[_ Old Earth _] Human gills

[reznwerks]

Date: 2004-12-07
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Human Gland Probably Evolved From Gills
The human parathyroid gland, which regulates the level of calcium in the blood, probably evolved from the gills of fish, according to researchers from King's College London....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 205216.htm

 

[Blue-Lightning]

Of course, my opinion is that this is an example of trying to connect the dots in a false premise.

BL

 

[Barbarian]

The genetic evidence is most compelling. When a single gene specifies two different structures, particularly when these already have evidence for a common origin, then it's very hard to argue that it isn't the case.

Homologous organs are possible, but with genes, it has to be descent.

 

[flinx]

Check out this quote from the human gill article that reznwerks linked to:

'The parathyroid gland and the gills of fish are related structures and likely share a common evolutionary history,' said Professor Graham. 'Our work will have great resonance to all those people who have seen Haeckels' pictures, which show that we all go through a fish stage in our development. This new research suggests that in fact, our gills are still sitting in our throats – disguised as our parathyroid glands.' (emphasis mine)

Isn’t it amazing that evolutionists are still dredging up the drawings of Ernst Haeckel as if they were compelling evidence for evolution, when it has been known for over a hundred years that his drawings were outright, doctored forgeries? Evolutionists have been taken to task on this deception many times over the years but they still keep bringing it up even though they know the drawings are a fraud. Sort of makes you wonder about the honesty of some of those evolutionists and just what other deceptions they feel are justified in order to try and support their weak theory. Here’s a comparison of Haeckel’s doctored drawings compared to actual photographs of the same embryos:

And here’s a few more photos showing just how dissimilar the embryos can look:

As for the whole gist of this article that reznwerks has brought up, it seems to me that it’s just a desperate attempt by evolutionists to hold on to the failed idea that homologous structures in adult organisms follow homologous patterns of embryological development. Unfortunately for the evolutionists, time and time again the evidence just doesn’t match their beliefs.

Evolutionists should well know that humans do not develop gill tissues or even gill slits at any time in their embryological development. They also should well know that although the pharyngeal folds that appear in the neck region of human embryos may superficially resemble the folds that appear in fish embryos, the fact is that the human pharyngeal pouches have absolutely nothing to do with the development of the human respiratory system. In fish, the skin folds in the side of the head develop into the gill slits and associated gill tissues and respiratory system of the adult. In humans, the folds develop into various structures in the face, the jaw, the ears, the neck and the thymus, thyroid, and parathyroid glands. They have absolutely nothing to do with the development of the lungs and they perform no respiratory function while the embryo is in the womb. Here’s a listing of the different structures that the six folds in the human embryo develop into:

Fold Number--->Structural Fate
( 1 )-------------->Maxillary, mandibular arch
( 2 )-------------->Hyoid cartilage, contributes to middle ear bones
( 3 )-------------->Parathyroid and thymus gland
( 4 )-------------->The 4th and 6th fuse to form the thyroid cartilage
( 5 )-------------->A transitory structure that disappears almost as soon as it forms
( 6 )-------------->Cricoid and arytenoids cartilages of the larynx

It looks to me like this report from King’s College London is just a desperate attempt to find something, anything in the human neck region that can be considered homologous to the gills of fish. Too bad that the most obvious function of the gills, that of regulating the levels of oxygen in the blood, bears no correspondence to any of the structures that develop from human pharyngeal pouches. In fact it can be shown in many other cases that homologous structures in adults develop through completely different embryological pathways in different organisms. Here are some examples from the book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

As De Beer points out, structures as obviously homologous as the vertebrate alimentary canal are formed from quite different embryological sites in different vertebrate classes. The alimentary canal is formed from the roof of the embryonic gut cavity in sharks, from the floor in the lamprey, from roof and floor in frogs, and from the lower layer of the embryonic disc, the blastoderm, in birds and reptiles. Another class of organs considered strictly homologous are the vertebrate forelimbs, yet they generally develop from different body segments in different vertebrate species. The forelimbs develop from the trunk segments 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the newt, segments 6, 7, 8 and 9 in the lizard and from segments 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 in man. It might be argued that they are not strictly homologous at all! Similarly, the position of the occipital arch relative to body segmentation varies widely in different vertebrate species.

The development of the vertebrate kidney appears to provide another challenge to the assumption that homologous organs are generated from homologous embryonic tissues. In fish and amphibia the kidney is derived directly from an embryonic organ known as the mesonephros, while in reptiles and mammals the mesonephros degenerates towards the end of embryonic life and plays no role in the formation of the adult kidney, which is formed instead from a discrete spherical mass of mesodermal tissue, the metanephros, which develops quite independently from the mesonephros. Even the ureter, the duct which carries the urine from the kidney to the bladder, is formed in a completely different manner in reptiles and mammals from the equivalent duct in amphibia.

And that’s just a few of the many examples that can be presented. Evolutionists like to present similarities in structures and organ systems as if they were compelling evidence for evolution from a common ancestor but then they conveniently ignore the differences in development that many homologous structures go through. And those differences in development create a big problem for the contention that those structures are just modified versions of older structures passed down through the evolutionary tree. But the creation model can easily explain both the similarities and the differences. Homologous structures, organs, and biochemical systems can be considered God’s artistic signature on His creation. They clearly show that only one Designer was responsible for creating all life on earth. They are a pattern woven throughout His creation that point to only one Creator God. But at the same time He purposely chose to develop many of those structures through completely different pathways just to make it plain that evolution from a common ancestor fails as an explanation for life on earth. He also chose to create many homologous organs in species that are completely unrelated by evolution. According to the evolutionists, the eye must have evolved independently at least 30 different times in classes of organisms that are unrelated to each other. It’s pretty unbelievable that an organ as complex as the eye could evolve even once through undirected processes, let alone over 30 times!

The wing is supposed to have evolved independently at least four different times: in birds, bats, insects and reptiles (like the pterodactyl). But the earliest known birds were flying birds with fully developed flight feathers; the earliest known bats were flying bats that were almost indistinguishable from modern bats; the folding wings of beetles and the fixed wings of dragonflies appear fully formed in the earliest flying insects; the leathery wings of pterosaurs were already fully developed when they first appear in the fossil record. Evolutionists would have us believe that the complex process of developing aerodynamic lift and balancing it against drag, as well as designing control surfaces to allow for precise maneuvering while flying through air, all came about through random, chance mutations. Not just once, but at least four different times - and all with no direction, and no design, and no foresight. And somehow this amazing process managed to leave no evidence behind! That strains credulity just a bit, don’t you think? I’d say the many convergent organs and skeletal structures found throughout the fossil record, which defy the odds of chance naturalism, are just God’s way of telling us not to look to evolution as an explanation for the mind-boggling complexity of life.

 

[Barbarian]

Isn’t it amazing that evolutionists are still dredging up the drawings of Ernst Haeckel as if they were compelling evidence for evolution, when it has been known for over a hundred years that his drawings were outright, doctored forgeries?

Did you know a Darwinian evolutionist, Von Baer, exposed him? No scientist of note believes recapitulation is correct. We don't become fish in our development. We get brachial arches, and slits in the same place, from the same tissue as fish not because we become fish, but because our development is constained by our evolutionary history. Cartilage that in some fishes remain brachial arches changes in utero for us to become jaws and other structures. Tissue that in fish becomes gills, become in us glands.

One of the best transitional series in terms of sheer numbers of transitional fossils, is the reptile-mammal transition. One of the changes that occured in this series was the reduction in size of the angular, articular, and quadrate bones in the reptile lower jaw, and their subsequent closer connection to the ear.

But there's not just fossil evidence; look at this:

The top skull is Thrinaxodon, an advanced mammal-like reptile. The bottom skull is an opossum, showing an enlarged view of the angular, malleus, and incus inside the opossum ear. And on the right, is the lower jaw of the fetal opossum, showing these bones as they begin, precisely where the angular, articular, and quadrate bones are in Thrinaxodon.

We don't become reptiles for a time, either. But the way our bodies develop in utero tell us about our ancestry.

As for the whole gist of this article that reznwerks has brought up, it seems to me that it’s just a desperate attempt by evolutionists to hold on to the failed idea that homologous structures in adult organisms follow homologous patterns of embryological development.

That's what happened here. However, evolution can always change things. But when creationists are challenged to explain things like the parathyroid glands or the bones of the middle ear, they can only shrug and mutter "Godmustadunnit."

Too bad that the most obvious function of the gills, that of regulating the levels of oxygen in the blood, bears no correspondence to any of the structures that develop from human pharyngeal pouches.

It is one of the reasons scientists accept evolutionary theory. Evolution always uses existing structures and reworks them to new uses.

(argument that superficial differences in development of embryos is a problem for evolution)

The science of genetics has now shown that all of these structures are mediated by the same genes. Precisely how those genes are expressed is different in different organisms, but since genes are always defined by descent, there is no longer any doubt about evolution of such features.

The development of the vertebrate kidney appears to provide another challenge to the assumption that homologous organs are generated from homologous embryonic tissues. In fish and amphibia the kidney is derived directly from an embryonic organ known as the mesonephros, while in reptiles and mammals the mesonephros degenerates towards the end of embryonic life and plays no role in the formation of the adult kidney, which is formed instead from a discrete spherical mass of mesodermal tissue, the metanephros, which develops quite independently from the mesonephros.

