[_ Old Earth _] The misconception of "the missing links"

[TheBeardedDude]

It is a common argument to hear from those who consider themselves skeptics of the theory of evolution, that there are no missing links. I will concede this point on a technicality of sorts, the term "missing link" is a red herring because all species are links from the preceding species to the current. All fossils are links from their ancestor, to the fossil, and (unless it went extinct at that boundary) links its successors to it and its own ancestors.

What then is a "missing link"? It is an absence in the fossil record between 2 linked species. But you no more need every link to determine the relationship, than you need to know every individual in your own family history to positively correlate that you are directly descended from your great-great-grandmother.


For fun, some of my favorite "missing" links
Archaeopteryx of course

The phylogeny from the fish Eusthenopteron to the reptile Pederpes.

Whale evolution, but Ambulocetus in particular

 

[Barbarian]

Oh. I thought it was "the missing lynx." It's been found.
Lynx issiodorensis:

The ancestor of all four modern Lynx species.
Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Narwhalist]

A misconception it truly is.
I don't believe in a "missing link." Unlike what some people believe, animals do not all of the sudden change into a "missing link" species.
Microevolution events occur within species, causing perhaps a small, undetectable change in a species. However, over a period of millions of years, these microevolution events add up, causing the resulting species to be very different from the one that was considered the first millions of years ago. Changes occur mostly through microevolution events caused by environmental pressures and in some cases mutations which improve the organism's chances of surviving.
I hear a lot of people say that evolution is not true because animals mate only with their own kinds. This shows me that whoever says this doesn't understand genetics because animals can only mate with their own kinds, evolution or no evolution. Macroevolution are nothing more than hundreds, perhaps thousands of microevolution events, one after another, over a span of perhaps millions of year. It is not 2 dogs mating and giving birth to a chicken, or a dog and a cat mating giving birth to a catdog (or dogcat, depends on your preference).

 

[Asyncritus]

It is a common argument to hear from those who consider themselves skeptics of the theory of evolution, that there are no missing links. I will concede this point on a technicality of sorts, the term "missing link" is a red herring because all species are links from the preceding species to the current. All fossils are links from their ancestor, to the fossil, and (unless it went extinct at that boundary) links its successors to it and its own ancestors.

What then is a "missing link"? It is an absence in the fossil record between 2 linked species. But you no more need every link to determine the relationship, than you need to know every individual in your own family history to positively correlate that you are directly descended from your great-great-grandmother.

Nice try. But hardly valid.

I am a human being (I think). I am descended from human beings, including my great grandmother.

That is both reasonable and provable, because we have great grandmothers and their great grandchildren alive today.

What is downright foolish, and totally unprovable, is the silly assertion that we descended from apes/chimps/common ancestor of both.

That is so farcical, it's difficult to believe that intelligent 'scientists' can have come up with the idea.

I trust that you do not number yourself among them.

As Chesterton said (and he is buttressed by Gould and Eldredge, and more recently Koonin). they know everything about missing links - except the fact that they ARE missing.

You are aware that there is considerable doubt about Archaeopteryx being whatever they want to make it out to be, don't you?

Look it up and mention some of the objections, if you really are a man of science.

For fun, some of my favorite "missing" links
Archaeopteryx of course

The phylogeny from the fish Eusthenopteron to the reptile Pederpes.

Whale evolution, but Ambulocetus in particular

Do you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden?

If you do, then perhaps you may be justified in thinking this idiotic series from pakicetus to the modern whales is worth something.

Seriously.

Something like a fox 'evolving' into the most amazing aquatic creature on the planet! Your credulity. like barbarian's, defies belief.

Pakicetus:

evolved into

​

Is as likely as

evolving into

 

[Asyncritus]

It is a common argument to hear from those who consider themselves skeptics of the theory of evolution, that there are no missing links. I will concede this point on a technicality of sorts, the term "missing link" is a red herring because all species are links from the preceding species to the current. All fossils are links from their ancestor, to the fossil, and (unless it went extinct at that boundary) links its successors to it and its own ancestors.

