[_ Old Earth _] Is Evolution 'Bats'?

[Asyncritus]

BATS AND ECHOLOCATION

There are 3 groups of flying animals in existence today: the birds, the bats and the insects. Each of these presents evolution with insuperable problems, but my especial favourite is the bat.

It’s a shame they have had such bad press with such films as Dracula etc, because these creatures possess some of the most stupendous and miraculous pieces of biological engineering on the planet. For those who are convinced that evolution did occur, this will make not the slightest difference. For those who believe otherwise, this will be another club to beat their heads with.

Remember, the title of Darwin’s book was ‘On the Origin of Species’. That was what he set out to do, and it is what he singularly failed to achieve. It is on the origin question where he and his theory have failed most lamentably.

Fossil bats

There aren’t all that many of them, that’s for sure, and that may have something to do with the fact that they are flying animals. But what IS remarkable, is that the very first fossil bat looks remarkably like the bats of today: and has the echo-location apparatus in its head.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/eutheria/bat_fossil.jpg

The author says: ‘These fossils represent essentially modern-looking microchiropterans; bats had evolved all of their characteristic features and begun to diversify by this time. In fact, the oldest known complete fossil bat, the Eocene-age Icaronycteris shown at left, shows specializations of the auditory region of the skull that suggest that this bat could echolocate.’

Remember, these are the earliest specimens of bat fossils ever found. Maybe earlier ones have been found since, but I don’t know.

Therefore, they could fly. Now a bat does not fly using feathers, it flies using the skin between its fingers. That’s the origin of the name ‘chiropteran’ – hand-wing.

Here is a diagram to show what that means. Notice the vast difference between the bird’s wing and the bat’s:
http://www.nurseminerva.co.uk/adapt/wings.htm#bat

There is absolutely NO indication of any fossil ancestor of the bat, which hopped, jumped or leapt. There is absolutely NO indication of where and how they could have obtained the power of flight. None whatsoever. This, of course, is what the creation model predicts.

 

[Asyncritus]

The Flight of Bats


They fly at speeds of about 11.14 mph. In itself that doesn’t sound like much, but when we compare that with the body length of the animal, it is quite startling. It’s 234432 times its body length (say 3 inches) per hour, as compared with a car 20 ft long which at the same speed is only traveling 36000 times its length per hour.

Evolution is helpless to explain how this could have arisen so swiftly, so unexpectedly and so perfectly. Dawkins has laughably conceded that this gives the appearance of being designed, and then goes on to propound his pathetic fantasies about how this could have evolved.

Flight is one thing – marvelous as it is – but the echolocation system the animal uses beggars description.

In essence, the bat emits a squeak, which like radar, bounces back to the source. Knowing the speed of the radio wave emitted we can work out very accurately how far away an object is. That’s us. The bats do this as well, but better than we can.

Let’s say that a bat is not moving, and emits a shriek. The sound wave travels to the insect it’s interested in, hits it, and bounces back. Let’s also say the insect is still. What happens then? We know the speed of sound and can calculate the distance to the object from the time it takes for the shriek to get there and reach back to us.

But the bat doesn’t know the speed of sound. So how can it calculate the distance of the insect? Evolution does not know.

Notice 2 things: it has a sound emitter, and a sound receiver, and a computer connected to the two things which is able to calculate at phenomenal speeds, and immediately communicate those results to the muscles and nervous system.

But recall that both the bat and the insect were still. That is not the case when the bat is hunting. The bat is flying at up to 11 mph, and the insect is dodging and on an uncertain flight path. The calculations immediately begin to defy belief. Bear in mind too, that there are other bats emitting shrieks. How does our bat keep track of, and identify its own signal?

Answer, it possesses the necessary equipment. That equipment is of extraordinary high quality, as we’ve seen from the requirements.

 

[Asyncritus]

http://www.nurseminerva.co.uk/adapt/wings.htm#bat

“From a computational neuroscience perspective, bats are remarkable because of the very short timescale on which they operate. The barrage of returning sonar echoes from a bat's near-environment lasts approximately 30 milliseconds following a sonar emission with the echo from a specific target lasting, at most, a few milliseconds.

From an engineering standpoint, biosonar systems (e.g. bats and dolphins) have inspired the design of very sophisticated sonar and radar systems that can map distant surfaces and track targets with great precision. Even with powerful mathematical tools and decades of experience, however, our best systems still do not rival the perceptual capabilities of dolphins. Many bats demonstrate incredible aerial agility, flying in complete darkness through branches and caves while hunting evasive insects. These animals perform such tasks in real-time with a total power consumption (including flight) measured in Watts, not hundreds of Watts. In addition to the ability to navigate in complete darkness by echolocation, both bats and dolphins live in very social environments using echolocation in group situations without any obvious problems with interference. All of these capabilities are highly desired by current military programs developing unmanned-aerial vehicles (UAV) especially since many of the target environments are in places where Global Positioning System (GPS) signals are unavailable and obstacle locations are not mapped.â€

It gets extremely technical, as we might guess, but the biggest points are very obvious.


Conclusion


Clearly, there is extremely high order design and implementation in this system. The military want to duplicate it – which means that the bats’ system is superior to any of their own.

We have high order flight engineering and acoustic engineering allied to extreme efficiency of power consumption (measured in Watts, not hundreds of watts). And meanwhile, the animal is alive, growing, breathing, excreting, responding, moving, feeding, and reproducing. So successful is the group, that they are one of the most numerous sets of animals on the planet, as far as the numbers of species is concerned. They are estimated to be about 20% of all mammalian species.

There is not even a reputable theory to account for the evolutionary origin of bats that I have been able to find. The writers content themselves with mumbling about the as yet undiscovered ancestors of bats.

Evolution has failed miserably here, as usual when presented with a concrete case. The animals scream ‘We are designed’ and each little creature is a small hymn of praise to its Maker.

