capable of changing the information in the homoebox genes which define morphological structures so as to produce anything new morphologically, or even any permanent change to morphology. Furthermore, the hox genes which create the limbs in most

But first a general point about evolution to remember is that extinctions leave vacant niches which will be filled by invasive or newly evolved species. Part of the Devonian-Carbiniferous extinction, involved a drop in aquatic oxygen levels, which put pressure on larger marine organisms who need more oxygen, but not smaller lung bearing sarcoptergians.

"At the same time tetrapods were evolving, large armor plated fish, were stalking the rivers and oceans through out the Devonian period. These animals would have easily out competed the much smaller, armor-less sarcopterygians in open water. But the first primitive trees, such as Archaeopteris, were growing on land near rivers and streams. The fallen branches from these trees would have produced weed chocked, oxygen poor swamp environments ideal for small, lung-bearing, bony limbed "fishapods", like Tiktaalik . These fish would have been at a greater advantage if they were able to support themselves on their fins allowing them to conserve energy while stalking winged insects or small fish croc-style. These modified fins would have also been useful for navigating through mazes of branches and decaying vegetation, as well as "walking" through the muddy substrate, rather than wasting energy swimming in short bursts. Modern Australian handfish do this too, but have evolved this feature in a different way. Later, when the Placoderms were dying out, the first primitive sharks had appeared, and began invading the territories of primitive tetrapods, who in response adapted (although not consciously) their feety "fins" for life on land to escape predation, and exploit new niches."

Fireflies became tanks, which then transformed alongside pistonburgers. Is that evidence in science to you? Well, neither are any of the claimes you have streamed together in that diatride. I require evidence, not hegmonic claims. You have made claims only. That's not evidnece in science of anything.

1) Desfine these claims and their mechanisms
2) Provide observable examples so that we may make Strong Inference to determine that such processes occur and have occurred as many times as evolutionists claim they have.

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

I've already defined kind, it's not hard to understand. A wolf and any domestic dog are the same kind, they are exactly the same structurally. If you were able to get a wolf or dog to evolve a new structure, it would be evolving into another kind of animal.

Interesting considering the morphological variation seen in the skulls of domestic dogs exceeds the variation seen in the entire order carnivora. So if humans can breed a level of diversity within a single species in several thousand years which exceeds variation seen through out 260 species which evolved over the course forty million years through natural selection, where is the imagined boundary to macroevolution?

I've already defined kind, it's not hard to understand. A wolf and any domestic dog are the same kind, they are exactly the same structurally. If you were able to get a wolf or dog to evolve a new structure, it would be evolving into another kind of animal.

"Then according to you humans and chimpanzee's "are EXACTLY the same"."

Humans and apes do not have the same morphology. They have a different number of ribs, different bone and muscle and tendon numbers, humans have a locking knew joint whereas apes do not...

So this is not an ape

AL-288-1

...the ape olfactory nerve passes through a different hole (along a different bone process) than in humans, apes typically have 1 more thoractic vertabrae than man, and a different number of caudal and sacral vertabrae than man...

So this is not apart of the wolf kind

But this is

...apes do not have deciduous molars like man...

Yes they do.

the Foramen magnum is in a different location in human and ape skulls

So this is not an ape

TM 266-01-060-1

In most animals, including apes, the surface of every cell, except brain cells, carry glycoproteins that contain one particular member of a family of sugar molecules called sialic acid. In humans, this sugar is not present in any cell other than red blood cells, which is a cellular mporphology difference.

For one sialic acid is found in varying degrees in plants, fungi, protists, and bacteria cells, and by your own admission it's found in humans, so this is a poor diagnostic character to place humans out of the superfamily hominoidae. But even then I'll play game with that. So since new molecules present in differing cells, according to you classify them as having a different morphology and are a different kind, then we have seen the evolution of new kinds at the cellular level too.

This is why taxonomists don't use the inconsistent creationists type of classification and why they can show that you are an ape.

"Wrong. Now you are disagreeing with your previous definition of evolution. All evolution is is a change in allelic frequencies over generations."

Evolution claims the various life forms have arisen by morphological change.

The change in allelic frequencies leads to these changes as I've said the past two posts.

Without evidence of morphological change, how can a fish become a tetrapod or an amphibian become a reptile or reptile become a mamal?

I've addressed all of this already.

No, you see, morphological change is a tenant of evolutionism.

Please don't use the creationist oxymoron "evolutionism".

Biochemical adaptations or changes of any kind do not promote evolutionism. But let's have you support your claim. Tell me how the form and structure of life forms changes because of biochemical changes. How does that work? What evidence is there that the rise of new protiens or enzymes will cause morphological change so that a fish can become a tetrapos, an amphibian become a reptile, or reptile become a mamal? What evidence is there for this outrageous claim of yours that mere chemical changes cause the rise of new morphological structures, such as new organs, or transform extanf structures such as fins into limbs? What is this imagined mechanism by which chemical changews transforms structures?

I've already done all of this. Please read my previous posts.

"First, I will ask you to define exactly what "information" is, how we can quantify it, and what would be an example of new "information" arising.

Do you not have a dictionary? Here's the Webster's Medical Dictionary definition - the most accepted definition of information in the world:

1 : the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
2 a (1) : knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction (2) : intelligence, news (3) : facts, data b : the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects...

So since you've finally defined what information is then I've already presented examples of new information arising.

You are not allowed to redefine information to suit evolutionism.

I'm not. Professional scientists only use information in the colloquial sense, so that's why I asked you to define it exactly.

Creationists are not either. Goalpost movbing is a losing proposition. That's the definition above. Evolutionism cannot produce information, as it requires intelligent process of mind.

And I've already proven you wrong on that, and shown that you've moved the goalpost. If you want to keep ignoring reality that's fine, but let me know so we can end this debacle.

"But even if we were to use that defintion these macro changes always occur through repeated microevolutionary events."

Nonsence. You cannot provide such an example.

I already have. If you are not going to read the whole of my response then what is the point of debating?

"For example in the case of the evolution of the eye, computer simulations have shown that only small but beneficial, random mutations when selected for, can produce a complex seeing eye in a relativity (on geologic timescales) short amount of time. So where is the barrier to macroevolution?"

Nonsence. No computer simulation using preestablished data to derive the desired end result can provide evidence of the evolution of the eye. The eye's complexity defies evolutionism.

I've refuted this already. I suggest you read upon on some of these studies rather than respond with your knee jerk creationists mantras.

You ask where is a barrier for macroevolution. I will provide one. But first, I ask you for evidence that macroevolution is possible. Where is this evidence that mporphology can change by new genetic information, loss of genetic information, gene expression, or ellele frequency?

I've presented all of this.

As for evidence of a barrier, again I point to the 70+ yrs of random mutation experimentation which have not provided a single example of permanent morphological change to a species.

Just going to keep ignoring reality huh?

Also I point to the processes of DNA Repair, which replaces mutated homeobox genes with a backup typically stored from the grandparent's genome, so that hox genes which experience mutations are not changed so as to allow morphological change.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Revolutionary-discovery-in-genetics-16165.shtml

http://www.springerlink.com/content/mpu6235734734v82/

http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/168/1/351

Yet I've shown evidence to the contrary. At least you finally provide some sources. Unfortunately you don't seem to understand them. First off DNA repair isn't perfect, otherwise there wouldn't be any inherited mutations or cancer. Further more in the blog which references the paper on gene repair, the specific case where second generation offspring revert to their wild type is only found in Arabidopsis thaliana. This makes sense as Lolle et al point out that flowers and fungi can self fertilize, something that other plants, most animals, and all bacteria can't do. Also in the second paper you reference the authors based their model on what we know from evolutionary biology, something which you apparently didn't even realize.

"Previous work on the GeneRepair operator has investigated the performance of parent based repair. This was compared to the performance of a variety of alternative strategies for implementing constraints on EO. In particular, this work explored how GeneRepair interacted with the standard evolutionary parameters, especially mutation rate and crossover mechanism."

But ignoring this there are cases in which we can show that homeotic mutations can be inherited across several generations even in wild plant populations. And when these flowers are selfed across several generations, they still don't revert to the wild-type. So it seems the studies you mentioned seems to be, at best, the exception, rather than the rule.

As for your third link, I don't have any idea what microsatellite mapping of a few populations of oysters has anything to do with what are are discussing.

Before proceding, I must insist you provide evidence of the outrageous claims you have made:

You have made many claims without providing evidences, and expecting us to accept your assumption as evidence. You have claimed:

1) random mutations create new information
2) random mutatiuons transform duplicate genes into new genetic information which defines new morphological structures
3) that gene expression constitutes evolutionary change (though it is not new morphological structure)
4) that a loss of genetic information creates new morphological structures, even organs
5) that Genetic Drift and (presumably) changes to allele frequency cause new morphological structures to arise
6) that random mutations are beneficial to the morphology of life forms,

We cannot debate by merely tossing out unsubstanciable claims and expecting each other to believe them. Please provide the observable, testable, and repeatable (scirntific) evidence of these claims before we continue.

I've provided examples of everything which you've asked for, beginning in my second post.

As for the claim the eye evolved, in what evolutionists claim is the "Cambrian" era...

What would be a debate with a creationists without a bastardization of the Cambrian explosion?

...were different species of Trilobites and many other species with eyes - the greatest variety of eyes found in the earth. In fact, the Trilobite Opipeuterella has the most complex eyes of any creature known to exist on Earth. This creature is found Cambrian strata, which demonstrates that the Darwinian phylogenic "tree of life" is upside down since we see stupefying complexity and diversification in the lowest strata, instead of an increasing complexity and diversity moving upward in the strata.

Incorrect. The Cambrain was the second multicellular diversification of life. For one we already had precambrian precursors dating back 100 million years prior to the "explosion", including traces of triploblasitc organisms, segmented animals, and small but complex multicellular animals with primitive communities. We've even directly observed the evolution of multicellular life from unicellular forms in real time.

Modified from Boraas et al 1998

We also have fossils, including the first, but now all extinct, multicellular eukaryotes which arose during the great oxygen catastrophe going back about another two billion years prior to the ancestors of the Cambrian animals. In addition to that we have primitive microbial cells going back over three billion years before the present. So your inability to understand phylogeny or your ignorance of the fossil record does in no way invalidate evolution and the mountain of evidence stacked against you.

"We still have fish today which either retain, or have convergently evolved, traits similar to those seen in the ancestors to tetrapods and they seem to get along just fine. For example mudskippers have dorsally located eyes, can spend hours out of the water, catch prey and compete for territory on land."

Much assumption there. You have not provided evidence that any of these claims are ture. Where is the observed examples?

Read the links I listed earlier. These aren't assumptions, they're facts.

Mudskiippers are lungfish. There are no transitional forms for lungs in the fossil record of life.

Mudskippers are not lungfish. They don't have lungs. I site this as more evidence that you are trolling considering I've provided a link about mudskippers. As for lungs in the fossil record, of course their aren't any. Lungs, and most other soft parts, never or rarely fossilize. However if you want the transitions from basal lungs, being small sac-like protrusions out of the throat, and then developing into more complex organs see this paper.

"Lung fish, which are close relatives of the sarcoptergyii transitions I previously listed"

That is your assumption, but there is no evidence of a mechanism for evolutionary change, and no evidence that Sarcopteryii are evolutionarily related to any other phylum of life.

I cite this as more evidence that you are trolling. I've already explained the mechanisms of evolution. And a quick search on wikipedia would tell you that sarcopterygii are in the same phylum we are, chordata.

The existance of lungfish acturally works against evolution, since it is a creature that is found in the fossil record and living (a living fossil) which demonstrates like tens of thousands of living fossils, that life simply does not change morphologically over time. Furthermore, it is an example of a creature which already has a feature that evolutionists claim evolved, while there is no transitional form for lungs. Please provide fossil evidence of the development of lungs in stages to support your claim that lungs have evolved.

I've already addressed your claim about "living fossils" in my previous post. Besides we have lungfish fossils going back hundreds of millions of years making up almost two dozen families across half a dozen orders. That's quite a bit of evolving, eh?

"In order to understand the selection pressures involved in this transition, it's important to understand Devonian paleoecology."

These is no mechanism by which environmental pressures can cause morphological change. We know of no mechanism capable of changing the information in the homoebox genes which define morphological structures so as to produce anything new morphologically, or even any permanent change to morphology. Furthermore, the hox genes which create the limbs in most

I won't repeat what I've already explained to you. If you aren't going to even consider the evidence I've already presented, which is what we both agreed to before the debate, then there is no point continuing after this.

"At the same time tetrapods were evolving, large armor plated fish, were stalking the rivers and oceans through out the Devonian period. These animals would have easily out competed the much smaller, armor-less sarcopterygians in open water. But the first primitive trees, such as Archaeopteris, were growing on land near rivers and streams. The fallen branches from these trees would have produced weed chocked, oxygen poor swamp environments ideal for small, lung-bearing, bony limbed "fishapods", like Tiktaalik . These fish would have been at a greater advantage if they were able to support themselves on their fins allowing them to conserve energy while stalking winged insects or small fish croc-style. These modified fins would have also been useful for navigating through mazes of branches and decaying vegetation, as well as "walking" through the muddy substrate, rather than wasting energy swimming in short bursts. Modern Australian handfish do this too, but have evolved this feature in a different way. Later, when the Placoderms were dying out, the first primitive sharks had appeared, and began invading the territories of primitive tetrapods, who in response adapted (although not consciously) their feety "fins" for life on land to escape predation, and exploit new niches."

Fireflies became tanks, which then transformed alongside pistonburgers. Is that evidence in science to you? Well, neither are any of the claimes you have streamed together in that diatride. I require evidence, not hegmonic claims. You have made claims only. That's not evidnece in science of anything.

I cite this as more evidence that you are trolling. Are you just scanning through half of what I've posted because the paragraphs you've quoted I provide links to a sites with peer reviewed citations proving that all of this is accurate.

1) Desfine these claims and their mechanisms
2) Provide observable examples so that we may make Strong Inference to determine that such processes occur and have occurred as many times as evolutionists claim they have.

