I agree that it could cause errors, but I think I have demonstrated that the issue is much less dire than you and others were insisting. Do you agree?
I admit I jumped to conclusions and probably blew the problem out of proportion. How dire the classification situation actually is remains a point of speculation.
Also your running counter-argument has been based on the claim that ontogeny is rigorously checked for by studying histology and other character traits directly, but it would appear that such inquiries are not even considered if the samples are found in different rock layers. I feel that was an important point of clarification.
Again, that's not really what I was saying. What I mean is this: disputing conventional geology as a means of rebutting the refutation I made for your non-evolutonary interpretation of the Triceratops example (misclassification or ring "species"), implies that you are currently unable to refute the reasoning of those arguments without directly disputing geological interpretation. Is this correct?
Well, even in a deep-time model it may still be explained by the fortuitousness of fossilization of progressively isolated breeds over millions of years (no evolution of new traits, simply altered expression of pre-existing ones) and the fossilization merely giving the illusion of anagenesis and leaving no trace of the contemporaneous breeds, but I would never argue that point because I absolutely dispute all of the deep-time geological interpretations.
I'd still like some clarification. Do you imagine that the flood moved through the area, picked up one morph, deposited it, picked up the next morph, deposited it and so on? Or do you picture the flood moving through the area, sweeping up the range of morphs and then depositing them in the order in which they were encountered? In other words, was each morph suspended and deposited individually or were all the morphs suspended before any were deposited?
I couldn't say. That would probably depend on how close in proximity their original habitats were and how far they were transported.
Either way your flume video doesn't seem relevant. The stratification seen there is the result of different flow velocities acting on different sized grains. The Triceratops species in question are both effectively the same size and shape, so the mechanism seen in the video would not have any ability to sort them stratigraphically.
They wouldn't be mechanically sorted like the grains, they would simply be carried in sediment and buried in the chronological order that they arrived at the depositional environment in question, much like objects sequentially dropped into a river would be deposited in a downriver delta correspondingly.. At least that's what I'm picturing off the top of my head and I don't see an obvious problem with it.
ETA: Also, I'm still interested in hearing your response to this:
Fossil assemblage X shows that Australia and Antarctica were at one time attached.
- If Australia had shared assembalge X with North America instead, this would not invalidate the theory of plate tectonics.
- Despite this, assemblage X still provides evidence that Australia was attached to Antarctica and thus that plate tectonics is a real process.
Please tell me which point you disagree with and your reasoning for disagreeing.
I disagree with the 2nd point.
If the nature of assemblage X could be fundamentally different and still accommodated by plate tectonics theory, then you cannot say that the actual nature of assemblage X is evidence for plate tectonics theory. You can only say that plate tectonics accommodates that particular data. It would be dishonest to claim assemblage X is evidence that plate tectonics theory is true.
It would be sort of like me claiming I have psychic abilities because I can predict that a penny will land on either Heads or Tails. (not unlike Evolution theory in many ways)
