Do you agree with these statements?

inquiring mind said:

Ha, you wouldn’t believe it if someone showed up with a video of it all.

Click to expand...

Well, have you not *seen* the quality of modern CGI?

In seriousness though, I just treat it on par with other fantastic tales, myths, legends, etc, from various cultures in our history. I don't have any reason to treat the accounts in the Bible any different.

Radagast said:

That merely tells us something about what you read.

Click to expand...

Which apparently is that the majority of Bible scholars think the Gospels were not eyewitness accounts.

pitabread said:

Well, have you not *seen* the quality of modern CGI?

In seriousness though, I just treat it on par with other fantastic tales, myths, legends, etc, from various cultures in our history. I don't have any reason to treat the accounts in the Bible any different.

Click to expand...

It’s just funny to me how a few decades are so bewildering an issue to you here, but you are convinced you know exactly what happened in deep time with an evolution process.

inquiring mind said:

It’s just funny to me how a few decades are so bewildering an issue to you here, but you are convinced you know exactly what happened in deep time with an evolution process.

Click to expand...

I never said that I know "exactly what happened" re: deep time and evolution.

That's a strawman caricature of your own making.

What I have repeatedly said is simply that the evidence supports common ancestry of all living things on this planet. That's it.

Nicely put. If only my palaeontology lecturer had you to assist him in the lecture hall. Well, perhaps. He struggled with it as much as everyone else. If quoting is in vogue, how about, "Every time I look at a zebra, I can't tell whether it's white with black stripes or black with white stripes, and that frustrates me." I forget the author. My palaeontology lecturer was a strange, cold fish -- brilliant, mind you -- in some ways I try to avoid being like him and please don't take any of this to heart. Sing with the birds and emulate the flowers.

1. Do you agree that if you have a group of animals - say a herd of zebra - then each individual will be slightly different to the others? Irrelevant to the subject, Sorry. Species amongst sexually reproducing organisms are defined by the so-called 'sex cells' -- not by outward appearance. If one zebra happened to not have stripes but could successfully reproduce successful progeny with striped zebras, the unstriped zebra would yet be a zebra. 100%. And it would only be a leopard (even if it had spots instead of stripes) it would only be some other species if it had the sex cells and genes of that other species. Outward appearances notwithstanding. The word, species, comes from the same root as the word, special. So Darwin wrote a book with a title implying the existence of definable species, the contents of the book relying on species grading into each other and therefore not existing as definite units. No future in citing hybrids -- that's a longish story but hybridization does not equal speciation. Obviously. We could have infinite numbers of species if hybridization did the trick. Catdog womcat cowhorse manbear....... .
2. Do you agree that some of those differences can make it easier for that individual to survive - say, better eyesight so it has a better chance of spotting an approaching predator? Self evident. But, along with our lecturer, we here encounter an old conundrum. Many creatures -- Man being a prime example -- many creatures, although obviously adapted for survival, are lacking features which would make them better able to survive. In the wild, anyways. And some of those features serve no purpose unless we factor Man into the equation. It's a lot easier to milk cows than some other animals because most cows have a sizeable udder! The udder does not assist the cow! Horses are designed to take the bit and carry the saddle. How does that help horses? Dogs are Man's best friend -- and, strangely, they can do things not required of them out in the wild. Man wasn't here when dogs arrived.
   
3. Do you agree that these differences are due to the genes that the animals have?Self evident. But the animals don't have the genes so much as the genes resulting in the animal having its characteristics. The information, married with life, results in the organism. It's all to do with information married with life. A species is defined by information producing a body. Which is vivified.
4. Do you agree that the genes that are responsible for these differences can be passed on to the offspring when that animal reproduces? You are referring to Mendelian Heredity, which obeys mathematical rules and those rules absolutely insist that genetic information is passed on. That is why we can not have apes in our genetic repeat genetic ancestry. We would be taking our babies to the zoos, not the kindergartens. HOWEVER. Neo - Lamarckism, which has birthed alongside something called Epigenetics, seems to point to DNA having a sort of 'memory' capacity. This remains obscure but it is self-evident that if an organism was to be transformed into a different species and environment-triggered memorized requirements were inserted permanently into its re-programmed DNA at the moment of species transformation -- we begin to see how evolution was achieved. Real rocket science, plus. Real rocket science. Beyond rockets.
5. Do you agree that if an animal has some genes that mean it has a difference that helps it survive, this animal is more likely to have more offspring precisely because these differences help it live longer (living longer means more chances to reproduce)? Self evident. This is why some species are much more prolific and successful than others.
6. Do you agree that if animals with these helpful differences produce more offspring, then the number of animals in the herd that have this helpful difference will tend to increase over the generations? Self evident. That's why God factored in predators -- so we wouldn't be overrun by cockroaches and other greeblies.
   