You've just endorsed Haeckel. That was his argument. It's actually a litte more complicated than that.

Even the ureter, the duct which carries the urine from the kidney to the bladder, is formed in a completely different manner in reptiles and mammals from the equivalent duct in amphibia.

That's what you would expect. Mammals and reptiles are both amniotes, and the amphibians are the outgroup. A new duct forms, as we see in utero, in place of the old structures, which we still see forming in humans, although it is replaced with the mammalian form before birth.

But the creation model can easily explain both the similarities and the differences. Homologous structures, organs, and biochemical systems can be considered God’s artistic signature on His creation.

Unfortunately, creationists cannot explain the genetic similarities, which always show descent. Nor can they explain why we see in utero older structures appear, and then disappear as the modern ones grow. God is much more powerful and wise than creationists would let Him be.

The wing is supposed to have evolved independently at least four different times: in birds, bats, insects and reptiles (like the pterodactyl). But the earliest known birds were flying birds with fully developed flight feathers;

Nope. Proarchaeopteryx had symmetrical wing feathers, which means it did not fly.

"Named Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx (tail feather), the Chinese animals have feathers that are quite similar to those of modern birds. The feathers cover the entire body and have central shafts with branching barbs. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the barbs are held in alignment by smaller barbules--tiny, Velcro-like hooks that give feathers their neat appearance, even after a fair amount of ruffling. As in modern birds, the long arm feathers (preserved in Caudipteryx but not in Protoarchaeopteryx) emanate from the hand, although the primary feathers of modern flying birds tend to be even longer. In the dinosaurs, the barbs are distributed symmetrically on either side of the shaft, unlike the asymmetric, and more aerodynamic, distribution of barbs found in the wing feathers of modern birds. Both Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx have long tails covered in feathers with a flourish at the tip: a clump of feathers that form a fan.

Although fully feathered, neither Protoarchaeopteryx nor Caudipteryx could fly."
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_21084298

the earliest known bats were flying bats that were almost indistinguishable from modern bats;

We have very few bat fossils as of yet. They have very fine bones and do not fossilize well. That remains undecided.

the folding wings of beetles and the fixed wings of dragonflies appear fully formed in the earliest flying insects;

No. They aren't even fully developed in all insects today. They are the same as the gills which comprise one of the two appendages in the primitive biramous system of arthropods:

Note the biramous appendages on this polychaete worm.

One appendage is often a gill, and the other is for movement.

In stoneflies, the gills are quite large, and the stoneflies can move them up and down to move water over them. They sometimes also use them as sails to move across the surface of the water, and at such times, flap them.

These same structures in other insects are used for flight.

the leathery wings of pterosaurs were already fully developed when they first appear in the fossil record.

No. The earliest pterosaurs, the rhamphorynchids, had long, narrow wings, a rather restricted motion when flying, and a long tail, often with a flap of skin at the end. It worked like the tail of a kite, to stabilize the animal in flight. It also made it clumsy, and difficult to manuever. A flying squirrel "flies" with the same sort of arrangement. Without the tail, it would tumble in flight.

More advanced pterosaurs had no tails, a much more flexible and broad wing, and used fine movments to control their flight.

The earliest known flying reptile was this:
http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharo ... tiles.html
Sharovipterex was a rather clumsy glider. Like the pterosaurs, it was an archosaur.

Evolutionists would have us believe that the complex process of developing aerodynamic lift and balancing it against drag, as well as designing control surfaces to allow for precise maneuvering while flying through air, all came about through random, chance mutations.

No, they've lied to you about that. It's natural selection that does that. As you just learned, the ability of the pterosaurs increased over time, and natural selection is why it happened.

Not just once, but at least four different times - and all with no direction, and no design, and no foresight. And somehow this amazing process managed to leave no evidence behind!

You know better about that, now, too.

That strains credulity just a bit, don’t you think? I’d say the many convergent organs and skeletal structures found throughout the fossil record, which defy the odds of chance naturalism, are just God’s way of telling us not to look to evolution as an explanation for the mind-boggling complexity of life.

Or maybe He's not being deceptive, and the evidence is what it is. Being a Christian, I have a lot of trouble with the idea of a deceptive God.

 

[Asimov]

No. They aren't even fully developed in all insects today.

What exactly is meant by fully developed?

 

[Barbarian]

In this case, it means that there are still some transitionals between gills and wings in insects today.

 

[Asimov]

In this case, it means that there are still some transitionals between gills and wings in insects today.

Ok, it's slightly confusing, considering nothing should be considered "fully-developed", am I right?

 

[Barbarian]

Strictly speaking, yes. But we can refer to structures intermediate to more evolved ones in that way.

 

[flinx]

Let me start off my response with a minor quibble. Take a look at this quote from Barbarian.

We don't become fish in our development. We get brachial arches, and slits in the same place, from the same tissue as fish not because we become fish, but because our development is constained by our evolutionary history. (emphasis mine)

Even though we know with certainty that human embryos do not develop slits in the pharyngeal pouches, Barbarian still cannot let that evolutionary canard go. At no time in the human embryo’s development do the pharyngeal pouches produce openings (or slits) into the embryos body. It’s just evolutionary dogma for Barbarian to keep repeating what is untrue.

Did you know a Darwinian evolutionist, Von Baer, exposed him?

If all evolutionists know that Haeckel’s drawings were a fake then why do they keep using them to try and support their theory? That just seems like dishonesty to me.

That aside, let’s pick through the supposedly contrary evidence that Barbarian has presented. I’ll do the evolution of flight first.

The wing is supposed to have evolved independently at least four different times: in birds, bats, insects and reptiles (like the pterodactyl). But the earliest known birds were flying birds with fully developed flight feathers;

Nope. Proarchaeopteryx had symmetrical wing feathers, which means it did not fly.

Nope. Barbarian has his timing wrong. I stated that the earliest known birds were flying birds and I was right. On the evolutionary timescale Archaeopteryx lived 140 to 150 million years ago. The article that Barbarian linked to states that Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx lived 122 million to 135 million years ago. They appeared millions of years after Archaeopteryx according to evolutionists. Archaeopteryx was a flying bird with elliptically shaped wings that are common in modern woodland birds, perching feet, and flight feathers that were asymmetrical about the shaft. These are all features found in flying birds.

Archaeopteryx appeared first. So the best that can be stated about Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx is that they are an example of devolution from flighted to non-flighted birds.

And this doesn’t even take into account the evidence from Protavis Texensis, a bird more fully developed than Archaeopteryx that lived 75 million years earlier than Archaeopteryx. It lived at the time of the earliest dinosaurs which gives almost no time at all for dinosaurs to evolve into birds. Here’s a picture. The darkened bones in the reconstruction are the ones that were actually found. They represent all the major features that would classify this as a bird and a strong flyer.

You can read about it here:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/megaraptor/protoavis.htm

No. The earliest pterosaurs, the rhamphorynchids, had long, narrow wings, a rather restricted motion when flying, and a long tail, often with a flap of skin at the end. It worked like the tail of a kite, to stabilize the animal in flight. It also made it clumsy, and difficult to manuever. A flying squirrel "flies" with the same sort of arrangement. Without the tail, it would tumble in flight.

Barbarian states that the rhamphorhynchoids were clumsy flyers. How does he know this? Has he ever seen one of these pterosaurs flying? Has anyone? Barbarian is basing this judgment solely on his own evolutionary bias. He has no observational evidence to back up his claim. Here are a couple of artistic impressions of the rhamphorhynchoids that other evolutionists have come up with.

Rhamphorhynchus catching a fish

Sordes pilosus catching an insect

Now seagulls pick fish out of the water. Are they clumsy flyers? Bats pick insects out of the air. Are they clumsy flyers? It seems that not all evolutionists share Barbarian’s assessment of the rhamphorhynchoids flying ability.

And the main point I made isn’t in dispute at all. As I said, the earliest known pterosaurs had fully developed wings for flying and that can be seen plainly from the pictures above. Now, here’s the picture of the glider that Barbarian claims is the earliest known flying reptile:

Sharovipterix mirabilis gliding

Take a look at the picture. Do you see any development of the forelimbs into the wing structure that all pterosaurs had? Do you see the elongated fourth finger in the forepaw of Sharovipterix that pterosaurs used to support their leathery wing? Nope, neither do I. Sharovipterix was nothing more than the reptilian version of the flying squirrel. And just as flying squirrels are not in the evolutionary process of changing into bat-like creatures, there’s no reason to presume that Sharovipterix was on the road to changing into a pterosaur.

We have very few bat fossils as of yet. They have very fine bones and do not fossilize well. That remains undecided.

