Barbarian observes:
That's true of almost every transitional. You expect a combination of primitive and derived features, since a smooth change in all features would be more like ID than evolution.
I'm sorry, that sounds like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Darwin expected a smooth transition.
Show us that one. Sounds like you're talking out of a different orifice entirely.
We can perhaps understand the apparently quicker rate of change in terrestrial and in more highly organised productions compared with marine and lower productions, by the more complex relations of the higher beings to their organic and inorganic conditions of life, as explained in a former chapter. When many of the inhabitants of any area have become modified and improved, we can understand, on the principle of competition, and from the all-important relations of organism to organism in the struggle for life, that any form which did not become in some degree modified and improved, would be liable to extermination. Hence we see why all the species in the same region do at last, if we look to long enough intervals of time, become modified, for otherwise they would become extinct.
Charles Darwin,
The Origin of Species
A recent thread here posted a picture of a red-blue gradient as an example of how evolution works.
Which is often true. What you are demanding of evolution that it change all features at once, at the same rate. But that's not how it works. Every transitional, as Gould remarked, is a mosaic, with some advanced, and some primitive features. Why would you expect everything to change at once?
[/quote]I doubt you would be disturbed if a fossil turtle were found to be all primitive. [/QUOTE]
If it was entirely primitive, it wouldn't resemble a turtle. Think about it.
Barbarian observes:
For example, teeth are a very primitive feature in reptiles. No advanced turtle has them.
I hope you don't mind when I call you on circular logic.
Nice try. But the earliest anapsids had teeth. Some later ones, like turtles, didn't.
One must first assume evolution in order to declare features "primitive" or "advanced."
That's already settled. Even the Institute for Creation research admits that new species, genera, and familes evolve. It's an undeniable fact.
Further, can you tell me what specifically goes into the creation of teeth?
The evolution of teeth goes back a long, long way. But let's take a look...
The evolution of teeth: word of mouth
The classical view of the evolution of vertebrate teeth is the 'outside-in' model, in which the oral cavity and oral teeth arise from the ectoderm by invagination. A study of transgenic axolotls (a type of salamander) now suggests that the picture is more complicated than that. Fate mapping of cells in the embryo reveals that oral teeth are derived from both ectoderm and endoderm: some even have a mixed ecto/endodermal origin. This implies a dominant role for neural crest mesenchyme over epithelia in tooth formation. The evolutionary implication is that the tooth-forming capacity of neural crest cells was the essential factor for teeth evolution, regardless of the 'outside-in' and 'inside-out' manoeuvres of the epithelium.
NatureOct 2008
In my experience, it is the evolutionists who are constantly minimizing and reducing the complexity of nature to make evolution more palatable and believable.
Mostly because you don't have a very good idea of the way it works. In reality, as you see, it's quite complicated.
That is a fallacy and dishonest, and goes against the very spirit of science.
Perhaps if you learned a little about the way it works...
The "missing" top shell is a secondary loss.
Barbarian observes:
The evidence suggests otherwise.
I'm sorry, I was just going by what Nature said.
No. If you did that, you've had seen this:
Odontochelys is more primitive than Proganochelys1 in presence of teeth on premaxilla, maxilla and dentary; relatively long preorbital skull; distinct transverse process on pterygoid; absence of fully formed carapace; no acromial process on scapula; dorsal ribs articulating at midline of centrum; free sacral ribs; free caudal transverse processes; presence of long tail; four (rather than three) phalanges in digits III and IV of manus and pes; absence of osteoderms and tail-club. Odontochelys shares with Proganochelys primitive features that are absent in Casichelydia: teeth on vomer and pterygoid; open basicranial articulation; dorsal epiplastral process (also present in Kayentachelys6); broad and plate-like coracoid; ilium with short dorsal shaft; hypoischium present; distinct gular projections on epiplastra. Testing the phylogenetic relationships (see Supplementary Information) of Odontochelys confirms its position as basal to all other known turtles, fossil or extant (Fig. 3e). The relationships of turtles with other amniotes have been controversial1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. The inclusion of Odontochelys in the analysis of turtle relationships within amniotes (see Supplementary Information) supports the position of turtles within diapsid reptiles.
Originally Posted by
Barbarian At any rate, the author who submitted the article in Nature is not asserting that it is. What is suggested is that it might be.
which is precisely what I said. Why are you trying to make it seem I do not know what I am talking about?
I don't need to do that, now, do I?
I'm a very patient guy.
Barbarian observes:
They misled you about that, too. For example, an advanced turtle would have no teeth. Humans have no functional tail now, just a vestigial trace of it.
How long have you been in the creation/evolution debate?
Hmmm... about 35 years.
Nobody cares about "microevolution" and loss of complexity.
Creationists were trotting out that red herring, even then. Actually, as you just learned, much of evolution is reduction in complexity, such as in our vestigial tails.
We observe both all the time. What evolution skeptics want to see is evidence of added complexity.
Loss of teeth in birds is added complexity.
If turtles came from bacteria, as evolutionary theory asserts, there must have been an increase in complexity.
No kidding. But turtles came from other reptile, not bacteria.
Barbarian asks:
So you're saying that the addition of a shell is a "loss of genetic information?"
The loss of half a shell from a more robust "turtle" kind is a loss of a feature.
You do know that the loss of a feature may involve an addition in genetic information, don't you?
As you just learned, the large number of primitive characteristics in this proto-turtle makes it clear that it is a very early member of the group, not an advanced turtle that lost shell and gained teeth.