7. Do you agree that if we wait for enough generations to pass, most if not all animals in the herd will have this difference, and what was once different is now normal? Do you agree that if an animal has some genes that mean it has a difference that helps it survive, this animal is more likely to have more offspring precisely because these differences help it live longer (living longer means more chances to reproduce)? So Mr Darwin (to his sensible wife's alarm if not distress!) wrote a book about how species got here in which we start out as bed bugs or other greeblies (giant sea scorpions?) and by becoming more different over time became, perhaps, zebras or ring tailed 'possums. Darwin did not know squelch about genes, heredity, sex cells, DNA, or even the atom. His book's title denies its content -- he claims species grade into each other -- and therefore do not exist. He was publicized by T.H. Huxley, an intellectual bully who advized him to abandon the endless time idea and go for Nature somehow 'making leaps'. Natura non facit saltum. That pair -- along with the spiritist! Alfred Wallace, was it? never had a clue. Mrs Darwin was the one, loving, caring, moderating factor. All this time, real scientists such as Lamarck, Buffon, Cuvier and Sir Richard Owen had been working on it. With the advent of modern information technology and biology, Owen's Archetype, strongly foreshadowing information driven transformers, takes centre stage. I cover this and more at Creationtheory dot com. You have provided a classic outline of this matter. I once argued along precisely the same lines. It didn't do me any harm. Science has advanced.

Genetics was never my strong point but having stumbled about in these fields for some time I came to the inevitable conclusion that we are indeed dealing with something that puts rocket science back in its simplistic place! Darwin was living in a world shielded from necessary intricacies of mind blowing proportions. Many have followed his lead, to be inevitably re-educated at last! If we go to the trouble of reading the extract from a learned evolution site below, we are perhaps startled to learn that in terms of raw genetic information alone, all living things are really quite similar. It is the information systems of the biosphere that blow the mind. Below the (italicized) extract is a brief extract from my site. I set about to determine the facts. We are now within sight of the possibility of discerning what actually happened at species transformation -- it has to have been truly sophisticated. You will understand that we are not chimpanzees -- but it is not because we have dissimilar genetic information. It is because we can not mate with them so as to have viable offspring. This immediately destroys Darwin's hypothesis, because his hypothesis demands a chimp-like creature changing so much it became a human. At some moment in this progressive change, the chimp-like creature was yet a chimp. The very next generation, it was fully human. There is no other way --- unless something which no longer can happen in the biosphere, happened in the past! Species transformations did happen, millions of them. What happened at species transformation?
The often-mentioned fact that humans and chimpanzees are 99.9 percent identical in their DNA is hard to accept for some people, who can't comprehend how we could share so much of our basic genetic endowment even with the most humanlike ape. Yet this genetic similarity is very real, and it dramatically shows how parsimonious natural selection can be -- it reuses genes and structures that have worked well in the past.

It was also mind-boggling when, in 1987, British researchers demonstrated that a human gene could be inserted into the cells of a lowly yeast -- and it functioned perfectly well. In this landmark experiment, researchers Paul Nurse and Melanie G. Lee showed that the gene in question, one that controlled the division of cells, was extremely similar despite the fact that yeast and the distant ancestors of humans diverged about 1 billion years ago.

How did new species arise? Extract from creationtheory dot com -- (also found in my book, The Tree of Life and the Origin of the Species.)

The answer to this question must meet the following requirements:
1. Explains adaption of new species to environment.
2. Explains how new species can arise without being the genetic offspring
of an old species.
3. Explains how species are functional units built from discrete packages of information (the platypus, for example, is obviously the outcome of a selective process acting on a finite number of discrete packages of information -- those discrete packages of information also being available to birds, mammals and reptiles.) ................ .