Thomas Addison said it well: “In reason’s ear, they all rejoice, and utter forth a glorious voice….. the Hand that made us is divieâ€.

 

[Pard]

But the bat doesn’t know the speed of sound.

Maybe you were simplifying it, or maybe you forgot, but evolution has even more to explain once we incorporate the varying speeds of sound. Bats, not all but some, are migratory. Why does this matter? It matters because the speed of sound in San Diego, California and the speed of sound in Denver Colorado is vastly different. Let's leave temperature and humidity aside for a moment.

Denver is a bit over 5000 feet above sea level, and San Diego is at sea level. At sea level the speed of sound is about 760 mph. You go up to 5000 feet and all of a sudden the speed of sound has gone down to about 740 mph. Now, at this speed, you're probably thinking "But 20 mph is nothing!". Well, relatively, you're right, but when you are trying to precisely calculate an insect and all obstacles in your way with echolocation you need to know the speed of sound down to the decimal. Otherwise you will run into a tree that you didn't even see, and at 11mph and weighing in at a couple ounces, trust me a bat hitting a tree isn't going to recovery too easily!.

So altitude is one thing, and every bat will have to deal with it on a daily basis. But altitude doesn't factor in a couple other key elements. What are they?

Temperature
Humidity
Pressure
Wind

Each of those factors is also key to knowing the exact speed of sound. You see each factor (except wind) helps determine the density of the air. Depending on how dense the air is the speed of sound will change. What this means is that bat not only needs a super advanced brain that is able to calculate the precise location of all objects within it's echolocation field but they also need that brain to have a thermometer, a barometer, a hydrometer, and an altimeter, or at least some seperate organ(s) that carry out this function for the brain. Than they need to have a half-dozen different equations hardwired in their head to calculate all these different readings and deduce the precise speed of sound at their current location. This doesn't include the speedometer the bats need in order to factor out their own speed.

Almost forgot! The barometer will need to be able to factor OUT the speed of the bat and it's current g's in order to calculate an accurate pressure of air.

Wind (at high speeds) effects the speed of sound because it will alter the sound's speed and will also reduce its shadow. Now a bat doesn't really need to worry about wind because if the wind is blowing fast enough to cancel a sound's shadow, there is no way a measly little bat will be flying in it!

One last thing. The bat needs to do all this, while at the same time canceling out the clicks from other bats (which can vary from 0 to more than 100) and it has to be able to re-echolocate vary rapidly, because otherwise they will only be getting a glimpse of their surroundings every couple of seconds. I dare you to go driving, in the night, and only open your eyes ever five seconds... let's see how long it takes you to wrap your car around a tree.

(And just for haha's... this is even more complicated for a dolphin, who lives in the water and has to factor in many other things)

 

[jasoncran]

and all brought to you by randomn mutuation with unguide natural selection. yeah right.

got any on the human heart and its complexity and durability? that somehow we cant match, yet wasnt built buy any intellegence.

"scotty, beam me up theres no intellegent life here"

 

[Asyncritus]

Maybe you were simplifying it, or maybe you forgot, but evolution has even more to explain once we incorporate the varying speeds of sound. Bats, not all but some, are migratory. Why does this matter? It matters because the speed of sound in San Diego, California and the speed of sound in Denver Colorado is vastly different. Let's leave temperature and humidity aside for a moment.

Denver is a bit over 5000 feet above sea level, and San Diego is at sea level. At sea level the speed of sound is about 760 mph. You go up to 5000 feet and all of a sudden the speed of sound has gone down to about 740 mph. Now, at this speed, you're probably thinking "But 20 mph is nothing!". Well, relatively, you're right, but when you are trying to precisely calculate an insect and all obstacles in your way with echolocation you need to know the speed of sound down to the decimal. Otherwise you will run into a tree that you didn't even see, and at 11mph and weighing in at a couple ounces, trust me a bat hitting a tree isn't going to recovery too easily!.

So altitude is one thing, and every bat will have to deal with it on a daily basis. But altitude doesn't factor in a couple other key elements. What are they?

Temperature
Humidity
Pressure
Wind

Each of those factors is also key to knowing the exact speed of sound. You see each factor (except wind) helps determine the density of the air. Depending on how dense the air is the speed of sound will change. What this means is that bat not only needs a super advanced brain that is able to calculate the precise location of all objects within it's echolocation field but they also need that brain to have a thermometer, a barometer, a hydrometer, and an altimeter, or at least some seperate organ(s) that carry out this function for the brain. Than they need to have a half-dozen different equations hardwired in their head to calculate all these different readings and deduce the precise speed of sound at their current location. This doesn't include the speedometer the bats need in order to factor out their own speed.

Almost forgot! The barometer will need to be able to factor OUT the speed of the bat and it's current g's in order to calculate an accurate pressure of air.

Wind (at high speeds) effects the speed of sound because it will alter the sound's speed and will also reduce its shadow. Now a bat doesn't really need to worry about wind because if the wind is blowing fast enough to cancel a sound's shadow, there is no way a measly little bat will be flying in it!

One last thing. The bat needs to do all this, while at the same time canceling out the clicks from other bats (which can vary from 0 to more than 100) and it has to be able to re-echolocate vary rapidly, because otherwise they will only be getting a glimpse of their surroundings every couple of seconds. I dare you to go driving, in the night, and only open your eyes ever five seconds... let's see how long it takes you to wrap your car around a tree.

(And just for haha's... this is even more complicated for a dolphin, who lives in the water and has to factor in many other things)

Excellent.

Thank you very much indeed pard.

Let's see if the opposition has anything constructive to say now.

GM? AB?

 

[Pard]

I forgot to add that in order to factor out the g's that bat is most definitely pulling, when determining proper pressure, he would also need an accelerometer.

