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Typical response. You answer to a question with another question and you say very much while saying nothing at the same time. I am so tired to read those long texts that say nothing at the end. I have no idea where you get your energy to daily post so much stuff while saying nothing.



This is a topic about evolution. When you guys run out of answers, I'm not going to let you change the subject or use an appeal to authority in place of a debate. If you guys don't have an answer, or you don't feel like continuing the line of discussion, the only way its going to end is if you stop talking, or come up with a response, or admit you don't have an answer.

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At the end I would be happy when you dismiss Matt_AufderHeide so that he can go back to design the Sphere2 plugin. This would really change the world of so much users here. But responding to Irish_Farmer seems to be like running into a big stone wall.



I'm not making Matt do anything he doesn't want to do.

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Just my own way of thinking since I admire the Sphere plugin way more than this discussion here



If you didn't post anything in this thread, no one would know the difference.

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I dont think you do understand; its not just something "in common", its a set of traits that appear first in the ealiest fossil, and then appear only in the specific line shown subsequently. The traits are specific, and are observed by measuring and comparing shapes and so on. The comparisons arent just made between single features; there are likely sets of specific points of interest that are always common.



Ok, you seem pretty sure of this. What are these convincing traits found in common between the terrestrial animals and the whale-like animals? Just simple examples, you don't need to go in depth. (I'll give you a hint, shape of the middle ear, and also teeth, scientists admit everything else between whales and land mammals are so different its hard to tell).

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Your objection to the size of the total animal is weak, becasue size is very rarely dependent on bone structure, and can vary dramatically even within a closely related family. For instance, dolphins and blue whales are clearly related closely, but dolphins are only a few feet long, whereas blue whales are more than hundred feet long.



Ok, the ambulocetus fossil is about 7 feet or 2 meters. Basilosaurus, that whale like creature, is about 70 feet or 21 meters.

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For instance, dolphins and blue whales are clearly related closely, but dolphins are only a few feet long, whereas blue whales are more than hundred feet long.



So there's no transition in size and bone structure that explains the difference between a four legged animal and giant swimming mammal, and that's ok because dolphins and whales are closely related but are different in size? That's a pretty weak explanation.

Ambulocetus presumably was built to walk on land. Its hard to say since we're missing what looks like 90% (at least) of its spine and all of its hip. Then basilosaurus is completely built for aquatic motion. Where's the transition?

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I'm not not sure where you get your evidence, and how you can make such a claim. This is is muddled thinking.



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Recent cetaceans [modern whales and dolphins] are very different to other mammals, so another question that has dogged this field is that of which group of mammals contains their closest relatives--which is their "sister group"? The cranial and skeletal anatomy of cetaceans is highly modified compared with that of land mammals, and fossils of early cetaceans are so rare and generally incomplete, that the affinities of the group are difficult to establish. On the basis of tooth and ear morphology, palaeontologists contend that cetaceans are most closely related to the mesonychians--a group of extinct ungulates from the early Tertiary. But molecular biologists favour hippos--which form one of the families of modern even-toed ungulates (artiodactyls)--as the sister group.



Muizon, Nature, Vol. 413, 20 September 2001, “Walking with whales”, page 260

In other words, the skulls and skeletons are so different from land mammals that there its difficult to draw a clear line. They assume its because evolution changed whales too much to be able to figure it out. I assume its because whales didn't evolve.

You'll also notice the problem here. Based on teeth and ears, they must have evolved from the wolfish mesonychians (which lead to pakicetus etc). However, DNA evidence suggests they evolved from the same ancestors as modern hippos and cows and camels and so on (artiodactyl). It seems the fossils and the DNA are having a hard time figuring out what happened.

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Thewissen and colleagues' discovery allows us to address both of these problems. The newly found fossils include several skulls and postcranial bones from two early pakicetid species--which, it seems, had the head of a primitive cetacean (as indicated by the ear region) and the body of an artiodactyl. All the postcranial bones indicate that pakicetids were land mammals, and it is likely that they would have been thought of as some primitive terrestrial artiodactyl [goat-like animal or even toed ungulate] if they had been found without their skulls. Many of the fossils' features--including the length of the cervical vertebrae, the relatively rigid articulations of the lumbar vertebrae, and the long, slender limb bones--indicate that the animals were runners, moving with only their digits touching the ground.



Same source.

In other words, we determined their relationship based on the middle ear. But if you chose other 'basal' traits you could draw other radically different lines if you wanted to.

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I'm not sure what your objection really is, because as said before, we can't get genetic materials from fossils.



Of course, but if you combine the fossil record with DNA relationships of modern animals, the lineage becomes blurred, as in this case where you either have to ignore the DNA evidence, or the fossil evidence. Let me know if you still don't catch that, because I may not be giving all the details.