I've presented evidence of everything which you ask for here in my second post.

If you're going to continue to embarrass yourself, move the goalposts, and continue to make up definitions, fine, but don't waste my time by continuing to ask me to present what I've already shown you can, has, and does happen.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

First let me touch upon something you mentioned earlier:

"So new genes aren't needed to produce novel changes, all though that can happen as well. It evidently did according to genetic research which indicates hox gene duplication events which produced new raw material for evolution to act on. Even in the case of major structural changes, organs can evolve from a lose of genes. In a recent study researches identified genes (And1-4) partly responsible for the development of the median fin and pectoral fins in zebrafish, as well as fin regeneration. These genes are also found in chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fish), but are absent in tetrapods. Predicting that the lose of these genes played a role in tetrapod evolution, researchers observed that inactivation of and1 & and2 resulted in reduced and truncated fins, however the tail was not as severe effected. This is exactly what is indicated in the fossil record, where we see the fins reduce in length, but the "fishy" tail is retained even in early tetrapods, like Ventastega curonica."

That's the equivelant of saying birds have the genes for wings, reptiles don't, so that proves birds evolved into reptiles by a loss of genes. This is a rediculous assumption conjectured as if it's a fact, you have absolutely no evidence for your claim, it's assumption and fantasy, not science.

Regarding the picture of the dog and wolf, they are both the same kind. Name one structure one has but the other doesn't. According to evolutionists, dogs evolved from wolves 15,000 years ago, you would think if evolution were a real process, some structural change would happen in that amount of time.
I can't believe you would even mention that lucy is a transitional fossils, the hips are 100% apelike, there's nothing human about it. All the supposed hominids that are supposed to be transitional are nothing more than adolescent apes. Look at the skull shape of an adolescent ape compared to a mature adult, you'll see exactly what these supposed hominids really are.
Give me one single example of where changes in allele frequency has caused an organism to acquire a new structure, just one, you don't have to give me 5 pages of information, just cite one, show me that it's possible for such a thing to happen.
"Interesting considering the morphological variation seen in the skulls of domestic dogs exceeds the variation seen in the entire order carnivora. So if humans can breed a level of diversity within a single species in several thousand years which exceeds variation seen through out 260 species which evolved over the course forty million years through natural selection, where is the imagined boundary to macroevolution?"
Changes to shape is not evolution, it's not a new structure. How many changes to shape would it take to make a fish evolve into an amphibian, or a reptile to bird?
You asked me whether or not lucy was an ape. You don't seem to understand that we might call 10 different things apes, but many of them are not the same kind. For example, an ape and a chimpanzee are not related, they are structurally different. For example, I wouldn't claim an ostritch and a parrot are related, but both are called birds and are similiar in some regards, but they can't reproduce and are different structurally. A domestic dog and a wolf can interbreed because they are the same structurally.
You seem to have the idea that morphological change, is changes to size,shape, and color, this is not true, I think you are thinking about something totally different than I am asking for. Again show me one example of an organism acquiring a new structure by any process.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

(continued)

Chimp skull: 28 bones
Human skull: 22 bones
Humans have 12 rib pairs. Because they have 1 more thoractic vertabrae than man, chimpanzes have 13 rib pairs.

Chimpanzee's have 204 in their body. That is two less than humans that have 206 bones.

Where are the transitional forms? Whewre are the fossils that have these supposed new bones arising partially? We have fossils of apes with 204 bones, such as Australiopethicenes, as in Lucy) and humans with 206 bones. If evolution were true, we should have fossils with partially developed bones in transition. Otherwise, one would have to claim that antirely new bones which are fully formed, such as ribs, appeared at once. But not only that, thier vertabrae would have had to also evolved along with them suddenly to provide parapopheses and diapophecies for these new ribs. If such a thing occurred, we should expect that it occurrs today, and that it occurred to all vertabrates this way in the past. If that were so, then evolution would have produced all of the strucutres of creartures in such a brief amount of time that man should have appeared on the scene in the Cambrian Explosion! Why is it logical for evolutionists to claim that millions of years pass, then new fully-formed structures appear, then millions of years pass again before new structures simply pop into existance? Evolutionists claim that random mutations cause such things. But if that were true, why would random mutation slowly develop a new feature, then cause it to appear not in part, but fully-formed? How is any of this rational, and where is the physical, scientific evidence that any of it is possible or that it has actually happened?

On the Paluxy River bed, human tracks, the footprints and bones of dinosaurs, trilobite fossils, Trilobites, other animals' tracks, mammon fossils were found in the same limestone layer. This provides empirical evidence that humans, dinosaurs, trilobites, mammoths, and other animals lived together. These fossils have been CT scanned and verified as authentic by internal stresses in the stone.

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Near the village of Khodja Pil Ata is a plateau with over 3,000 dinosaur footprints. It is on this plateau that human footprints were first noted in the Moscow News, 1983 (No. 24, pg. 10).


The dinosaur plateau is approximately 400 meters long and 300 meters wide. It was written during a period when Communists strictly controlled the ideological aspect of all publications, so an article could only be published with official commentary from a representative of official State Science.


The commentary they gave at that time was this:

"Who knows, but maybe our very far removed ancestors did mingle with dinosaurs."


This is nothing short of astonishing that in an atheistic communist empire holding strictly to evolutionary dogma, they would admit to the possibility of humans and dinosaurs walking together. Turkmenian scientist, Kurban Amanniyazov, led three expeditions to the dinosaur plateau and found human footprints alongside dinosaur tracks.

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Bones of many modern-looking humans have been found deep in undisturbed rocks that, according to evolution, were formed long before man began to evolve. Examples include the Calaveras skull, the Castenedolo skeletons, Reck's skeleton, and others. Remains such as the Swanscombe skull, the Steinheim fossil, and the Vertesszà¶llos fossil present similar problems. Evolutionists almost always ignore these remains.

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In a limestone cave near La-Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, a fossil of a Neanderthal dubbed the "Old Man" was discovered by Abbes A. Bouyssonie, J. Bouyssanie and L. Bardon, in 1908. It was a nearly complete skeleton; skull with a brain size of 1620 cc. He was found along with fossil bones of numerous animals such as wooly rhinoceroses, reindeer, hyenas and bison.

Deciduous Molars are temporary morals which are replaced in adulthood by permanent molars. Humans do not have deciduous molars.

University of Texas
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~bramblet/ant301/seven.html#anchor1838078

Lucy had Deciduous Molars
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/australopithecusafricanus.htm


Apes have a bone process, a ridge, that extends almost all the way around the skull. Humans do not. Lucy also has this boney ridge.

In human, a superior sagittal sinus drains venous blood in a transverse sigmoid route to the internal jugular veins.
In humans the median plane of the cribriform plate is the site of a process, the crista galli. This process is absent in chimpanzees.

The Formaen Magnum of humans and apes are in different locations in their skulls. The chimpanzee foramen magnum lies well behind the bitympanic line. In humans, the Foramen Gagnum is centered upon it.
Humans have a chin. Apes do not. Thier mandible receedes.

The hyoid is a U-shaped bone just above the larynx. The stylohyoid ligament attaches the lesser horn of the hyoid in humans. In chimps, the hyoid is expanded anteriorly to accommodate a laryngeal air sack, and is located higher in the neck. Thus, the hyoid in humans and apes are in different locations in their necks. Furthermore, humans do not posess a laryngeal air sack. This morphological difference means apes are incapable of human speech as well. Not all primates have a laryngeal air sack, and those that do are located in different positions in their necks.

Lucy has six lumbar vertebrae (whereas modern humans have five, and chimps usually have three.

In most animals, including apes, the surface of every cell, except brain cells, carry glycoproteins that contain one particular member of a family of sugar molecules called sialic acid. In humans, this sugar is not present in any cell other than red blood cells.
Claims of human/ape genetic similarity are deception. Humans have 3 billion base pairs of DNA info, so 2% difference is actually 60 million 'spelling errors'! This is not 'error' but twenty 500-page books worth of information that needs to be explained by mutation. Even if we grant 10 million years to the evolutionists, population genetics studies show that animals with human-like generation times of about 20 years could accumulate only about 1700 mutations in their genome in that time.
Humans have at least 90,000 protiens, and many more may be discovered as a result of the Human Genome Project. 80% of our protiens do not exist in apes! (Gene, volume 346 14 February 2005, Pages 215-219), and eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees (Galina Glazkoa, b, Vamsi Veeramachanenia, b, Masatoshi Neia, b and Wojciech Makalowski, a, b)

Humans have flat rib cages, apes are barrel shaped.

Apes have an opposed Great Toe, humans do not.

Humans have a locking knee joint, apes do not.


Chimps are claimed to be our nearest relative, yet the locations of DNA swapping between chromosomes, known as recombination hotspots, are almost entirely different. This proves apes and humans have a genetic difference so great that our DNA cannot be related.

Humans have 10% less DNA than a chimp too. Theoretically, if evolution were true, the opposite would be true.

Chimps have more alpha-hemoglobin genes and more Rh bloodgroup genes, and fewer Alu repeats, in their genome than humans.

Humans have rounded bone processes, apes have angular bone processes. Nothing inbetween exists in any fossil.

A human's brain is 3 times the size of any ape's, and human brains develop at 3 times the speed of apes.

Nocturnal primates have only rod photoreceptors in the retina. Humans have rods and cones.



Australopithecine fossils have been dated at between 520,000 to 2.9 MYA.

Fitch and Miller- 1.5 - 6.9 MYA and a second dating provided an age of 2.61 MYA

G.H. Curtis Dec. (1975) -

Brock and Issac (1974) - 2.7 - 3.0 MYA

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Robin Crompton, a computer specialist demonstrated in 1996 that this kind of a "compound" walking style is not possible in the studies he made in 1996. Crompton reached to the following conclusion: A living being can either walk fully upright or fully on its four feet. A walking style in the midst is not possible because of high energy consumption. Therefore, Australopithecus can not be a half-bipedal animal as opposed to the claims of the evolutionists.

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The controversy over the age of skull 1470 prompted Richard Leakey to state, "Either we toss out this skull or we toss out our theories of early man,"

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Question: Why do evolutionists call the very robust Australian fossils Homo sapiens when they themselves state that they are almost identical to the Java Homo erectus material?

Answer: Those robust Australian fossils (the Kow Swamp material, the Cossack skull, the Willandra Lakes WHL 50 skull, etc.), by their dating methods, are just thousands of years old. Homo erectus wasn't supposed to be living so recently. Hence, the evolutionist must call them Homo sapiens to preserve his theory.

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Question: Why are the skull KNM-ER 1470, the leg bones KNM-ER 148 I, and the skull KNM-ER 1590, found by Richard Leakey in East Africa, assigned to Homo habilis when the skull sizes, skull shapes, and the very modern leg bones would allow assignment to some form of Homo sapiens?

Answer: Those fossils are dated at almost two million years. The evolutionist cannot allow modern humans to be living in that evolutionary time frame - no matter what the fossils look like.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Question: Why is the elbow bone from Kanapoi, KP 271, found in East Africa in 1964, called Australopithecus africanus when the computer analysis conducted by evolutionists declares it to be virtually identical to modern humans?

Answer: Because the fossil is dated at 4.4 million years! It would suggest that true humans are older than their evolu-tionary ancestors. No evolutionist worth his salt can follow the facts when they lead in that direction.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For example, one of the more recent texts (1989) on the human fossils is by University of Chicago professor Richard G. Klein.2 In his 524-page work, Klein has 20 different charts dealing with various aspects of the human (hominid) fossil record. Yet, there is no way a student could get the over-all picture. The student would simply have to accept by faith Klein's thesis that the fossils demonstrate human evolution.

The one chart that would most interest students - a chart showing all of the relevant fossil material mentioned above - is not to be found anywhere. By this type of omission, the true nature of the human fossil record continues to be the best-kept secret in modern paleoanthropology.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"If the fossils have been correctly identified as to which species they belong, then the most important conclusion is that there was more than one species of early man for an extended period of time in East Africa"

- University of Utah geologists Frank Brown, a professor of geology and geophysics and dean of the University of Utah College of Mines and Earth Sciences.



Q4: Can you provide an example of the claimed transition of ape-ancestor to man?

This example must demonstrate morphological change - angular bone processes to round processes, the change from the number of ape caudal veretabrae to those of man, the flattening of the rib cage, the migration of the foramen magnum, the intermediates for a locking knee joint, the seperation of new bones from extant bones, the whitening of the scelaria of the eyes...

... the alignment of the 200,000 protiens of humans from those of apes (80% of human protiens do not exist in apes), the transitional forms between the adjunted Great Toe to that of humans, the migration of HOX genes to be in the same location in human and ape DNA, the transition of HOX gene swapping points from ape DNA to that of man, the reduction of DNA (chimps have 10% more DNA than man for example), development of sialic acid in the cell walls of humans from the lack of it in apes...

... the transition of the olfactory nerves of apes to pass through the same holes in the skull as humans, the transition from the slow rate of brain development of apes to the (3X in comparison) speed of brain development of humans, the transition to nasal bones and spines (non-existant in apes) to those of humans, the transition from ape dentdrology to that of humans, the change in the width and length of ape teeth (which are wide and short) to those of? humans (which are narrow and long)...

.... the loss of deciduous molars from ape to man, the loss of postorbital constriction, the development of the crista galli in apes to that of man, the loss of a rib from ape to man, the loss of the the robust lateral supracondylar ridge, the development of the olecranon fossa, the straightening of the radius and ulna, the extension of the thumb bones, the transition from rod photoreceptors in the retina to the rods and cones of humans?

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

First let me touch upon something you mentioned earlier:

"So new genes aren't needed to produce novel changes, all though that can happen as well. It evidently did according to genetic research which indicates hox gene duplication events which produced new raw material for evolution to act on. Even in the case of major structural changes, organs can evolve from a lose of genes. In a recent study researches identified genes (And1-4) partly responsible for the development of the median fin and pectoral fins in zebrafish, as well as fin regeneration. These genes are also found in chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fish), but are absent in tetrapods. Predicting that the lose of these genes played a role in tetrapod evolution, researchers observed that inactivation of and1 & and2 resulted in reduced and truncated fins, however the tail was not as severe effected. This is exactly what is indicated in the fossil record, where we see the fins reduce in length, but the "fishy" tail is retained even in early tetrapods, like Ventastega curonica."