This doesn't even touch on the nature of bat wings. They are incredible appendages, unlike the wings of any other flying animal. A bat's wings, as noted above, are essentially fingers with skin stretched over them. This lends to an amazing amount of maneuverability, which is why the accelerometer would be needed. A bat can change direction of flight almost instantaneously. Birds cannot do this. Watch a bird, they, like planes, have to,in order to change direction, bank their wings and use their tail to push them to one side or the other. A bat can just twist his wings and all of a sudden he is flying in a new direction! Bugs can do this, but their wings are more like a helicopter's blades than traditional wings (as they put more force DOWN than the bug weights).

This amazing skill at flying allows bats to fly with amazing skill, and coupled with their uncanny echlocating ability, they can skillfully maneuver between almost any underbrush in the dead of night. I fail to see how anything but a intelligent designer could pull off that kind of animal.

Before this post I had never even considered the difficulty an evolutionist has to put up with when trying to explain bats. I read some of their, for lack of a better term, excuses and was not impressed at all. Their explanation for the bat's wings and sonar-like ability is laughably at best.

 

[jasoncran]

i read a paper on evo pyschology and they admit that to show that humans evolved from the common ancestor of primates is taking some speculation as we dont have much fossil evidence for the hominids and that theres none alive to observe.

they are stating this speculation is from the psychology side as they observes humans of today and also primates of today and speculate and given empircal studies of both state that this is how the human probably evolved.

 

[Pard]

I read a paper on psychology that deduced that there is no way that homo sapiens could have existed as long ago as the evolutionary model postulates, and if they did that they would resemble us in both psychologically and socially. This means that there would be large civilizations/groups of humans and vast cultures (lore, language, pantheons, ect.) but nothing can empirically support this. And so he concluded that homo sapiens couldn't have existed as long ago as the evolutionary model says. Now he went on to make some serious speculation to adjust for this, as he still tried to hold the evolutionary model despite his own recognition that it was seriously flawed.

I agreed with him up until his vast speculation because frankly, it makes sense that humans have always been as we are today, and guess what? The various creation models all support what this psychologist reports.

 

[lordkalvan]

Fossils solve mystery of bat evolution: www. guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/13/bat.evolution/

According to this research, flying came first. As to the 'speed of sound' problem, think of all the different visual conditions that your eyes can cope with without you 'knowing' how to do it or being aware that you are doing it: light travels significantly slower through water and glass, for example (refractive indexes of 1.3 and 1.5 respectively). Whales use echolocation too, but there is quite a lot of fossil evidence for the evolutionary history of these animals. Perhaps the 'problem' is that bats are small and fragile and offer less fossilization opportunities than other animals? But then I suppose that anyone who believes bats (and echolocation) were 'specially created' in a single moment believes that the eye was as well (but why so many different types?). Oh, and not all bats use echolocation anyway - only one species of fruit bat does, for example. So was the bat 'kind' created uniquely, or were several bat 'kinds' created at the same time?

 

[Green Man]

Good morning everyone, and Happy Memorial Day[smile].
My apologies for being away for such a while and not responding to people's posts sooner. That whole "real life" thing keeps interfering[grins].
I note with some interest that as with the Humming Birds, you have once again chosen a type of animal that's evolved into many many different species to once again....somehow..[rolls eyes and sighs]...try and 'prove' that evolution has never occurred, Asyncritus. If I were a Creationists I would at least try and find some kind of an animal with only one form that has remained exactly the same over all of the years. ;) Tell me, how do you explain the physical differences between, say, a Fisherman Bat[Noctilio leporinus], a Vampire Bat[Desmondus rotundus], a tiny Barbastelle[Barbastella barbastellus], a Pallas' Long-tongued Bat[Glossophaga soricina], and a Greater Fruit Bat/Flying Fox[Peteropus giganteus]?

Here's another question after your done with that one.
What CAN'T your 'Creation Model theory' predict in nature/the development of an organism[smile]?

 

[Asyncritus]

Fossils solve mystery of bat evolution: www. guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/13/bat.evolution/

According to this research, flying came first. As to the 'speed of sound' problem, think of all the different visual conditions that your eyes can cope with without you 'knowing' how to do it or being aware that you are doing it: light travels significantly slower through water and glass, for example (refractive indexes of 1.3 and 1.5 respectively). Whales use echolocation too, but there is quite a lot of fossil evidence for the evolutionary history of these animals. Perhaps the 'problem' is that bats are small and fragile and offer less fossilization opportunities than other animals? But then I suppose that anyone who believes bats (and echolocation) were 'specially created' in a single moment believes that the eye was as well (but why so many different types?). Oh, and not all bats use echolocation anyway - only one species of fruit bat does, for example. So was the bat 'kind' created uniquely, or were several bat 'kinds' created at the same time?

I think these people are quite foolish LK.

'Flying came first' did it?

OK. So how did it 'come' about? Where did the bats get the wings - they are unique in that the wings are really fingers with skin between them.

NOTHING else on the planet is remotely like that.

And where did they get the flight instincts to power the equipment?

So what ancestors do they have? None. They were created that way. So let's say the probability of them 'evolving' is 1 in 10 zillion.

Next, echolocation. The probability of such an incredibly complex piece of machinery 'evolving' is 1 in a gazillion.

So the probability of BOTH evolving TOGETHER, by the rules of probability, is

1 in 1 gazillion x 10 zillion = 1 terazillion.
How many 0's is that, do you think?

Impossible, wouldn't you say?

Now for the next piece of folly.

Whales, dolphins, cave swallows and several other kinds of animals use echolocation too.

Therefore, using the kind of idiot logic which says that since A and B have a piece of their genes or gene sequences similar or identical, they are therefore related, we have the scenario where bats evolved from whales (they are both mammals too!) or whales evolved from bats; dolphins evolved from that lot somewhere along the line too, and so do the cave swallows as well.

Hmm.

Something stinks in the state of Denmark.

The fossil evidence for the evolution of whales is another evolutionary joke, and I'll post something about it later on.

To answer your final question, since there is not the faintest shred of hard evidence that bats evolved from anything, then the only remaining possibility is that all the different varieties were created as they are.

