Creationism=religious philosophy, evolution=science

Oncedeceived said:

Well not actual dino's of course. Therapsids are dinosaur like creatures which are considered the ancestor prior to dinosaurs. They died out prior to the dinosaurs long reign and because I was doing a quick answer I know that the African ape was preceded by other mammal ancestors.

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Others have kindly provided us with the proper names.
Namely Wiccan and

USincognito said:

Vertebrta (beings with backbones including fish)
Sarcopterygii (lobe finned fishes)
Reptile is an anachronistic clade so Amniota (terrestrial vertetrates with amniotic eggs)
Sinapsidia (the amniote lineage that separates "reptiles" {turtles, crocs, dinosaurs and birds} from our mammal progenators
Mammalia (devided into Protheria - Monotremes and Theria subdivided into Metatheria - Marsupials and Eutheria - placental mammals)
Euarchontoglires (rodents, rabbits and primates)
Primata, Catarrhinies, Hominidae, Hominines, Homo

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The point to it all is though that we still are all of the above, we never stopped being any of those.

So a finch, will never stop being a finch no matter what happens to it. So the objection 'its still a finch' is basically nonsensical.
Either you do not realize this, hench this explaination. Or you do and merely expressed your arguement poorly, in which case id recommend revising it.

Exiledoomsayer said:

The point to it all is though that we still are all of the above, we never stopped being any of those.

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Indeed! For example, amniota? We still produce the corresponding structures to eggs within the placenta.

Wiccan_Child said:

It's not just a gap in the evidence, it flies in the face of every piece of evidence uncovered.

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*bump*

How do you reconcile Genesis with science, OD?

Wiccan_Child said:

OK, but that doesn't change anything. According to evolution, the descendents of a finch will always be finches. Evolution prohibits the descendents of an organism in a particular one taxon from leaving that grouping.

Evolution says that one species will split into several distinct species, which will in turn split further into more species. But, they are all descended from that original species, and so retain that name. They're all species of finch because they all descend from the original, single species of finch. The word 'finch' therefore has moved from a label of a single species, to the label of a genus, to the label of the family Fringillidae.

Pointing out that these birds are still finches (or that speciated fruit flies are still flies, or that nylon-eating bacteria are still bacteria) is baffling: of course they're are, that's the whole point! If the descendant of a finch was anything but a finch, then evolution would be disproven.

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*bump*

What is your response, OD? Do you see why 'finches are still finches' is not only not anti-evolution, but decidedly pro-evolution? The descendents of finches are finches and always will be finches, and evolution tells us why.

Exiledoomsayer said:

Others have kindly provided us with the proper names.
Namely Wiccan and


The point to it all is though that we still are all of the above, we never stopped being any of those.

So a finch, will never stop being a finch no matter what happens to it. So the objection 'its still a finch' is basically nonsensical.
Either you do not realize this, hench this explaination. Or you do and merely expressed your arguement poorly, in which case id recommend revising it.

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However a finch wasn't always a bird according to evolutionists, but evolved from a dinosaur. This is asserted despite the fact that modern birds predate archaeopteryx by more than 75my.

Chinese Discovery Shows Famous Fossil Not Ancestor Of Modern Birds

So if you are saying a finch will always be a finch and more importantly a bird, then that agrees with creationists assertions that the bird kind was always the bird kind and never was anything else.

Astridhere said:

However a finch wasn't always a bird according to evolutionists, but evolved from a dinosaur. This is asserted despite the fact that modern birds predate archaeopteryx by more than 75my.

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Well, yea. It's been known for a long time that Archaeopteryx isn't the direct ancestor of modern birds, but a cousin that resembles that ancestor at that time.

Astridhere said:

So if you are saying a finch will always be a finch and more importantly a bird, then that agrees with creationists assertions that the bird kind was always the bird kind and never was anything else.

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Indeed, and evolutionists have never said anything else. However, while the descendents of a finch will always be a finch, that doesn't mean they'll always be of the same species. The single species, 'finch', has split into a number of species, all in the taxon 'finch'. These species will probably split into separate species in the future. But all these species will still be 'finch'.

The point is that whenever a Creationist "Herp derp but they're still finches!", we evolutionists roll our eyes and mutter silent prayers for patience. The point isn't that they're still finches, but that one species has become several.