That's the equivelant of saying birds have the genes for wings, reptiles don't, so that proves birds evolved into reptiles by a loss of genes. This is a rediculous assumption conjectured as if it's a fact, you have absolutely no evidence for your claim, it's assumption and fantasy, not science.

Well, I did provide a link to a paper providing evidence for that. It's also interesting that you mention avian evolution since that transition also involved a lose of genetic information. We already know from fossils that many theropods already had feathers and that modern aves have lost many features since evolving from maniraptorans. For example they don't have teeth, most don't have any functional claws or unfused fingers, and any form of a tail. And we know from examination of the remains of osteocytes left in dinosaur bones, we can get a good idea of their cell size and as a result their genome size. Add that with what we know about dinosaur phylogeny the line leading up to birds experienced a net loss in genome size, thus a loss of what you call information.

Regarding the picture of the dog and wolf, they are both the same kind. Name one structure one has but the other doesn't. According to evolutionists, dogs evolved from wolves 15,000 years ago, you would think if evolution were a real process, some structural change would happen in that amount of time.

And I've presented evidence that it has.

I can't believe you would even mention that lucy is a transitional fossils, the hips are 100% apelike, there's nothing human about it.

Really?

All the supposed hominids that are supposed to be transitional are nothing more than adolescent apes. Look at the skull shape of an adolescent ape compared to a mature adult, you'll see exactly what these supposed hominids really are.

What are you talking about? Many transitional species we've found are represented by individuals ranging between adults and infants. For example AL-288-1 is an adult female Australopithecus afarensis, and we've also found the remains of infants of that same species like the DIK-1/1 specimen. We've even found bone beds of entire families of representing over a dozen individuals of a variety of ages such as the "First Family" find AL-333. Besides there are a variety of characters, such as the presence or absence of milk teeth and fusion of the cranial elements, which are used to identify the age of death of these animals. So again you are wrong.

I also find it curious that you keep bringing up evidence against your position. Here you talk about ape ontogeny which, but don't realize that when you compare the development of chimps to us you'll find it's nearly the same. The only major difference between two of us is that we retain a pedomorphic build and an increase in cranial volume.

Give me one single example of where changes in allele frequency has caused an organism to acquire a new structure, just one, you don't have to give me 5 pages of information, just cite one, show me that it's possible for such a thing to happen.

I already have. I give another example below when I respond to you repeating this challenge.

"Interesting considering the morphological variation seen in the skulls of domestic dogs exceeds the variation seen in the entire order carnivora. So if humans can breed a level of diversity within a single species in several thousand years which exceeds variation seen through out 260 species which evolved over the course forty million years through natural selection, where is the imagined boundary to macroevolution?"
Changes to shape is not evolution, it's not a new structure. How many changes to shape would it take to make a fish evolve into an amphibian, or a reptile to bird?

So you still refuse to accept how evolution is defined? Also, since you're changing your definitions again, doesn't this mean that humans and chimps are the same morphologically, since humans haven't evolved a novel structure after the split between our LCA with chimps?

You asked me whether or not lucy was an ape. You don't seem to understand that we might call 10 different things apes, but many of them are not the same kind.

So there are different kinds of apes? Or are these "sorts" of apes? And what are the diagnostic characters of these kinds of apes? And which kind or sort of ape are we?

For example, an ape and a chimpanzee are not related, they are structurally different.

Chimpanzees are a species in the family of apes. What do you think an ape is?

For example, I wouldn't claim an ostritch and a parrot are related, but both are called birds and are similiar in some regards, but they can't reproduce and are different structurally.

So since a chihuahua and a great dane, despite being similar, can't interbreed, they can't be related can they?

A domestic dog and a wolf can interbreed because they are the same structurally.

I challenge you to breed a miniature dachshund and a timber wolf. Be sure too send pics to let me know what the results are and how you managed it.

You seem to have the idea that morphological change, is changes to size,shape, and color, this is not true, I think you are thinking about something totally different than I am asking for. Again show me one example of an organism acquiring a new structure by any process.

I know your bastardized definition of "morphology" and I already have presented exactly what you've asked. But if you want another example, we've seen chickens develop webbed feet from a mutation which prevents apopotisis of interdigital webbing in embryonic development, both in controlled laboratory settings and in the real world.

We've even seen the reverse happen in ducks.

(continued)

Chimp skull: 28 bones
Human skull: 22 bones
Humans have 12 rib pairs. Because they have 1 more thoractic vertabrae than man, chimpanzes have 13 rib pairs.

Chimpanzee's have 204 in their body. That is two less than humans that have 206 bones.

Where are the transitional forms? Whewre are the fossils that have these supposed new bones arising partially? We have fossils of apes with 204 bones, such as Australiopethicenes, as in Lucy) and humans with 206 bones. If evolution were true, we should have fossils with partially developed bones in transition. Otherwise, one would have to claim that antirely new bones which are fully formed, such as ribs, appeared at once.

And we have experiments showing that this can happen. And didn't you say that duplication of existing body parts, like polydactyl, does happen but doesn't count as evolutionary change? Now you are changing your position again. Besides that even your own source states that the number of thoriac, lumbar, and sacral vertebra range between humans and overlap each other.

But not only that, thier vertabrae would have had to also evolved along with them suddenly to provide parapopheses and diapophecies for these new ribs. If such a thing occurred, we should expect that it occurrs today, and that it occurred to all vertabrates this way in the past. If that were so, then evolution would have produced all of the strucutres of creartures in such a brief amount of time that man should have appeared on the scene in the Cambrian Explosion! Why is it logical for evolutionists to claim that millions of years pass, then new fully-formed structures appear, then millions of years pass again before new structures simply pop into existance? Evolutionists claim that random mutations cause such things. But if that were true, why would random mutation slowly develop a new feature, then cause it to appear not in part, but fully-formed? How is any of this rational, and where is the physical, scientific evidence that any of it is possible or that it has actually happened?...Lucy has six lumbar vertebrae (whereas modern humans have five, and chimps usually have three.

Sometimes features can appear relatively rapidly and others appear gradually. And I've already given you examples of gradualism and punctuate equilibrium, in my previous post.

On the Paluxy River bed, human tracks, the footprints and bones of dinosaurs, trilobite fossils, Trilobites, other animals' tracks, mammon fossils were found in the same limestone layer. This provides empirical evidence that humans, dinosaurs, trilobites, mammoths, and other animals lived together. These fossils have been CT scanned and verified as authentic by internal stresses in the stone.

I'm not going to waste time debunking creationist misinformation since this is a debate about science. Besides others have done a good job debunking all of this already. I also find it curious that you try to bring up this when even AnswersinGenesis finds this to be a failed argument of evidence.

In a limestone cave near La-Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, a fossil of a Neanderthal dubbed the "Old Man" was discovered by Abbes A. Bouyssonie, J. Bouyssanie and L. Bardon, in 1908. It was a nearly complete skeleton; skull with a brain size of 1620 cc. He was found along with fossil bones of numerous animals such as wooly rhinoceroses, reindeer, hyenas and bison.

Okay, what's your point?

Deciduous Molars are temporary morals which are replaced in adulthood by permanent molars. Humans do not have deciduous molars.

Yes we do. Don't take this the wrong way, but do you remember your childhood? Don't you remember losing your "baby" teeth in primary school and new ones growing back?

Lucy had Deciduous Molars
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/australopithecusafricanus.htm

Do you even read your own sources? The page you link to discuss the anatomy of the first Au. africanus indivudual discovered, the Taung child which did have milk teeth. Your source also discusses another skeleton of an adult (STS 14) of the same species, which lacks a skull, and disproves your comment on ape hips. The fossil Lucy isn't even mentioned anywhere, and her species isn't even brought up and discussed at length until the concluding paragraph. Are you really this lazy with you research or do you really not understand the material your bring up?

Apes have a bone process, a ridge, that extends almost all the way around the skull. Humans do not. Lucy also has this boney ridge.

Could you please be more specific as to which process you are referring to? If you are referring to the nuchal torus, that was lost in the line of derived African Homo erectus (called H. ergaster by some experts) leading up to our species, but was retained in the paranthropids, as well as the Asian group of H. erectus.

In humans the median plane of the cribriform plate is the site of a process, the crista galli. This process is absent in chimpanzees.

Wrong. Look it up.

The Formaen Magnum of humans and apes are in different locations in their skulls. The chimpanzee foramen magnum lies well behind the bitympanic line. In humans, the Foramen Gagnum is centered upon it.

Now you're making things to easy. The foramen magnum is variable in many ape species, being located anteriorly in bipedal apes, such as the australopiths and homoines, and more posteriorly in non-bipedal species, like chimps and pongids. And as I said before according to you Sahelanthropus is not an ape because of the location of its foramen magnum.

Humans have a chin. Apes do not. Thier mandible receedes.

Then Homo neanderthalensis, H. erectus, and all other species in the genus Homo, except us, should all be considered apes, and we shouldn't be?

The hyoid is a U-shaped bone just above the larynx. The stylohyoid ligament attaches the lesser horn of the hyoid in humans. In chimps, the hyoid is expanded anteriorly to accommodate a laryngeal air sack, and is located higher in the neck. Thus, the hyoid in humans and apes are in different locations in their necks. Furthermore, humans do not posess a laryngeal air sack. This morphological difference means apes are incapable of human speech as well. Not all primates have a laryngeal air sack, and those that do are located in different positions in their necks.

I thought the location and proportion of certain features didn't mean they had a different morphology. And like I said in my last post, this,

according to your method of classification, no longer qualifies as being part of the wolf kind. Does it not?

At any rate, this aspect of anatomy I don't know a whole lot about, however I did stumble upon a neat article written by an anthropologist who discusses the laryngeal air sack.

In most animals, including apes, the surface of every cell, except brain cells, carry glycoproteins that contain one particular member of a family of sugar molecules called sialic acid. In humans, this sugar is not present in any cell other than red blood cells.

I've addressed this already.

Claims of human/ape genetic similarity are deception. Humans have 3 billion base pairs of DNA info, so 2% difference is actually 60 million 'spelling errors'! This is not 'error' but twenty 500-page books worth of information that needs to be explained by mutation. Even if we grant 10 million years to the evolutionists, population genetics studies show that animals with human-like generation times of about 20 years could accumulate only about 1700 mutations in their genome in that time.

There's a couple problems I have with this, but I'd like to get your source for this first.

Humans have at least 90,000 protiens, and many more may be discovered as a result of the Human Genome Project.

We actually have about 250,000 proteins being produced by about 25-20,000 genes.

80% of our protiens do not exist in apes! (Gene, volume 346 14 February 2005, Pages 215-219), and eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees (Galina Glazkoa, b, Vamsi Veeramachanenia, b, Masatoshi Neia, b and Wojciech Makalowski, a, b)

Wrong. These proteins are what make humans and chimpanzees distinct species, and 80% of these protiens are not completely different from our own. Your (poorly cited) source also proves your statement about the "human/ape genetic similarity deception" is entirely wrong. Further more it seems that someone else has seen you specifically make this comment and has a webpage correcting you on your error. Way to be called on an outright lie, twice.

Btw kudos to the author of "Evidence for the Evolutionary Model"!

Humans have flat rib cages, apes are barrel shaped.

Then species like the neanderthals are apes, and we aren't? After all they did have a barrel chest and a variety of other features which differed from our species. Again, this is why biologist don't use the creationist method of classification. You start with a preconceived conclusion based on literalistic interpretation of one holy book. We start with reality and draw our conclusions from it.

Apes have an opposed Great Toe, humans do not. Humans have a locking knee joint, apes do not.

I thought you said changes in location, size and shape, don't qualify as differences in morphology? Besides that does this now mean that some australopith species no longer qualify as apes since their hallux are no longer divergent? I'll cover this some more below.

Chimps are claimed to be our nearest relative, yet the locations of DNA swapping between chromosomes, known as recombination hotspots, are almost entirely different. This proves apes and humans have a genetic difference so great that our DNA cannot be related.

No it doesn't prove either of those things. While the recombination hot spots are different, you forgot to mention the level of similarities the scientists who conducted the study noted, which indicate relation.

Humans have 10% less DNA than a chimp too. Theoretically, if evolution were true, the opposite would be true.

What do you mean? What part of evolution requires that humans have more DNA than our cousins?

Chimps have more alpha-hemoglobin genes and more Rh bloodgroup genes, and fewer Alu repeats, in their genome than humans.

I had heard that there were more genes under positive selection in the chimpanzee genome since our LCA, but I'd like to get your source on the information provided above. And why does this minor difference, according to you, separate humans from the family of great apes?

Humans have rounded bone processes, apes have angular bone processes. Nothing inbetween exists in any fossil.

Which bone process? Again you're lacking details.

A human's brain is 3 times the size of any ape's, and human brains develop at 3 times the speed of apes.

Any extant non-human ape. And yeah, the only significant difference between humans and extant hominoids is cranial volume. What's your point? Besides we have fossil intermediates which demonstrate the transition from chimp-sized apes to derived bigged brained apes like ourselves. In fact H. neanderthalensis had a much larger cranial capacity than we do. Does that make us apes and them not?

Nocturnal primates have only rod photoreceptors in the retina. Humans have rods and cones.

Again what is your point? Most anthropoid primates, like ourselves, have trichromatic vision. So why are you pointing out the exception, rather than the rule?

Australopithecine fossils have been dated at between 520,000 to 2.9 MYA.

Wrong. Australopith remains date from about four million years ago until about two million years ago.

Fitch and Miller- 1.5 - 6.9 MYA and a second dating provided an age of 2.61 MYA

G.H. Curtis Dec. (1975) -

Brock and Issac (1974) - 2.7 - 3.0 MYA

I'll ask that you provide more complete and coherent sentences.