What then is a "missing link"? It is an absence in the fossil record between 2 linked species. But you no more need every link to determine the relationship, than you need to know every individual in your own family history to positively correlate that you are directly descended from your great-great-grandmother.

Nice try. But hardly valid.

I am a human being (I think). I am descended from human beings, including my great grandmother.

That is both reasonable and provable, because we have great grandmothers and their great grandchildren alive today.

What is downright foolish, and totally unprovable, is the silly assertion that we descended from apes/chimps/common ancestor of both.

That is so farcical, it's difficult to believe that intelligent 'scientists' can have come up with the idea.

I trust that you do not number yourself among them.

As Chesterton said (and he is buttressed by Gould and Eldredge, and more recently Koonin). they know everything about missing links - except the fact that they ARE missing.

You are aware that there is considerable doubt about Archaeopteryx being whatever they want to make it out to be, don't you?

Look it up and mention some of the objections, if you really are a man of science.

For fun, some of my favorite "missing" links
Archaeopteryx of course

The phylogeny from the fish Eusthenopteron to the reptile Pederpes.

Whale evolution, but Ambulocetus in particular

Do you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden?

If you do, then perhaps you may be justified in thinking this idiotic series from pakicetus to the modern whales is worth something.

Seriously.

Something like a fox 'evolving' into the most amazing aquatic creature on the planet! Your credulity. like barbarian's, defies belief.

Pakicetus:

evolved into

​

Is as likely as

evolving into

I just found this. You might, with profit, have a look at it:

Ashby L. Camp, "The Overselling of Whale Evolution", Creation Matters, a newsletter published by the Creation Research Society, May/June 1998

 

[Barbarian]

You'll have to excuse Async; he thinks that funny pictures and fairy tales are effective ways to refute evidence.

 

[VirginShallConceive]

You'll have to excuse Async; he thinks that funny pictures and fairy tales are effective ways to refute evidence.

:toofunny

 

[Asyncritus]

You'll have to excuse Async; he thinks that funny pictures and fairy tales are effective ways to refute evidence.

Note Dude.

No refutation of anything. Just another bluff coupled with an ad hom.

That's the kind of science we can expect, and have come to expect from barbarian.

Just now, he'll find a large chunk of somebody's paper, cut it, and paste it in big bold letters, and hope that I won't read it. He made a bad mistake the last time he did that in the KOONIN thread, as I showed.

Have you read the KOONIN thread BTW? You might find it interesting.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
You'll have to excuse Async; he thinks that funny pictures and fairy tales are effective ways to refute evidence.

No refutation of anything.

You didn't assert anything. Couple of funny pictures, and your fairy tale version of science. Content-free. It's why you have so much trouble here. I've suggested that you might learn something about the actual science involved, which would make you less prone to disasters like the numerous threads you've bailed out on, after it became clear you had messed up yet again.

For example when you tried to tell us about what Koonin and Lynch thought, you clearly had never read the articles. Lynch, whom you characterized as defeating natural selection actually wrote that interfering with natural selection would have negative effects on genomes.

I also showed you the issue about which Koonin was speaking, and enough clues for you to look it up and learn.

That's the kind of science we can expect, and have come to expect from barbarian.

You react to facts the way a vampire reacts to a crucifix.

Just now, he'll find a large chunk of somebody's paper, cut it, and paste it in big bold letters, and hope that I won't read it. He made a bad mistake the last time he did that in the KOONIN thread, as I showed.

You haven't read it lately? There's a surprise. Koonin seemed to be totally unaware of the existence of monotremes, for example, according to the site from which you snipped that bit of text.

He's apparently a follower of Lynn Margulis, who first proposed and then established endosymbiosis as a mode of evolution. Koonin expanded on her ideas to suggest that natural selection is not the primary agent of evolution. Although some of Margulis' ideas on lateral gene transfer and cooperative evolution have been confirmed, she also had some odd ideas that have not been confirmed, such as Koonin is proposing.