Philip Bruce Heywood said:

Genetics was never my strong point but having stumbled about in these fields for some time I came to the inevitable conclusion that we are indeed dealing with something that puts rocket science back in its simplistic place! Darwin was living in a world shielded from necessary intricacies of mind blowing proportions. Many have followed his lead, to be inevitably re-educated at last! If we go to the trouble of reading the extract from a learned evolution site below, we are perhaps startled to learn that in terms of raw genetic information alone, all living things are really quite similar. It is the information systems of the biosphere that blow the mind. Below the (italicized) extract is a brief extract from my site. I set about to determine the facts. We are now within sight of the possibility of discerning what actually happened at species transformation -- it has to have been truly sophisticated. You will understand that we are not chimpanzees -- but it is not because we have dissimilar genetic information. It is because we can not mate with them so as to have viable offspring. This immediately destroys Darwin's hypothesis, because his hypothesis demands a chimp-like creature changing so much it became a human. At some moment in this progressive change, the chimp-like creature was yet a chimp. The very next generation, it was fully human. There is no other way --- unless something which no longer can happen in the biosphere, happened in the past! Species transformations did happen, millions of them. What happened at species transformation?

Click to expand...

You seem to be struggling still with the concept that there must be a "hard line" between species. You are correct in your assumption that species are generally characterized by their lack of interfertility with other populations, but during speciation there will generally be an extended period of partial interfertility with the parent population of the new species.

Philip Bruce Heywood said:

Genetics was never my strong point but having stumbled about in these fields for some time I came to the inevitable conclusion that we are indeed dealing with something that puts rocket science back in its simplistic place! Darwin was living in a world shielded from necessary intricacies of mind blowing proportions. Many have followed his lead, to be inevitably re-educated at last! If we go to the trouble of reading the extract from a learned evolution site below, we are perhaps startled to learn that in terms of raw genetic information alone, all living things are really quite similar. It is the information systems of the biosphere that blow the mind. Below the (italicized) extract is a brief extract from my site. I set about to determine the facts. We are now within sight of the possibility of discerning what actually happened at species transformation -- it has to have been truly sophisticated. You will understand that we are not chimpanzees -- but it is not because we have dissimilar genetic information. It is because we can not mate with them so as to have viable offspring. This immediately destroys Darwin's hypothesis, because his hypothesis demands a chimp-like creature changing so much it became a human. At some moment in this progressive change, the chimp-like creature was yet a chimp. The very next generation, it was fully human. There is no other way --- unless something which no longer can happen in the biosphere, happened in the past! Species transformations did happen, millions of them. What happened at species transformation?
The often-mentioned fact that humans and chimpanzees are 99.9 percent identical in their DNA is hard to accept for some people, who can't comprehend how we could share so much of our basic genetic endowment even with the most humanlike ape. Yet this genetic similarity is very real, and it dramatically shows how parsimonious natural selection can be -- it reuses genes and structures that have worked well in the past.

It was also mind-boggling when, in 1987, British researchers demonstrated that a human gene could be inserted into the cells of a lowly yeast -- and it functioned perfectly well. In this landmark experiment, researchers Paul Nurse and Melanie G. Lee showed that the gene in question, one that controlled the division of cells, was extremely similar despite the fact that yeast and the distant ancestors of humans diverged about 1 billion years ago.

How did new species arise? Extract from creationtheory dot com -- (also found in my book, The Tree of Life and the Origin of the Species.)

The answer to this question must meet the following requirements:
1. Explains adaption of new species to environment.
2. Explains how new species can arise without being the genetic offspring
of an old species.
3. Explains how species are functional units built from discrete packages of information (the platypus, for example, is obviously the outcome of a selective process acting on a finite number of discrete packages of information -- those discrete packages of information also being available to birds, mammals and reptiles.) ................ .

Click to expand...

Chimps are modern apes. The ancient relative that we shared with chimps was no more "chimplike" than it was "manlike". The concept of a change of kind is a creationist strawman. There is no change of kind in evolution. There is only speciation.

And no, Darwin's theory does not predict that we should be able to interbreed with chimps. The ability to interbreed gets weaker and weaker as speciation occurs until two populations are not able to interbreed at all. We can see this in all stages in existing life.

Speedwell said:

You seem to be struggling still with the concept that there must be a "hard line" between species.

Click to expand...

I think he has a pretty good grasp on it myself.

Speedwell said:

You are correct in your assumption that species are generally characterized by their lack of interfertility with other populations

Click to expand...

I'm sure I've seen that pointed out somewhere.

Speedwell said:

but during speciation there will generally be an extended period of partial interfertility with the parent population of the new species.

Click to expand...

That's a lot of white space between the dots. So, let’s just fill in all that fertilization instability and genetic speculation with natural selection... that should work.

Subduction Zone said:

Chimps are modern apes. The ancient relative that we shared with chimps was no more "chimplike" than it was "manlike". The concept of a change of kind is a creationist strawman. There is no change of kind in evolution. There is only speciation.

Click to expand...

Change within a kind then...variation???