Robin Crompton, a computer specialist demonstrated in 1996 that this kind of a "compound" walking style is not possible in the studies he made in 1996. Crompton reached to the following conclusion: A living being can either walk fully upright or fully on its four feet. A walking style in the midst is not possible because of high energy consumption. Therefore, Australopithecus can not be a half-bipedal animal as opposed to the claims of the evolutionists.

Australopiths weren't "half-bipedal", they were obligate bipeds. Further more the study you reference actually comes to the opposite conclusion that you say it does. My advise to you read up on your sources before posting.

Plus bonobos, despite being knuckle-walkers, have proportionally longer legs than troglodytes do and have a tendency to walk bipedally when carrying young or supplies, even though they lack some of the adaptations we do for walking upright. I'd say these could qualify as "half-bipeds".

The controversy over the age of skull 1470 prompted Richard Leakey to state, "Either we toss out this skull or we toss out our theories of early man,"

What is the relevance of this comment? And, as much as I respect the contributions of Richard Leakey to paleoanthropology, this half complete quote is an example of you committing another logical fallacy, an appeal to authority.

Question: Why do evolutionists call the very robust Australian fossils Homo sapiens when they themselves state that they are almost identical to the Java Homo erectus material?

Who does?

Answer: Those robust Australian fossils (the Kow Swamp material, the Cossack skull, the Willandra Lakes WHL 50 skull, etc.), by their dating methods, are just thousands of years old. Homo erectus wasn't supposed to be living so recently. Hence, the evolutionist must call them Homo sapiens to preserve his theory.

Wrong. H. erectus was a very successful species which lived for over a million years, spreading across Africa and Asia. They even managed to survive in east and southeast Asia after they were replaced by H. sapiens in Africa. No part of paleoanthropology demands that H. erectus should not have been living so recently and some anthropologist think that their's and our close cousins, H. floresiensis may have lived when the first modern humans first began to settle Indonesia.

Question: Why are the skull KNM-ER 1470, the leg bones KNM-ER 148 I, and the skull KNM-ER 1590, found by Richard Leakey in East Africa, assigned to Homo habilis when the skull sizes, skull shapes, and the very modern leg bones would allow assignment to some form of Homo sapiens?

Not really. While the habilines do defiantly display some modern human characteristics, their cranial capacity and level of prognathism are outside the range of sapien variation. This is why some experts debate as to whether or not they should be placed in the genus Australopithecus or kept in Homo, and why they are a perfect transitional species. Why is it that creationist seem to be unable to decide if (as well as some of the H. erectus individuals you mentioned earlier) they are "100% human" or "100% ape"?

Answer: Those fossils are dated at almost two million years. The evolutionist cannot allow modern humans to be living in that evolutionary time frame - no matter what the fossils look like.

What are you talking about? The habilines are a perfect morphological intermediate between australopiths and derived humans, as I just illustrated. And they also happen to be in the perfect chronological position being right before the geogoricus people and right after the gracile australopiths.

Question: Why is the elbow bone from Kanapoi, KP 271, found in East Africa in 1964, called Australopithecus africanus when the computer analysis conducted by evolutionists declares it to be virtually identical to modern humans?

You shouldn't use the same dishonest creationists arguments which were already exposed[url] six years ago.</URL>

Answer: Because the fossil is dated at 4.4 million years! It would suggest that true humans are older than their evolu-tionary ancestors. No evolutionist worth his salt can follow the facts when they lead in that direction.

Transitional taxa are defined by their morphological features, and not necessarily their chronological placement. But even then I've shown that you are wrong on that point anyway.

For example, one of the more recent texts (1989) on the human fossils is by University of Chicago professor Richard G. Klein.2 In his 524-page work, Klein has 20 different charts dealing with various aspects of the human (hominid) fossil record. Yet, there is no way a student could get the over-all picture.

1989 is recent? At any rate the college textbooks I use for class often have about the same number if not more than 20 charts, pictures & illustrations, and I don't find it difficult to get the over all picture. Take a college course on biological anthropology and see for yourself.

The student would simply have to accept by faith Klein's thesis that the fossils demonstrate human evolution.

No they would read his book and understand the material. No faith required.

The one chart that would most interest students - a chart showing all of the relevant fossil material mentioned above - is not to be found anywhere.

You haven't looked very hard. Most books at the college level include all of the relevant fossil material as well as citations by the researchers who first described the fossils. You can even find [url=https://www.msu.edu/~heslipst/contents/ANP440/index.htm]lists of the individual finds on the internet.

By this type of omission, the true nature of the human fossil record continues to be the best-kept secret in modern paleoanthropology.

What omissions? You're not seriously trying to fabricate a conspiracy theory are you?

"If the fossils have been correctly identified as to which species they belong, then the most important conclusion is that there was more than one species of early man for an extended period of time in East Africa"

- University of Utah geologists Frank Brown, a professor of geology and geophysics and dean of the University of Utah College of Mines and Earth Sciences.

Correct. Human evolution, as I said earlier with horses, is not a straight line. There were several cladogenic events and extinctions of whole species.

Q4: Can you provide an example of the claimed transition of ape-ancestor to man?

This example must demonstrate morphological change - angular bone processes to round processes, the change from the number of ape caudal veretabrae to those of man, the flattening of the rib cage, the migration of the foramen magnum, the intermediates for a locking knee joint, the seperation of new bones from extant bones...

Fortunately I've covered this in this post and in my previous post.

...the whitening of the scelaria of the eyes...

This likely happened in H. erectus for non-verbal communication and altruistic reasons. Also keep in mind that this transition also happened due to a loose of pigments.

...the transitional forms between the adjunted Great Toe to that of humans...

Our ancestors evidently retained a divergent hallux in the ardipithecines and that didn't change until the first australopiths evolved. The fossil specimen Stw 543 bears a hallux intermediate between the ardipithecines and later Australopithecus.

"Fig. 2 (a) Dudley Morton's (1935) reconstruction of a 'hypothetical prehuman foot', and (b) Clarke & Tobias's (1995) reconstruction of the Stw 573 specimen 'Little Foot'. (a) Redrawn from Morton (1935); (b) reprinted with permission from RJ Clarke and PV Tobias, Science 269: 521-524 (1995)."
Credit: Smith & Aiello 2004

Later this toe became only slightly divergent as indicated by the Laetoli footprints, until they were defiantly alongside the rest of the foot, as you can see in Homo habilis (see OH 8). I also remember reading about a gene enhancer which contributed to the evolution of the human hand and foot.

...the migration of HOX genes to be in the same location in human and ape DNA, the transition of HOX gene swapping points from ape DNA to that of man...

Our HOX genes are in the same location. And are you confusing "HOX gene swapping points" with transposons?

the reduction of DNA (chimps have 10% more DNA than man for example)...

You should keep up with current research.

...development of sialic acid in the cell walls of humans from the lack of it in apes...

Humans, like all other metazoans, don't have cell walls. You also are contradicting yourself in you previous post when you said:

In most animals, including apes, the surface of every cell, except brain cells, carry glycoproteins that contain one particular member of a family of sugar molecules called sialic acid. In humans, this sugar is not present in any cell other than red blood cells, which is a cellular mporphology difference.

...the transition of the olfactory nerves of apes to pass through the same holes in the skull as humans, the transition from the slow rate of brain development of apes to the (3X in comparison) speed of brain development of humans, the transition to nasal bones and spines (non-existant in apes) to those of humans, the transition from ape dentdrology to that of humans, the change in the width and length of ape teeth (which are wide and short) to those of? humans (which are narrow and long).... the loss of deciduous molars from ape to man, the loss of postorbital constriction, the development of the crista galli in apes to that of man, the loss of a rib from ape to man, the loss of the the robust lateral supracondylar ridge, the development of the olecranon fossa, the straightening of the radius and ulna, the extension of the thumb bones, the transition from rod photoreceptors in the retina to the rods and cones of humans?

You really should check out the species I've listed. They do fit the criteria you asked for. However some of what you ask for, as I've already pointed out, exist (and doesn't exist) both in humans and modern extant non-human apes.

As you can see I've (and some of the people in the debate analysis too) have corrected every single one of your errors and lies, will you admit to it and correct any of them? And assuming that you are actually reading my posts in their entirety are you going to admit that we have directly observed the evolution of new kinds, both in microorganisms & macroorganisms as well as other macroevolutionary events? Will you admit that we have transitional species in the fossil record which fit the definition used by expert scientists and your own? Will you admit that we have seen increases in genetic information and changes in homeotic gene expression happen and are inherited in wild populations. Will you also admit that we've seen the origin of new structures and other features in real time and that we have ample evidence through cladistics, genetics, comparative morphology, extant & extinct transitions that other complex organs have evolved? Will you accept that humans are a species of ape? And finally will you accept that all of the evidence I have presented is more than enough to support the fact of the modern synthesis of evolution?

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

The angle of lucy's hips are not human like at all, they resemble a tree climbing monkey perfectly. Unless your talking about the Nova show on PBS where they took a saw and changed the angle of the hips and took out entire parts to make lucy look more human like, you probably didn't even know about that. It borders on academic fraud.

"So since a chihuahua and a great dane, despite being similar, can't interbreed, they can't be related can they?"

Now your grasping at straws. Ofcourse there would be some mechanical problems, but it can be done. The process of micro evolution, isn't evolution, it's a process that leads to extinction in many cases.

Chickens with webbed feet isn't a new structure. According to what your telling me, they already had the information present to do so. Lets stick to morphology for a moment. I don't want you to run off and talk about something else quite yet. So your best evidence for evolution is a chicken with webbed feet, and what was the other? Lets talk about your two examples.

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

The angle of lucy's hips are not human like at all, they resemble a tree climbing monkey perfectly.

Wrong. The angle of the femur and the broad short hips of the australopiths are more like those of humans, and not extant non-human great apes. Certainly not cercopithcids or platyrhines. I've heard this Rev. Hovind (although I can't think of the specific part of his series) misinformation before, and it is at odds with reality.

A disarticulated ververt monkey skeleton

Note the shape of the illiac blades and the angle (or lack thereof) in the femoral neck and the relatively straight body of the femur and compare that with this:

STS-14

Unless your talking about the Nova show on PBS where they took a saw and changed the angle of the hips and took out entire parts to make lucy look more human like, you probably didn't even know about that. It borders on academic fraud.

:lol: Actually I have seen the creationist misrepresentation of that documentary as well. Unfortunately for you the fossil you are referring to was deformed into and unlife-like position due to fossilization and was reconstructed to correct this. Something similar happened in the case of an Kenyanthropus and habiline skull, and those errors were corrected. Even then one of your previous source proves that you are wrong on australopith hips. The Au. africanus specimen STS-14, which you apparently mistook for "Lucy", bears extremely human hips which also match what is seen in later Homo species. Your source describes the species post-cranial features as such:

Most postcranial material attributed to africanus is well within the range of variation of the afarensis material, however, the limb proportions may be different. STS 14 is a 2.5 myr old specimen from Sterkfontein. This specimen is particularly important as it includes both os coxa, as well as many of the vertebrae. This find showed unequivocally that these hominids were bipedal, and were not simply apes, vindicating Raymond Dart. Features of STS 14 that align it with a more humanlike locomotor capacity include:

The iliac blade is short and wide.
There is a well-developed sciatic notch.
There is a strong anterior inferior iliac spine.

And even if we were to ignore that, there are a variety of diagnostic characters proving that the australopiths were defiantly bipedal, including:

-The anterior position of the foramen magnum
-An S-curve in the lumbar vertebra
-Broad sacrum
-A valgus joint
-Angle of the femoral shaft
-The non-divergent hallux, which runs parallel alongside the rest of the toes
-Possession of the obturator externus groove along side the posterior side of the femur
-A derived humeral-femoral index, intermediate between knuckle-walking chimps and modern humans
-Australopith ichnofossils which indicate a bipedal mode of locomotion and no indication of quadrapedal palmigrade or knucklewalking locomotion

Nearly everything you bring up I've seen from creationists before and watched as professional scientists, passionate laymen, and students like myself refute people like you immediately and repeatedly. So do you want to retract and correct this error as well or continue being dishonest?

"So since a chihuahua and a great dane, despite being similar, can't interbreed, they can't be related can they?"

Now your grasping at straws. Ofcourse there would be some mechanical problems, but it can be done. The process of micro evolution, isn't evolution, it's a process that leads to extinction in many cases.

You said "mechanical problems"? Those mechanical problems are what separate species. After all it is possible (although under natural circumstances this would be selected against or be out right impossible) for insects with different lock and key genitalia to be cross bred and for horses to breed with donkeys. Even humans could produce hybrids with chimpanzees. We know that the genetic differences between our species are so fine that some scientists think chimpanzees should be placed back in to the genus Homo. We know that the even if that weren't the case, that cross-genera hybrids are possible and that it is possible for human spermatozoa to penetrate the ova of apes as distantly related as a gibbon (gibbons and saimangs are in the family of "lesser" apes), proving even by some creationists classifications that we are all still a "kind" of ape. Of course there could be problems, but as you put it it could be done.

And again this points out the problem with your creationist method of classification. You start with the preconceived belief that "morphological" change cannot happen, and that humans can't be apes, but you have to be ambiguous when defining a "kind" as well as an "ape". You ignore all the evidence against you, including the fact that it was a Christian creationist who according to a method of systematics which is still used today, originally classified humans as apes and that this has been vindicated three hundred years later by studies in genetics, molecular biology, paleontology, and ethology.

Further more, while hybridization in animals usually, although not always, does result in hybrid inferiority. But it can also result (usually in plants) in macorevolutionary changes which result in new species.

Chickens with webbed feet isn't a new structure.

I guess we should now define the word "structure" as well, to save time arguing with what this word does mean and what you want it to mean.

According to what your telling me, they already had the information present to do so.

