Missing link found by Norwegian scientist

Honkytnkmn said:

Here's why I differentiate between adaptation and common descent. Adaptation says if you dump 500,000 worms in a tough environment some will die while the tougher worms will not. After a given period of time the tougher worms will adapt nicely to the environment. This is what I call adaptation.

What doesn't happen is a worm, no matter how much time is given, will not change or morph into something else. The information in the DNA is not there. Information does not get added over time, information is lost over time. For even the slightest addition to happen in DNA it would be a major leap.

A worm does not have any bones, a worms DNA does not have the information to produce bones. If for some reason, some worm was born with a minute microscopic piece of bone in its body, how did it produce this without adequate information to produce it. Also if it did produce it, what possible advantage would this give the worm in it environment and how would natural selection figure this out? Seems to me in order for this to work, thousands of worms would need to produce the same addition of information at the same time.

Mutation is the loss of information not the addition of information. We should be De-evolving if anything.

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This is really just bad info on DNA and mutatuios you are working with.
Please look into it some more.

I never had much interest in worms of any sort, I am more interested in the chordates / vertebrates.

From wormlike to something with legs is actually a logical progression of very small steps.

Start with something along the lines of Ammocetes or a lamprey. Those are similar to the early chordates from which fish etc evolved.

a fold in the skin along the lower sides makes for better swimming stability. Make the folds bigger. Stiffen it with some cartilage, like a picket fence. make then longer and stiffer. Calcify it a bit. divide the fin-fold into sections. reduce it to two sections. hmm.... looks a bit like fish fins with fin rays.

That is way compressed, but is essentially how it went. From fish fins to legs... well..that is pretty well documented in the fossil record, for those who care to look.

Thins is, once you get past that misinfo you got about the nature of DNA and mutations, and see in detail how some sequences go, then they make sense. As presented by you with the worms, of course its not so and nobody in his right mind would believe it.

Hope you will spend some time on how this stuff works. Its cool and interesting, and its not full of the logical and factual loopholes that the creosites wish to try to say it is.

Hespera said:

This is really just bad info on DNA and mutatuios you are working with.
Please look into it some more.

I never had much interest in worms of any sort, I am more interested in the chordates / vertebrates.

From wormlike to something with legs is actually a logical progression of very small steps.

Start with something along the lines of Ammocetes or a lamprey. Those are similar to the early chordates from which fish etc evolved.

a fold in the skin along the lower sides makes for better swimming stability. Make the folds bigger. Stiffen it with some cartilage, like a picket fence. make then longer and stiffer. Calcify it a bit. divide the fin-fold into sections. reduce it to two sections. hmm.... looks a bit like fish fins with fin rays.

That is way compressed, but is essentially how it went. From fish fins to legs... well..that is pretty well documented in the fossil record, for those who care to look.

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You're example above is very easy to understand, but you're missing millions of changes in between.

It is not well documented in the fossil record.

I do truly understand the concept, I just don't buy it.

Honkytnkmn said:

See thats why I hate that term. Adaptation explains it much better. A species can adapt to its environment but cannot evolve or morph or change into another species.

Why is it, that because I believe a species can adapt to its environment, I automatically have to believe that it can evolve to a new species? I see a distinct difference between the two.

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why do you think virtually every biologist is wrong about evolution? or better still, what makes you qualified to come up with a theory that is superior to that used by professional scientists?

Honkytnkmn said:

See thats why I hate that term. Adaptation explains it much better. A species can adapt to its environment but cannot evolve or morph or change into another species.

Why is it, that because I believe a species can adapt to its environment, I automatically have to believe that it can evolve to a new species? I see a distinct difference between the two.

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I wonder what bright line distinction you see? To me it seems so obvious that a whole long series of little changes takes you from one thing to something very very different.


When you talk about different species, you are not talking about big differences. Different genera..like cow and buffalo, can still breed sometimes. Different family like rodent and cow... nope, no interbreeding.


Interesting to me at least, is how in the study of vertebrate anatomy you can see the same organs in a progression of minor changes go from gill arch, say, to inner ear bones in mammals.

Back to "evolve a new species". Darwins famous finches did just as you say; adapted to the environment..... and a number of different species.
The differences potentially could just keep getting greater and greater. There is no obstacle to prevent that, no wall that says so far, no further.

Give it time and you get from amphibian to reptile, and so on.

Honkytnkmn said:

You're example above is very easy to understand, but you're missing millions of changes in between.

It is not well documented in the fossil record.

I do truly understand the concept, I just don't buy it.

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Out of all possible fields of scientific disciplines, why do you take exception of paleontology?

I might reject ToE too if all that was available was the fossil record. Turns out that literally every field of biology all support ToE, and none falsifies it. So, taken together, paleontology along with molecular genetics, anthropology, geology, astrophysics, biodiversity, biogeography, plate tectonics, botany, entomology and population genetics, overwhelmingly support ToE.

CACTUSJACKmankin said:

why do you think virtually every biologist is wrong about evolution? or better still, what makes you qualified to come up with a theory that is superior to that used by professional scientists?