While it has long been known that natural selection is not the only mode of change in population genomes, so far, no one has shown that other modes are as significant as natural selection.

Have you read the KOONIN thread BTW? You might find it interesting.

Especially the stuff about what Koonin and Lynch really wrote about it.

Read and learn.

 

[Asyncritus]

You didn't assert anything. Couple of funny pictures, and your fairy tale version of science. Content-free. It's why you have so much trouble here. I've suggested that you might learn something about the actual science involved, which would make you less prone to disasters like the numerous threads you've bailed out on, after it became clear you had messed up yet again.

I left those threads because I proved you to be lying and did not want to degenerate into slanging. You haven't learned anything new it seems.

Your strategy remains the same: bluff, invent, cut and paste, fail to read and comprehend what writers (who are evolutionists by and large) are saying, shout 'quotemining', accuse me of getting material from creationist websites when in fact the material comes from journals like PNAS and Biology Direct, and so it goes on.

All of which only shows just how threadbare evolution really is, if it has to resort to such tactics to support its woeful inadequacy and scientific foolishness.

For example when you tried to tell us about what Koonin and Lynch thought, you clearly had never read the articles. Lynch, whom you characterized as defeating natural selection actually wrote that interfering with natural selection would have negative effects on genomes.

This is utter nonsense. YOU haven't read what Lynch wrote, and you probably can't comprehend what Kimura wrote either.

The reference you gave is not to Lynch's paper, but to a profile by Beth Azar. Second hand, therefore. So the question stands. DID you read his paper? Or are you merely talking off the top of your head and trying to give the misleading impression that you did?

Here is the genuine link: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl.1/8597.full Go read.

The foolishness of your above statement would have been apparent to you if you tried to apply a bit of comprehension to what you yourself said.

Negative effects mean not evolutionary advancement, but the exact opposite. That is no support whatever for your theory.

Lynch is a neutral theorist, and can see no positive effects of natural selection. In fact, he raises the question, and you really need to face it, or accuse him of being wrong

“What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms.â€

The implied answer is clearly a resounding 'NO, IT's NOT', or the question would never have been asked.
And if NS is neither necessary nor sufficient, then all your paradings round in the other threads shouting about NS doing this and doing that, are shown by Lynch and Kimura to be utter nonsense.

You really ought to look up Kimura, if your maths can stand it, and your evolution survive it. I doubt both, but that remains to be seen.

As I said, you're in a fatal case of tailspin. Worse, you can't see it.

If natural selection can't cut it, then evolution is thrice dead and plucked up by the roots. It is the only surviving method by which it could possibly have occurred. Now, both Lynch and Kimura have stabbed it in the heart.

I am happy to have contributed the death blow of the question of instinct to the pathetically writhing theory. I have written a little book on the subject, and if anyone wishes to have a free copy, please PM me.

You, of course, have no answers to give to the questions I have raised over and over again: like, how did the migratory instincts of the cliff swallows of Capistrano, the eels of Europe, and the Pacific Golden plovers, arise, and how did they enter the genomes?

These are solid biological facts - not silly evolutionary speculations - verified by hundreds of observers and in hundreds of papers.

There is simply no way that natural selection could possibly have caused these behaviours to evolve.

Just as the man in the chicken suit could never evolve into the eagle, just so, no reptile could ever evolve into a bird.

Natural selection has failed. Evolution is dead in the water and does not deserve a decent burial.

Repent my friends, repent.

 

[Barbarian]

You didn't assert anything. Couple of funny pictures, and your fairy tale version of science. Content-free. It's why you have so much trouble here. I've suggested that you might learn something about the actual science involved, which would make you less prone to disasters like the numerous threads you've bailed out on, after it became clear you had messed up yet again.

Async writes:
I left those threads because I proved you to be lying and did not want to degenerate into slanging. You haven't learned anything new it seems.