Loudmouth said:

Let's put this another way. Which of your genes is from a giraffe? How does giraffe DNA make its way into the human gene pool?



The glofish carries an exact copy of a jellyfish gene. We don't need to observe the insertion of the DNA into the glofish to know this. Also, the hierarchy is determined by shared characteristics, not by man.



There is a rule called the nested hierarchy, and the glofish is a violation of that rule.

So if humans can break the rule so easily, why couldn't God do it?



Not for the species that Darwin was focusing on, which are macroscopic, multicellular animals.



So why don't we see a node connecting bats and birds that does not connect all mammals and all birds?



Since mammals evolved from reptiles, why is this a problem? Isn't this exactly what we should see if mammals evolved from reptiles?

Mammals did not evolve from birds, so you should never see a mixture of derived bird and mammal features, AND YOU DON'T.

This is how you test the nested hiearchy.



Does a lung fish have reptilian scales? Nope. You fail.



Not the same thing. The insertions are not identical, and the mutations acquired since insertion have differed in each species, just as the nested hierarchy expects we should see.



I have shown just the opposite, and you continue to ignore it.



The characteristics a species has is the characteristics it is assigned. Why is that so hard to understand?



A species with feathers and mammary glands would be a transitional bird/mammal, a transitional that the theory of evolution says that we should NOT see. A transitional which breaks the nested hierarchy falsifies the theory of evolution. Therefore, the theory is testable, and it has passed those tests.

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Isn't the truth that there are many contradictions to nested hierarchies that are passed off as convergent evolution.

What is most confronting is to say that a whale is an even toed ungulate, then offer specimens such as a mouse deer, Indohyus, then a crocodile looking creature, ambulocetus natans, as evidence of this supposed nested hierarchy.
In bats and whales, convergence in echolocation ability runs deep

Likewise modern birds have been found to predate archaeopteryx and arch is an evolutionary dead end. Some researchers no longer maintain that birds evolved from dinosaurs at all. So how on earth do you make nested hierarchies out of contested and debated ancestry. You simply cannot say that you can if you do not know who is who in the zoo. The best you can say is although you have no idea what is related to what or how, you know it all evolved and that is just that.

Humans and chimps likewise are more than 30% different. Some creature had to be more like mankind than another. It happens to be chimps for the moment according to DNA but ornagutans according to morphology.

Orangutans May Be Closest Human Relatives, Not Chimps

All that nested hierarchy means is that scienctists can come up with the criteria they want, ignore what doesn't fit, then apply their own criteria as proof of the assumption the criteria was based on...common descent.

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Wiccan_Child said:

Well, yea. It's been known for a long time that Archaeopteryx isn't the direct ancestor of modern birds, but a cousin that resembles that ancestor at that time.


Indeed, and evolutionists have never said anything else. However, while the descendents of a finch will always be a finch, that doesn't mean they'll always be of the same species. The single species, 'finch', has split into a number of species, all in the taxon 'finch'. These species will probably split into separate species in the future. But all these species will still be 'finch'.
How convenient that now evolutionists assert there will never ever be any more evolution in finches. They will always be birds despite continuing to have microadaptive changes like colour and beak size and possibly being given another species name.. A bird will always be a bird will it? Well that's great as you have just attested that evolution is dead. The other extrapolation is not only will a finch always be a bird it has always been a bird and none of its ancestors were dinosaurs.

More importantly I have the weight of current scientific research, as biased as it is, still on my side, in that you have no idea what the ancestry of birds is. You have modern birds predating their ancetors yet you continue to sprook about how great evo science is...... It is actually as clear as mud and muddy waters is all you have to present as evidence.
The point is that whenever a Creationist "Herp derp but they're still finches!", we evolutionists roll our eyes and mutter silent prayers for patience. The point isn't that they're still finches, but that one species has become several.

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Likewise creationists roll their eyes when evolutionists produce debated and inconsistent ancestry eg birds, then try to flogg off any of it as evidence.

.

Astridhere said:

How convenient that now evolutionists assert there will never ever be any more evolution in finches.

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Err... what? Of course they'll still evolve. The point is that they'll evolve and stay

Astridhere said:

They will always be birds despite continuing to have microadaptive changes like colour and beak size and possibly being given another species name.. A bird will always be a bird will it? Well that's great as you have just attested that evolution is dead.