Isn't it marvellous that so much faith can be placed in fossils that don't exist?

As somebody once said, using the words of Hebrews 11.1:

Now faith is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links unseen.

So true.

 

[Asyncritus]

Good morning everyone, and Happy Memorial Day[smile].

And to you, my friend.

I note with some interest that as with the Humming Birds, you have once again chosen a type of animal that's evolved into many many different species to once again....somehow..

I do hate sinking your boat, GM. You're so kind, it grieves me to do this, but, needs must...

You may not commit the logical fallacy of assuming the case, and then using that assumption as proof.

You are assuming that the h-b's did evolve into many species.

Since 'evolution' is what you're trying to prove, you have to prove it first, and only then can you assume it's true. This you have signally failed to do.

But don't feel too bad about it, Professor Dawkins and the whole lot of them do exactly the same. You're in pretty poor company, but that's your choice. Remember, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'

[rolls eyes and sighs]...try and 'prove' that evolution has never occurred, Asyncritus. If I were a Creationists I would at least try and find some kind of an animal with only one form that has remained exactly the same over all of the years.

You really need to visit this link (if I can get it on) if you want to be scared witless:

Living-Fossils.com

Tell me, how do you explain the physical differences between, say, a Fisherman Bat[Noctilio leporinus], a Vampire Bat[Desmondus rotundus], a tiny Barbastelle[Barbastella barbastellus], a Pallas' Long-tongued Bat[Glossophaga soricina], and a Greater Fruit Bat/Flying Fox[Peteropus giganteus]?

God made 'em that way.

Here's another question after your done with that one.
What CAN'T your 'Creation Model theory' predict in nature/the development of an organism[smile]?

Because creation is over and done with. There are NO new major groups being formed, and none have been for a zillion years:


http://www.uvm.edu/~jdavison/evolution.html

Huxley was not alone in these conclusions. Compare his views with those of the anti-Darwinian paleontologist Robert Broom.

"In Eocene times - say between 50,000,000 and 30,000,000 years ago - small primitive mammals rather suddenly gave rise to over a dozen very different orders - hoofed animals, odd-toed and even-toed, elephants, carnivores, whales, rodents, bats, and monkeys. And after this there were no more Orders of mammals ever evolved. There were great varieties of evolution in the Orders that had appeared, but strangely enough Nature seemed incapable of forming any more new Orders. What is equally remarkable, no new types of birds appear to have evolved in the last 30,000,000 years. And most remarkable of all no new family of plants appears to have been evolved since the Eocene. All major evolution has apparently come to an end. No new types of fishes, no new groups of molluscs, or worms or starfishes, no new groups even of insects appear to have been evolved in these latter 30,000,000 years" (BROOM 1951).


In an earlier work Broom was more explicit.



"There is, however, no doubt that evolution, so far as new groups are concerned, is at an end. That a line of small generalized animals should have continued on till in Eocene times the Primates originated and then ceased, and that except for specialisations of Eocene types there has been no evolution in the last forty million years, and that the evolutionary clock has so completely run down that it is very doubtful if a single new genus has appeared on earth in the last two million years, ..." (BROOM 1933).


And just to add another drop of poison to your already bitter cup, here's something for you to chew on, with regard to my qualifications to speak on the subject:

J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) was an outstanding scientist and a polymath who contributed significantly to physiology, genetics, biochemistry, statistics, biometry, cosmology, and philosophy, although he himself possessed no formal qualifications in any branch of science. His early science training was provided by his father, Oxford University physiologist J. S. Haldane, and the rest was self-taught. ...

Heh heh heh :biglol

 

[Asyncritus]

Oh BTW, GM,

When are you going to answer my 2 questions from your extensive reading?

1 How did any instinct arise and

2 How did it enter the genome?

(PS The answers are on my blog, and in my book: available as How does Instinct Evolve?).

 

[lordkalvan]

I think these people are quite foolish LK.

What you think is not evidential.

'Flying came first' did it?

OK. So how did it 'come' about?

Evolution. Like birds, flying insects and 'flying' fish.

Where did the bats get the wings - they are unique in that the wings are really fingers with skin between them.

Well, some people are born with webbing between their fingers. Where did they get that?

NOTHING else on the planet is remotely like that.

Pterodactyls.

And where did they get the flight instincts to power the equipment?

Where does a penguin get the 'swim instincts' to power its 'equipment'?

So what ancestors do they have? None.

If you imagine that an absence of identifiable ancestral species for a particular Order is evidence against evolution, presumably you think that an abundance of identifiable ancestral species for another Order must be evidence for evolution? Or do the same 'rules' not apply?

They were created that way.

And whales evolved 'that way'....

So let's say the probability of them 'evolving' is 1 in 10 zillion.

What is a 'zillion' and what is your basis for determining this probability? I would say that the probability of them evolving seems to be unity as they are with us today; and in about 1000 different species: did these all 'adapt' from a single bat 'kind' or were they all specially created?

Next, echolocation. The probability of such an incredibly complex piece of machinery 'evolving' is 1 in a gazillion.

What is a 'gazillion' and what is your basis for determining this probability? Given that echlocation can be found in bats, toothed whales, oilbirds and cave swiftlets, it doesn't seem to be as rare and unlikely as you want to suggest. Once more, the probability of it evolving seems to be unity.

So the probability of BOTH evolving TOGETHER, by the rules of probability, is

1 in 1 gazillion x 10 zillion = 1 terazillion.
How many 0's is that, do you think?

As your probabilities are entirely arbitrary and without any logical basis, on the grounds that we observe flying (therefore the probability of it evolving is 1.0) and that we also observe echolocation (therefore the probability of it evolving is 1.0), the probability of echolocation and flying appearing in some organism or another would be 1.0 * 1.0 or 1.0; in other words, it's inevitable.

Impossible, wouldn't you say?

No.