When the facts start accumulating, you'll bail on this one too. The great thing about arguing scientific theories, is lying is it's own punishment. You haven't learned that, but I think you're beginning to catch on.

Your strategy remains the same: bluff, invent, cut and paste, fail to read and comprehend what writers (who are evolutionists by and large) are saying,

As you see, in the previous thread, I showed you several times that people did not have the opinions you attributed to them. I think it's because you don't actually read the articles from which you get those bits of quote-mined text. So you're pretty much easy prey for whoever you copy them from.

Here's a hint; scientists don't resolve differences by comparing quotes. They cite evidence. If you'd learn enough biology to do that, you'd do a lot better in these forums.

Shout 'quotemining', accuse me of getting material from creationist websites when in fact the material comes from journals like PNAS and Biology Direct

After it's been edited and filtered by some creastionist to make it appear that the scientist believes things that he does not. Let's take one of the more embarrassing cases for you. In post #9 of the Koonin thread you wrote:

Koonin is commenting on the facts: there are no intermediate forms worthy of the name, despite all the flimflam you insist on inventing, making up, or dredging up.

Eldredge and Gould said pretty much the same thing, as have generations of palaeontologists.

It was an easy thing to show you that you were completely wrong:

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Gould,
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/libra...nd-theory.html

All of which only shows just how threadbare evolution really is, if it has to resort to such tactics to support its woeful inadequacy and scientific foolishness.

Surprise.

Barbarian chuckles:
For example when you tried to tell us about what Koonin and Lynch thought, you clearly had never read the articles. Lynch, whom you characterized as defeating natural selection actually wrote that interfering with natural selection would have negative effects on genomes.

This is utter nonsense.

Well, let's take a look.

In his Inaugural Article (1), he showed that the rate of genetic mutation is higher for large, multicellular organisms, including humans, with relatively small population sizes, compared with organisms such as yeast and invertebrates. That, he says, could lead to problems for our species if we continue to subvert natural selection with modern medicine.

You've got a short memory, um?

YOU haven't read what Lynch wrote,

In the 1950s, Hermann Muller raised the idea that mutations in the human population may grow because of modern medicine, which is designed to ensure a long life and secure reproductive capacity regardless of one’s genetic capacity, thereby relaxing natural selection processes, says Lynch. “His calculations were very crude, but they’re not much different than what I got with real data,” he says. “The problem is that most mutations in humans do not have the effects of those readily observed for major disorders. They have very tiny effects that can’t be easily traced. You can say that’s good news for the newborn mutant. But the bad news is that mutations with tiny effects are the ones that most endanger the viability of the species because selection has such a hard time getting rid of them.” This causes an accumulation of deleterious mutations that can eventually lead to problems, particularly when modern medicine allows us to bypass natural selection."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2941335/

Surprise.

and you probably can't comprehend what Kimura wrote either.

Remember, I explained Motoo Kimura's neutralist theories when you didn't know who he was. Short memory, again?

The reference you gave is not to Lynch's paper, but to a profile by Beth Azar.

See above. Surprise. Lynch's ideas are well-known. I suppose every biologist has read his ideas.

Negative effects mean not evolutionary advancement, but the exact opposite.

His point, exactly. Removing natural selection removes the very thing that improves fitness in a population, as Lynch points out. Darwin said exactly the same thing about the issue in humans, in The Descent of Man.

That is no support whatever for your theory.

As you just learned, it's an important part of the theory.

Lynch is a neutral theorist, and can see no positive effects of natural selection.

As you see, he attributes a healthy human genome to natural selection, and deterioration of the genome if natural selection is removed.