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Again, your point is made wihtout any attempt to show why this is wrong. Whether or not you "worry" about it, its certainly showns that natural selection can operate on organism, in the way Darwin predicted.



I can't even count the number of times I've explained by bacterial 'evolution' isn't evolution at all. I'll give a quick recap, since you seem to have forgotten. Bacteria can exchange genetic information via plasmids, etc. Virii can carry genetic data back and forth. Mutations can switch off control (for instance, losing control of enzyme production, which would normally make you less fit because you're wasting resources) etc. Otherwise, resistance is already programmed into the population, and those who don't have resistance are just killed off. That's selection, which has the effect of loss.

This doesn't involve new information, and certainly doesn't conclude that evolution is possibly in the slightest.

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There is no real reason that I know of that would prevent such a coexistence as such. But since all the evidence points to the conclusion that they didn't coexist, so why should be we beleive otherwise? No higher mammals seems to have come into existence until after the dinosaurs died out. There is no reason to suppose that hominins existed more than a few million years ago.



Ok then, besides the accepted evolutionary timeline, there's no reason it isn't possible.

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Why did you ask that question?



Because when I made a joke about evolution and abiogenesis having no proof you asked what my proof of God is. Let's use an example dialogue to illustrate why this makes no sense, if you don't mind.

"UFOs abducted me and put a probe in my butt."

"What proof do you have of this?"

"What proof do you have that God exists?!"

Yeah....

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It has enough to do with it, but you feel to uncomfortable about the subject "i can't proof God exists" i guess.



I don't feel the need to distract from the topic at hand. I must be doing something right, because otherwise you might have an actual response.

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It's a freaking miracle a large amount of people still believe in God, as if he's fact, eventhough there's absolutely NO evidence.



Oh, I see. I was a fool not to believe whale evolution made sense, because there's no reason to believe in God. What was I thinking.

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You claimed before that scientists just 'guessed around a bit with no proofs', I said, take a look at yourself first .. Where's the proof for God ("guessing withouth proof" ) and where's your proof for 'scientists guessing without any proof to back it up'?



Your defense of whale evolution or any other scientific nonsense can't be, "Well, what about your proof of God?" But I don't really need to keep restating the obvious over and over.

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That's what I said, you started about abiogenesis and evolution in your very first reply on this comment, I wasn't even talking about that.



You quoted me on abiogenesis and evolution.

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If you would understand basic geology and would understand the fossils that have been found, then this would be clear already. Even when you don't 'trust' the absolute dating methods, relative dating also points out that it's clearly impossible. There hasn't been a single human fossil found in the same fossil strata as any random dinosaur.



The question was hypothetical. Having nothing to do with fossil evidence and only to do with wondering what would stop it from happening.

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My position is more valid, because I do not believe in things as if they are facts when there's no evidence.



Another way of saying, "My position is automatically valid because you believe in God without proof."

You disbelieve God without proof.

Your position doesn't make any more sense than mine. You can't prove God doesn't exist, so its a possibility. There are many reasons to believe in God. My ancestors believed He exists, there's a book with prophecies that have come unquestionably true, there's a creation that's consistent with the God of the bible, there are consistent accounts of God written by different people over thousands of years, and out of all other religions christianity is the most scientifically consistent, excluding 'scientific' stories of long, long ago. Its been consistent with all reproducable, testable, and falsifiable sciences.

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It's simply stupid to believe in a flying spagetti monster from mars, when there's nothing at all, not even something slightly pointing in that direction.



Yeah, nothing at all, like say a perfectly ordered universe that almost seems completely suited for life, and even exists in the first place. But that's another topic.

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A book is a rather unreliable source,



And your own internal psychological workings are more reliable? Or did you read somewhere that there isn't any proof of God? What makes that more reliable.

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Again, just empty words, no backing up with facts. Put your money where your mouth is and show us that they even act like this please.



"All scientists agree with evolution."

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It's not even needed as a defensive argument, but it is a fact nonetheless.



So you don't have to defend whale evolution or anything else, because evolution doesn't have all the answers. It needs to have all the answers or its useless.

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I hardly believe you would want to convince me, but even then if you really COULD, then what in the world would have stopped you from comming with the overwhelming evidence and crush all of our arguments in favor of evolution?



I never claimed to have overwhelming evidence. Besides we're not arguing over evidence, we're arguing over suppositions.

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I expected the evidence right about here as a reply,



Well, then I'm happy to disappoint you. This isn't a topic of religion or faith. Its a topic on evolution. I expected an actual rebuttle to any of my objections about a page ago, but I have yet to see any.

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If creationism is false, would it prove that God doesn't exist?



That's the one problem with creationism. It isn't falsifiable, in the sense that there's so much evidence for it, all you can do is try and rationalize the evidence in favor of some other idea like say a superstitious belief in chance, or some other nonsense.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 07/04/06 18:58.
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