Now for the next piece of folly.

So far the folly seems to be in your use of probabilities.

Whales, dolphins, cave swallows and several other kinds of animals use echolocation too.

Therefore, using the kind of idiot logic which says that since A and B have a piece of their genes or gene sequences similar or identical, they are therefore related, we have the scenario where bats evolved from whales (they are both mammals too!) or whales evolved from bats; dolphins evolved from that lot somewhere along the line too, and so do the cave swallows as well.

Utter nonsense, I'm afraid and entirely devoid of the claimed 'logic'. Nothing about evolutionary theory (or evolutionary evidence, for that matter) posits that 'bats evolved from whales', but argues rather that bats and whales (both of which are vertebrates, mammals and tetrapods), evolved from a common ancestral species.

Hmm.

Hmm, indeed.

Something stinks in the state of Denmark.

And it isn't evolutionary theory in this instance....

The fossil evidence for the evolution of whales is another evolutionary joke, and I'll post something about it later on.

So we'll just have to take your word for its jokiness, then?

To answer your final question, since there is not the faintest shred of hard evidence that bats evolved from anything, then the only remaining possibility is that all the different varieties were created as they are.

And yet genetic studies convincingly place bats with the superorder Laurasiatheria, so some equally 'remaining possibilities' would be that the fossil evidence is yet to be found or that even though there is other evidence that bats evolved, because fossilization is such an extremely rare event, we may never find such fossil evidence. Therefore, your proposed 'only remaining possibility' is no such thing at all.

Isn't it marvellous that so much faith can be placed in fossils that don't exist?

We don't need faith, we can consider the scientific evidence and make reasoned conclusions based on that evidence.

As somebody once said, using the words of Hebrews 11.1:

Now faith is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links unseen.

So true.

But what is more true is that the evidence supporting evolution does not depend on fossils alone, so no hope in the existence of 'links unseen' is required to place confidence in the soundness of evolutionary theory.

 

[Nick]

Deleted some unhelpful posts to the discussion and their replies.

Science forum privileges can easily be revoked for members that breach the site's Terms of Service. I also suggest members take note of the Science Forum ToS that they agreed to upon gaining access to the Science Forum.

http://www.christianforums.net/f22/science-forum-agreement-form-forum-terms-service-18617/

 

[Asyncritus]

What you think is not evidential.

Nonetheless, it is my opinion, and I am expressing it rather mildly.

'Flying came first' did it?

OK. So how did it 'come' about?

Evolution. Like birds, flying insects and 'flying' fish.

This is unworthy of you LK. I am asking you, 'how did it evolve', to which you reply 'evolution'. That is plain tautological. 'Why are cats black? Because they're black'.

That's the level of your reply. 'I don't know, and evolution can't explain it' is an acceptable answer too, you know.

Well, some people are born with webbing between their fingers. Where did they get that?

There is a defective gene or gene action somewhere in the developmental process. This cannot be construed into making that person a bat, or its hands wings.

Pterodactyls.

Sorry, no. They're extinct for one thing, and their wings are nothing like the bat's wings: wiki:

Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. [Note the wonderful assumption there!]Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues
stretching from the legs to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

Where does a penguin get the 'swim instincts' to power its 'equipment'?

From the same place every other instinct originates. God.

If you imagine that an absence of identifiable ancestral species for a particular Order is evidence against evolution, presumably you think that an abundance of identifiable ancestral species for another Order must be evidence for evolution?

Ancestral species are in very short supply. Don't you know that? Want some quotes to establish that fact?

And whales evolved 'that way'....

Whales did not evolve LK. Go and have a look at what National Geograhic, has to say.

Have a good laugh, and get back to me on this when you've got some answers as to how their echo-locating apparatus 'evolved', and how a land mammal (something like a fox) could possibly become a deep sea diving mammal that feeds its young underwater.

Because that's what I'm going to ask you to explain.

What is a 'zillion' and what is your basis for determining this probability? I would say that the probability of them evolving seems to be unity as they are with us today;

A 'zillion', like a 'gazillion' and a 'terazillion' are my humorous way of saying 'uncountable'. if you prefer 10 exp 40,000 or something else, then by all means substitute that in your reading.

There are far too many different bat kinds for them to have 'evolved' from some mythical ancestor. As you rightly say, there are very large numbers of bat species. I think the figures I read said that they constitute between 10 and 20% of the mammal species on the planet. I wouldn't really know.

How do you see a bat ancestor becoming so many? And while you're at it, don't forget you have to account for the fact that they could fly right from the first bat ever found.

It was thought that the earliest one found couldn't echolocate because it didn't have the characteristic 'swelling' in the head bones that Icaronyterix has. That turned out to be another mistake, because it could echolocate using laryngeal structures.

So that was no help.

You have the further problem of accounting for how fruit bats (which are herbivorous and non-echolocating could have evolved from carnivorous bats (like the Microchiroptera), or vice versa.

Given that echlocation can be found in bats, toothed whales, oilbirds and cave swiftlets, it doesn't seem to be as rare and unlikely as you want to suggest. Once more, the probability of it evolving seems to be unity.

I never said that echolocation was rare and unlikely. The questions were: how did it arise, and how did the instincts which power its use enter the genome?

Those are the 2 standing questions which no evolutionist has ever been able to answer, and never will. This is the ruin of the entire theory, and until some answer is found, I call on the establishment to abandon the theory which has no power to explain such a fundamental feature of living things.

As your probabilities are entirely arbitrary and without any logical basis, on the grounds that we observe flying (therefore the probability of it evolving is 1.0) and that we also observe echolocation (therefore the probability of it evolving is 1.0), the probability of echolocation and flying appearing in some organism or another would be 1.0 * 1.0 or 1.0; in other words, it's inevitable.

You are completely mistaken.