PNAS v.107(3); Jan 19, 2010
Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation
Michael Lynch
For example, fetal mortality has declined by approximately 99% in England since the 1500s (52), and just since 1975, the mortality rate per diagnosed cancer has declined by approximately 20% in the United States population (53). Because most complex traits in humans have very high heritabilities (54), the concern then is that unique aspects of human culture, religion, and other social interactions with well intentioned short-term benefits will eventually lead to the long-term genetic deterioration of the human gene pool. Of course, a substantial fraction of the human population still has never visited a doctor of any sort, never eaten processed food, and never used an automobile, computer, or cell phone, so natural selection on unconditionally deleterious mutations certainly has not been completely relaxed in humans. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that we are progressively moving in this direction.

“What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms.”

As you just saw, he has concluded that it is necessary for a healthy human genome, unless we can put together some kind of artifical way of doing the same thing.

Finally, a consideration of the long-term consequences of current human behavior for deleterious-mutation accumulation leads to the conclusion that a substantial reduction in human fitness can be expected over the next few centuries in industrialized societies unless novel means of genetic intervention are developed.
(same article)
Surprise.

The implied answer is clearly a resounding 'NO, IT's NOT'or the question would never have been asked.

See above. Are you beginning to get an inkling as to why quote-mining is such a dangerous game?

You really ought to look up Kimura, if your maths can stand it, and your evolution survive it. I doubt both, but that remains to be seen.

You perhaps remember when I showed you that Kimura's calculations showed that the number of neutral mutations estimated for studied organisms was consistent with natural selection. He merely noted that there were a large number of essentially neutral mutations that are not affected by natural selection and that these can indeed be important in evolution.

Would you like me to show you again?

As I said, you're in a fatal case of tailspin.

Funny, then, how you were the one bailing out of all those threads.

Worse, you can't see it.

For the same reason I can't see orange leprechauns.

If natural selection can't cut it, then evolution is thrice dead and plucked up by the roots.

As you see, both Lynch and Kimura see it as an important element in evolution, the way fitness is increased over time. As you learned, this process is directly observed and measured, and it does indeed increase fitness and determine the genome of the next generation.

It is the only surviving method by which it could possibly have occurred. Now, both Lynch and Kimura have stabbed it in the heart.

Surprise. I will one more time, point out that if you had read the actual articles, instead of some creationists doctored story about what they wrote, you'd have known the truth.

I am happy to have contributed the death blow of the question of instinct to the pathetically writhing theory. I have written a little book on the subject, and if anyone wishes to have a free copy, please PM me.

Back to the word processor, um? Life is tough. It's a lot tougher if you don't know what you're talking about.

You, of course, have no answers to give to the questions I have raised over and over again: like, how did the migratory instincts of the cliff swallows of Capistrano, the eels of Europe, and the Pacific Golden plovers, arise, and how did they enter the genomes?

For eels, at least, scientists are investigating the question, and it turns out they are using the Atlantic currents and merely follow them back to Europe. But of course, the fact that we don't know everything, doesn't mean we don't know how evolution works.

There is simply no way that natural selection could possibly have caused these behaviours to evolve.

I know you want us to believe it, but then, you wanted us to believe that sun-seeking in plants was instinct, and not merel a chemical process. You saw magic where it was easily explained. It's a very dangerous habit, defining God in terms of things humans don't know.

Just as the man in the chicken suit could never evolve into the eagle

However, as you learned just before you bailed out of that thread, small bipedal dinosaurs evolved rather easily into birds. Would you like to see the evidence again?

just so, no reptile could ever evolve into a bird.

That they did is no surprise to you. You learned specifically how, and were rather taken aback to learn that most bird adaptations were already present in many dinosaurs.

Natural selection has failed.

As you just learned, it continues to be observed, raising fitness in populations. Would you like to learn how we can show it mathematically?

 

[VirginShallConceive]

Evolution is dead in the water and does not deserve a decent burial.

Repent my friends, repent.

Evolution isn't dead in the water. Church attendance is.

You have the wrong view on the evolution of species, just as you have the wrong view on the evolution of Christianity.