Subduction Zone said:

And no, Darwin's theory does not predict that we should be able to interbreed with chimps. The ability to interbreed gets weaker and weaker as speciation occurs until two populations are not able to interbreed at all. We can see this in all stages in existing life.

Click to expand...

Almost like they never could???

inquiring mind said:

Change within a kind then...variation???

Click to expand...

Creationists cannot even form a working definition of "kind" much less establish one.

Common descent appears to be the only answer.

Almost like they never could???

Click to expand...

No, they are close enough genetically so it appears that they could in the past.

In the natural world the first thing that occurs on the route to speciation is some sort of separation of populations. As time goes on natural differences add up. The first step tends to be enough of a change so that members of the different populations no longer recognize the others as being of the same species. They won't mate under normal conditions. Then increasingly reduced fertility of offspring if they do manage to mate. When the offspring of two groups become effectively sterile speciation is complete. They have passed the point of no return. An obvious one are horses and donkeys. They can breed with each other but their offspring Are sterile. There was one female mule that was fertile, but I am pretty sure her offspring was not fertile. She was a dead end. We see the same with tigers and lions. Their offspring are very fragile (though large) and they have greatly reduced fertility making them ultimately a dead end to genetically. There is no going back for those two groups.

For chimps and humans we really do not know. There are rumors of attempts by Russians, but I think they may have made the mistake of using orangutans, even more distant relatives of ours. It is possible if you found an unprincipled scientist that this could be accomplished using artificial insemination, but I am not ready to endorse such an experiment. The attempts are not well documented. No known successs:

Humanzee - Wikipedia

inquiring mind said:

I think he has a pretty good grasp on it myself.

Click to expand...

As long as he thinks of it as a qualitative change he's got it wrong.

I'm sure I've seen that pointed out somewhere.

Click to expand...

Any basic biology text, for instance.

That's a lot of white space between the dots. So, let’s just fill in all that fertilization instability and genetic speculation with natural selection... that should work.

Click to expand...

It's been observed. No speculation required.

I actually went to a university where the lecturers weren't completely off the planet. Professor (the late) Dorothy Hill, contributor to The Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology, the world standard text. She was a real scientist. Her descriptions of extinct species was an art form. Never used the word evolved once in anything I read. Never failed the cause of objectivity in science by seeing what she wished to see because of politico-religious correctness. Never made up fairy tales about her specimens being transitions in the never-never. The second in command was in fact inclined towards Darwinism but was much more inclined towards honest appraisal. There is a plant fossil with the name, Playfordii, so that gives his name and his standard.
These people were payed good money to identify stratigraphic sequences utilizing what are called trace fossils. How do you suppose you manage stratigraphic correlation if species don't exist. Exact, immutable, reliable. SPECIES.
I have personally logged enough drill core to stretch half way across New York. The city, not the State. My lecturers were correct on every point.
Some lecturers haven't got a clue what lies beneath their feet. We aren't talking about a couple of half rotten human bones. We are dealing with hard evidence -- buildings full of fossils and libraries full of descriptions. A stratigraphic correlation that revealed the history of the Earth. The correlation was well underway pre-Darwin. If Darwinism were factual, of course, there would be no reliability in fossil identification. And no taxonomy bar nebulous fractions. Who wishes to be one part human and ten parts wobbygong? The fossil record proves a), the immutability of species, from the bottom to the top; b), species transformation -- which happened abundantly in the past, but has not been clearly demonstrated as having happened since Adam. Guess why? Because all physical life was revealed through a mechanism -- an analogue of the way new growth breaks out on trees -- thus, the Tree of Life -- and that mechanism was barred from Mankind when Mankind was in his infancy. Skip the fairy stories.

Philip Bruce Heywood said:

I actually went to a university where the lecturers weren't completely off the planet. Professor (the late) Dorothy Hill, contributor to The Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology, the world standard text. She was a real scientist. Her descriptions of extinct species was an art form. Never used the word evolved once in anything I read. Never failed the cause of objectivity in science by seeing what she wished to see because of politico-religious correctness. Never made up fairy tales about her specimens being transitions in the never-never. The second in command was in fact inclined towards Darwinism but was much more inclined towards honest appraisal. There is a plant fossil with the name, Playfordii, so that gives his name and his standard.
These people were payed good money to identify stratigraphic sequences utilizing what are called trace fossils. How do you suppose you manage stratigraphic correlation if species don't exist. Exact, immutable, reliable. SPECIES.
I have personally logged enough drill core to stretch half way across New York. The city, not the State. My lecturers were correct on every point.
Some lecturers haven't got a clue what lies beneath their feet. We aren't talking about a couple of half rotten human bones. We are dealing with hard evidence -- buildings full of fossils and libraries full of descriptions. A stratigraphic correlation that revealed the history of the Earth. The correlation was well underway pre-Darwin. If Darwinism were factual, of course, there would be no reliability in fossil identification. And no taxonomy bar nebulous fractions. Who wishes to be one part human and ten parts wobbygong? The fossil record proves a), the immutability of species, from the bottom to the top; b), species transformation -- which happened abundantly in the past, but has not been clearly demonstrated as having happened since Adam. Guess why? Because all physical life was revealed through a mechanism -- an analogue of the way new growth breaks out on trees -- thus, the Tree of Life -- and that mechanism was barred from Mankind when Mankind was in his infancy. Skip the fairy stories.