Isn’t this a typical evolutionary excuse? When it comes time to show the critical intermediate fossils in an evolutionary scenario, we get told that those darned intermediates were just too fine boned to fossilize. We have fossils of jellyfish in the fossil record, we have fossils of leaves, we have fossils of flowers, we have fossils of fully formed bats like the one shown below dated at 54 million years, but we just can’t find those essential linking fossils that would show land animals evolving into bats. Those pesky intermediates are just too darned fragile to fossilize. Isn’t that a puzzle? Of course, it’s only a puzzle if the intermediates actually existed.

the folding wings of beetles and the fixed wings of dragonflies appear fully formed in the earliest flying insects;

No. They aren't even fully developed in all insects today. They are the same as the gills which comprise one of the two appendages in the primitive biramous system of arthropods:

Barbarian presents this as if it were a proven fact that gills have evolved into insect wings. In actual fact evolutionists have only come up with a set of circumstantial evidence to support their case. Here’s a link that goes into a bit more detail on the subject.
http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/biol606/OldLecs/Lecture.98.05.McIntyre.html
The article starts off with the statement that, “The origin of insect wings is a very puzzling issueâ€Â, which tells you right off the bat that evolutionists don’t have their scenario nailed down yet. It goes on to discuss the fossil evidence for the evolution of insect wings and states:

Unfortunately insect fossils are relatively rare, because of their lack of 'hard' parts, and so there is little preserved of the early evolution of winged insects. Grant stated that the interpretation of insect fossil record is also subject to biases of each researcher, limiting consensus on the identity of structures and on evolutionary patterns.

So it’s pretty obvious that the fossil evidence isn’t there to support their gills to wings scenario or else the issue would be cut and dried. Evolutionists are forced to present a circumstantial case where they try to relate supposedly homologous structures and genes between wings and gills. But the article admits there are still several issues to be answered:

Questions that remained include: 1) Does similar genetic pattern represent common ancestry, convergence, or a constraint because of limited genetic material available? and 2) Can genetic, morphological and fossil evidence ever be integrated? Additional studies are needed on development of legs, gills and wings of 'primitive' extant insect taxa. Fossil material also needs re-examination to clarify past interpretations of thoracic structures.

So my statement that the earliest known flying insects had fully developed wings is quite correct. The transitional fossils from non-flying to flying insects just aren’t there.

One of the best transitional series in terms of sheer numbers of transitional fossils, is the reptile-mammal transition. One of the changes that occured in this series was the reduction in size of the angular, articular, and quadrate bones in the reptile lower jaw, and their subsequent closer connection to the ear.

With the evolution of flight out of the way let’s turn to Barbarian’s claim that there is good fossil evidence showing the evolution of the reptilian ear into the mammalian ear. Here are the basics of the evolutionary scenario. Reptiles have six bones in each half of their lower jaw while mammals have only one in each half. Reptiles have just one rod-like bone in their inner ear, called the columella, while mammals have three interconnected bones, called the malleus, incus, and stapes. In the evolutionary story the quadrate and articular bones of the reptilian jaw became free to migrate away from the jaw once the mammal-like reptiles developed a new jaw-joint that corresponded to the mammalian squamosal joint. Evolutionists say that the quadrate bone then migrated to the inner ear in mammals and became the incus, the articular bone migrated and became the malleus, and the columella became the stapes.

The picture that Barbarian showed of Thrinaxodon shows a nicely reduced articular and quadrate bone, still firmly attached to the jawbone, but they look like they’re all set to begin the move to the inner ear. The only problem for the evolutionists is that that’s as close as it gets in the fossil record. There are no fossils showing the migration of those bones into the inner ear. You only find fossils of reptiles with one bone in the inner ear or mammals with three bones in the inner ear. There are no fossils showing just two bones in the inner ear or even any fossils showing the quadrate and articular bones completely detached from the jawbone.

And that’s just the start of the problems for their story. Just consider what would have to happen for these reptilian bones to take up the job of transferring sound energy from the eardrum to the organ of Corti in the mammal. First off the columella would have to detach itself from the eardrum and morph into the stapes bone. At the same time the articular bone would have to attach itself to the eardrum and become the malleus bone, and the quadrate bone would have to insert itself between the malleus and stapes and precisely interconnect the two as the incus bone. All three bones would have to be precisely modified in their shape and configuration for hearing to continue. And since evolution has no foresight and no design ability, every step in this process would have to be beneficial to the transitional animal or else natural selection would not select for the change. And throughout the entire process the animal would have to continue hearing or else natural selection would kill the process completely.

How believable does that story sound? And that’s all it is, a story. There are no transitional fossils that show those critical final steps.

Why oh why won’t those stubborn transitional animals just get themselves fossilized when they die? Well, maybe it’s just possible that they never existed.

Unfortunately, creationists cannot explain the genetic similarities, which always show descent. Nor can they explain why we see in utero older structures appear, and then disappear as the modern ones grow.

As I said in my previous post I think there are two clear messages that God has built into His creation. The first is that there was only one Designer for all of life on earth. God has placed His signature on all of His creatures to show that He is the one and only Designer. He has made this obvious through His use of universal biochemical pathways: DNA and RNA are universally used for storing and translating the genetic code, the same 20 amino acids are used to build all proteins, ATP is used as the primary power source for all the molecular machinery of the cell. He has also used common structures to show His signature on His creation. Structures like the backbone common to all vertebrates, the quadrupedal form of land vertebrates, as well as the pentadactyl form of their limbs. There is no way to mistake the fact that only one Designer made all life on earth.

But at the same time God has included many clues throughout His creation to show that evolution cannot explain the diversity and complexity of life. We can see this from the systematic absence of transitional fossils at so many critical points in the fossil record; from the development of homologous structures in adult organisms from completely different organs and pathways in the embryo; and from the repeated appearance of highly complex, improbable organs like the eye, and highly complex structures like wings for flight in organisms that can only be distantly related by evolution.

So creation has as good an explanation for the similarities between organisms as evolution does. They point to a single, common Designer who desires that mankind see His signature on creation. And creation does a much better job of explaining the missing links that are pervasive throughout the fossil record and also explaining the irreducible complexity that is pervasive throughout life.

Let me finish by bringing up the CBS poll on creation and evolution that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I can't resist the urge to rub it in. The poll showed that, in the U.S., 55% of all Americans believe that God created humans in their present form, 27% believe that humans evolved but that God guided the process, and only 13% believe that humans evolved and God had nothing to do with it. Only a small minority of the North American public holds a belief in the naturalistic evolution of man. The great majority holds to the belief that God had everything, or at least something, to do with the appearance of human life.

As a Christian and a creationist I’ll give my viewpoint on why creation is so popular. The Bible teaches that we are all creations of God and He chose to create us as spiritual beings. We have a built-in instinct to relate to our Creator. While a great many people do not choose to submit themselves to God and allow Him to be their Father, they still have a built-in sense that God probably exists and that He is out there, somewhere. Then they look at the beauty and extreme complexity of life and their gut just tells them that there has to be a Designer of life. Despite the fact that evolutionists have exclusive right to teach only their dogma in the schools, and despite the fact that the media supports the evolutionists to the hilt and even allows evolutionists to ridicule creationists as they please, the majority of the public still continues to believe in creation. I’d say that shows that there is something about creation that speaks to the spirit of man.

 

[Asimov]

If all evolutionists know that Haeckel’s drawings were a fake then why do they keep using them to try and support their theory? That just seems like dishonesty to me.

We don't.

Archaeopteryx appeared first. So the best that can be stated about Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx is that they are an example of devolution from flighted to non-flighted birds.

That doesn't make any sense, proto means first.

 

[Gary]

flinx: If all evolutionists know that Haeckel’s drawings were a fake
then why do they keep using them to try and support their theory?
That just seems like dishonesty to me.

Asimov: We don't.

Gary: I would imagine that if you have no moral absolutes, then
being dishonest may seem OK to you.

:wink:

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
We don't become fish in our development. We get brachial arches, and slits in the same place, from the same tissue as fish not because we become fish, but because our development is constained by our evolutionary history.

Even though we know with certainty that human embryos do not develop slits in the pharyngeal pouches, Barbarian still cannot let that evolutionary canard go.

You've been misled. This 31-day old human embyro clearly has slits. The reason these form is because the orginal chordate had them. But they weren't for breathing. They were originally for feeding. Water pumped in through the mouth went out the slits where particles of food were trapped. The first chordates were small enough that no gills were necessary.

At no time in the human embryo’s development do the pharyngeal pouches produce openings (or slits) into the embryos body. It’s just evolutionary dogma for Barbarian to keep repeating what is untrue.

See photo above. You've been lied to.

Barbarian, regarding Haeckel:
Did you know a Darwinian evolutionist, Von Baer, exposed him?

If all evolutionists know that Haeckel’s drawings were a fake then why do they keep using them to try and support their theory?

They don't. Recapitulation has been dead a long time. The textbooks I know about use photographs now to show things like brachial arches and pharyngial slits in vertebrate embryos.

The wing is supposed to have evolved independently at least four different times: in birds, bats, insects and reptiles (like the pterodactyl). But the earliest known birds were flying birds with fully developed flight feathers;

Barbarian observes:
Nope. Proarchaeopteryx had symmetrical wing feathers, which means it did not fly.

Nope. Barbarian has his timing wrong. I stated that the earliest known birds were flying birds and I was right. On the evolutionary timescale Archaeopteryx lived 140 to 150 million years ago. The article that Barbarian linked to states that Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx lived 122 million to 135 million years ago. They appeared millions of years after Archaeopteryx according to evolutionists.

Organisms often survive long after more advanced forms have evolved. The point is that more primitive birds are known, and they did not fly. We don't actually know which species is the oldest, only the particular ones we found.

Archaeopteryx was a flying bird with elliptically shaped wings that are common in modern woodland birds, perching feet, and flight feathers that were asymmetrical about the shaft. These are all features found in flying birds.

It also had a dinosaur mouth instead of a beak, a dinosaur tail, instead of a pygostyle, dinosauran ribs instead of the flattened avian ones, but take a look...

