I am still waiting for and ID/creationist proponent to explain the nested hierarchy.
As I have said before, I learn a lot researching for this forum. What is a nested hierarchy, why does loudmouth always come back to them. Then I came upon this little explanation and it seemed to back what I thought. What I thought was that common traits in different organisms doesn't necessarily speak of a common ancestor but of a common designer.
Read and see what you think.
Indeed, we can see the nested hierarchy more clearly if we disregard evolution. Why? To illustrate, if we invoke Darwinian evolution we would have to say the nesting goes like this:
FISH are the common ancestors of humans, birds, and frogs. Ergo birds nest within fish, and so do humans, and so do frogs. That is what Theobalds Markov chain would predict in terms of nesting. But the actual anatomical/taxonomic nesting tells a different story: fish are fish, humans are not fish, birds are not fish, frogs are not fish. Are you going to believe Theobalds Markov chains that you are a fish or are you going to believe youre a human and not a fish?
To try to nest humans with fish because we supposedly descended from them is at variance with the nested hierarchy we would build by simply looking and comparing traits instead of fabricating Darwinian stories.
One might argue that if Markov processes dont support nested hierarchies at the anatomical level, Markov processes support nesting at the molecular level. But hierarchies at the molecular level create nasty problems of their own like having to invoke molecular clocks (which have been refuted). See:
Zuck is out of luck
Nested hierarchies might be produced by Markov chains, but that is not the only reason nested hierarchies exist for functioning architectures. For example, in the world of man-made machines, there arent fully functioning vehicles with 2.3 wheels there are 2-wheeled, 3-wheeled, 4-wheeled vehicles, etc
The notion of even a conceptual transitional (from 2-wheeled to 3-wheeled) via small steps makes little sense. There is no transition, but rather a leap, per saltum.
Further, intelligent agents create nested hierarchies, not only out of necessity but out of their sense of aesthetics. In the world of classical music there are somewhat well defined music forms: sonatas, minuets, concertos, symphonies, operas, variations, nocturnes, preludes, etudes, rhapsodies, etc. These forms create nested hierarchies and have little to do with Markov chains. So to claim that nesting is the result of common ancestry is only based on the presumption that mindless processes were at work but that is no proof whatsoever, and worse, the nesting reinforces the notion transitionals never existed even in principle, and thus the missing links will remain missing, and thus the nesting in evidence today is actually anti-Darwinian.
One can, just by looking at traits, assemble creatures into nice nested hierarchies. They look at first like they descended conceptually from a common ancestor, but the problem is they all look like siblings with no real ancestor. In fact, many times a common ancestor doesnt seem possible in principle.
For example, what is the common ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates? Err, crash
hard to conceive of even in principle. Its like looking for a square circle. Those gene sequence worshippers argue the genes show there was a common ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates, but they seem to have problem describing anatomically what it would look like. Google common ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates and try to find even a hypothetical description of what the common ancestor could look like even in principle. Maybe the lack of transitionals suggest there werent any.
In sum, the nested hierarchies in taxonomy dont need Darwinism, in fact, Darwinism distorts the ability actually see the nested hierarchies, and finally nested hierachies based on taxonomy are evidence against Darwinism.