The fact that we observe flying and echolocation establishes that the probability that flying and echolocation exist =1.0

What it does not establish is that the probability of those things evolving = 1.0

That is your assertion (that they evolved), and until you provide some evidence that evolution was the mechanism whereby they arose, the probability remains at p =0.

No.

Utter nonsense, I'm afraid and entirely devoid of the claimed 'logic'. Nothing about evolutionary theory (or evolutionary evidence, for that matter) posits that 'bats evolved from whales', but argues rather that bats and whales (both of which are vertebrates, mammals and tetrapods), evolved from a common ancestral species.

You miss the point, which was, that if genetic similarities indicate relationship, then similarity of phenotypes should also indicate relationships. That's being consistent, you see. In fact much of credible taxonomy works on that principle.

It was only when this 'molecular genetic' evidence arose (and as far as I am concerned, was misinterpreted), that these silly 'relationships' between animal groups were postulated.

Species boundaries are practically immovable, though there is a handful of observed 'speciations'. What has never been shown is a major group evolving into another, eg a fish into an amphibian or a reptile, or a reptile into a bird.

Oh yes, there are claims aplenty, but they all flat on their miserable faces when the Law of Asynctropy is applied.

And it isn't evolutionary theory in this instance....

So we'll just have to take your word for its jokiness, then?

And yet genetic studies convincingly place bats with the superorder Laurasiatheria, so some equally 'remaining possibilities' would be that the fossil evidence is yet to be found or that even though there is other evidence that bats evolved, because fossilization is such an extremely rare event, we may never find such fossil evidence. Therefore, your proposed 'only remaining possibility' is no such thing at all.

This is one of the best examples of the crassness of misapplication of 'molecular genetics' that it is possible to conceive of. Let me show you what I mean.

Here's wiki on the point:

Laurasiatheria is a large group of placental mammals believed to have originated on the northern supercontinent of Laurasia. It includes shrews, hedgehogs, pangolins, bats, whales, most hoofed mammals, and carnivorans, among others.

You didn't know that bats were 'related to' shrews, hedgehogs, pangolins, whales, MOST HOOFED ANIMALS and carnivorans, did you?

I can tell you which hoofed animals I think the authors of that piece of nonsense are related to - but you wouldn't like it!

So which of those do you think the bats evolved from, then? That's quite an assortment of possible ancestors

so choose wisely!

We don't need faith, we can consider the scientific evidence and make reasoned conclusions based on that evidence.

If that's the 'scientific evidence' you're leaning on LK, then you're in a bad way!

But what is more true is that the evidence supporting evolution does not depend on fossils alone, so no hope in the existence of 'links unseen' is required to place confidence in the soundness of evolutionary theory.

Now where do you get this particular piece of nonsense from? Don't you read Darwin? Here's some of what he said:
http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number5/darwin5.htm

"Consequently if this theory be true (evolution) it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Cambrian age to the present day; and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures."

"So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon the earth."

The fact remains now, as it did then, that there are no such fossils as Darwin would have liked. The greatest palaeontologists of his day told him so, but he still persisted with the theory.

Which, as I have said, has no fossil evidence to support it.

It is therefore duff.

 

[lordkalvan]

I am sorry for the delay in replying, but I have been busy.

My perhaps over-lengthy response is broken down into two parts.

Nonetheless, it is my opinion, and I am expressing it rather mildly.

But your opinion as to why they are 'foolish' does not mean that they are foolish or that you can show this to be the case. in other words, it is not evidence of 'foolishness'

This is unworthy of you LK. I am asking you, 'how did it evolve', to which you reply 'evolution'. That is plain tautological. 'Why are cats black? Because they're black'.

You asked how it 'came about', not how did it evolve. It 'came about' through evolutionary pressures manifested through natural selection. How is this any less of an explanation than claiming that these animals were formed in one supernatural creative act?

That's the level of your reply. 'I don't know, and evolution can't explain it' is an acceptable answer too, you know.

Umm, that isn't my reply. There are several hypotheses that account for the development of flying behaviour all within the explanatory framework of evolutionary theory. Flying lifeforms are no more 'unlikely' from an evolutionary point of view than are any other sort. Most such hypotheses suggest that wings are exaptations and that the development of the ability to fly using these exaptations was driven by one or more evolutionary pressures: to escape predators, to catch flying or speedy prey, to move more safely from one place to another, to free the hindlegs for use as weapons, to exploit a new food source, to exploit an otherwise unexploited niche. Insofar as we see the development of flight in three different vertebrate taxa and as that development is constrained in all three taxa by common elements of phylogeny and biometrics and yet developed in ways that led to different patterns of function, this enhances confidence that flying resulted from evolutionary pressures.

There is a defective gene or gene action somewhere in the developmental process. This cannot be construed into making that person a bat, or its hands wings.

Define 'defective'. And no one 'construes' it as any such thing: the instance was offered as an example of a trait that, through natural selection, could possibly mark a waypoint in the adaptation of forelimbs into wings.

Sorry, no. They're extinct for one thing, and their wings are nothing like the bat's wings: wiki:

Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. [Note the wonderful assumption there!]Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues
stretching from the legs to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

This reads rather like special pleading to me: the development of flying limbs from the forelimbs of pterosaurs, avians and chiroptera demonstrates morphological similarities through the adaptation of the same bones that you can find in all vertebrates (humerus, radius, ulna and various 'finger' bones).

From the same place every other instinct originates. God.

And this amounts to an ‘explanation’ how, exactly? If God can magic anything into existence that you find naturalistic explanations for personally incredible, what is the purpose of trying to pretend that you are engaging in a science-based discussion?

Ancestral species are in very short supply. Don't you know that?

Define ‘short supply’ and tell us what you understand to be ‘ancestral species’.

Want some quotes to establish that fact?

No, what I 'want' is some reasoned account that better explains the observed evidence in as consistent and consilient a way as does the theory of evolution.

Whales did not evolve LK.

Several lines of consilient evidence suggest otherwise.

Go and have a look at what National Geograhic, has to say.