Here's the skeletons of a small theropod dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, and a modern bird. Why not list for us, the birdlike characteristics of Archaeopteryx, and the dinosauran ones, and then tell us why you think it's a bird.

And this doesn’t even take into account the evidence from Protavis Texensis, a bird more fully developed than Archaeopteryx that lived 75 million years earlier than Archaeopteryx. It lived at the time of the earliest dinosaurs which gives almost no time at all for dinosaurs to evolve into birds. Here’s a picture. The darkened bones in the reconstruction are the ones that were actually found. They represent all the major features that would classify this as a bird and a strong flyer.

"skeletal material from at least 2 individuals (possibly chimeric)
When this Triassic creature was first discovered, its describer declared it the earliest bird. This has been met with some skepticism, since the next bird (chronologically) does not occur until the Late Jurassic (Archaeopteryx). Some believe Protoavis to be a chimera, made up of parts of different animals. Some bones may belong to a pterosaur, others to some kind of theropod."[/b}
http://dinosauricon.com/genera/protoavis.html


The Barbarian wrote:
No. The earliest pterosaurs, the rhamphorynchids, had long, narrow wings, a rather restricted motion when flying, and a long tail, often with a flap of skin at the end. It worked like the tail of a kite, to stabilize the animal in flight. It also made it clumsy, and difficult to manuever. A flying squirrel "flies" with the same sort of arrangement. Without the tail, it would tumble in flight.

Barbarian states that the rhamphorhynchoids were clumsy flyers. How does he know this?

Because of the structure of the organism. The long tail, with a flap on the end is to provide drag to stabilize the organism. The wrist and fingers are not flexible, and serve mostly to stretch out the membrane, not to adjust it. The wings are long and narrow.

Later pterosaurs had very little, or no tails, making them inherently very unstable. Instability, however, means agility, if the organism has the ability to make frequent fine adjustments to the wing. And the later pterosaurs were equipped to do this.

We see today that birds with orientation like Rhamphorynchoids are not agile flyers. They specialize in staying aloft but not in quick maneuvers. Think of a condor. On the other hand, the bateleur eagle is more like a pteranodon, with shorter, broader wings, a more flexible wing surface, and practically no tail. And it is incredibly agile in the air, doing aerobatics like tumbling, with ease.

So we know this is true.

Barbarian is basing this judgment solely on his own evolutionary bias. He has no observational evidence to back up his claim.

See above. There's a steep learning curve ahead for you.

Take a look at the picture. Do you see any development of the forelimbs into the wing structure that all pterosaurs had?

Yep. Pretty primitive, but we have a limb with a flying membrane, a very slightly elongnated digit. What has to happen to this one is for the front legs to grow, and the digits to get longer. That's not a big change.

Do you see the elongated fourth finger in the forepaw of Sharovipterix that pterosaurs used to support their leathery wing? Nope, neither do I.

If it did, it would be an advanced pterosaur, um? What would it take to make this primitive flyer into a pterosaur? arms need to get bigger, and fingers longer. And, as you see, that's what happened.

Barbarian observes:
We have very few bat fossils as of yet. They have very fine bones and do not fossilize well. That remains undecided.

Isn’t this a typical evolutionary excuse?

Nope. It's a typical creationist excuse. "OK, you know a lot of things that indicate evolution, but you don't know everything, so evolution is false." That one is so obviously dishonest that it gives creationists a bad name, even among their own.

When it comes time to show the critical intermediate fossils in an evolutionary scenario, we get told that those darned intermediates were just too fine boned to fossilize.

But it's sure interesting, that we have abundant transitionals for big boned animals like whales and horses, um? Let's be honest with each other, OK?

the folding wings of beetles and the fixed wings of dragonflies appear fully formed in the earliest flying insects;

Barbarian observes:
No. They aren't even fully developed in all insects today. They are the same as the gills which comprise one of the two appendages in the primitive biramous system of arthropods:

Barbarian presents this as if it were a proven fact that gills have evolved into insect wings.

Barbarian merely shows that the gills of one primitive form of insects are used as wings to propell it. This is very good evidence. Further, the wings in insects are formed as in the upper half of the arthropod biramous appendage. Pretty good evidence.

Evolutionary origin of insect wings from ancestral gills.

Averof M, Cohen SM.

European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany. averof@embl-heidelberg.de

Two hypotheses have been proposed for the origin of insect wings. One holds that wings evolved by modification of limb branches that were already present in multibranched ancestral appendages and probably functioned as gills. The second proposes that wings arose as novel outgrowths of the body wall, not directly related to any pre-existing limbs. If wings derive from dorsal structures of multibranched appendages, we expect that some of their distinctive features will have been built on genetic functions that were already present in the structural progenitors of insect wings, and in homologous structures of other arthropod limbs. We have isolated crustacean homologues of two genes that have wing-specific functions in insects, pdm (nubbin) and apterous. Their expression patterns support the hypothesis that insect wings evolved from gill-like appendages that were already present in the aquatic ancestors of both crustaceans and insects.
Nature. 1997 Feb 13;385(6617):627-30.

So it's not just fossil and anatomical evidence, we now know (and have known for almost seven years) that the genes for wings in insects have homologues in the genes for arthropod limbs. Which is exactly what the evidence suggested earlier. One of the ways evidence becomes complelling is when widely differing sources of evidence give you the same answer.

So it’s pretty obvious that the fossil evidence isn’t there to support their gills to wings scenario

Not just fossil evidence. Again, that learning curve.... Granted, your guys, who published less than a year later, might not have heard about this particular evidence. But in science, things move quickly.

Diverse adaptations of an ancestral gill: a common evolutionary origin for wings, breathing organs, and spinnerets.

Damen WG, Saridaki T, Averof M.

Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, Weyertal 121, D-50931, Koln, Germany.

Changing conditions of life impose new requirements on the morphology and physiology of an organism. One of these changes is the evolutionary transition from aquatic to terrestrial life, leading to adaptations in locomotion, breathing, reproduction, and mechanisms for food capture. We have shown previously that insects' wings most likely originated from one of the gills of ancestral aquatic arthropods during their transition to life on land. Here we investigate the fate of these ancestral gills during the evolution of another major arthropod group, the chelicerates. We examine the expression of two developmental genes, pdm/nubbin and apterous, that participate in the specification of insects' wings and are expressed in particular crustacean epipods/gills. In the horseshoe crab, a primitively aquatic chelicerate, pdm/nubbin is specifically expressed in opisthosomal appendages that give rise to respiratory organs called book gills. In spiders (terrestrial chelicerates), pdm/nubbin and apterous are expressed in successive segmental primordia that give rise to book lungs, lateral tubular tracheae, and spinnerets, novel structures that are used by spiders to breathe on land and to spin their webs. Combined with morphological and palaeontological evidence, these observations suggest that fundamentally different new organs (wings, air-breathing organs, and spinnerets) evolved from the same ancestral structure (gills) in parallel instances of terrestrialization.
Curr Biol. 2002 Oct 1;12(19):1711-6.

As you see, the more recent genetic data was sufficient to make it compelling.

The transitional fossils from non-flying to flying insects just aren’t there.

There are living transitionals now. And even more compelling, we now find that the same genes control gills in arthropods with biramous appendages, and wings in flying insects.

Barbarian observes:
One of the best transitional series in terms of sheer numbers of transitional fossils, is the reptile-mammal transition. One of the changes that occured in this series was the reduction in size of the angular, articular, and quadrate bones in the reptile lower jaw, and their subsequent closer connection to the ear.

Here are the basics of the evolutionary scenario.

See description above)

The picture that Barbarian showed of Thrinaxodon shows a nicely reduced articular and quadrate bone, still firmly attached to the jawbone, but they look like they’re all set to begin the move to the inner ear. The only problem for the evolutionists is that that’s as close as it gets in the fossil record. There are no fossils showing the migration of those bones into the inner ear. You only find fossils of reptiles with one bone in the inner ear or mammals with three bones in the inner ear. There are no fossils showing just two bones in the inner ear or even any fossils showing the quadrate and articular bones completely detached from the jawbone.

Here's that learning curve, again...

Here, you can see the relevant bones slowly reducing in size, and moving away from the dentary, toward the ear. The last example has the clearly identifiable tympanic ring, the incus, stapes and malleus, in their mammalian postions. And yet it is shown to have happened gradually, over a very long period of time.

And that’s just the start of the problems for their story. Just consider what would have to happen for these reptilian bones to take up the job of transferring sound energy from the eardrum to the organ of Corti in the mammal.

Those bones do it now in reptiles, just not very efficiently. Reptiles "hear" vibrations in the earth by laying their jaw on the ground. The lower jaw transmits these vibrations to the quadrate, and then the stapes. So the bones didn't change that function, they just became more efficient at it.

First off the columella would have to detach itself from the eardrum and morph into the stapes bone.

Nope. It could stay where it was, and just become smaller.

At the same time the articular bone would have to attach itself to the eardrum and become the malleus bone,

The eardrum would have to gradually form. It's not present in reptiles. At first, these bones would still be attached to the lower jaw, although a new jaw joint would be present as it is in Diarthrognathus.

and the quadrate bone would have to insert itself between the malleus and stapes

The quadrate is already in that position in reptiles. All that's necessary is for the articular to attach to the quadrate. And then you have the malleus-incus-stapes arrangement. And they are already in order in the reptiles.