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No, I didn't. Whoever said evolution is dead? A bird will always be a bird, but those species will still evolve into new and wonderful forms. As I stated (and as you apparently ignored), species will split into new species. One species will diversify into many. This is evolution. All those species will still be 'finch', but they'll also be future evolutions of the original species of 'finch'.

Astridhere said:

The other extrapolation is not only will a finch always be a bird it has always been a bird and none of its ancestors were dinosaurs.

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Unfortunately for you, your oversimplification is incorrect.

Astridhere said:

More importantly I have the weight of current scientific research, as biased as it is, still on my side, in that you have no idea what the ancestry of birds is. You have modern birds predating their ancetors yet you continue to sprook about how great evo science is...... It is actually as clear as mud and muddy waters is all you have to present as evidence.

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Err... what? It's been known for a while that Archaeopteryx wasn't the direct ancestor of modern birds. Nonetheless, it still provides exceedingly good evidence for evolution: evolution explicitly predicts that there were feathered lizards, creatures that were more reptilian than modern birds, but more avian than ancient reptiles. Lo and behold, we found fossils of these creatures. These creatures existed, and their existence was predicted by evolution before they were discovered. They constitute evidence of evolution. That Archaeopteryx isn't the direct ancestor of modern birds is neither here nor there: the science that has deduced this, is the same science that tells us that birds did have an ancestor that was not dissimilar to Archaeopteryx, Protoarchaeopteryx, and all the other winged dinosaurs.

Astridhere said:

Likewise creationists roll their eyes when evolutionists produce debated and inconsistent ancestry eg birds, then try to flogg off any of it as evidence for bird ancestry.

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Well, it is. Nothing you've presented has in any way dented the case for birds' reptilian ancestry.

Astridhere said:

Isn't the truth that there are many contradictions to nested hierarchies that are passed off as convergent evolution.

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No. However, there are bald assertions made by creationists like yourself.

In bats and whales, convergence in echolocation ability runs deep

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And yet when you align the whole sequence you get the expected nested hierarchy.

Likewise modern birds have been found to predate archaeopteryx and arch is an evolutionary dead end.

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Name one modern bird species that predates Archy.

Some researchers no longer maintain that birds evolved from dinosaurs at all.

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They are in the extreme minority. Some scientists do hold on to their pet hypotheses well after they have been disproven. All you are evidencing is stubborness.

So how on earth do you make nested hierarchies out of contested and debated ancestry.

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Through shared and derived characteristics, like always.

You simply cannot say that you can if you do not know who is who in the zoo. The best you can say is although you have no idea what is related to what or how, you know it all evolved and that is just that.

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We do know what is related to what, despite your protestations. Sorry, but you don't get to throw out 150 years of collected knowledge just because you don't like it.

Humans and chimps likewise are more than 30% different.

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Not when you compare base pair to base pair. There is only a 1.5% difference, or a 5% difference if you factor in indels. Mazzy . . . err, Astridhere, you should probably quit using this number without noting that the 30% difference is from 30 bp comparisons. IOW, if 1 base pair is different amongst 30 base pair then it counts as 0% homology in your book. That's not a fair comparison.

Some creature had to be more like mankind than another.

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Not across the entire genome. It is entirely possible for one human gene to be more like a bear and another to be more like a jellyfish if evolution is not true and creationism is true.

It happens to be chimps for the moment according to DNA but ornagutans according to morphology.

Orangutans May Be Closest Human Relatives, Not Chimps

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Another study roundly rejected by the vast majority of the scientific community.

All that nested hierarchy means is that scienctists can come up with the criteria they want, ignore what doesn't fit, then apply their own criteria as proof of the assumption the criteria was based on...common descent.

.

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That's simply not true. You are another creationist in a long line of creationists who ignore the facts. The nested hierarchy is a fact. You need to start dealing with it.

Loudmouth said:

Through shared and derived characteristics, like always.

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That doesn't answer the question. You must mean chance and necessity, which isn't a viable option. As previously given, Creationism can adequately explain any holarchy. A system is comprised of integrated components which make up the whole. We see that in man with the cell, tissue, organ, system, body.

In regards to the nest, the entirety of life in spiritual terms, can be thought of to be within one body- God, and different planes of life representing the multifaceted nature of life, interdependent, and function as a collective whole.

In regards to the entirety of life in the physical, the ecosystem can be thought of to be one system, which when combined, makes up the biosphere- a body.