Not quite. Tetrapods express interdigital webbing between digits in embryonic development. Usually this stuff is "turned off" and undergoes apoptosis due signaling from BMPs (bone morphogenic proteins) which is good because in some animals, like apes, because this separates the digits. However in the case of webbed footed birds, like geese, a protein called gremlin, preserves the interdigital webbing resulting in webbed feet. Scientists tested this by applying gremlin to the interdigital webbing of developing chickens and they got this:

Wild-type on the left, treated chick on the right.
Credit: Merino et al 1999

Of course as I've shown this has also happened under natural conditions where a mutation occurred in the real world. So the information wasn't there until the mutation occurred. And even if you where to argue that the information was already there this still satisfies two of your challenges:

"You seem to have the idea that morphological change, is changes to size,shape, and color, this is not true, I think you are thinking about something totally different than I am asking for. Again show me one example of an organism acquiring a new structure by any process."

"Please provide4 evidence that losing genetic information causes the rise of new morphological features, specifically, organs, or cause existing organs to "evolve", and I assume this to mean create new biological functions and interdependancies with the other organs of the organism."

(Emphasis added in bold)

Yet again.

Lets stick to morphology for a moment. I don't want you to run off and talk about something else quite yet. So your best evidence for evolution is a chicken with webbed feet, and what was the other? Lets talk about your two examples.

I'm the one who hasn't changed the subject, you have. Anyway I've given over half a dozen examples of new structures, features and body plans, ignoring the other said examples from the fossil record. In addition to that what is your response to my concluding paragraph in my last post?

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Regarding lucy and what I said about them altering the hips with a power saw, here's a link to a website which has the video on it:

http://home.comcast.net/~internationalhero/icthyostega/Ichthyostega1.htm

"You said "mechanical problems"? Those mechanical problems are what separate species. After all it is possible (although under natural circumstances this would be selected against or be out right impossible) for insects with different lock and key genitalia to be cross bred and for horses to breed with donkeys. Even humans could produce hybrids with chimpanzees. We know that the genetic differences between our species are so fine that some scientists think chimpanzees should be placed back in to the genus Homo. We know that the even if that weren't the case, that cross-genera hybrids are possible and that it is possible for human spermatozoa to penetrate the ova of apes as distantly related as a gibbon (gibbons and saimangs are in the family of "lesser" apes), proving even by some creationists classifications that we are all still a "kind" of ape. Of course there could be problems, but as you put it it could be done."

This is nonsense, there is no proof or evidence that humans and apes can produce offspring.

"Not quite. Tetrapods express interdigital webbing between digits in embryonic development. Usually this stuff is "turned off" and undergoes apoptosis due signaling from BMPs (bone morphogenic proteins) which is good because in some animals, like apes, because this separates the digits. However in the case of webbed footed birds, like geese, a protein called gremlin, preserves the interdigital webbing resulting in webbed feet. Scientists tested this by applying gremlin to the interdigital webbing of developing chickens and they got this:"

If the genes are already present, it's not a new structure, since every structure is code based. Turning a gene on or off isn't a new feature. And how long did that feature stay in the population? I guaruntee that within 1 to several generations, it reverted back. Before a structure can arise, it has to be coded in the DNA, whether the trait is expressed or not doesn't mean a thing.


Would you define what a species is? You keep talking about speciation, but don't define what a species is.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

from creation safaris archive


Homo habilis Contemporary with Homo erectus 08/09/2007
Homo habilis couldn't have been the ancestor of Homo erectus, because they lived side by side. This has been all over the news since it was announced in Nature yesterday: see the Times UK, PhysOrg, the BBC News, Reuters Africa, National Geographic, and MSNBC News, which says the new discovery paints a "messy" view of human origins: "Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man."
OK, what happened? Meave Leakey found a small female Homo erectus skull in Kenya that dates from the same period as Homo habilis, or "handy man," long thought to have been a predecessor:

In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis, researchers said.
It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter, said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London....
Overall what it paints for human evolution is a "chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us," Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.

But this should not cast evolutionary science into doubt, the article A.P. article was quick to point out: "All the changes to human evolutionary thought should not be considered a weakness in the theory of evolution, [Bill] Kimbel [Arizona State] said. Rather, those are the predictable results of getting more evidence, asking smarter questions and forming better theories, he said."
Yet it is hard to see how this helps the evolutionary story of progress between apes and humans. This upset is similar, Kimbel said, to the revised story of Neanderthals, which also used to be considered human ancestors. This effectively removes Homo habilis from consideration as an ancestor, leaving a gap where paleoanthropologists thought they had a link. National Geographic speculated that the two hominid forms might have originated "two and three million years ago, which is a well-known gap in the fossil record. The evidence for human evolution, therefore, has been reduced, not just messed up.
Although the skull was found in 2000, it often takes years for a research team to clean, date, and document the find. Another claim from the announcement is that apparently males were larger than females (sexual dimorphism), but see commentary and picture from the 08/02/2007 entry about the flaw of drawing conclusions from limited samples. Leakey and team believe the two forms lived contemporaneously and in proximity, as do chimpanzees and gorillas, for half a million years.
Ann Gibbons wrote in Science2 the next day about this find. She noted that the blurring of distinctions between H. habilis and H. erectus makes ripples with another famous fossil, too: Homo ergaster:

The skull also shows features that had previously been seen only in Asian fossils of H. erectus, such as a keeling (or ridge) on its frontal and parietal bones. These traits had persuaded a growing number of researchers in recent years to split the fossils of H. erectus into two species, with H. erectus from Asia and H. ergaster from Africa. But the skull's mix of traits shows H. erectus cannot be "easily divided between two species from Africa and Asia," says Spoor. Kimbel and Arizona State graduate student Claire Terhune reached a similar conclusion after studying the temporal bones of 15 H. erectus skulls, in a paper published in the July issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
Others who have championed H. ergaster are taking note. "The new cranium blurs the distinction between H. erectus and H. ergaster," says Wood. "I am not willing to sell my shares in H. ergaster just yet, but I am not relying on them for my retirement!"

1Leakey et al, "Implications of new early Homo fossils from Ileret, east of Lake Turkana, Kenya," Nature 448, 688-691 (9 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature05986.
2Ann Gibbons, "New Fossils Challenge Line of Descent in Human Family Tree," Science, 10 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5839, p. 733, DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5839.733.

These people do not know who begat whom, and they can't tell dates with any credibility; they keep losing links into gaps and moving things around, yet they expect us to believe they are the Masters of Enlightenment when telling us where we came from.
It's important to remember that the bones aren't talking. Data don't just jump up into a scientist's hands and explain themselves. Instead, picture a group of scientists at a large, blank game board, with a few fossils as game pieces, but no instructions. They approach the game with a mental picture of how the game should be played and where the pieces go, but they are free to move them around. Depending on how committed they are to their mental picture, they can compromise here or there and keep the picture intact. The compromises make the game confusing and even chaotic at times. Still, the commitment to the mental picture is paramount: it was carefully selected to conform to the Official Myth of the Culture.
We spectators might look with bewilderment at how they can keep playing such a confusing game, but, as outsiders, we are not permitted by the ruling elite to have an opinion, or to holler in suggestions to them. They are all sworn to keep a straight face and maintain the appearance that everything is under control and that progress is being made.
Appearances are not realities, however. If the mental picture is incorrect, the chaos is real. Don't be distracted by the elaborate canopy the game players have erected over their board, and all the concession stands, reporters and public announcements that "they're getting warmer" and the latest find "sheds new light on evolution." It's all just a sport with no necessary connection to reality.
The picture on the game board could be totally different, with a much better fit of the pieces. No matter; if such a picture has been disqualified by an arbitrary consensus of the players, it will never be found, but the players will get to keep their jobs. After all, a complex game with lots of twists and turns is more fun than a linear one. And horrors, being told what the picture was supposed to be would spoil the party.

 

[Proteus]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

Regarding lucy and what I said about them altering the hips with a power saw, here's a link to a website which has the video on it:

http://home.comcast.net/~internationalhero/icthyostega/Ichthyostega1.htm

As I said in my previous post I've seen this video and addressed your wild allegations.

"You said "mechanical problems"? Those mechanical problems are what separate species. After all it is possible (although under natural circumstances this would be selected against or be out right impossible) for insects with different lock and key genitalia to be cross bred and for horses to breed with donkeys. Even humans could produce hybrids with chimpanzees. We know that the genetic differences between our species are so fine that some scientists think chimpanzees should be placed back in to the genus Homo. We know that the even if that weren't the case, that cross-genera hybrids are possible and that it is possible for human spermatozoa to penetrate the ova of apes as distantly related as a gibbon (gibbons and saimangs are in the family of "lesser" apes), proving even by some creationists classifications that we are all still a "kind" of ape. Of course there could be problems, but as you put it it could be done."

This is nonsense, there is no proof or evidence that humans and apes can produce offspring.

Yet in that paragraph I presented evidence that different ape species can (and btw some do) hybridize.

"Not quite. Tetrapods express interdigital webbing between digits in embryonic development. Usually this stuff is "turned off" and undergoes apoptosis due signaling from BMPs (bone morphogenic proteins) which is good because in some animals, like apes, because this separates the digits. However in the case of webbed footed birds, like geese, a protein called gremlin, preserves the interdigital webbing resulting in webbed feet. Scientists tested this by applying gremlin to the interdigital webbing of developing chickens and they got this:"

If the genes are already present, it's not a new structure, since every structure is code based. Turning a gene on or off isn't a new feature.

The gene wasn't switched off, it suffered a mutation which changed the phenotype resulting in a new structure.

And how long did that feature stay in the population?

As I recall from the news report the chicken is, or at least was, alive and well and presumably bred spreading the trait through out the population. And there's no reason to assume it would disappear and no mechanism as to how that could happen.

I guaruntee that within 1 to several generations, it reverted back.

I've already refuted this claim before.

Before a structure can arise, it has to be coded in the DNA, whether the trait is expressed or not doesn't mean a thing.

Okay, your point being?

Would you define what a species is? You keep talking about speciation, but don't define what a species is.

I think I only mentioned speciation twice in passing, but I think the biological species concept works well for extant species.

from creation safaris archive

Oh, this'll be good.

Homo habilis Contemporary with Homo erectus 08/09/2007
Homo habilis couldn't have been the ancestor of Homo erectus, because they lived side by side.

As I explained earlier, no part of evolution requires that the parent species go extinct after a daughter species evolves from it. After all we still have Culex pipiens, an overground avian feeding species of mosquito from which another underground mammal feeding species evolved, Culex molestus, and we still have both of these animals living next to each other at the exact same time. Similarly we have dozens of breeds of dog which we know from genetic studies evolved from wolves, and yet we can see all of these animals living next to each other at the exact same time and place. Is this a problem to you as well?

This has been all over the news since it was announced in Nature yesterday: see the Times UK, PhysOrg, the BBC News, Reuters Africa, National Geographic, and MSNBC News, which says the new discovery paints a "messy" view of human origins: "Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man."

Typically journalist, and unfortunately most people it seems, don't know jack about biology, let alone evolution specifically. I agree with Stephen J. Gould and his opinion about how wrong it is to present human evolution in a march of progression. And as I said in my previous posts most evolutionary lineages are not a straight line. Ours is no exception.

OK, what happened? Meave Leakey found a small female Homo erectus skull in Kenya that dates from the same period as Homo habilis, or "handy man," long thought to have been a predecessor:

In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis, researchers said.
It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter, said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London....

I once lived with my grandmother and great-grandmother. Are you implying that this is impossible?

Overall what it paints for human evolution is a "chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us," Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.

But this should not cast evolutionary science into doubt, the article A.P. article was quick to point out: "All the changes to human evolutionary thought should not be considered a weakness in the theory of evolution, [Bill] Kimbel [Arizona State] said. Rather, those are the predictable results of getting more evidence, asking smarter questions and forming better theories, he said."

I couldn't agree more. The more data you have, the better answers you're likely to get.

Yet it is hard to see how this helps the evolutionary story of progress between apes and humans. This upset is similar, Kimbel said, to the revised story of Neanderthals, which also used to be considered human ancestors.

Yes, neanderthals were once considered to be a potential human ancestor back in the very early days of paleontology. Back then we only had relativity few fossils and they came almost exclusively from Asia and Europe. There hadn't been much digging anywhere elsewhere and people had thought that humans originated on either of the two continents. It wasn't until the sixties and seventies when the Leakey family and other famous paleoanthropologists, like Donald Johanson, vindicated the hypothesis that human origins lied (mostly) in Africa which was proposed both by Charles Darwin and later by Raymond Dart. As I said once we get more data, change our minds to conform to the evidence, the answers become more coherent.

This effectively removes Homo habilis from consideration as an ancestor...

Point one, ancestral and transitional are two separate terms in biology. Ancestral forms can be more difficult to prove simply because we usually don't have their DNA. Although there are exceptions to this rule as well. And as far as H. habilis being transitional between australopiths and derived humans, their are sources which would disagree with you. Also I think it's noteworthy that the Homo habilis fossils you are talking about are, by some experts, classified as H. rudolfensis. Earlier, more primitive remains of the habilines predate any Homo erectus fossils we have.

...leaving a gap where paleoanthropologists thought they had a link. National Geographic speculated that the two...

Stop right there. National Geographic is not a peer reviewed science journal, they simply report what scientists research for lay people to understand.

...hominid forms might have originated "two and three million years ago, which is a well-known gap in the fossil record. The evidence for human evolution, therefore, has been reduced, not just messed up.

How has an increase in fossil hominids reduced evidence?

Although the skull was found in 2000, it often takes years for a research team to clean, date, and document the find. Another claim from the announcement is that apparently males were larger than females (sexual dimorphism), but see commentary and picture from the 08/02/2007 entry about the flaw of drawing conclusions from limited samples.

Wait a sec. Is this just a copy and pasted article with no original work from you?

Ann Gibbons wrote in Science2 the next day about this find.

"Science2"? So this is just copypasta.