All three bones would have to be precisely modified in their shape and configuration for hearing to continue.

No. Any slight modification that made hearing more sensitive, such as a reduction in size of the bones, or improved leverage, would be selected for, and this would be a gradual change, as we see happening in the fossil record.

And since evolution has no foresight and no design ability, every step in this process would have to be beneficial to the transitional animal or else natural selection would not select for the change.

Right. so we have to keep the bones in the order in which they started. Which is precisely what we see. Creationism can only shrug, but evolutionary theory shows why that happened.

And throughout the entire process the animal would have to continue hearing or else natural selection would kill the process completely.

So it's not surprising that the one solution that would let that happen, is the one that appeared.

How believable does that story sound?

Since it's based on a great deal of fossil and anatomical evidence, it's the only one that makes any sense.

There are no transitional fossils that show those critical final steps.

Curve, again.... read and learn.

Why oh why won’t those stubborn transitional animals just get themselves fossilized when they die?

Fortunately, the therapsids were obliging critters.

Barbarian observes:
Unfortunately, creationists cannot explain the genetic similarities, which always show descent. Nor can they explain why we see in utero older structures appear, and then disappear as the modern ones grow.

As I said in my previous post I think there are two clear messages that God has built into His creation...

Your religious beliefs don't help much. You need evidence.

Let me finish by bringing up the CBS poll on creation and evolution that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I can't resist the urge to rub it in. The poll showed that, in the U.S., 55% of all Americans believe that God created humans in their present form, 27% believe that humans evolved but that God guided the process, and only 13% believe that humans evolved and God had nothing to do with it.

Here's a larger poll, that's been taken for several decades, by Gallup:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/defa ... x?ci=14107

This November, 51% of Americans think humans developed, either by God or by other means, and only 45% think that God created humans as they are today. Notice that although the number agreeing with evolution has slowly grown over the decades, (this is the first time evolutionists are an absolute majority of Americans) the change is rather small.

Only a small minority of the North American public holds a belief in the naturalistic evolution of man. The great majority holds to the belief that God had everything, or at least something, to do with the appearance of human life.

You've been lied to about that. Even in this country, creationists are a minority, and they are a tiny minority in the rest of the world.

As a Christian and a creationist I’ll give my viewpoint on why creation is so popular.

As a Christian and a scientist, I'll suggest to you why creationism is slowly losing ground; the education reforms are beginning to take hold in many states where education was in trouble. And you're starting to see those kids come of age as adults.

And that's a good thing.

 

[jonnyblade]

Regardless of us evoving from apes, fish snails, what difference does it make? The point is we did evolve and still will evolve just like every other animal out there, we change to meet our enviroment, what forms it came from do not matter.

 

[mesolimulus]

Hi,

because I have seen someone has used a picture from my website, I have had a look into this place.

Here are some remarks.

First, Protoavis.

For those how are interested I would like to point to some articles:

Chatterjee, S., The Triassic bird Protoavis, Archaeopteryx 1995

Chatterjee, S., The avian status of Protoavis, Archaeopteryx 1998

Ostrom, J. H., The Questionable Validity of Protoavis, Archaeopteryx 1996

The last one is extremly recommended

Second, Archaeopteryx. If someone use a Picture from an article, he should also read. If you had read the article in which this picture is printed, you should have seen that this article showes that Archaeopteryx is a perfect intermediate form. OK, it is in german, but if you are interested in science you should translate it prior to claim something without evidence. This article is an counterstatement of that what german creationists claim Archaeopteryx to be. This article leads them to rewrite an chapter in one of their books. So, it is an bad idea to use any of the pictures there to show something on Archeopteryx in an creationists view ....


Regards

Martin

 

[reznwerks]

pictures

Hi,

because I have seen someone has used a picture from my website, I have had a look into this place.

It wasn't me, I swear it wasn't. LOL

 

[Barbarian]

It was me. That picture is worth chapters of text, in showing the transitional nature of Archaeopteryx.

 

[flinx]

Well I haven’t given up on this topic just yet. But it has taken a while for me to find the time to finish researching my reply. So here is my belated response.

You've been misled. This 31-day old human embyro clearly has slits. The reason these form is because the orginal chordate had them. But they weren't for breathing. They were originally for feeding. Water pumped in through the mouth went out the slits where particles of food were trapped. The first chordates were small enough that no gills were necessary.

So Barbarian claims that I have been misled and that human embryos really do have gill slits. He offers a picture as proof. Well, since the sources I used were ones I would trust to state the truth I strongly suspected that it was Barbarian who was in the wrong. So I went out to find some independent corroboration for my claim that human embryos do not have slits at any time in their development. Here’s the first site I found with some pertinent information:
http://cats.med.uvm.edu/cats_teachingmod/gross_anatomy/head_and_neck/pages/pharyngeal_arches.html
Here are some highlights from the web page:

During human development the embryo goes through a stage where the head region (Figure 10) resembles that of a fish. During this time "branchia" which resemble gills develop. In fish, the branchial apparatus forms a system of gills for exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide between the blood and the water. In humans, the arches (Figure 11) develop but no gills form, therefore we prefer to use the term "pharyngeal" instead of "branchial" in describing these arches.

Pharyngeal arches appear as ridges on the outside of the embryo's neck region. They are separated by pharyngeal clefts. Indentations also develop between the arches inside the pharynx. These are called pharyngeal pouches. At one point in development, pharyngeal pouches on the inside of the pharynx are in close contact with pharyngeal clefts which are on the outside. In fish the tissue separating clefts from pouches disappears and gills are formed.

In the human, however, the endodermal lining of the pharyngeal pouches develops into specific structures which will be described later. Most of the pharyngeal clefts on the outside disppear except for the external auditory canal which is derived from the first pharyngeal cleft. (emphasis mine)

Notice that the description clearly states that the pharyngeal arches appear on the outside of the neck while the pharyngeal pouches appear on the inside of the pharynx. At one point they are in close contact with each other but there is no claim that there is ever an opening or slit from the outside to the inside.

Here’s another sight that goes into more specific detail:
http://www.geocities.com/medinotes/Pharynx_Devt.html
Here’s a highlight:

Each pharyngeal arch, except for the 6th arch, has on its caudal border:
- A pharyngeal pouch internally
- A pharyngeal cleft externally
- A pharyngeal membrane separating the clefts and pouches.
The pharyngeal arches and pharyngeal membranes have an outer covering of ectoderm, an inner lining of endoderm and an intermediate core of mesoderm. (emphasis mine)

This site plainly states that a pharyngeal membrane separates the inner pouch and the outer cleft. There is no open slit between the two. So it appears that Barbarian’s claim that the human embryo has gill slits was just a bald assertion that couldn’t be backed up by the evidence. It looks like Barbarian is the one who was misled.

If all evolutionists know that Haeckel’s drawings were a fake then why do they keep using them to try and support their theory?

They don't. Recapitulation has been dead a long time. The textbooks I know about use photographs now to show things like brachial arches and pharyngial slits in vertebrate embryos.

Barbarian claims that evolutionists no longer use Haeckel’s drawings to try and support their theory and yet the evidence directly contradicts him. The reason I brought up the subject in the first place was because, in the article that reznwerks linked to at the start of this thread, the evolutionist, Professor Graham, directly referred to Haeckel’s pictures as evidence that the human embryo goes through a fish stage in its development. Barbarian seems to have forgotten this.

Organisms often survive long after more advanced forms have evolved. The point is that more primitive birds are known, and they did not fly. We don't actually know which species is the oldest, only the particular ones we found.

So evolutionists want everyone to accept their theory as a proven fact, but when you point out a discrepancy in the timing of their story they just say, “forget the dates and just look at the patternâ€Â. Why should a Christian, or anyone, throw away a belief in creation for a theory that can have so many holes poked in it? Why should anyone accept supposedly transitional animals when the evolutionists can’t even get their chronology to match their story?

Here's the skeletons of a small theropod dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, and a modern bird. Why not list for us, the birdlike characteristics of Archaeopteryx, and the dinosauran ones, and then tell us why you think it's a bird.

Well of course the most obvious characteristic of birds that Archaeopteryx possessed were its feathers. And they weren’t partly developed feathers. They weren’t halfway between scales and feathers. They were fully developed flight feathers that were almost indistinguishable from modern feathers. And they were asymmetrical about the shaft, which is characteristic of feathers on modern flying birds.

It had a backward pointing, grasping hallux, or hind toe. And this was a true grasping hallux with curved claws for perching. Archaeopteryx was a perching bird.

It had a furcula, or wishbone for attachment of the flight muscles.

Reptiles have a fixed maxilla (upper jaw) and a moveable mandible (lower jaw). Archaeopteryx, like modern birds, had both a moveable mandible and maxilla.

It has even been determined that in its soft anatomy Archaeopteryx was bird-like. Computer tomography scanning has shown that Archaeopteryx had a birdbrain. You can see the news report and see 3D movies of the CT scan here:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/news/items/archaeopteryx020804.html
Archaeopteryx had a brain three times the size of a dinosaur of comparable size. And its brain had an enlarged cerebellum and visual cortex required for balance and for processing the visual input needed for flying.