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You're absolutely right. I don't have a degree in molecular genetics or biology so I guess I'm not intelligent enough to continue this debate.

I also don't have a degree in political science, so I guess I shouldn't vote.

Come to think of it I don't have a degree in Computer Science so I guess I shouldn't have started my own Networking company 10 years ago because what the H do I know anyway!

Honkytnkmn said:

You're example above is very easy to understand, but you're missing millions of changes in between.

It is not well documented in the fossil record.

I do truly understand the concept, I just don't buy it.

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We;ll, i guess you wont if you dont want to. I wonder tho how well you have really looked into the "missing millions" of changes. Because i really dont see how you can say that evolution is not well documented in the fossil record.

In the long run i guess it doesnt matter if you "buy" it, since nobody is really selling. You miss out on some very interesting things, but that is your deal. Dont miss out or reject it on some false basis tho.

If it were so easy to dispute and disprove as all that, then then you would not find the world scientific community accepting it. if it were not true, someone would easily find a way fo falsify it. Seriously, they would.

Honkytnkmn said:

You're absolutely right. I don't have a degree in molecular genetics or biology so I guess I'm not intelligent enough to continue this debate.

I also don't have a degree in political science, so I guess I shouldn't vote.

Come to think of it I don't have a degree in Computer Science so I guess I shouldn't have started my own Networking company 10 years ago because what the H do I know anyway!

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I dont mean dont think, i mean try to figure out why professionals think the way they do. chances are they accept evolution for very good reasons. try to learn.

Hespera said:

We;ll, i guess you wont if you dont want to. I wonder tho how well you have really looked into the "missing millions" of changes. Because i really dont see how you can say that evolution is not well documented in the fossil record.

In the long run i guess it doesnt matter if you "buy" it, since nobody is really selling. You miss out on some very interesting things, but that is your deal. Dont miss out or reject it on some false basis tho.

If it were so easy to dispute and disprove as all that, then then you would not find the world scientific community accepting it. if it were not true, someone would easily find a way fo falsify it. Seriously, they would.

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Its not that it can be proven false, but its the fact that it can't be proven true. If it was truly a fact like its put forth, there would be no doubt. We wouldn't have to discuss it any more. Is the earth round? yes fact we can prove it no debate.

Honkytnkmn said:

A good example is this.

If you have a data base of names, house numbers, streets, towns, zip codes and phone numbers and filled it with 1000 of your closest friends, you could write countless reports to pull this this information.

for example you could pull a report showing all your friends that have names beginning with R and what street they live on, ignoring the rest of the data. You could also run a report listing all your friends that live in Saybrook Oh.

you can't run a report pulling information of your friends birth dates, because that information is not in the database. you can ignore information that that is there and that information is still there, but you cannot pull information out of the data base that just isn't there. No matter how many reports you run it will never be there.

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But that's not how DNA works at all. I mean, not even close.

A database is a very rigid, structured thing. It is made up of discrete fields that hold disparate types of information (integers, strings, dates, etc.).

DNA is much simpler in structure. It is more like a text file with an alphabet of four letters. It is a very flexible format and only holds one type of information, templates for proteins.

But the question still stands. What in your eyes would be an "addition of information" to a strand of DNA?

Please, please, please answer this question directly. I've seen people go for pages trying to get this one simple question answered.

Honkytnkmn said:

Its not that it can be proven false, but its the fact that it can't be proven true. If it was truly a fact like its put forth, there would be no doubt. We wouldn't have to discuss it any more. Is the earth round? yes fact we can prove it no debate.

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That's what you're missing. It can be proven true, every fossil that is found, it fits nicely into ToE. Every time! No exceptions.

At some point in time, you must ask yourself why reasonable, rational people the world over, irrespective of their faith, wholly accept ToE.

The only people who take issue with ToE are fundamental christians who are insecure in their god and faith. They worship the Bible instead of what he has revealed to us in nature. I have this mental picture in my head of god scratching his head when looking down on his creation, and baffled as to why they are unwilling to believe what science shows to be true.

If there is a god, his creation is much more elaborate, intricate and amazing than is decribed in Genesis one and two.

Just out of curiosity, what do you "buy," quantum mechanics or theory of relativity as the best description for time and space?

Honkytnkmn said:

Its not that it can be proven false, but its the fact that it can't be proven true. If it was truly a fact like its put forth, there would be no doubt. We wouldn't have to discuss it any more. Is the earth round? yes fact we can prove it no debate.

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Are you aware that there are people alive today that believe the Earth is flat? I'm not making this up.

Like you say, the round Earth is a demonstrable fact, yet there are people out there who won't accept it. Evolution is equally demonstrable, yet here you are.

I will admit, evolution is more complex and subtle, but the evidence behind it is easily as solid as the evidence for the round Earth.

LifeToTheFullest! said:

It can be proven true, every fossil that is found, it fits nicely into ToE. Every time! No exceptions.

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That's because you make up the categories as you go along.

As I have said before, if you want us to believe macroevolution, show me a computer model of the fossil BEFORE you find it --- not AFTER you find it.

