Creation vs. Evolution

[Warthaug]

You missed the question. There is a rather dramatic leap from land-borne to air-borne. Name One fossil that is an example of an "almost flying" insect or pre-bird... AFAIK we don't have any examples.
Rick

Actually, in the case of birds, we have quite a few. There is a well described fossil progression from dinosaurs to birds, with intermediary species showing the evolution from land-based dinosaurs, to what we believe are gliding dinosaur/bird intermediaries, to primitive birds (Archaeopteryx). Someone linked to a good webpage on this before, perhaps they'll throw that link in again.

I found this news article. Not exactly the best, but it does describe a dinosaur that was in the earliest stages of becoming a bird:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9806/23/feathered.dinosaur/

Bryan

 

[MikeFerrara]

"The answer you are giving people each time can be boiled down to: Bible = Truth anything that contradicts it = false. "




It is not the literal answer you gave, but it appears to be the core argument behind your posts, i.e. boiled down to...

To put it another way, please show one example where you posted that you agree with something that contradicts the bible or a post where you say the bible is wrong.

I may have missed it as I occasionally wonder away from the thread and 300 posts go by.

Look at all the responses I gave to items off the lists that Thal posted. Maybe I failed but I tried to clearly show that what the Bible said was not what the list claimed that it said. Of course I didn't agree with the contradictions in the list that I addressed. I picked what you might call the LOW hanging fruit. I went after the stuff that was so obvious the even the most novice could spot them a mile away. I mostly went after the ones that were so easy that we didn't even need to talk about whether or not the Bible was correct because it's easy to show that the Bible didn't even say what they claim it said.

For instance...where they claimed that the Bible called a whale a fish...simply not true. Not one of the references they gave mentioned a whale at all...EVER.

Pick another, if there's one where you don't think I was clear and I'll try again.

In the example you brought up about Jonah not being able to spend three days in the GREAT FISH...It's an account of a miracle. It's obvious to me that the Bible isn't claiming that it's a natural occurance that would be possible without the intervention of God. Now you can argue that miracles aren't possible or that there is no God or whatever but to argue it based on the likely hood that the average person could spend three days in the belly of the average fish doesn't seem relevant because that IS NOT what the Bible said happened.

 

[H2Andy]

If I'm correct in thinking I understand this, literally at an instant when a mother gave birth, (with different species throughout time) she gave birth to a different species. Because at some point, the DNA compatibility went from, "can breed" to "no can breed" (to original parent stocks which hadn't mutated or changed). There would be no "maybe". Correct? This is what I see being questioned. At some point this had to have happened.

put it this way:

a bunch of wolves break off the rest of the wolves and start breeding amongst themslves. they happen to have a larger percentage of large wolves, so they start getting bigger. then it gets really cold, and those with thick fur survive more and so reproduce more.

so after a while, you have larger, furrier wolves.

at this point, both "tribes" can mate and have children, which look like a cross between the two parents (where dogs are today).

due to the extra cold, they have to change their hunting tactics and those who can hunt by themselves rather than in a pack survive and breed.

thus, you end up with larger, furrier, solitary hunting wolves. since the new "animal" is solitary now, it has real trouble relating to the pack-mentality of the other wolves, so they really don't have much contact anymore. inter-breeding pretty much ends.

still, it is cold, and there's not much to hunt. some of the "new" wolves start swimming in streams after prey. those with bigger paws do better, so their paws get larger as this gene is passed down to other generations.

then, the fur of some of the wolves being oilier allows them to survive better. you end up with very oily-furred wolves that can thrive in the new environment.

it has been such a gradual change that at any time, a parent and an off-spring can mate, but if you look at what you started with:

wolves that hunt in packs

and what you ended up with:

large, solitary, slick-hared animals, with huge paws, that swim and hunt by themselves

you have two rather different species already, their DNA different enough that they probably wouldn't be able to have succesful offpsring

if you keep adding small changes over time, you can end up with any of a number of species

 

[Soggy]

Anyway, even if you could dream up a scenario where the evolution of wings would make sense, where's the fossil record?
Rick

Right here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC214.html

 

[Rick Murchison]

Isn't there a fish that leaps out of the water as if it's flying?