Most significant of all, Archaeopteryx had pneumatized vertebrae and pelvis. This indicates that Archaeopteryx had lungs like those of modern birds. Bird lungs are different from all other vertebrate animal classes on earth. They do not have a bellows-type lung like reptiles and mammals, they have a fixed flow-through lung. An interconnected system of air sacs in the muscles, and organs, and the air filled bones of the bird keeps air flowing through the lungs through tiny tubes called parabronchi. The air always flows in the same direction through the lungs, it does not flow in and out like in reptiles.

Here’s what the lung system looks like:

This is how the system works.

The pneumatized vertebrae and pelvis in Archaeopteryx indicates the presence of both a cervical and abdominal air sac which are two of the five air sacs found in modern birds. So Archaeopteryx had the unique lungs found only in birds and not found in any reptile. This definitely establishes it as a true bird.

If you choose to believe that evolution is true then you also have to believe that the completely novel flow-through lung of the bird has evolved by chance beneficial mutations from the bellows-type lung of reptiles. And through the entire conversion from bellows to flow-through lungs the intermediate animal would have to keep breathing. And every step along the way would have to be beneficial to the animal or else natural selection could not select for it.

Yes, Archaeopteryx did have some mosaic reptilian characteristics like the long tail, claws on the wings, and teeth instead of a beak. But creationists know that God has created other mosaic creatures as well, like the lungfish and the platypus, so those characteristics are not sufficient to establish it as a transitional animal when we know that
Archaeopteryx already shared the major characteristics that set birds apart from reptiles. Actually even the teeth of Archaeopteryx do not support the evolutionary story. Archaeopteryx had unserrated teeth with constricted bases and expanded roots. The theropod dinosaurs, which supposedly turned into birds, had serrated teeth with straight roots. I can also point out that the theropod dinosaur, Compsognathus, that Barbarian pictured lived in the very same time period as Archaeopteryx. That certainly weakens any circumstantial case for an ancestor/descendant relationship between the two. And Compsognathus certainly didn’t display the strong forelimbs that Archaeopteryx had.

And the main point I made in my previous post still isn’t in dispute. The fact remains that the fossil record does not document the evolution of flight in birds. The first bird was a flying bird.

Take a look at the picture. Do you see any development of the forelimbs into the wing structure that all pterosaurs had?

Yep. Pretty primitive, but we have a limb with a flying membrane, a very slightly elongnated digit. What has to happen to this one is for the front legs to grow, and the digits to get longer. That's not a big change.

Here is the faith of the evolutionist on display. Let’s take a look again at the gliding Sharovipterix mirabilis and the flying Sordes pilosus.

You have no fossil series linking the two animals. There’s no evidence that the change from one to the other ever occurred. On Sharovipterix mirabilis the hind limbs are the power limbs and the fore limbs are weak. There is no membrane even attached to the forepaw and the fourth digit is in complete proportion to the rest of the digits. Only when looking through the rose colored glasses of the evolutionist could you say that Sharovipterix mirabilis is all set to change into something similar to Sordes pilosus.

So once again the point I made in my previous post has not been contradicted. There is no step by step series of transitional fossils showing the evolution of pterosaurs from a flightless reptile.

But it's sure interesting, that we have abundant transitionals for big boned animals like whales and horses, um? Let's be honest with each other, OK?

Yes, let’s be honest. Evolutionists have a few series that they trot out repeatedly to support their theory, but I also know that anyone who questions evolution can also come up with plenty of examples of heavy boned animals that have no transitional fossils leading up to them in the fossil record. The missing transitional animals are widespread throughout the fossil record. Why not take a look at a couple.

How about the ichthyosaurs. Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles whose fossil remains have been found worldwide. It can’t be claimed that the lack of transitionals is due to a limited geological conditions. And yet there is no series of transitional fossils leading up to them. Here is a neat picture of the very earliest ichthyosaur, Cymbospondylus. The picture is taken from a TV special, showing a computer-generated version of this ichthyosaur in the water with a man:

Cymbospondylus was a very large animal. The transitional animals leading up to it should be well preserved in the fossil record. And yet no series of transitionals has been found. Now I’m sure that Barbarian will point out that Cymbospondylus did not have the dorsal fin or shark-like tail fins of the later ichthyosaurs. Its tail was long and sinuous. But it is still quite obvious that Cymbospondylus was already fully adapted for marine life. It isn’t halfway changed into a marine reptile; it is already complete and functional for the marine environment.

Or how about turtles. They have that nice enclosed shell with the carapace on the top and the plastron on the bottom so any transitionals leading up to turtles should preserve beautifully in the fossil record. Here’s a picture of the very earliest turtle found in the fossil record:
Proganochelys

It’s already completely identifiable as a turtle. No transitional animals have been found that lead up to it.

And why not mention the Cambrian explosion. In a space of about 10 million years, starting about 540 million years ago, evolutionists tell us that all the major body types (or phyla) of modern animals appeared suddenly in the fossil record. Body types that include animals like worms, sponges, jellyfish, snails, clams, and trilobites. And yet not a single series of transitional fossils can be shown that leads up to even one of these body types. Evolutionists have no series showing the development of single celled life into multi-cellular life. Multi-celled animals appear fully formed in the fossil record. Even the vertebrates, who evolutionists consider one of the most advanced classes of animals, have now been found to appear during this short period. You can read about the discovery of two true vertebrates dated at 530 million years at this site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/504776.stm
And here’s a picture showing the internal structure of one of them:
Haikouichthys

The gaps in the fossil record are widespread and systematic. Those large gaps cast doubt on the circumstantial evidence for evolution. And that is ultimately what the origins debate is based on – circumstantial evidence. The events recorded in the fossil record happened in the distant past. No one was around to observe them and they are completely unrepeatable. And since they are unobserved and unrepeatable they are also untestable. They lie outside of empirical science. In the end, after you’ve built your circumstantial case, you must believe by faith that you have interpreted the evidence correctly, whether one chooses to believe in creation or evolution. You cannot prove through repeatable experimentation and observation that one kind of animal has evolved into another kind of animal. The process of transformation of one animal kind into another cannot be observed in the world around us. Every living animal is complete and functional in its present form. And it is the process of macroevolution (large scale change) that is at the heart of the creation/evolution debate. Creationists accept the evidence for microevolution (small scale change) just as evolutionists do.

Do the systematic gaps in the fossil record lend support to the theory of evolution? Do you believe that highly complex organs, like the eye, can arise independently dozens of times in different organisms through a random process of trial and error? Do you believe that the irreducibly complex molecular machines that have been found in the cell could arise without intelligence and foresight? Do you believe that the bellows-type lungs of reptiles could evolve into the fundamentally different structure of the flow-through lungs that birds possess through a series of chance, beneficial mutations?

And why don’t we take a closer look at the actual mechanism that is supposed to drive evolution. What process is it that evolutionists declare is capable of producing the amazingly complex machinery of the cells, and organs of the body? The only source of new information that the theory of evolution has going for it are random mutations in the genetic code. Random, undirected mistakes with no intelligent guidance are supposed to have generated all the machinery, all the chemical processes, and all the interdependent and integrated organs necessary for life. Now evolutionists will claim that natural selection is the hero of their theory but natural selection has no ability to create new information. Natural selection is only a sorting process. It can only select for the good mistakes that mutations generate and throw out the bad mistakes. So the ultimate source for all the information present in life can only be copying mistakes that natural selection has available to sift through. Now it’s quite obvious that any random process would have no ability to design. Being random, that process would have no foresight, no intelligent direction, and no goal in mind. And the same can be said of natural selection. All natural selection can do is select for those mistakes that have immediate benefit for the organism. Natural selection has no goal that it is working towards, it has no intelligent direction, and it has no ability to design anything.

Take a look again at the early vertebrate, Haikouichthys, pictured above. It has a brain, notochord, digestive system, eyes and gills and a muscle system. Evolutionists claim that Haikouichthys and all the other multi-celled animals that appeared in the Cambrian explosion evolved through a step by step process of mutation and natural selection from single celled organisms. Those single celled organisms had no information in their genomes for brains or eyes or spinal cords. If evolution were true then all of those organs would have had to develop out of nothing, just through random mistakes in the genetic code, which were then sifted by natural selection.

And there is an extra wrench that gets thrown into the process for all organisms that reproduce sexually. Sexually reproducing organisms only pass on 50% of their genome to each of their offspring. They throw away half their genome every time they reproduce. That means that any novel, beneficial mutation that appears in sexually reproducing organisms has only a small chance of being passed on to subsequent generations. The evolutionary mathematician, Sir Ronal Fisher, showed that if a beneficial mutation has a selective advantage, s, then the chance that that mutation will be passed on and become fixed in any large population is only 2s. If a beneficial mutation has a selective advantage of 0.1%, meaning that one extra animal out of a thousand will survive because of the mutation, then the chance that that mutation will spread and become fixed in the population is only 0.2%, or 1 chance in 500. Even a very beneficial mutation with 1% selective advantage would only have one chance in 50 of spreading through a population and becoming fixed in subsequent generations. So for evolution to work in sexually reproducing organisms, beneficial mutations (which are already quite rare) must reappear dozens or even hundreds of times before they will have a good chance of taking over the population.