 

[Barbarian]

Actually, the percentage of people who attend church weekly is up a bit:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/141044/Americans-Church-Attendance-Inches-2010.aspx

 

[Asyncritus]

Evolution is dead in the water and does not deserve a decent burial.

Repent my friends, repent.

Evolution isn't dead in the water. Church attendance is.

Shame you can't see that evolution IS dead in the water.

It explains nothing, is flatly contradicted by the fossils, and most recently, its biggest crutch, natural selection has been shown to be so termite-ridden, it has collapsed under its own weight. Barbarian has too much invested in evolution to ever see straight about it, so I can only pity him.

Get those cobwebs cleared out of your mind, and you'll see clearly.

You have the wrong view on the evolution of species, just as you have the wrong view on the evolution of Christianity.

I'm sorry, I don't quite know what you mean by 'the evolution of Christianity'. Christianity was born full fledged, but has become so weighted down with doctrinal and practical gunge it is hardly recognisable as the thing that Jesus taught.

 

[Asyncritus]

You may be interested to know (or not, as the case may be) that the origin of species cannot be explained by that pitiful old canard: reproductive isolation.

Here's Friesen (Nov 20, Science Daily):

While that model fits for many parts of the natural world,it doesn't explain why some species appear to have evolved separately, within the same location, where there are no geographic barriers to gene flow.

So speciation proceeds in the presence of geographic barriers, and it proceeds in their absence.

The facts condemn Darwin, but are a mere inconvenience to be arm-waved aside, as barbarian is so fond of doing.

But you may not have noticed that this is another fatal thrust into evolution's dying guts.

If speciation takes place WITHOUT, or WITH geographic isolation, then what causes it?

Clearly nothing. And so we can justifiably conclude that evolutionary speciation is a non-starter, and that leaves only creation.

Carroll wrote (Vertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution): 'most of the fossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic account' of evolution.

But that is exactly what Darwinism demands. It is, therefore, as I say, dead in the water.

Carroll is not alone. Zillions of poor, irradiated fruit flies have died in the laboratories of people like Muller and Dobzhansky, coming and going without the slightest hint that they were going to be anything but fruitflies.

More than 6000 years of artificial selection - intelligently guided selection, that is - have produced not a single new species. No chicken lays square eggs (they'd pack a lot better!) or a horse with wings (just think of the racing world's excitement!) , or a cow that produces 2000 gallons of milk in a day.

If species have an essential nature that breeders cannot transgress (as Luther Burbank once remarked), then random variations and natural selection cannot change them. You listening barbarian?

I gather that efforts to actually MEASURE the effects of natural selection have been totally unforthcoming.

Joel Kingsolver, in 2001 reported that in sample sizes of more than 1000 individuals, there was virtually no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. "Important issues about selection remain unresolved", he said.

So how does speciation happen? Answer -we don't know, and it is not easy to point to any significant instances where speciation has happened.

Remember too, that a species is what a competent taxonomist declares to be a species. To be fair, they generally know what they're doing, but once a species has been accepted as a species, a chain fence has been erected around it, because a given species cannot interbreed with another species in the wild.

So a reptile can't become a bird, or a fish become an amphibian, or a chimpanzee become a human. They're all ringfenced.

The Cambrian Explosion finishes off any idea that natural selection could have produced the vast number of new life forms found in it.

It is sheer nonsense to claim that it could have done so, especially in view of the remarks I have quoted from Lynch and Kimura earlier.

But then, that has never deterred evolutionists in general, and barbarian in particular.

 

[Barbarian]

Shame you can't see that evolution IS dead in the water.

(Barbarian checks)

Um, no, that seems to be completely wrong. There are dozens of journals of evolutionary science, and they are quite busy showing new findings in evolution(as all sciences do). The new discipline of evolutionary development, based on the homology of homobox genes, has led to a number of important breakthroughs in understanding.