Within systems we see holarchies all the time. Vehicles can be put into a nested hierarchy. The process would have to be stopped on a normal basis to establish the demarcation lines but seeing that Darwinists can simply scribble new nodes, give funny names or HGTup when encountering newly discovered organisms, this can be done instead.

When viewing an ecosystem as a whole with multiple interrelated parts, it's comparable to a single car, a human body, or a building. A building as a system forms a holarchy. As you will see in architectural depictions. Group Theory and Architecture, 1.

To draw up a holarchy for vehicles, one can establish a system working together for a common good instead of moving around arbitrarily. The UPS delivery system for example, which is comprised of the trolley upon which cargo is placed (there can of course be multiple types of trolleys). The ground vehicle which has the characteristics of a trolley plus an engine and larger cargo space. An airplane which is the trolley and the car combined plus airworthiness. And a ship which may also be a car and a trolley combined plus seaworthiness.

UPS: We ♥ Logistics Commercial - YouTube

Greg1234 said:

As previously given, Creationism can adequately explain any holarchy.

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That's the problem.

Astridhere said:

However a finch wasn't always a bird according to evolutionists, but evolved from a dinosaur. This is asserted despite the fact that modern birds predate archaeopteryx by more than 75my.

{snip URL}

So if you are saying a finch will always be a finch and more importantly a bird, then that agrees with creationists assertions that the bird kind was always the bird kind and never was anything else.

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Wow. Just when I think Astrid can't make any greater fool of herself than she has by repeatedly posting photos of Salem and calling him Lucy, repeatedly posting photos of a modern human skeleton and calling it Lucy, by repeatedly referring to Turkana boy and saying he was an "ape" because of his jaw - despite many Creationists including local "hero" Mark Kennedy insisting he was a "human" despite his pathological brain size, by trying to call out the ERV phyologenies by citing the non-orthologous PtERV paper, by saying that Lucy looks more like a "Bornean orangutan" than a human, again, despite not even knowing what Lucy's skull reconstruction looked like, etc. etc. She trots out this loser of an "argument"?

The dino-bird Archaeopteryx went extinct and isn't the ancestor of modern birds - which, by the way, didn't live at the same time it did - and are descended from other dino-birds instead, therefore this means bird evolution is false and all of evolution is too.

Wow. Just wow. Keep posting garbage you "learned" from Creationist websites and ignorance based Web searches Astrid. Your smugness, at this point, is slightly more sufficiently entertaining than the frustration caused by your obvious lack of a grasp on the subject is... at least for now.

Loudmouth said:

That's not it. We suspect that natural phenomena are due to natural causes, and then WE GO OUT AND FIND THEM. This pursuit has led to the knowledge we have today. Your method, of claiming that God did it, has not led to any knowledge of how the world works.

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This is simply not true. People who believe in creation and are scientists want to know how something was done just as much as evolutionists.

I claim that the evidence is consistent with these mechanisms. This is the whole process of science, making a hypothesis and then testing it. This is the opposite of theism where a claim is made and it is never questioned. You have suggested just that. The claim that God made the universe is considered an axiom in your worldview, an unquestionable claim that is assumed to be true.

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Again, not true. You make straw man arguments with nothing to back them.

You claim that the universe just happened and assume that to be true.

Microevolutionary processes include all of the processes that the author speaks of. It really is a semantic argument. If we ignore semantics then we are left with the genetic data. The differences between any two genomes is the accumulation of microevolutionary events in each lineage. There is no way around it. Macroevolution is divergence caused by different microevolutionary events between any two lineages. There are no macroevolutionary events that take place between generations, only microevolutionary events.

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No it is not just a semantic argument:

Evol Dev. 2000 Mar-Apr;2(2):78-84.
Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution.