Click to expand...

Sounds like Last Thursdayism to me.

Correction to my above. Not trace fossils. That refers to tracks etc. Index fossils. Suitable for hopefully locating the time planes in strata.

Philip Bruce Heywood said:

I actually went to a university where the lecturers weren't completely off the planet. Professor (the late) Dorothy Hill, contributor to The Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology, the world standard text. She was a real scientist. Her descriptions of extinct species was an art form. Never used the word evolved once in anything I read. Never failed the cause of objectivity in science by seeing what she wished to see because of politico-religious correctness. Never made up fairy tales about her specimens being transitions in the never-never. The second in command was in fact inclined towards Darwinism but was much more inclined towards honest appraisal. There is a plant fossil with the name, Playfordii, so that gives his name and his standard.
These people were payed good money to identify stratigraphic sequences utilizing what are called trace fossils. How do you suppose you manage stratigraphic correlation if species don't exist. Exact, immutable, reliable. SPECIES.
I have personally logged enough drill core to stretch half way across New York. The city, not the State. My lecturers were correct on every point.
Some lecturers haven't got a clue what lies beneath their feet. We aren't talking about a couple of half rotten human bones. We are dealing with hard evidence -- buildings full of fossils and libraries full of descriptions. A stratigraphic correlation that revealed the history of the Earth. The correlation was well underway pre-Darwin. If Darwinism were factual, of course, there would be no reliability in fossil identification. And no taxonomy bar nebulous fractions. Who wishes to be one part human and ten parts wobbygong? The fossil record proves a), the immutability of species, from the bottom to the top; b), species transformation -- which happened abundantly in the past, but has not been clearly demonstrated as having happened since Adam. Guess why? Because all physical life was revealed through a mechanism -- an analogue of the way new growth breaks out on trees -- thus, the Tree of Life -- and that mechanism was barred from Mankind when Mankind was in his infancy. Skip the fairy stories.

Click to expand...

Hill definitely accepted the fact of evolution. In her business there is no more need to discuss the obvious facts that fossils are transitional than there is need for a weatherman to point out that water is wet.

You do not seem to realize that we have gone far beyond Darwin's original theory. It has been changed and adapted as we learned more and more. Once again, evolution is the only concept supported by scientific evidence. What would you propose in its place? More important, what reasonable test would show that your idea is wrong?

Philip Bruce Heywood said:

Correction to my above. Not trace fossils. That refers to tracks etc. Index fossils. Suitable for hopefully locating the time planes in strata.

Click to expand...

Index fossils do not refute evolution. They only show that gradualism is not correct.

The concept of punctuated equilibrium is almost fifty years old. It too has changed a bit since it first appeared:

Punctuated equilibrium - Wikipedia

Philip Bruce Heywood said:

How do you suppose you manage stratigraphic correlation if species don't exist. Exact, immutable, reliable. SPECIES.

Click to expand...

It's worth noting that the species concept as it applies to fossils is different than species concepts as they apply to living things.

Fossil species are identified strictly based on morphology. Whereas living species are classified in a variety of manners.

Although Charles Darwin and others posited that multiple species could evolve from a single common ancestor, the mechanism by which this occurred was not understood, creating the species problem. Ernst Mayr approached the problem with a new definition for species. In his book Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942) he wrote that a species is not just a group of morphologically similar individuals, but a group that can breed only among themselves, excluding all others. WIKIPEDIA.

The aim of all thinking palaeontologists is to fulfil the requirements of this worldwide, common sense definition. Will we stop the fairytales. Mayr's definition, obviously, could be taken almost implicit word for implicit word from the Bible. And from Nature about us. We spent hours learning about the species problem in palaeontology. Now where did I put Geoff. Playford's old notes? 'Phone him up if he's yet alive. Tell him it's a wobbygong calling.