AV1611VET said:

That's because you make up the categories as you go along.

As I have said before, if you want us to believe macroevolution, show me a computer model of the fossil BEFORE you find it --- not AFTER you find it.

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Not true. AKA a lie.

Prediction: Common ancestor will have nails instead of claws. Lemurs have claws, Ida has nails. This is one of thousands of ToE predictions that are without fail proven every time.

Postdictions are what creos do. They find a passage in the bible, claim it somehow fits science, then says 'see, told ya the bible is true.'

See the difference? (not that it matters, you left reason behind a long time ago)

LifeToTheFullest! said:

Prediction: Common ancestor will have nails instead of claws.

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Way too vague.

What I'm talking about is predicting an animal, from head to toe, then discovering it.

Don't you think it's interesting that when they make a discovery, it's always:

• Geologists discover fossils, which they name [insert new name here].

How's come the articles don't read:

• Geologists finally found [insert predicted name here].

It's always named AFTER they find it, not BEFORE.

Honkytnkmn said:

You're absolutely right. I don't have a degree in molecular genetics or biology so I guess I'm not intelligent enough to continue this debate.

I also don't have a degree in political science, so I guess I shouldn't vote.

Come to think of it I don't have a degree in Computer Science so I guess I shouldn't have started my own Networking company 10 years ago because what the H do I know anyway!

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I have the utmost respect for people who can go out and actually do things!
So far im not in that category so....call me a work in progress... hope I can say as much for myself as you can for yourself.

I hope nobody esp me seems to be on your case like snob oh you dont know you are uneducated... if I ever do that, then just slap my face good.

There are plenty of people with college degrees who dont seem to have learned a thing. and certainly dont have any sense.

Here is a thought, maybe analagous to some of your reservations about evolution and its reality.

I dont know much about computers, i am just not interested. So, if i watch a movie where they are doing this or that, why, I may believe it is how they really work, that its things you can really do.

I wont go to a poly sci major, a geneticist or a creationist website for info. I will go ask you.

Some of us here know a good deal about the ToE, and there are good sources of info that know a lot more!

Like I said, it doesnt really matter to anyone but you what you do or dont understand. But I am enthusiastic and interested, so I like to share.

Maybe if we were out fishing or something, and theres lots of time, you'd be interested to tell me things you know about comps and networking.

When i hear tired od mistaken creosite arguments brought in, its kind of the same from me as it would be for you if you were explaining networks and i said, no that cant be coz i saw a movie where...

LifeToTheFullest! said:

That's what you're missing. It can be proven true, every fossil that is found, it fits nicely into ToE. Every time! No exceptions.

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Everytime? That's a bit of a stretch, as not every single fossil EVER found fits right into the theory of evolution. What about hoax fossils? There were many fossils found the were "fit" into the ToE, only to be found 40 years later they were an absolute hoax, Piltdown in specific. How many other "fossils" are out there sitting in the puzzle that just truly don't belong there? I believe in evolution entirely - actually, I trust it in. There isn't anything TO believe. It's a fact, it's observed. It's observed like me putting a pepsi can in my mouth and drinking it. There's no denying it. But, to say EVERY SINGLE fossil is a bit absurd at best. So no, it cannot always be proven every fossil or futhermore every "historical" piece ever found is true, or that would mean Piltdown, Minnesota Iceman, Carl Baugh, and so on are true as well (though we thought they were over period of years till we found they were not).

LifeToTheFullest! said:

If there is a god, his creation is much more elaborate, intricate and amazing than is decribed in Genesis one and two.

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The Bible doesn't specifically state how God created everything, nor does Koran, or any other Holy book. Genesis says in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. It doesn't say how, when, using what methods, and so on. So, the truth is, we don't really know and it's probably for our best interests not to take Genesis literally, nor any other Holy Book, as they provide meaning, not specific facts that did happen in the way described. All Holy Books are full of myths and stories but that doesn't mean they are lies. Many Holy Books contain many absolute true things that we can verify today. They (holy books) have a story behind them in which we should interpret as a meaning, not so much to take as a literal truth. Man and women were not made from dust, and there most likely wasn't a first man and women that just came about, because biology doesn't work that way. I believe, however, that man did eventually rebel, go angry, and go against God, which caused our downfall as we see in this very world today. If you do study books such as the Bible, Koran, and so on - you can see many things described in them also relate to things that Indians and such experienced as well, so I do believe some things, such as floods that many generations passed on, did happen, just not in the sense of Noah's Ark for example.

AV1611VET said:

Ya --- good point.

As long as we have about 10 or so, who cares about the other several quadrillion?

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theres probably only about fourty. Quadrillion? Really? I don't even thin theres that many species that hve eve existed on earth, past present and possibly future.

lol You think theres a quadrillion different species of animal on earth?

Also, if wcould find oh, say, a trillion of them, people like AV would still be saying "Well they havnt found the 100 trillion others, so, evolution is still in the air and the jury is still out; creationism ftw"

gimmie a break....irrefutable evidence right in front of our faces and its still ignored.

oh, but., wait, why am I surprised?