National Geographic says whales didn’t evolve? Really?

Have a good laugh, and get back to me on this when you've got some answers as to how their echo-locating apparatus 'evolved'…

Perhaps you have seen the research into human blindness that demonstrates that humans can use ‘echolocation’ to guide themselves and that this stimulates the part of the brain that would normally be activated by visual stimuli?

’ Human echolocation is the ability of humans to detect objects in their environment by sensing echoes from those objects. This ability is used by some blind people to navigate within their environment. They actively create sounds, such as by tapping their canes, lightly stomping their foot or by making clicking noises with their mouths. It can however also be fed in to the human nervous system as a new sensory experience. Human echolocation is similar in principle to active sonar and to the animal echolocation employed by some animals, including bats and dolphins.’

Source: en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation

So not so incredible after all.

….and how a land mammal (something like a fox) could possibly become a deep sea diving mammal that feeds its young underwater.

Well, let’s consider several ‘fox-like’ and other mammals (otters, beavers, water-voles, capybara, platypus, hippos, coypus and desmans, for example) that lead semi-aquatic lives and ponder how these animals might further evolve in response to some of the adaptive pressures listed above. Looking from the other direction, a number of fish have developed behaviour which allows them to survive out of water for extensive periods (mudskippers and lungfish, for example). So the transition from an entirely terrestrial existence, to one that exploited both environments, to an entirely marine environment seems eminently plausible.

Because that's what I'm going to ask you to explain.

You mean in as detailed a manner as you ‘explained’ instinct?

A 'zillion', like a 'gazillion' and a 'terazillion' are my humorous way of saying 'uncountable'. if you prefer 10 exp 40,000 or something else, then by all means substitute that in your reading.

So what you mean is that these are just silly numbers with no evidential basis that you have simply made up. Okay.

There are far too many different bat kinds for them to have 'evolved' from some mythical ancestor. As you rightly say, there are very large numbers of bat species.

And why is it impossible for so many different species of bat to have evolved? There are 350,000+ species of beetles. Is it impossible for each of these to have evolved as well? At what lesser number does it become possible for the number of species in an order to have evolved, as you seem to think that great numbers are some sort of barrier to this process? Were all the beetle species and bat species individually and specially created? Were they all taken on board the Ark?

I think the figures I read said that they constitute between 10 and 20% of the mammal species on the planet. I wouldn't really know.

I think your figures are correct – there around 5000 identified mammal species that I am aware of.

How do you see a bat ancestor becoming so many?

Selective pressure amongst isolated populations.

And while you're at it, don't forget you have to account for the fact that they could fly right from the first bat ever found.

Identifying the earliest specimen of bat found as the ‘first’ bat is about as meaningful as trying to identify the first person to speak English (or French, or any other language). Fossil species of terrestrial mammal that predate the earliest bat fossil could not fly, but examples of gliding mammals have been found (Volaticotherium); it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the species ancestral to the bats will be found amongst similar fossil species (if any have survived the fossilization process, that is).

It was thought that the earliest one found couldn't echolocate because it didn't have the characteristic 'swelling' in the head bones that Icaronyterix has. That turned out to be another mistake, because it could echolocate using laryngeal structures.

You mean that different evolutionary pathways to echolocation exist? Why do you regard this as significant?

So that was no help.

No help for what?

You have the further problem of accounting for how fruit bats (which are herbivorous and non-echolocating could have evolved from carnivorous bats (like the Microchiroptera), or vice versa.

Why is this a ‘problem’? Not all species of beetles are herbivores, some are carnivores and some are omnivores. Pandas are bears, but are almost wholly dependent on bamboo (99% of their diet). Does this mean that it is a ‘problem’ that they are related phylogenetically to polar bears?

I never said that echolocation was rare and unlikely.

Well, if it’s neither rare nor unlikely, why do you find it such an incredible trait?

The questions were: how did it arise…

Through evolutionary selective pressure, from simple beginnings to increasing complexity.

…and how did the instincts which power its use enter the genome?

How did your ‘instinct’ to use your senses of touch, hearing, sight and taste ‘enter’ your genome?

 

[lordkalvan]

Those are the 2 standing questions which no evolutionist has ever been able to answer, and never will.

You’re right, not even Darwin tackled the evolutionary origins of instinct. Oh, wait – he did. Emma Teeling (School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University College Dublin) and Gareth Jones (School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol) appear to be just two of the many ‘evolutionists’ who give the lie to your claim concerning the inability of ‘evolutionists’ to tackle the evolutionary development of echolocation.

This is the ruin of the entire theory, and until some answer is found, I call on the establishment to abandon the theory which has no power to explain such a fundamental feature of living things.

If you think that your imagined ‘problems’ constitute a serious threat to the robustness of evolutionary theory, then you are mistaken. Even if evolutionary biologists were unable to offer any hypotheses at all concerning the origins of instincts and echolocation, the consilience of other evidence from multiple lines of independent research confirm the soundness of evolutionary theory. Maybe you should try presenting a paper to Nature and see what peer review makes of it?

You are completely mistaken.

The fact that we observe flying and echolocation establishes that the probability that flying and echolocation exist =1.0

What it does not establish is that the probability of those things evolving = 1.0

The probability calculation was offered as a contrasting example of foolish statistics to highlight the silliness of your own argument.

That is your assertion (that they evolved), and until you provide some evidence that evolution was the mechanism whereby they arose, the probability remains at p =0.

No.

No, it is my hypothesis that they evolved and, given the available evidence, that this is the reasonable conclusion to reach. Naturally you assign an arbitrary ‘probability’ of zero to this event because to assign any other value would admit to evolution being a possibility, something which you appear to have already decided against quite firmly.

You miss the point, which was, that if genetic similarities indicate relationship, then similarity of phenotypes should also indicate relationships. That's being consistent, you see. In fact much of credible taxonomy works on that principle.