Erwin DH.
Source

Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20560, USA. erwin.doug@nmnh.si.edu

Abstract

Arguments over macroevolution versus microevolution have waxed and waned through most of the twentieth century. Initially, paleontologists and other evolutionary biologists advanced a variety of non-Darwinian evolutionary processes as explanations for patterns found in the fossil record, emphasizing macroevolution as a source of morphologic novelty. Later, paleontologists, from Simpson to Gould, Stanley, and others, accepted the primacy of natural selection but argued that rapid speciation produced a discontinuity between micro- and macroevolution. This second phase emphasizes the sorting of innovations between species. Other discontinuities appear in the persistence of trends (differential success of species within clades), including species sorting, in the differential success between clades and in the origination and establishment of evolutionary novelties. These discontinuities impose a hierarchical structure to evolution and discredit any smooth extrapolation from allelic substitution to large-scale evolutionary patterns. Recent developments in comparative developmental biology suggest a need to reconsider the possibility that some macroevolutionary discontinuites may be associated with the origination of evolutionary innovation. The attractiveness of macroevolution reflects the exhaustive documentation of large-scale patterns which reveal a richness to evolution unexplained by microevolution. If the goal of evolutionary biology is to understand the history of life, rather than simply document experimental analysis of evolution, studies from paleontology, phylogenetics, developmental biology, and other fields demand the deeper view provided by macroevolution.


Source

USincognito said:

despite many Creationists including local "hero" Mark Kennedy insisting he was a "human" despite his pathological brain size

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I had to read that 3 times before it twigged that you weren't talking about Mark's pathological brain size.

USincognito said:

Wow. Just when I think Astrid can't make any greater fool of herself than she has by repeatedly posting photos of Salem and calling him Lucy, repeatedly posting photos of a modern human skeleton and calling it Lucy, by repeatedly referring to Turkana boy and saying he was an "ape" because of his jaw - despite many Creationists including local "hero" Mark Kennedy insisting he was a "human" despite his pathological brain size, by trying to call out the ERV phyologenies by citing the non-orthologous PtERV paper, by saying that Lucy looks more like a "Bornean orangutan" than a human, again, despite not even knowing what Lucy's skull reconstruction looked like, etc. etc. She trots out this loser of an "argument"?
My argument is won dear, despite any confusion. In fact neotony shows that Turkana boy was more of an ape than I suspected.
You still cannot explain why an ape like Lucy or Salem with curved fingers and chimp body with gorilla features, that is not an ancestor of mankind left human footprints 3.7myo, when Ardi at 4.4 still had chimp feet. The best you can do is be a nasty little piece of work that likely reflects your inner being.

Similarly all the woffle about Ardi being a partial biped and is also not in the human line. What you have are a bunch of bipeds that researchers tried to humanize, that are not even in the human line anymore. What an embarassment for you and a huge laugh for me! I am awaiting a woffle recant any time now.....

Nor can you explain half witted ape heads with small neural cannals devoid of sophisticaterd language, building stone huts around 2 million years ago. Being nasty does not get you out of your gobsmacked situation nor the fact that you cannot refute my point with any intelligence. Human footprints dated older than an ape like Lucy and Salem is proof all your evolution woffle is nonsense and mankind was already around well before these displaced ancestors. So suck it up UScognito! You cannot refute me sucessfully so you have resorted to desperate personal attacks which I am happy to repay.
The dino-bird Archaeopteryx went extinct and isn't the ancestor of modern birds - which, by the way, didn't live at the same time it did - and are descended from other dino-birds instead, therefore this means bird evolution is false and all of evolution is too. Good then we agree evolution is false. Thanks.

This is just one example of a plethora, and not unlike the human evolution mess, that shows your researchers really have no clue and pose nonsense and non plausible wildly bizarre scenarios as explanations to rescussitate TOE and hold it together with sticky tape.

The research posted states there are no dino birds, lovey. It appears once again it is all as clear as mud. There is nothing in your evo science that is not debated and contested other than 'it all evolved'.

You have been made a fool of so many times with recants that you hardly notice it any more. Some researchers now believe birds did not descend from dinosaurs and they do not accept the current evidence as convincing. If they did they would not suggest alternative theories that are so contradictory to the current thinking.

Indeed the latest research suggests birds and dinos share a common ancestor. Archaeopteryx was shoved up creationists as a bird dino intermediate untill the mid '90's untill recanted. To make it worse this research says raptors evoled from birds and birds were likely begining to become birds before dinos ever existed. It wasn't that long ago, 10 years your researchers had us as being knuckle walker descendants.

Incredible obvious desperation in trying to support common descent is what you have and a huge recant of decades of endless woffle is coming re bird ancestry..and about time too I might add.
Wow. Just wow. Keep posting garbage you "learned" from Creationist websites and ignorance based Web searches Astrid. Your smugness, at this point, is slightly more sufficiently entertaining than the frustration caused by your obvious lack of a grasp on the subject is... at least for now.This is a pathetic reply as the research I use is generally from your own evolutionary researchers. Apparently you are unable to discern the difference. Stop humiliating yourself.