Now finally, after more than a century of puzzling, scientists are finding answers coming fast and furious and from a surprising quarter, the field known as evo-devo. Just coming into its own as a science, evo-devo is the combined study of evolution and development, the process by which a nubbin of a fertilized egg transforms into a full-fledged adult. And what these scientists are finding is that development, a process that has for more than half a century been largely ignored in the study of evolution, appears to have been one of the major forces shaping the history of life on earth.

For starters, evo-devo researchers are finding that the evolution of complex new forms, rather than requiring many new mutations or many new genes as had long been thought, can instead be accomplished by a much simpler process requiring no more than tweaks to already existing genes and developmental plans...But the advent of molecular biology reinvigorated the study of development in the 1980s, and evo-devo quickly got scientists’ attention when early breakthroughs revealed that the same master genes were laying out fundamental body plans and parts across the animal kingdom. For example, researchers discovered that genes in the Pax6 family could switch on the development of eyes in animals as different as flies and people. More recent work has begun looking beyond the body’s basic building blocks to reveal how changes in development have resulted in some of the world’s most celebrated of evolutionary events.

“This is the illumination of the utterly dark,†Dr. Carroll added.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26devo.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It explains nothing,

See above. And that just one of many, many things that have been made clear by evolutionary theory.

is flatly contradicted by the fossils

As you learned, there are so many transitionals that almost all major groups that were thought to be connected by other evidence, have transitionals between them. If you recall, you tried to find one that didn't and failed.

and most recently, its biggest crutch, natural selection has been shown to be so termite-ridden, it has collapsed under its own weight.

The quote-mined "proof" you offered, fell apart when I showed you that both scientists you cited thought that natural selection was essential. Remember when I told you that you'd do better by learning something about biology, instead of depending on those edited "quotes" you find on creationist websites?

It's true. Evidence can be hard to find, but it won't embarrass you like that.

 

[Asyncritus]

The quote-mined "proof" you offered, fell apart when I showed you that both scientists you cited thought that natural selection was essential. Remember when I told you that you'd do better by learning something about biology, instead of depending on those edited "quotes" you find on creationist websites?

Barbarian, I am getting sickened by your blatant lying. You continually bleat about 'quotemining' when in fact the quotes come from the original journals themselves.

You, on the other hand, have been shown to be quoting from somebody's profile of Lynch - and you didn't read the article he actually wrote. You presented it as if it came from Lynch himself - but that was another lie too.

Those are reportable offences.

Now the onus is on you to prove that

a.these are quotemines from creationist sites by citing and identifying the sites, and

b. that the authors were a pair of fools who couldn't or didn't understand what they had written but

c. needed your particular brand of casuistry (invented by the catholics, I believe) to misinterpret what they actually meant.

Please comment directly on the texts cited, instead of slickly evading the issues they raise. If you fail to do so, I will invoke my right to report your offensive and disgraceful behaviour.

These quotes are cut and pasted from my piece on Koonin.

Lynch who is an evolutionary biologist, said that ‘For example, Dawkins' agenda to spread the word on the awesome power of natural selection has been quite successful, but it has come at the expense of reference to any other mechanisms, a view that is in some ways profoundly misleading.’

Lynch (how appropriate a name!) goes on to say:

“What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms.”

WHAT DO 'PROFOUNDLY MISLEADING' and 'IN QUESTION' MEAN OR IMPLY?

Koonin:

“Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity”.

WHAT DID HE MEAN?

“The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution.”

In other words, Darwin’s idea explains nothing.

In fact, Koonin tells us exactly what Darwinism cannot explain:

“The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla.”

WHAT IS OMITTED FROM THE ABOVE LIST, THAT DARWINISM CAN EXPLAIN?

Now kindly speak truthfully and respond directly to the questions asked above.

If you can. of course.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian, I am getting sickened by your blatant lying.

I've never written anything here that I didn't believe to be true. Shame on you.

You continually bleat about 'quotemining' when in fact the quotes come from the original journals themselves.

I don't think so. As you learned, the "quotes" were carefully edited to make it look as though the authors believe what they clearly do not believe.