Your point seemed to be that, if evolution is correct, then bats evolved from whales or whales evolved from bats, I forget which; this is blatant rubbish. How this relates to the point you are now raising, I have no idea: several traits of bats and whales ‘indicate relationships’ amongst these types of animal, including the obvious – they are all mammals, vertebrates and tetrapods.

It was only when this 'molecular genetic' evidence arose (and as far as I am concerned, was misinterpreted), that these silly 'relationships' between animal groups were postulated.

Umm, the nested hierarchy (which establishes “silly ‘relationships’ between animal groups") was defined long before ‘molecular genetic’ analysis became a reliable investigative tool. That you think this genetic evidence is ‘misinterpreted’ is not evidence to the effect that either it is incorrectly understood or that evolutionary theory is false.

Species boundaries are practically immovable, though there is a handful of observed 'speciations'.

Why the scare quotes around speciations? Either these alleged ‘boundaries’ are immovable or not; if they’re not, then speciation can take place. What are these ‘boundaries’, what changes can take place within them, what biological mechanism operates to prevent them being exceeded and how can this biological mechanism be identified? What impact do ring species have on your argument?

What has never been shown is a major group evolving into another, eg a fish into an amphibian or a reptile, or a reptile into a bird.

What do you mean by ‘shown’ and what do you mean by ‘evolving into another’? Do you imagine that evolutionary theory supposes that one day a fish gave birth to an amphibian? What exactly limits these ‘major group’ boundaries anyway? Are they as clear cut as you (and admittedly many biologists) unreflectingly assume them to be? A number of fossil animals demonstrate transitional features between such groups, such as Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik, which demonstrates that your blunt assertion is not as clear-cut and unequivocal as you think it is.

Oh yes, there are claims aplenty, but they all flat on their miserable faces when the Law of Asynctropy is applied.

As this so-called law appears to be non-existent anywhere other than in your own mind, I can only point out that invoking it as a ‘law’ has no scientific relevance at all and fails wholly to convince.

This is one of the best examples of the crassness of misapplication of 'molecular genetics' that it is possible to conceive of. Let me show you what I mean.

Here's wiki on the point:


You didn't know that bats were 'related to' shrews, hedgehogs, pangolins, whales, MOST HOOFED ANIMALS and carnivorans, did you?

As they are related to all mammals, your point is meaningless and does nothing to demonstrate the ‘crassness’ of anything at all. It just seems to be a piece of handwaving denialism.

I can tell you which hoofed animals I think the authors of that piece of nonsense are related to - but you wouldn't like it!

Well I can tell you that calling something a ‘piece of nonsense’ does not demonstrate that it is ‘a piece of nonsense’.

So which of those do you think the bats evolved from, then? That's quite an assortment of possible ancestors so choose wisely!

You seem to imagine that if a group of animals is taxonomically related to one another, then one of those taxonomically related species must be ancestral to the others. This is not how evolutionary theory works. The hypothesis would be that the animals within this Superorder share a common ancestral species with each other.

If that's the 'scientific evidence' you're leaning on LK, then you're in a bad way!

As you appear to have a very poor grasp of what that evidence means and how it should be understood, I think it is yourself that is in the bad way here.

Now where do you get this particular piece of nonsense from? Don't you read Darwin? Here's some of what he said….

Presenting cherry-picked quotemines of Darwin from a secondary source scarcely supports the implied suggestion that you read Darwin yourself.

The fact remains now, as it did then, that there are no such fossils as Darwin would have liked.

Plenty of fossils (and extant species, for that matter) demonstrate transitional features, so I am afraid your assertion to the contrary seems to have little merit.

The greatest palaeontologists of his day told him so, but he still persisted with the theory.

Who were these ‘greatest palaeontologists’, can you cite what they ‘told him’ and can you show that their simply telling ‘him so’ establishes the fact that this must be ‘so’?

Which, as I have said, has no fossil evidence to support it.

It is therefore duff.

I am afraid that your conclusion does not follow as you have quite failed to demonstrate that which you have said.

 

[lordkalvan]

...I do hate sinking your boat, GM. You're so kind, it grieves me to do this, but, needs must...

You may not commit the logical fallacy of assuming the case, and then using that assumption as proof.

You are assuming that the h-b's did evolve into many species.

There are 339 species of hummingbirds. What led to all these different species?

Since 'evolution' is what you're trying to prove, you have to prove it first, and only then can you assume it's true. This you have signally failed to do.

Actually, what we are looking for is observable evidence that evolutionary hypotheses are sound and whether additional evidence leads to those hypotheses being strengthened, modified or rendered invalid. The earliest hummingbird fossil has been found in Germany and dates to around 30 million years ago.

But don't feel too bad about it, Professor Dawkins and the whole lot of them do exactly the same. You're in pretty poor company, but that's your choice. Remember, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'

Wow, all that research time and effort wasted on unsupported assumptions.

You really need to visit this link (if I can get it on) if you want to be scared witless...

Umm, why would anyone be 'scared witless' by this link?

God made 'em that way.

And this is not an 'unproven' assumption of the same type you have accused GM of making how, exactly?

Because creation is over and done with. There are NO new major groups being formed, and none have been for a zillion years...

A zillion years, huh? What is a 'major group' and how would you identify its being formed in the first place? Given that we have fossil-bearing strata where no birds or mammals are found, where do you propose that the mammals and birds found in other fossil-bearing strata come from?

Huxley was not alone in these conclusions. Compare his views with those of the anti-Darwinian paleontologist Robert Broom.

Do you have a source less than 60 years old? You do realize that Broom understood that evolution is an actuality, but simply took issue with the degree to which it was a continuing phenomenon?

And just to add another drop of poison to your already bitter cup, here's something for you to chew on, with regard to my qualifications to speak on the subject...

So because Haldane had no formal science education and because (I presume) you have none either, this automatically means that you are 'an outstanding scientist and a polymath' as well?

Heh heh heh, indeed.