Who is to say that in another million years that it won't be able to really fly AND breathe air??

Ah, the transition from flying through water to flying through air is much easier to imagine - sort of makes one wonder, since fish have fins anyway, why we don't have true flying fish - or mammals that have evolved from maritime to flight. It's the land critters that are missing. Why would an intermediate legs-to-wings be an advantage, why would it be selected? Remember, a non-guided selection must have an immediate advantage; a selection with some future advantage only makes sense if one puts a little ... guidance ... in the mix
Rick

 

[lamont]

P
Would it be possible to monitor changes in DNA in each generation bred under the pressure, using PCR? One could record changes over say, 10 generations and exrtrapolate that in XXX many more generations, we would now have only 90% common genes? (in 10,000 years?) and thus a non compatible breeding capacity with parent stock DNA?

sequencing complete genomes of a single individual of a species is still a pretty large undertaking -- look at the human genome project. when we get it to the point where university campuses have labs on there where you can squirt a sample into a machine and come back later that day and have the compete sequenced genome spit onto a hard drive studies like that will become more reasonable.

on a smaller scale you can always look at individual genes and study the changes in small sections of the DNA between different individuals...

 

[Warthaug]

If I'm correct in thinking I understand this, literally at an instant when a mother gave birth, (with different species throughout time) she gave birth to a different species. Because at some point, the DNA compatibility went from, "can breed" to "no can breed" (to original parent stocks which hadn't mutated or changed). There would be no "maybe". Correct? This is what I see being questioned. At some point this had to have happened.

No, you've got it wrong. Because this change occurs over many generations the difference between the mother of the new species would be able to breed with the new species (there are exception to this).

But, if you were to compare the great-great-great-great-great (times that a few thousand times, I don't have the time to type out "great" another 25,000 times) grandmother to the new species, they wouldn't be able to interbreed. You would see an ability (probably quite limited) between in the "mother" of the new species and the greeeeeaaaaaaaaat-grandfather to interbreed.

A more relevant example would be if you had one species that got separated into two groups, and you kept one group the same while allowing the other one to differentiate into another species. Over time the two would become less and less able to interbreed, and eventually loose the ability to interbreed all-togeather.

Horses and donkeys are a good example of a species on this crux - they can make offspring (mules), but those mules are almost always sterile. However, once in a while (about once a decade) you do get a fertile mule. Given another few thousand years of divergent evolution horses and donkeys will likely become 100% independent species, with no ability to produce viable offspring (meaning offspring which can have kids).

Bryan

 

[H2Andy]

Why would an intermediate legs-to-wings be an advantage, why would it be selected?

flying might have started as "jumping" to feed from higher plants or trees

slowly, animals who could "flap" their front apendanges better could get to the better food sources and surive, passing the genes on

those animals who could stay "airborne" the longer could also avoid predators more effectively, so they were able to pass their genes on in larger numbers

so eventually, you had animals that didnt' have to come down to earth at all, but could fly from tree to tree.

there are, btw, several solutions to this problem (i can also think of giraffes and flying squirrels)

 

[Thalassamania]

Isn't there a fish that leaps out of the water as if it's flying?

Who is to say that in another million years that it won't be able to really fly AND breathe air??

Seeing that a few members of such water-breathing classes as the Crustacea and Mollusca are adapted to live on the land, and seeing that we have flying birds and mammals, flying insects of the most diversified types, and formerly had flying reptiles, it is conceivable that flying-fish, which now glide far through the air, slightly rising and turning by the aid of their fluttering fins, might have been modified into perfectly winged animals. If early transitional state they had been inhabitants of the open ocean, and had used their incipient organs of flight exclusively, as far as we know, to escape being devoured by other fish? Charles Darwin

 

[Soggy]

=Pick another, if there's one where you don't think I was clear and I'll try again.

Noah and the ark. How is it possible? As I understand it, God gave a command, and Noah followed without intervention from God. He, as a mortal (a 700 year old mortal!?), managed to build a wooden ark of impossible size, get every single species on board, and keep them alive with only 7 days notice.

Please tell me how we can reconcile the impossibility of this situation with a literal interpretation of the Bible.