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Bird-From-Dinosaur Theory of Evolution Challenged: Was It the Other Way Around?2010.

Almost 20 years of research at OSU on the morphology of birds and dinosaurs, along with other studies and the newest PNAS research, Ruben said, are actually much more consistent with a different premise -- that birds may have had an ancient common ancestor with dinosaurs, but they evolved separately on their own path, and after millions of years of separate evolution birds also gave rise to the raptors. Small animals such as velociraptor that have generally been thought to be dinosaurs are more likely flightless birds, he said.
Bird-from-dinosaur theory of evolution challenged: Was it the other way around?



Here is a bit more to chew on :o

Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-Bird Links - 2009

"It's really kind of amazing that after centuries of studying birds and flight we still didn't understand a basic aspect of bird biology," said John Ruben, an OSU professor of zoology. "This discovery probably means that birds evolved on a parallel path alongside dinosaurs, starting that process before most dinosaur species even existed."

Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links

Dinosaurs are at least 230 million years old and they may share a common ancestor with birds hey????????

I actually do not think it is amazing that after centuries of study researchers have no clue. Biblical creationists have known this all along.

I tell you what ...it won't be long before creationists will be able to place fish, 360myo, then birds as being created exactly as outlined in the bible. In fact this research may be doing just that......and provides another lot of research for evolutionists to ignore.

BTW, UScognito, just in case you are too much of a fool to realise it for yourself, the articles above are not from creationists sites and Ruben is not a creationist.

Evolution is the science of muddied waters and remains a philosophy while science continues to validate creationist paradigms.

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Astridhere: what part of the criteria for apes do humans fail to meet?

And can you learn how to properly use the quote function. The black/red/italic wall of text is more than a bit annoying.

Wow, if I snip all the reportable flaming fat from your posts Astrid, there's very little meat left - and yet more indication that you don't know what the heck you're talking about despite the smug attitude.

"In fact neotony shows that Turkana boy was more of an ape than I suspected."

I'm sorry. What? You didn't even understand the concept a week ago and now you claim if verifies your incorrect assertions based on a befuddlingly incomplete analysis of his entire skeleton? I mean, it's been pointed out to you since you started your Quixotic campaign that Turkana boy's body is clearly "human". His cranial capacity, eye ridges and massive jaw are the only "ape" characteristics he has which is to be expected since bipedalism evolved first, a large brain afterwards and H. sapiens facial characteristics would be the last to go.

"You still cannot explain why an ape like Lucy or Salem with curved fingers and chimp body with gorilla features, that is not an ancestor of mankind left human footprints 3.7myo, when Ardi at 4.4 still had chimp feet."

Have you ever produced a citation for Salem's find having fingers? The reason I ask is you were so confused about that for over two weeks. And Lucy doesn't have "gorilla" features. I don't know where you got that (please, just provide a link, not 20 lines of red text, if you can actually do so). She has a mix of chimpanzee and human characteristics. Here's a list that was just recently posted in this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7587864/

The Lucy fossil has 14 morphological characteristics that are similar to chimpanzees, and 22 that are similar to humans. The following is a list of these features.

Features similar to a chimpanzee skeleton:
-Shape of mandible
-Protruding chin
-Lateral facet for canine on first lower premolar
-Size of first lower premolar
-Transverse processes of 10th through 12th thoracic vertebrae
-Medial margin of capitate (the carpal bone at the base of finger III)
-Arching of metacarpals and manual phalanges
-Orientation of acetabulum
-Diameter of femoral head
-Orientation of greater trochanter
-Lateral malleolus of fibula in lateral view
-Distal process of talus (tarsal bone that supports the tibia)
-Arching of metatarsals and of pedal phalanges other than distal phalanx
-Shape of proximal margin of proximal phalanx of toes I–III in lateral view