She noted that the blurring of distinctions between H. habilis and H. erectus makes ripples with another famous fossil, too: Homo ergaster:

The skull also shows features that had previously been seen only in Asian fossils of H. erectus, such as a keeling (or ridge) on its frontal and parietal bones. These traits had persuaded a growing number of researchers in recent years to split the fossils of H. erectus into two species, with H. erectus from Asia and H. ergaster from Africa. But the skull's mix of traits shows H. erectus cannot be "easily divided between two species from Africa and Asia," says Spoor. Kimbel and Arizona State graduate student Claire Terhune reached a similar conclusion after studying the temporal bones of 15 H. erectus skulls, in a paper published in the July issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
Others who have championed H. ergaster are taking note. "The new cranium blurs the distinction between H. erectus and H. ergaster," says Wood. "I am not willing to sell my shares in H. ergaster just yet, but I am not relying on them for my retirement!"

So why are you bring up the fact that fossil hominids blur the imagined line between humans and other apes. You do realize that you're arguing against yourself at this point right?

These people do not know who begat whom...

Actually as more research is done we are getting a much better idea of what our ancestors looked like. For example it was once assumed that our LCA with chimps was a rather Pan like knucklewalker. However with recent research into chimpanzee morphology and new fossil discoveries like the most recent ardipithecine discovered we now know that our LCA didn't really look like either a human or chimp, but instead a generalized arboreal ape.

...and they can't tell dates with any credibility...

Actually radiometric dating works pretty well, but that is really outside the scope of of this discussion.

...they keep losing links into gaps and moving things around, yet they expect us to believe they are the Masters of Enlightenment when telling us where we came from.

Which people are claiming to be the "Masters of Enlightenment"? What links have been lost? And what are you going on about?

It's important to remember that the bones aren't talking.

Hot damn we agree!

Data don't just jump up into a scientist's hands and explain themselves. Instead, picture a group of scientists at a large, blank game board, with a few fossils as game pieces, but no instructions.

Not quite. Unlike pseudoscience evangelists, scientists have a mechanism to demonstrate whether or not our knowledge and interpretations of data is accurate.

They approach the game with a mental picture of how the game should be played and where the pieces go...

As I already said, our understanding of human origins has changed with the data. And as I've said in other posts, scientists are discouraged from having preconceived notions. Instead they are trained to be skeptical and find out how accurate anyones hypothesis and predictions are, not to think in right or wrong absolutes.

...but they are free to move them around. Depending on how committed they are to their mental picture, they can compromise here or there and keep the picture intact.

You're still trying to go down the absurd conspiracy theory route?

The compromises make the game confusing and even chaotic at times. Still, the commitment to the mental picture is paramount: it was carefully selected to conform to the Official Myth of the Culture.

What are you talking about?

We spectators might look with bewilderment at how they can keep playing such a confusing game, but, as outsiders, we are not permitted by the ruling elite to have an opinion, or to holler in suggestions to them.

So you are one of these anti-elitism people then? First off, don't you want our elite politicians getting elected into positions of power to best represent the will of the people and lead countries? Don't you want our elite pilots and marines protecting national security? Don't you want elite surgeons using state-of-the-art medical technology to heal people?

And second, why would some of the best trained experts specialists in the world need the opinions from someone who doesn't have a clue of what they're talking about? I, for one, would never be so unbelievable arrogant to think that my opinions or suggestions should be considered equal or as valid as to those of a NASA aerospace engineer on matters of how to constructing a low-orbit military spy satellite. Do you?

They are all sworn to keep a straight face and maintain the appearance that everything is under control and that progress is being made.

Are you actually trying to make a point?

Appearances are not realities, however. If the mental picture is incorrect, the chaos is real. Don't be distracted by the elaborate canopy the game players have erected over their board, and all the concession stands, reporters and public announcements that "they're getting warmer" and the latest find "sheds new light on evolution." It's all just a sport with no necessary connection to reality.

Well these creationists clearly have no connection to reality. That's pretty clear after reading this diatribe.

The picture on the game board could be totally different, with a much better fit of the pieces. No matter; if such a picture has been disqualified by an arbitrary consensus of the players...

Science is not controlled by majority vote and truth is not a democracy. Scientists change their minds according to the evidence and not what they want to believe.

...it will never be found, but the players will get to keep their jobs. After all, a complex game with lots of twists and turns is more fun than a linear one. And horrors, being told what the picture was supposed to be would spoil the party.

I seemed to have missed the relevant point that the authors of creationsafari were trying to illustrate. What was the point in pasting this creationist article as your rebuttal for? Are you really out of original arguments? If that is the case then I think the debate is over.

If you'd like to continue I will ask that you concede everything else that you've brought up and I've proven is either unsupported or completely wrong. You could start be admitting what I've shown you through out the debate and summarized two posts ago is correct.

"[A]re you going to admit that we have directly observed the evolution of new kinds, both in microorganisms & macroorganisms as well as other macroevolutionary events? Will you admit that we have transitional species in the fossil record which fit the definition used by expert scientists and your own? Will you admit that we have seen increases in genetic information and changes in homeotic gene expression happen and are inherited in wild populations. Will you also admit that we've seen the origin of new structures and other features in real time and that we have ample evidence through cladistics, genetics, comparative morphology, extant & extinct transitions that other complex organs have evolved? Will you accept that humans are a species of ape? And finally will you accept that all of the evidence I have presented is more than enough to support the fact of the modern synthesis of evolution?"

As others have pointed out and I've noticed over the past few exchanges you keep changing the subject and I keep proving you wrong. Now I'll ask that you be accountable and concede all of these points. If you disagree then let's go through and you can bring up a single point (as listed above) in your next post contesting what I haven't adequately refuted and we'll go from there.

 

[micah1116]

Re: Debate: Modern Synthesis of Evolution and Life's Complex

I'm not changing the subject, you said lucy was a transitional form and I tried to address it.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/earlyman.html

"Well, I did provide a link to a paper providing evidence for that. It's also interesting that you mention avian evolution since that transition also involved a lose of genetic information."

It is impossible for evolution to proceed by a continual loss of information. This would very quickly cause the extinction of all life. This is the opposite of evolution, and the opposite of what evolutionists claim - that random mutations create new genes with new genetic information that defines new morphological strucutre. Your assumption has no evidence, and is self-defeating.
"We already know from fossils that many theropods already had feathers and that modern aves have lost many features since evolving from maniraptorans."
Thisa assumption is unsupportable and hypocritical. If dinosaurs already had feathers, it is illogical to believe feathers evolved for the purpose of flight.
"can get a good idea of their cell size and as a result their genome size"
Cell size and genome size do not indicate evolutionism. They refute it. The Ameoba has the most genetic material of any living thing. Here you are shooting yourself in the foot, as you claimed a loss of genetic information is a mechanism for evolution, which is perposterous, and now you claim genome size is an indication of ancestry. This makes the unspoken claim that larger genomes indicate heredity and smaller ones also indivcate heredity, which contradicts your statement that a loss of genetic information is a mechanism for evolution, and is also discredited by the Ameoba.
"Add that with what we know about dinosaur phylogeny the line leading up to birds experienced a net loss in genome size, thus a loss of what you call information."

We know no such thing. Phylogenetics demonstrates only that creatures which share a common environment were designed to have similar features because these features make them best suited for thier environment.

Many creatures share features such as a toothy mouth and other features which evolutionists claim is because they're related by evolution, but these creatures defy evolution because of the great morphological differences between them, and features such as mimicry - the abilities to change the color, texture, and shape of their skin to simulate the enivronent or other creatures. Creatures which evolutionists believe are not related by related by evolutionary ancestry, such as cuttle fish, octopus, squid, camelion, and other creatures, don't share mimicry. But evolution can't provide an explaination for mimicry because nature can't provide a mechanism whereby a creature could posess from birth an ability to mimic it's environment, or the features of the creature which produce mimicry. Thus, such features as toothy mouths or any other feature are products of design, just as mimicry is a remarkable example of good principles of design.

Yolk Sac - evolutionists claim the yolk sac of humans and chickens is evidence we are distantly related. In chickens, the yolk sac nourishes the embreyo during development. But in humans the yolk sac does not nourish the embryo because humans are attached to their mother by the umbilical cord. The yolk sac instead is the source of the human embryo's first blood cells. Here we see that homologous features are not evidence of evolutionary ancestry, but are instead elements of common design.

Ernst Heakel promoted this concept over a century ago and was ridiculed and shamed for it. This idea became known as "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny." He proposed that the transverse clefts the necks of human embryones are vestigial of fish gills, and that this was evidence that embryology provides evidence of ancestry. This is false however, as it is now known that the first of these pouches develop into the palatine tonsils, the sencond become the middle ear cannals, and the 3rd and 4th become the parathyroid and thymus glands. Many common structures in embryos become copmpletely different morphological features in different species because the genetic instructions that produce them are different, which discredits the idea that they are common because of ancestry.
Humans born with what looks like a tail is merely a piece of skin covering fat, and is caused by an error in the way the spinal system develops as it "zippers shut" going downward. When it does not go far enough, it causes Spina Bifida. When it goes too far, it produces what evolutionists falaciously call a vestigial tail.
Though discredited by modern science, the concept of Phylogenetics being evidence of evolution is still pushed by evolutionists. For example, the university text book titled BIOLOGY by Miller and Levine continues to provide photographic examples of the embryos of various species, including humans, and claim it is evidence of evolution. In fact, This book contained the illustrations of Earnst Haekel until creationists complained that Haekel's drawings had been revealed as falacious, at which time Miller asked the publisher to replace them with newer illustrations of the same sort.
Understanding Wvolution, Berley University web site, states.
"Embryos do reflect the course of evolution, but that course is far more intricate and quirky than Haeckel claimed."
Here they attempt to resuce Phylogenetics as evidence of evolution by making it seem that it simply "more intricate and quirky" than Haekel claimed.
The old lie is still being pushed by evolutionists, though the claim that Phylogenetics is evidence of evolution has been discredited by countless examples of design in living creatures, and the very properties of DNA itself.
Some university books still promote thie falacy of Ernst Heakel, including BIOLOGY by Wm. C. Brown, Debugue, 1995, p. 396, which states that fish, reptiles, birds, and humans all share "gill and a tail" in their early development. Another university text titled BIOLOGY by Saunders, Orlando, p. 383, 1999 states, " claims that the "early stages of embryonic development are almost identical in different vertebrate species. Numerous structural similarities are shared by the early stages, including the presence of gill pouches and a tail'.
And there are others as well. The falacy that Phylogenetics and embryology provide evidence of evolutionary ancestry is falsified, and still pushed by evolutionistrs desspite what science has demonstrated since these old concepts were formed in the 19th century.

The evolutionist tree of life is a distortion of taxonomical organization. The evolutionist considers creatures which have similar features are more closely related by ancestry to each other than creatures which do not share certain features. This is based upon their presumption that evolution has produced the great variety of life forms and that shared features shared are related by evolutionary ancestry. Life produces after it's kind, and evolutionists incorrectly group many families and genus of life into larger groups based upon the presumption of evolution. Phylogenetics was invented by creationists, but Phylogenetics demonstrates only that organism of various kinds have similar features. It does not provide evidence of evolutionary ancestry, which is discredited by the fact that life was obviously designed.
Epigenetics discredits the claim that phlogeny provides evidence of evolution. The fact that changes during embryonic development require information which is provided by the the presence of all homeobox genes is a problem for evolutionists claiming that similarities in the embryonic cells of creatures of different phylum is evidence of common ancestry between the phylum because the changes which occur to these cells is based upon epigenetic information which requires the entire genome of the organism to be fully in tact - the genome of a phylum. If the genome of one phylum were not very different from the genome of another, different phylum would not exist. This demonstrates that the similarity in the embryonic cells is not based upon similarity, but difference.

Germ layers provide the foundation for the development of anatomical feaures. Creatures with a third germ layer have more complex morphologies than those with two germ layers. Since the cells of germ layers develop the morphological features of creatures during embryonic development, evolution must contend that the evolution of an additional germ layer somehow posessed foreknoweldge of the features they produce. Furthermore, the cells of germ layers are not directly related to each other across genus. For example, the cells of germ layers which develop the heart in humans don't develop a heart in worms. Thus, germ layer cells themselves are not related to structure homogenously across genus, and germ layers are not evidence of evolutionary ancestry, and the claim that because humans and worms have 3 germ layers they are related by a divergent evolution event long ago.

"Many transitional species we've found are represented by individuals ranging between adults and infants."

There is no such thing as transition and no evidence of it, and much evidence life is not capable of changing morphologically due to change in the DNA. 70 yrs of muytation experimentation have demonstrated that random mutation is incapable of causing change to the morphology of species.
"For example AL-288-1 is an adult female Australopithecus afarensis, and we've also found the remains of infants of that same species like the DIK-1/1 specimen."
Finding both adolescents and adults of an extinct ape does not provide evidence of evolution. That's a no-brainer.
"such as the presence or absence of milk teeth and fusion of the cranial elements, which are used to identify the age of death of these animals."
That does not provide evidence of evolution. because skull bones fuse in mammals is not evidence of evolution. Australipethicenes do not have deciduous molars. Humans do. They also have fewer skull bones than humans. These are morphological differences, and there is no evidence that morphology is capable of changing.
"you talk about ape ontogeny which, but don't realize that when you compare the development of chimps to us you'll find it's nearly the same. The only major difference between two of us is that we retain a pedomorphic build and an increase in cranial volume."
False. Firstly, the human brain develops 3 times faster than apes. This discredits evolution, s there is no explaination how evolution could cause suddently an organism's brain to develop 3 times faster than it's supposed ancestor. The human brain is also 3 times larger. Evolutionists would have to believe some kind of magic takes place that for some reason evolution ever so slowly developed an increasing brain size, then for some rreason it was capable of causing brain size to develop at blistering speed in the human being. Also, there are morphological differences as already described - humans and apes, including australiopethicenes, have a different number of bones, buscles, tendons, in various locatrions in their bodies. There is no evidence that morphology is capable of being changed in science. There is no known mechanism for morphological change, which you must provide to make the claim of morphological change scientific. Again I ask, where is this mechanism that is known and has been observed, tested, and is repeatable so that it can be called scientific? Again, I ask you to confine your discussion to science. You are stepping outside the bounds of science and presenting assumptions as if they were scientific. I do not accept assumptions as scientific for anything other than the formation of hypotheses. Confine your discussion to science. Provide me with a machanism for morphological change before claiming further that morphological change takes place.