Whatever each of us chooses to believe about our origins, we each must base our belief on circumstantial, historical evidence that can never be tested by empirical science. When I look at the amazing complex systems that are essential for life to work I find it impossible to believe that the unintelligent, undirected, chance processes of mutation and natural selection are capable of creating that complexity. Each of us must decide for ourselves whether we believe that the evolution story is plausible. Based on the CBS poll I mentioned in my last post, it looks like there are still a fair number of people in North America who find the evolution story implausible as well.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
You've been misled. This 31-day old human embyro clearly has slits. The reason these form is because the orginal chordate had them. But they weren't for breathing. They were originally for feeding. Water pumped in through the mouth went out the slits where particles of food were trapped. The first chordates were small enough that no gills were necessary.

So Barbarian claims that I have been misled and that human embryos really do have gill slits.

No. Barbarian notes that human embyros (as you clearly saw) have slits formed by brachial arches. They never form gills.

He offers a picture as proof.

The picture clearly shows the slits. They just never form gills.

Well, since the sources I used were ones I would trust to state the truth I strongly suspected that it was Barbarian who was in the wrong. So I went out to find some independent corroboration for my claim that human embryos do not have slits at any time in their development.

It calls them "pharyngial clefts". So yes, they are, as you saw in the photograph, real, and they really do form in human embryos. You are correct in saying that they don't (in most mammals at least) go all the way to connect to the gut. But that's beside the point. As I told you, they begin like fish do, but then they become very different. Evolution often takes old features and reworks them to new uses. Whoever told you that they didn't exist in humans has obviously never seen a human embryo at that stage.

If all evolutionists know that Haeckel’s drawings were a fake then why do they keep using them to try and support their theory?

Barbarian observes:
They don't. Recapitulation has been dead a long time. The textbooks I know about use photographs now to show things like brachial arches and pharyngial slits in vertebrate embryos.

Barbarian claims that evolutionists no longer use Haeckel’s drawings to try and support their theory and yet the evidence directly contradicts him. The reason I brought up the subject in the first place was because, in the article that reznwerks linked to at the start of this thread, the evolutionist, Professor Graham, directly referred to Haeckel’s pictures as evidence that the human embryo goes through a fish stage in its development. Barbarian seems to have forgotten this.

Sorry. If you'll check out textbooks, you'll see it doesn't happen. You can always find someone somewhere with a contrary opinion, but that's not how evoutionists see it.

Barbarian observes:
Organisms often survive long after more advanced forms have evolved. The point is that more primitive birds are known, and they did not fly. We don't actually know which species is the oldest, only the particular ones we found.

So evolutionists want everyone to accept their theory as a proven fact,

No. Proof is not part of science.

but when you point out a discrepancy in the timing of their story they just say, “forget the dates and just look at the patternâ€Â.

Nope. Never heard anyone say that. You've been misled again.

Why should a Christian, or anyone, throw away a belief in creation

You don't have to. Evolution is perfectly in accord with God's creation. It has to be. It's His way of doing things. YE creationism is not in accord with God's creation, because it asserts ex nihilo creation of life, which contradicts God's word in Genesis.

Why should anyone accept supposedly transitional animals when the evolutionists can’t even get their chronology to match their story?

You've been misinformed about the issue. It's the old "If you are alive, your uncle has to be dead" argument. No one with any sense buys into it.

Barbarian suggests:
Here's the skeletons of a small theropod dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, and a modern bird. Why not list for us, the birdlike characteristics of Archaeopteryx, and the dinosauran ones, and then tell us why you think it's a bird.

Well of course the most obvious characteristic of birds that Archaeopteryx possessed were its feathers. And they weren’t partly developed feathers. They weren’t halfway between scales and feathers. They were fully developed flight feathers that were almost indistinguishable from modern feathers. And they were asymmetrical about the shaft, which is characteristic of feathers on modern flying birds.

Many dinosaurs also had many of these features. The only one unique to birds, (if you want to call Archaepoteryx a bird) is the assymetrical feathers.

It had a backward pointing, grasping hallux, or hind toe.

So did many theropod dinosaurs. If you take a look at the illustration I posted, you'll see that Compsognathus has one. And some birds don't.

And this was a true grasping hallux with curved claws for perching. Archaeopteryx was a perching bird.

Another preadaptation. The orientation of the hallux already existed in small theropods. However, perching might have been a bit of a problem for Archaeopteryx. Because it could not maneuver well, (lack of a "bastard wing" and a long tail that makes for stability, but not maneuverability) it must have been very tricky landing on a branch.

It had a furcula, or wishbone for attachment of the flight muscles.

So do some small dinosaurs. And it lacks the avian breastbone where most of the muscles of birds attach.

Reptiles have a fixed maxilla (upper jaw) and a moveable mandible (lower jaw). Archaeopteryx, like modern birds, had both a moveable mandible and maxilla.

On the other hand, it had a reptillian skull in other respects. Notice the large fenestration behind the eye, and the bar of bone supporting it. Notice two large fenestrations in front of the eye, unlike birds.

It has even been determined that in its soft anatomy Archaeopteryx was bird-like. Computer tomography scanning has shown that Archaeopteryx had a birdbrain. You can see the news report and see 3D movies of the CT scan here:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/news/items/archaeo ... 20804.html
Archaeopteryx had a brain three times the size of a dinosaur of comparable size. And its brain had an enlarged cerebellum and visual cortex required for balance and for processing the visual input needed for flying.

On the other hand, it had a much smaller brain than modern birds. (the only dinosaurs of "comparable size" BTW, were also feathered)

Most significant of all, Archaeopteryx had pneumatized vertebrae and pelvis.

On the other hand, the ribs, pelvis, and backbone were like those of theropod dinosaurs and not birds. This suggests that the modification of alveoli to form a single large system probably was not in place, since it requires a rigid spine and connected ribs.

This indicates that Archaeopteryx had lungs like those of modern birds. Bird lungs are different from all other vertebrate animal classes on earth. They do not have a bellows-type lung like reptiles and mammals, they have a fixed flow-through lung. An interconnected system of air sacs in the muscles, and organs, and the air filled bones of the bird keeps air flowing through the lungs through tiny tubes called parabronchi. The air always flows in the same direction through the lungs, it does not flow in and out like in reptiles.

It is unlikely that it had completely modified the basic lung orientation, but it is also likely that it had begun to make collateral ventilation (ventilation through the pores of Kohn) a greater part of overall ventilation than other vertebrates.

The pneumatized vertebrae and pelvis in Archaeopteryx indicates the presence of both a cervical and abdominal air sac which are two of the five air sacs found in modern birds. So Archaeopteryx had the unique lungs found only in birds and not found in any reptile. This definitely establishes it as a true bird.

Well, it's not as clear as your source makes it. There's considerable question of how far along the modification of the lung to the avian form had gone by that time.

If you choose to believe that evolution is true then you also have to believe that the completely novel flow-through lung of the bird has evolved by chance beneficial mutations from the bellows-type lung of reptiles.

By chance? Is that what you think evolutionary theory says? No wonder you don't like it. The benefits of even a small amount of collateral ventilation is apparent for organisms with high metabolic rates. (mammals can do it too, to a small degree)

Birds have greatly enlarged the alveolus, and the pores of Kohn to make collateral ventilation the only mode of respiration.

And through the entire conversion from bellows to flow-through lungs the intermediate animal would have to keep breathing. And every step along the way would have to be beneficial to the animal or else natural selection could not select for it.

Yes. In mammals it's a relatively minor effect, but if one has a very high metabolic demand, then even a slight increase in that mode would be of significant benefit.

Yes, Archaeopteryx did have some mosaic reptilian characteristics like the long tail, claws on the wings, and teeth instead of a beak.

And all the other things mentioned above. On the balance, it has more reptillian than avian characteristics. This is why, before one was found with intact feather traces, the species was considered to be a reptile. Early on, even into the 20th century, creationists were claiming it was a fraud, a reptile with faked feather impressions.

But creationists know that God has created other mosaic creatures as well, like the lungfish and the platypus,

You do understand that "mosaic" means 'intermediate', don't you? BTW, the platypus is intermediate only to reptiles, not birds, as some ignorant people asserted. The "bill" of the platypus is not remotely like that of a bird.

So those characteristics are not sufficient to establish it as a transitional animal when we know that Archaeopteryx already shared the major characteristics that set birds apart from reptiles.

Some, but not all. In fact, you there are very few that are not found on other reptiles.

Actually even the teeth of Archaeopteryx do not support the evolutionary story. Archaeopteryx had unserrated teeth with constricted bases and expanded roots. The theropod dinosaurs, which supposedly turned into birds, had serrated teeth with straight roots. I can also point out that the theropod dinosaur, Compsognathus, that Barbarian pictured lived in the very same time period as Archaeopteryx. That certainly weakens any circumstantial case for an ancestor/descendant relationship between the two.

Ah, the "if you are alive, your uncle must be dead" argument. It's hooey. Archaeopteryx did appear after small theropod dinosaurs like Compsognathus. So the fact that it lived on after Archaeopteryx appeared is not significant of anything.

And Compsognathus certainly didn’t display the strong forelimbs that Archaeopteryx had.

Compsognathus was somewhat larger. And we know that the length of forlimbs in theropods was allometric. Look at the largest of them, the tyrranosaurids. Relatively tiny forlimbs. And smaller ones had relatively larger ones. And archaeopteryx and other small feathered dinosaurs had much larger ones. Those came in handy for capturing small prey. We know that happened, since the wrist and shoulder were modified for grabbing. And that just happened to be the same motion that birds make in flight. Which is, again, what evolution is about. Adapting things to new uses.