You, on the other hand, have been shown to be quoting from somebody's profile of Lynch

In fact, that was Lynch's own words. And you were caught by surprise because you never read the article. Here's what Lynch actually said:

“His calculations were very crude, but they’re not much different than what I got with real data,†he says. “The problem is that most mutations in humans do not have the effects of those readily observed for major disorders. They have very tiny effects that can’t be easily traced. You can say that’s good news for the newborn mutant. But the bad news is that mutations with tiny effects are the ones that most endanger the viability of the species because selection has such a hard time getting rid of them.†This causes an accumulation of deleterious mutations that can eventually lead to problems, particularly when modern medicine allows us to bypass natural selection."

As you see, the opposite of what you claimed. If you had actually read it, you would have known that Lynch does not claim what you said.

Those are reportable offences.

I think you just believed people you shouldn't have. As you see, Lynch considers natural selection to be essential in maintaining human fitness, unless we can find an alternative to do the same thing. There's no point in dodging it. There it is, in his own words.

Lynch who is an evolutionary biologist, said that ‘For example, Dawkins' agenda to spread the word on the awesome power of natural selection has been quite successful, but it has come at the expense of reference to any other mechanisms, a view that is in some ways profoundly misleading.’

Gould says the same thing. Both Gould and Lynch point to the necessity of natural selection to maintain fitness, but they consider the hyperselectionist ideas of Dawkins to raise natural selection to the point that other evolutionary processes are wrongly ignored.

Lynch (how appropriate a name!) goes on to say:

“What is in question is whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain the emergence of the genomic and cellular features central to the building of complex organisms.â€

Yep. In fact, as I showed you before, genetic drift also occurs, and the random sampling of organisms in allopatric speciation will help to determine the precise alleles that will be used by natural selection. Except for Dawkins and a few of his fellows, no Darwinian finds that odd. Darwin himself discussed the issue.

WHAT DO 'PROFOUNDLY MISLEADING' and 'IN QUESTION' MEAN OR IMPLY?

Calm yourself. It's not hard to understand.

"Profoundly misleading" means, as you should be able to see from his statement that the hyperselectionist position ignores the fact that there are other processes in evolution, some of which can contribute to speciation.

"In question" means he is asking if in fact, natural selection is necessary. As you see by his comments on human fitness, he concluded that it is.

“Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexityâ€.
WHAT DID HE MEAN?

Punctuated equilibrium. Most speciation, in his view, is allopatric, from small, isolated populations that will (from small gene pool) change more quickly than large groups, and will be less likely to leave a gradual series of transitionals. Remember Gould's observation that a few cases have such detailed transitionals, but most have transitionals at the level of genus or higher. Which is what we would expect to see, if allopatric speciation was the usual mode.

In other words, Darwin’s idea explains nothing.

As you learned, natural selection is directly observed to increase fitness.

In fact, Koonin tells us exactly what Darwinism cannot explain:
“The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla.â€

Of course, molecular biology, and even cellular anatomy were unknown in Darwin's time. However, as you learned, evolutionary development has shown how different phyla are differentiated by a remarkably few changes in homobox genes that are common across those phyla.

Evolutionary theory has moved on and we know a lot more than Darwin did. As you learned earlier, some of that cleared up some real problems with Darwin's theory. Would you like me to show you again?

 

[Free Christian]

What about the more recent missing link Archaeoraptor that was hailed as a proof missing link? As I believe it was actually different fossil bits "glued" together. :naughty

 

[Barbarian]

What about the more recent missing link Archaeoraptor that was hailed as a proof missing link?

A good example of why it's a bad idea to ignore what scientists say. National Geographic (a popular magazine) was offered the fossil. Scientists suggested that they wait for peer review before publishing it. But they went ahead and were embarrassed when scientists showed them that it was actually a composite of two different fossils (which turned out to be very valuable and important ones, after all).

If they had waited, they'd still have had a good story, and the right one.