"...doesn't this mean that humans and chimps are the same morphologically, since humans haven't evolved a novel structure after the split between our LCA with chimps?"

I have already informed you that apes and humans do not have the same morphology.

"So since a chihuahua and a great dane, despite being similar, can't interbreed, they can't be related can they?"

They are capable of reproduction, but not breeding. They are the same kind. Their genetics allows for reproduction.

"Ichallenge you to breed a miniature dachshund and a timber wolf."

Thier genetics allows for reproduction. Thier body sizes do not. This is not evidence of evolution. You have been informed that dog breeds are not evidence of evolution because there is no morphological difference between any 2 dogs, regardless of their shape or what they look like.

"I know your bastardized definition of "morphology" and I already have presented exactly what you've asked."

You have not. Nobody is "bastardizing" the definition of morphology, you just don't like facing the facts regarding morphology because it refutes evolutionism. Mporphology ids the form and structure of a life form. Form AND structure. Not form alon, not structure alone, form AND structure. Attacking science, as in the definition of morphology, illuminates the fact that you are as an evolutionist antiscience.

"But if you want another example, we've seen chickens develop webbed feet from a mutation which prevents apopotisis of interdigital webbing in embryonic development, both in controlled laboratory settings and in the real world."

Webbed feat in dogs is not a morphological difference. All dogs have a web of skin between their toes,. In dogs in which it is pronounced, it is simply an increase in the same tissue. It is not a new structure. All dogs alreadsy have skin between their toes. More of the same cannot promote evolutionism, which claims morphological changes of unimaginable number have and do still take place.
The examples you cite of ducsk without webbing and chickes with it are not evidence of evolution. They are deformities and not permanent in the species - these deformities dissapear in offspring in 1 to several generations and the animal will revert to it's wild type. I could show you a picture of a human with 2 mouths orextra skin under their neck too, and this would not be evidence of evolution either.

"And we have experiments showing that this can happen."
There are no experiments which demonstrate that morphology of a species is capable of changing, only that deformities can arise in individuals. The paper you cite does not provide such evidence either, because none exists. It states, "Our current un-derstanding of the "Hox code" sug-gests that at least two paralogous groups are functioning at any AP lo-cation to achieve wild-type vertebral morphology. No information exists to suggest whether the two paralogous groups are expressed in the same cells and perform presumably different functions or if, at the time points when morphology is being estab-lished, the active paralogous group proteins are expressed in distinct sub-sets of cells"
It merely states that patterns of expression of the HOX genes determine morphology during embryonic development - which is evidence of design and description of the only known mechanism for defining morphology - embryonic development. It makes the assumption that .It makes the outrageous assumption that Ernst Heakel made over 100 yrs ago and was discredited and shamed for. Evolutionists are still pushing his concept of Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny, though it is discredited. The paper you cite speculates that changes to the genetic material over time will cause the expression of various HOX genes to produce morphological change that is a mechanism for evolution, which is scientifically unsupported. This is antiscience. You are promoting a scientific falacy that died over 140 yrs ago and is still being pushed like a drug into school books. There is no evidence that morphology can change in species. Deformities revert in offspring, there is no known mechanism for morphological change, and mutation has been discredited as a mechanism for the morphological change of species.

"And didn't you say that duplication of existing body parts, like polydactyl, does happen but doesn't count as evolutionary change? Now you are changing your position again. Besides that even your own source states that the number of thoriac, lumbar, and sacral vertebra range between humans and overlap each other."

Once more, polydactyly is a negative and not permanent in species. It cannot be a mechanism for evolution. Also, more of the same is not evolutionary change. it cannot produce amphibians from fish or mamals from reptiles. A range of the vertabrae does not indicate evolution. It indicates we are different.

"Sometimes features can appear relatively rapidly and others appear gradually."

That's a grand assumption for which there is no evidence. Again, please confine ytour disscussion to science, not your personal opinions, speculations, conjectiures, and assumptions.

"And I've already given you examples of gradualism and punctuate equilibrium, in my previous post."

Again, please confine your disscussion to science, not your personal opinions, speculations, conjectiures, and assumptions. There is no known mechanism for the morphological change of species, nor evidence of it in the fossil record. The fossil record proclaims stasis - non-change. I can provide you with 100 quotes by evolutionist scientiwsts who state the fossils indicate only non-change and that the lack or absence of transitional forms is a problem for evolution. Once more, placing creatures of different morphologies next to each other does not indicate morphological change. To demonstrate morphological change, you need a series of fossils of a creature which demonstratee, for example, a specific bone arising, first it's parapopheses and diapopheses, then the bone itself, then the same bone longer, then longer, until you have the same creature with new bones or a new bone. There are no such fossils known. Not one such series of fossils exists. The fossil record indicates life has not changed one bit. We have recovered over 1 billion fossils from the earth, and not one series of transitional forms has been discovered. We find animals which are extinct, and animals which are living and have not changed. We have no transitional series that demonstrates any creature changing morphologically. Placing 2 animals of different morphologies beside each other is not evidence of evolution!

"Yes we do. Don't take this the wrong way, but do you remember your childhood? Don't you remember losing your "baby" teeth in primary school and new ones growing back?"

I misspoke. Humans have deciduous molars. Apes do not. This is a morphological difference. There is no evidence of this transition either!

"the Taung child which did have milk teeth"

This ape was a variety of chimpanze, and has chimpanze teeth:
http://www.detectingdesign.com/images/EarlyMan/Australopithecus%20africanus%20jaw.jpg
Zuckerman suggested that they be classified as apes, not hominids (Evolution as a Process, 1954):
"There is, indeed, no question which the Australopithecine skull resembles when placed side by side with specimens of human and living ape skulls. It is the ape - so much so that only detailed and close scrutiny can reveal any differences between them".

"If you are referring to the nuchal torus, that was lost in the line of derived African Homo erectus (called H. ergaster by some experts) leading up to our species, but was retained in the paranthropids, as well as the Asian group of H. erectus."
Lost in Homo Erectus? Which one? This one?
http://www.dbtechno.com/images/Homo_erectus_footprints.jpg
Or this one?
http://www.connecticutvalleybiological.com/images/an2204.jpg

On has it and the other does not. Variety within the kind is not evidence of evolution. There are differences in the robustness of different bones in humans as well, even in the slope of the forehead which can vary greatly in humans. In some humans, the forehead is nearly vertical. In others, it slopes dramatically. This is not evidence of evolution. It is evidence of variety within the kind. We know this: chimps and gorillas have this ridge, as do australiopethicenes, humans do not. That is evidence of difference, not evidence of being the same.

"The foramen magnum is variable in many ape species and more posteriorly in non-bipedal species, like chimps and pongids"
It is always located dead-center in humans and not so in any ape. You are assuming the foramen magnum has migrated. There are no transitional forms between the bipedalism of humans and limb-walkers and knuckle-draggers of apes. The pelvis of australiopethicenes does not allow for upright walking. It's Illiac Blade points outward, it's knees are bent inward, and it does not have a locking knee joint. This is a wilmb-walker design. Such a creature could not walk upright for long before it's thigh muscles became exhausted. It is not bipedal. Thus, the location of the foramen magnum is not evidence of evolution because it is more forward in australiopethicenes than other apes as the pelcis of these apes verifies it was not capable of bipedalism, and thus the location of their foramen magnum is not indication they were becoming bipedal!

"And as I said before according to you Sahelanthropus is not an ape because of the location of its foramen magnum"

Nonsence. It is most certainly an ape:
http://www.southernbiological.com/Assets/images/Products/Models/BoneClones/BH029.jpg

"Then Homo neanderthalensis, H. erectus, and all other species in the genus Homo, except us, should all be considered apes, and we shouldn't be?"

80% of the protiens in humans are not found in apes. This is a biochemical difference of the most basic kind that proves apes and humans cannot be related. Furthermore, the hot swapping points of the DNA of apes and man are almost entirely different. It is not possible for these to migrate, as the change of one of them would cause either gross deformity or death.

"These proteins are what make humans and chimpanzees distinct species, and 80% of these protiens are not completely different from our own."

False. Gene, volume 346 14 February 2005, Pages 215-219, states, referring to the protien difference between humans and chimps, I quote:
"However, if one looks at proteins, which are mainly responsible for phenotypic differences, the picture is quite different, and about 80% of proteins are different between the two species."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T39-4FC449B-6&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F14%2F2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1429445469&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=85491f2a0a0abb2af68cdaeaab34f1af
I suppose now you are going to claim these scientists have their information wrong? Perhaps you did not actually read what their paper says? Surely you saw this statement in the abstract. Didn't you?

"Way to be called on an outright lie, twice."

Wait now. You just stated Gene's paper did not say there is an 80% difference between the protiens of humans and apes, which it clearly states, and now you call me a liar? I think you're getting frustrated. Be calm. Get your facts right before calling someone a liar. You have states many science falacies, but I have not called you a liar.


"Then species like the neanderthals are apes, and we aren't?"

Neanderthal was not an ape. It was an inbred, disease-ridden, genetically destroyed tribe of man. They suffered from rickets and scurvy and arthritis and their DNA was made into a mess by random mutation and inbreeding. That's why they became extinct. Their skeletons are fully human but deformed because of disease.

"I thought you said changes in location, size and shape, don't qualify as differences in morphology?"

A locking knee joint is not a change of location, size, or color. It is a morphological difference.

"Besides that does this now mean that some australopith species no longer qualify as apes since their hallux are no longer divergent?"

Your question is unworthy of response, evenso, Australiopethicene finger bones are curved. Man's are not. Though this is not morphological difference, it does not provide evidence of evolutionary change. It demonstrates only difference between man and ape.

"No it doesn't prove either of those things. While the recombination hot spots are different, you forgot to mention the level of similarities the scientists who conducted the study noted, which indicate relation."

There is no ability for the hotswap locations to migrate. When this occurs in humans, it causes gross deformity that makes the person unfit for survival, or death. This kind of mutation is one of the most deadly known. Evolution could not migrate these swapping points. They can only be different by design. Migration of them is a dead end for evolution.
Encyclopedia Britanica:

"Polyploid animals are far less common, and the process appears to have had little effect on animal speciation."

w w w . britannica . c o m / EBchecked / topic / 469046 / polyploidy


"Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome ... Subsequent cytogenetic studies revealed a chromosomal deletion of the short arm of chromosome 4. Clinical features include mental retardation, seizures, distinct facial appearance, and midline closure defects. The former Pitt-Rogers-Danks syndromes, caused by overlapping 4p deletions, now are considered as a part of Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome."

w w w . dmoz . o r g / Health / Conditions_and_Diseases / Genetic_Disorders / desc . h t m l


Polyploidy is lethal in humans. Normally, humans have two complete sets of 23 chromosomes. Normal human cells, other than sex cells, are thus described as diploid. Two polyploid conditions occur in humans. Triploidy ( three set of chromosomes that results in 69 chromosomes with XXX, XXY or XYY sex chromosome) and tetrapolidy (92 chromosome and either XXXX or XXYY sex chromosome). Triploidy could result from the fertilization of an abnormal diploid sex cell with a normal sex cell. Tetraploidy could result from the failure of the zygote to divide after it replicates its chromosomes. Human zygotes with either of these conditions either die before birth, or soon after. Interestingly, polyploidy is common in plants and is essential for the proper development of certain stages of the plant life cycle. Also, some kinds of cancerous cells have been shown to exhibit polyploidy. Rather than die, the polyploid cells have the abnormally accelerated cell division and growth characteristic of cancer.

Polyploid is a very rare genetic error in animals. It typically occurs only to the gametes (egg or sperm cell). This error, if it were to occur during embryonic development or at any time after the gamete stage, is fatal. When it occurs to humans it does so to limited or specialized cells, such as those of the liver or salivary glands. It it were to occur when the embryonic cells are dividing, the organism would die, because development would be screwed up badly. Zygotes that receive a full extra set of chromosomes, a condition called polyploidy, usually do not survive inside the uterus, and are spontaneously aborted. It leads to rapid changes in genome structure, gene expression, and developmental traits.

Aneuploid and polyploid cells in animals and humans are often associated with carcinogenesis. Polyploidy can cause birth defects and conditions such as Down's syndrome where each cell has 3 copies of a particular chromosome instead of one. A large percentage of spontaneous abortions are a result of polyploidy. In humans, it typically causes birth defects, spontaneous abortion, Turner's syndrome, Klinefelter's syndrome, Down's syndrome, and Edward's syndrome.Children with trisomy 21 have the characteristic face with a flat nasal bridge, epicanthic folds, protruding tongue and small ears. Among possible malforamations cleft palates, hare lips, and cardiac malformations (atrial and ventricular septal, and atriventricular canal defects). Mental retardation is always present at various degree. The life span once the individual has survived ranges between 50 and 60 years. Trisomy 18, known as Edwards' syndrome, results in severe multi-system defects. Most trisomies 18 results in spontaneous abortion. Affected infants have a small facies, small ears, overlapping fingers and rocker-bottom heels. Cardiac and other internal malformations are very frequent. Newborns with trisomy 13 have midline anomalies as well as scalp cutis aplasia, brain malformations, cleft lip and or palate, omphalocele and many others. Polydactyly is also frequent. Children with trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 usually survive less than a year after birth and are more likely to be females.

Animals to which this error occurs during the gamete stage can breed only with others of their species that are also polyploid! When such a mistake occurs in an animal, it is incapable of breeding with any other unless it too is the same. Thus, if chromosome 2 were merged in a human, it could not breed, and the mistake dissapears in the gametes of that person (sperm or egg cells) in a single generation - for good - when that person dies. It cannot therefore be hereditary in humans.