And the main point I made in my previous post still isn’t in dispute. The fact remains that the fossil record does not document the evolution of flight in birds. The first bird was a flying bird.

If you want to define flying as a necessary attribute of a bird. But there were other bird/dinosaurs with similar characteristics which could not fly. You've just defined "bird" as having the ability to fly, and then used that to show that only flying animals can be birds.

The Barbarian on a primitive flying reptile:
Take a look at the picture. Do you see any development of the forelimbs into the wing structure that all pterosaurs had?

Yep. Pretty primitive, but we have a limb with a flying membrane, a very slightly elongnated digit. What has to happen to this one is for the front legs to grow, and the digits to get longer. That's not a big change.

Here is the faith of the evolutionist on display.

Nope. Just evidence.

You have no fossil series linking the two animals.

Not yet. We're still looking. But, as creationists learned in the case of whales, and horses, and birds, and others, time is not on their side. We have just one very primitive flying reptile.

On Sharovipterix mirabilis the hind limbs are the power limbs and the fore limbs are weak.

The first whales had rather small and weak tails and strong hind legs. But time sometimes makes changes.

The Barbarian wrote:
But it's sure interesting, that we have abundant transitionals for big boned animals like whales and horses, um? Let's be honest with each other, OK?

Yes, let’s be honest. Evolutionists have a few series that they trot out repeatedly to support their theory, but I also know that anyone who questions evolution can also come up with plenty of examples of heavy boned animals that have no transitional fossils leading up to them in the fossil record.

But if creationism is right, there wouldn't be any at all. So we know it can't be right.

How about the ichthyosaurs. Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles whose fossil remains have been found worldwide. It can’t be claimed that the lack of transitionals is due to a limited geological conditions.

Whales are also large marine animals with a worldwide distribution. Yet the transitional forms were smaller and not very common. We finally have found a good number of them. So it's clear by counterexample, that there is no reason to be surprised that it is also the case with icthyosaurs.

Or how about turtles. They have that nice enclosed shell with the carapace on the top and the plastron on the bottom so any transitionals leading up to turtles should preserve beautifully in the fossil record. Here’s a picture of the very earliest turtle found in the fossil record:
Proganochelys

It’s already completely identifiable as a turtle. No transitional animals have been found that lead up to it.

Transitionals for turtles have not yet been found. However, as you learned earlier, what we don't yet know is not a refutation of the transistionals we do have.

And why not mention the Cambrian explosion. In a space of about 10 million years, starting about 540 million years ago, evolutionists tell us that all the major body types (or phyla) of modern animals appeared suddenly in the fossil record.

Were there fish? Birds? Mammals? Frogs? Reptiles? ants? Clams? Octopi? Nope. All these are missing. Not quite what they told you, is it.

There's more. You see, many complex animals appeared before the Cambrian. Some of them lived on into the Cambrian, and provided the basis for the Cambrian explosion. It really was a time of remarkable diversification. It was also the time when partially-scleritized body parts gave way to fully-armored bodies among arthropods. And that is probably why the rapid diversification happened.

Take a look at this:
http://goniagnostus.homestead.com/files/Spriggina_color.jpg[/quote]

This one is from the Ediacaran fauna, well before the Cambrian. There are many other forms, as well as burrows, tracks, and remains of partially-scleritized organisms. The real story is much less dramatic than the one you were told.

[quote]Body types that include animals like worms, sponges, jellyfish, snails, clams, and trilobites. And yet not a single series of transitional fossils can be shown that leads up to even one of these body types.[/quote]

I'm thinking that Spriggina (pictured above) sure looks like it.

[quote]Evolutionists have no series showing the development of single celled life into multi-cellular life.[/quote]

Let's see...
Single celled organisms.

Colonial organisms with no specialization

Colonial organisms with specialization.

Sponges, which have no tissues, but some specialized cells and are obligate metazoans

Coelentrates with tissues but no organs.

Metazoans with organs and tissues.

And there there are the slime molds. Do you think they are single celled or multicelled animals? And why?

[quote]Multi-celled animals appear fully formed in the fossil record. Even the vertebrates, who evolutionists consider one of the most advanced classes of animals, have now been found to appear during this short period. [/quote]

Scientists do not consider vertebrates to be more advanced than arthropods. You've been misled.

[quote]The gaps in the fossil record are widespread and systematic. Those large gaps cast doubt on the circumstantial evidence for evolution. [/quote]

Nope. The fact that the fossil record is spotty, and that we have only begun to scratch the surface of fossils in the rocks puts that argument to rest. We have a lot of documented transitionals. We have a lot yet to find. But if creationism is true, there wouldn't be any of them.

[quote]The events recorded in the fossil record happened in the distant past. No one was around to observe them and they are completely unrepeatable.[/quote]

Ah, the old "if you weren't there to see it, you can never know what happened" argument. That's hooey, too. Otherwise, forensics, fire investigation, geology, astronomy, archaeology, and many other disciplines are impossible.

[quote]And since they are unobserved and unrepeatable they are also untestable.[/quote]

Horsefeathers. For example, evolutionary theory predicted that whales must have once had functional legs. The discovery of such whales was an important test confirming evolutionary theory.

[quote]Do the systematic gaps in the fossil record lend support to the theory of evolution?[/quote]

The gaps that have been filled in, such as the whales with functional legs sure do.

[quote]Do you believe that highly complex organs, like the eye, can arise independently dozens of times in different organisms through a random process of trial and error?[/quote]

Can natural selection produce an eye? Sure. In fact, it's done it a number of times. Right now, it's doing it again in snakes, only this time with infrared eyes. Would you like to learn how?

A long time ago, George G. Simpson showed the evolution of eyes in several phyla could be determined by living members of each of those phyla. Would you like to learn about them?

[quote]Do you believe that the irreducibly complex molecular machines that have been found in the cell could arise without intelligence and foresight?[/quote]

Since Barry Hall observed an irreducibly complex system evolve in some bacteria he was studying, we know that natural selection can do that.

[quote]Do you believe that the bellows-type lungs of reptiles could evolve into the fundamentally different structure of the flow-through lungs that birds possess through a series of chance, beneficial mutations? [/quote]

Could natural selection take the very rudimentary collateral ventilation in vertebrate lungs and by increments produce the flow-through system in birds? Yep.

[quote]And why don’t we take a closer look at the actual mechanism that is supposed to drive evolution. What process is it that evolutionists declare is capable of producing the amazingly complex machinery of the cells, and organs of the body? The only source of new information that the theory of evolution has going for it are random mutations in the genetic code. Random, undirected mistakes with no intelligent guidance are supposed to have generated all the machinery, all the chemical processes, and all the interdependent and integrated organs necessary for life. [/quote]

You've been misled. Randomness, but itself, could never do that. Random change and natural selection does it.

[quote]Now evolutionists will claim that natural selection is the hero of their theory but natural selection has no ability to create new information.[/quote]

Perhaps you don't know what "information" is. Can you give me a testable definition of what you think it is? There is a science of information, and by the scientific definition, natural selection and random variation do increase information.

[quote]Natural selection is only a sorting process. It can only select for the good mistakes that mutations generate and throw out the bad mistakes. So the ultimate source for all the information present in life can only be copying mistakes that natural selection has available to sift through.[/quote]

Right. Would you like to test it and see if it can do that?

[quote]Now it’s quite obvious that any random process would have no ability to design. Being random, that process would have no foresight, no intelligent direction, and no goal in mind. And the same can be said of natural selection. All natural selection can do is select for those mistakes that have immediate benefit for the organism. Natural selection has no goal that it is working towards, it has no intelligent direction, and it has no ability to design anything. [quote:b93d8]

And yet it can produce new information. Would you like to learn how? Engineers are beginning to learn how to use evolutionary processes to find solutions to engineering problems that resist design.

Genetic algorithms use a simulation of natural selection to quickly find optimal solutions. Here's a simplified example:

[url="http://www.setiai.com/archives/000031.html"]http://www.setiai.com/archives/000031.html[/url]

[quote:b93d8]Take a look again at the early vertebrate, Haikouichthys, pictured above. It has a brain, notochord, digestive system, eyes and gills and a muscle system.[/quote]

There were chordates at the very beginning of the Cambrian which also had these, and were not as advanced as this animal. It resembles the larva of some modern agnathans. It is transitional between the earlier chordates and more advanced vertebrates.

[quote]And there is an extra wrench that gets thrown into the process for all organisms that reproduce sexually. Sexually reproducing organisms only pass on 50% of their genome to each of their offspring. They throw away half their genome every time they reproduce.[/quote]

Right. Which means that populations evolve, not individuals. You knew that, right?

Which means that most such novel forms don't get fixed (do you know what "fixed" means?) in populations unless they are very small. This is why the fossil record shows that allopatric speciation is more common than sympatric speciation.

[quote]Based on the CBS poll I mentioned in my last post, it looks like there are still a fair number of people in North America who find the evolution story implausible as well.[/quote][/quote:b93d8][/quote:b93d8]

There are. But for the first time this year, a majority of Americans acknowledged that humans developed from other organisms.

51% said that humans developed from other animals (only 13% said that God was not involved)

45% said that humans were created pretty much as they are today.

It's slow progress, but it's moving in the right direction.

[url="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2004/US/724_public_view_of_creationism_and_11_19_2004.asp"]http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2 ... 9_2004.asp[/url]