"What do you mean? What part of evolution requires that humans have more DNA than our cousins?"
The 10% more DNA of chimps discredits evolution because it would indicate, for evolution, that humans have lost 10% of their genetic information. This would obviously be disasterous for any living thing. Are you claiming the loss of 10% of the genome of an organism will not only allow it to survive or cause it to become something with new, greater capabilityies, such as becoming bipedal and increasing the number of bones in the skeleton and having a brain 3 times the size of chimps? Are you actually claiming it is logical that the loass of 10% of the genome would not only not be fatal, but could somehow account for the increase in bone numbers and brain size and morphological differences?

"but I'd like to get your source on the information provided above."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3003370
Humans have two α-globin genes; HBA1 and HBA2, which are both at locus 16p13.3 ("HBA1," nd; "HBA2," nd). Not only do chimps also have two α-globin genes (Liebhaber & Begley, 1983), but "human and chimpanzee G-gamma, A-gamma, alpha, and beta globin sequences are identical (Goodman, Moore, & Barnabas, 1972, p.43)."
If you want more, there are plenty of them. Google will turn up plenty of information for you, though it will be filled with evolutionist assumptions that this difference evolved.

"And why does this minor difference, according to you, separate humans from the family of great apes?"

Minor? There is nothing minor about basic differences in the design of the DNA of apes and man.

"Any extant non-human ape"

No, all apes. The human brain is 3 times larger than any ape known, past or present.

"And yeah, the only significant difference between humans and extant hominoids is cranial volume."

Now you're just playing ignorant by ignoring the morphological, genetic, and biochemical differences I have already informed you of. Brain size is significant. Evolutionists must believe that random mutation could design a brain 3 times larger with all of it's unimaginably complex wiring and chemistry. It is perposterous to believe mutation could design the brain, much less to believe that it could cause it to develop at such break-neck speed to suddenly appear in humans 3 times the size of australiopethicenes! But, such is the insanity of evolutionism.

"Besides we have fossil intermediates which demonstrate the transition from chimp-sized apes to derived bigged brained apes like ourselves"

There is no such thing. Again, placing different species of apes next to each other does not provide evidence of evolution. The morphological, genetic, and biochemical difference between man and any apes is unsurpassablly discrediting for evolution.

"In fact H. neanderthalensis had a much larger cranial capacity than we do."

That is false. It is the same size and sometimes a bit larger. You have stated a gross exaggeration, a falacy.

"Most anthropoid primates, like ourselves, have trichromatic vision. So why are you pointing out the exception, rather than the rule?"

It's a difference between man and ape.

"Wrong. Australopith remains date from about four million years ago until about two million years ago."

WRONG
2.9-2.4 million years ago
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/australopithecusafricanus.htm

3.9-4.2 million years ago
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/walker/classes/anth121/121%20Australopithecine%20Lifeways.htm

2.3 to 3.3 million years
https://www.msu.edu/~heslipst/contents/ANP440/africanus.htm

1.5 Ma--ca. 2.5 Ma
http://www.profleeberger.com/files/BERGER_ET_AL.PDF
Various dates here:
http://blue.utb.edu/paullgj/anth2301/lectures/australopithecus.html
1.4 million years
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJS-4W8TJC6-1&_user=10&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=13f736869ef5cb655863e283fe690223

It goes on and on. In years pat, it has been dated with even wilder date ranges. All of this demonstrates the worthlessness of dating methods and the evolutionist's assumption. If one believes the dates are accurate, then it must be believed these creatures existed for millions of years without changing, while it is at the same time claimed that man evolved from them in only about 240,000 to 1 million years! How perposterous evolutionism is.

"Australopiths weren't "half-bipedal", they were obligate bipeds."

That's impossible. Their Illiac Blade points outward, their knees bent inward, and they had no locking knee joint. it is not possible for them to have been bipedal. A curved Illiac Blade, parallel-ish knees, and a locking knee kjoint are requirements of bipedalism in an upright standing two-legged animal!

"Further more the study you reference actually comes to the opposite conclusion that you say it does."

I could not care less about the assumptions of evolutionists. The bones don't lie.

"Plus bonobos, despite being knuckle-walkers, have proportionally longer legs than troglodytes do and have a tendency to walk bipedally when carrying young or supplie"
No ape can 3walk upright for more than a short distance because it must walk with bent knees which will exhaust the thigh muscles. Bears can walk upright for short distances too, but you do not claim man is closely related to bears. Kangaroos walk upright almost always, but you do not claim man is closely related to them either. You are willing to believe man and ape are related, despite the fact that apes are not bipedal because of your paradigm, not the physical evidence. So you're willing to state that because a bonobo can walk upright for a short distance, this is evidence of evolution. That's antiscience.

"I'd say these could qualify as "half-bipeds""

Then you think being able to walk upright for short distances is evidence of evolution? So you think therefore we are also closely related to bears and kangaroos?

"Wrong. H. erectus was a very successful species which lived for over a million years, spreading across Africa and Asia"
It is still true that, as I said, those robust Australian fossils (the Kow Swamp material, the Cossack skull, the Willandra Lakes WHL 50 skull, etc.), by their dating methods, are just thousands of years old. Homo erectus wasn't supposed to be living so recently. Hence, the evolutionist must call them Homo sapiens to preserve his theory.

"No part of paleoanthropology demands that H. erectus should not have been living so recently and some anthropologist think that their's and our close cousins, H. floresiensis may have lived when the first modern humans first began to settle Indonesia."

That's incorrect. Man is claimed to have evolved from such creatures less than 1 million years ago. The evolutionist is stuck with believing man's ancestors existed unchanged for millions of years (remember the dates for them?) then suddently man experienced a vast number of changes in a brief geological measure of time. How convenient for evos! How nonscientific it is to believe these random mutations caused no change for millions of years, then somehow they attacked a species and it turned into man really quickly, as if man's ancestor was somehow immune to these constant mutations. Evolutionism is not science. It's assumptions conjectured as fat without any evidence, because it is false.

"Not really."

Yes really, YOu did not answer my question:
Why are the skull KNM-ER 1470, the leg bones KNM-ER 148 I, and the skull KNM-ER 1590, found by Richard Leakey in East Africa, assigned to Homo habilis when the skull sizes, skull shapes, and the very modern leg bones would allow assignment to some form of Homo sapiens?

"This is why some experts debate as to whether or not they should be placed in the genus Australopithecus or kept in Homo, and why they are a perfect transitional species."

They argue about thier classification because classifying them as ancestors of man is perposterous, ans my wquestion illustrates. How can they be a perfect transition when they were incapable of bipedalism?

"Why is it that creationist seem to be unable to decide if (as well as some of the H. erectus individuals you mentioned earlier) they are "100% human" or "100% ape"?"

The image you provide is fraudulent because it implies creationists classify apes as human. No creationist classifies apes human. Evolutionists classify humans as apes and slap the titles Hablis and Erectus on any fossil skull that shows variety. Variety exists considerably even in modern human skulls. As i mentioned, some people have a greatly sloping forehead while in others it is nearly vertical. Differences exist in other parts of the skull as well. Because an evolutionist labels a skull hablis or Erectus does not make it an ancestor of man. Furthermore, I might not agree with every classification made by anyt creationist OR evolutionist scientist!

"The habilines are a perfect morphological intermediate between australopiths and derived humans"
You're welcome to believe that, but if you do, you should tell me what makes them so.

"And they also happen to be in the perfect chronological position being right before the geogoricus people and right after the gracile australopiths."

Gracile? Impossible. They could not walk upright with the pelvic and leg features I told you about.

"You shouldn't use the same dishonest creationists arguments which were already exposed[url] six years ago."

Nothing can be learned from talkidiotsdotcom. Only brainwashing and misinformation can be derrived from them.


"Transitional taxa are defined by their morphological features, and not necessarily their chronological placement. But even then I've shown that you are wrong on that point anyway."

They are not bipedal. They are not transitional.

"What omissions? You're not seriously trying to fabricate a conspiracy theory are you?"

How about the wildly different dates that man's supposed ancestors are labled with? You don't hear evos tell students of this in college courses. It's kept quite. One must dig to find oit out. They simply put them on a chart, pick the date they like to fit this chart, and proclaim, "Look! This one evolved into that one at this date!" and you are expected to believe only what information they pick and chose.

"Fortunately I've covered this in this post and in my previous post."

You did not. You have not provided evidence that demonstrates morphological change - the change from the number of ape caudal veretabrae to those of man, the flattening of the rib cage, the migration of the foramen magnum, the intermediates for a locking knee joint, the seperation of new bones from extant bones... None of this evidence exists and you have provided none of it. The only thing you have is a foramen magnum that is closer to the center in an ape you believe is an ancestor of man. That's not enough to claim evolution happened. You need lots more evidence than this, real evidence. Show me a transitional locking knee joint, changing vertabrae, new bones arising in part in several fossils, such as ribs and sjull bones. No? I thought so. No evidence. Again, placing animals of different morphologies next to each other does NOT provide evidence of evolution.

"Our ancestors evidently retained a divergent hallux in the ardipithecines and that didn't change until the first australopiths evolved"

YOu have a dating method problem. Which fossil are you talking about and when did this occur in your mind? There are no transitions between the hands and feet of apes and man.

"The fossil specimen Stw 543 bears a hallux intermediate between the ardipithecines and later Australopithecus."

It does no such thing. They have the same bones in the same locations. Because thier bones are shaped a bit differently is not evidence of evolution. Humans have both vertical and sloping foreheads, robust or nearly absent chin protuberances, etc. Show me the series with new bones arising, not just in part, but one to the other. Where are they? OH THAT'S RIGHT. THERE ARE NONE.

"Later this toe became only slightly divergent as indicated by the Laetoli footprints, until they were defiantly alongside the rest of the foot, as you can see in Homo habilis (see OH 8)."
There is no transitional series of fossils between the adjucted great toe of hoiminids and man's great toe. We have on and the other and nothing inbetween. You assume transition and call it science without physical revidnece. That's antiscience. You are an enemy to science, not a supporter of it.

"Our HOX genes are in the same location. And are you confusing "HOX gene swapping points" with transposons?"

No, I am stating that the migration of HOX genes is not possible but would have to be for fish to become amphibians, amphibians to become reptiles, reptiles to become birds and mammals, and apes to become man. Not all of the hox genes of man and ape are in the same location in the DNA. Remember, chimps have 10% more DNA than we do. That's a lot of base pairs where they should not be if evolution were true. Again, the difference in the swap points of our DNA and those of apes discredits evolution. When htey are relocated by mutation, it causes deformity that makes the animal unfit to survoive or they are stillborn.

"Humans, like all other metazoans, don't have cell walls."

I meant cell membranes.

"Wrong. The angle of the femur and the broad short hips of the australopiths are more like those of humans"

WIERD WRONG YOU ARE. WIERD. You show a picture of dissasembled bones.
australopith sediba:
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/upload/2010/04/close_to_homo_-_the_announceme/Australopithecus-sediba-skeletons-thumb-439x438-44304.jpg
This is the proper standing leg position for a human:
http://www.horseracinghistory.co.uk/hrho/images/education/human_skeleton.gif

Stand and place your weight evenly on both feet. Look at your legs. YOU ARE WRONG. But evods, wanting us to believe in evolution, depict humans like this next to their claimed ancestors:
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/57/52957-004-3A06714A.jpg

Do you see how evolutionists fudge and manipulate the truth to make evolution seem plausible? I hope you learned something from this.

"Note the shape of the illiac blades and the angle (or lack thereof) in the femoral neck and the relatively straight body of the femur and compare that with this:"

Yes indeed. Look at it. One is definately no human!

"Actually I have seen the creationist misrepresentation of that documentary as well."

I'M SORRY, BUT YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT THE EVOLUTIONIST PALEONTOLOGIST IN THAT VIDEO MANIPULATED THE PELVIS BONE BY RESTRUCTURING IT TO MAKE THE ILLIAC bLADE FLATTER. It is an example of the dishonesty of evolutionism and evolutionists.

"And even if we were to ignore that, there are a variety of diagnostic characters proving that the australopiths were defiantly bipedal, including:"

Impossible. Thier Illiac Blade points outward and they have no locking knee joint and their knees bend inward.

"Those mechanical problems are what separate species."

There is no evidence mrphological change is possible and no known mechanism for it. I have asked you repeatedly for evidence that morphology can change and a mechanism for it to support your claims. Will you provcide it or must I ask for it endlessly?

"Even humans could produce hybrids with chimpanzees. We know that the genetic differences between our species are so fine that some scientists think chimpanzees should be placed back in to the genus Homo."

Wow. You've lost it. I insist you provide an example, evidence. Not an assumption, but a physical example. The ability of sperm to penetrate the egg does not mean a viable organism would result. You're way out in space with that wild assumption.

"Tetrapods express interdigital webbing between digits in embryonic development. Usually this stuff is "turned off" and undergoes apoptosis due signaling from BMPs (bone morphogenic proteins) which is good because in some animals, like apes, because this separates the digits. However in the case of webbed footed birds, like geese, a protein called gremlin, preserves the interdigital webbing resulting in webbed feet. Scientists tested this by applying gremlin to the interdigital webbing of developing chickens and they got this:"

Homologous appearance of structure during embryonic development does not provide evidence of evolution! Y0u're trying to rehash Haekels dead and discredited claim!

1) That extant genetic information can be expressed and produce new morphological structures no present in a species
2) That fin rays can transform into new bones
3) that appearance of variety in fin rays can be extrapolated with evidence to demonstrate that new morphological featurees can arise
4) that gene expression can produce new, permanent cartiledge in a species
5) that gene expression can produce new, permanent bones in a species
6) that the expression of genes which define fin rays can cause the rise of other morphological structures, such as bone
7) that there are transitional forms between the knees of humans and apes
8) that the relocation of DNA swappoints is possible without causing gross deformity or death
9) that humans and apes can breed
10) that random mutation can cause little or no change to australiopethicenes for millions of years then somehow target an animal and cause tremendous changes, even morphological ones, in less than 1 million yrs
11) that random mutation can transform duplicate genes into genetic information which defines new morphological structures
...and perhaps 2 dozen more for the wild claims you have made. Please provide these. You have been avoiding this all this while. I require evidence of the following before we continue. You must substanciate your claims with physical, scientific evidence.