Features similar to a human skeleton:
-Simian shelf of mandible
-Slope of mandibular symphysis in lateral view
-Orientation of left and right postcanine tooth rows
-Incisor size
-Diastema (toothless space) between lower canine and first lower premolar
-Size of first lower premolar
-Spinous process of 4th through 10th thoracic vertebrae
-Displacement of postzygapophyses beyond caudal margin of centrum on 11th and 12th thoracic vertebrae
-Spinous process of 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae
-Transverse width of centrum of 2nd through 5th lumbar vertebrae
-Number of fused vertebrae in sacrum
-Maximum transverse (side-to-side) width of sacrum (not counting 6th sacral vertebra of chimp)
-Lateral supracondylar ridge of humerus
-Lateral epicondyle of humerus
-Shafts of radius and ulna
-Proximal extension of olecranon process of ulna
-Dimensions of ilium beyond acetabulum (hip socket)
-Shape of greater sciatic notch
-Height of tip of greater trochanter
-Middle part of distal margin of tibia in posterior view
-Transverse width of medial malleolus of tibia
-Medial process of talus medial and plantar to tibial facet

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So you're just plain old wrong about her having gorilla characteristics, and so what about Ardi's 4.4 million year old feet vis. 3.7 million year old footprints? You do realize a lot of evolution can go on in 700,000 years and that just because Ar. ramidus was around in 4.4myo that doesn't mean that Au. afarensis evolved in the particular time frame. Wait, what am I saying, you don't even get that sharks existing today means they couldn't have existed 400 million years ago. Until you grasp the basics of how evolution works, I suspect the actual details will fly over your head.

"Indeed the latest research suggests birds and dinos share a common ancestor."

Wow! Your ignorance seems as limitless as your hubris. What "latest research" is that? Citing 10 to 15 year old claims by Feduccia? I see you have cited John Ruben in your wall of text. You do realize that Ruben is a maverick - of course you don't, you just did a recent web search for this stuff while I've been reading Creationist ignorance for years - and that his claims aren't taken very seriously by anyone in paleontology, especially those working in bird evolution. Let me put this into theological terms you might actually understand. If, in a discussion about the nature of Christ, someone cited Arian instead of the Apostles, Origen, Aquinas, etc. would you take their claims seriously in a discussion?

"BTW, UScognito, just in case you are too much of a fool to realise it for yourself, the articles above are not from creationists sites and Ruben is not a creationist."

Wow, your smugness and igorance is apparently infinate as you mistakenly thought I was unfamiliar with Ruben. And I'm the one making a fool of myself in this thread?

Nostromo said:

I had to read that 3 times before it twigged that you weren't talking about Mark's pathological brain size.

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Heh. His brain size and function are fine. His apparent need to hold on to untennable, wrong and outright silly ideas that have infected it like a mongrel latches on to a squeek toy it thinks is a meat covered and marrow filled bone is something else however.

Oncedeceived said:

This is simply not true. People who believe in creation and are scientists want to know how something was done just as much as evolutionists.




Again, not true. You make straw man arguments with nothing to back them.

You claim that the universe just happened and assume that to be true.





No it is not just a semantic argument:

Evol Dev. 2000 Mar-Apr;2(2):78-84.
Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution.

Erwin DH.
Source

Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20560, USA. erwin.doug@nmnh.si.edu

Abstract

Arguments over macroevolution versus microevolution have waxed and waned through most of the twentieth century. Initially, paleontologists and other evolutionary biologists advanced a variety of non-Darwinian evolutionary processes as explanations for patterns found in the fossil record, emphasizing macroevolution as a source of morphologic novelty. Later, paleontologists, from Simpson to Gould, Stanley, and others, accepted the primacy of natural selection but argued that rapid speciation produced a discontinuity between micro- and macroevolution. This second phase emphasizes the sorting of innovations between species. Other discontinuities appear in the persistence of trends (differential success of species within clades), including species sorting, in the differential success between clades and in the origination and establishment of evolutionary novelties. These discontinuities impose a hierarchical structure to evolution and discredit any smooth extrapolation from allelic substitution to large-scale evolutionary patterns. Recent developments in comparative developmental biology suggest a need to reconsider the possibility that some macroevolutionary discontinuites may be associated with the origination of evolutionary innovation. The attractiveness of macroevolution reflects the exhaustive documentation of large-scale patterns which reveal a richness to evolution unexplained by microevolution. If the goal of evolutionary biology is to understand the history of life, rather than simply document experimental analysis of evolution, studies from paleontology, phylogenetics, developmental biology, and other fields demand the deeper view provided by macroevolution.


Source

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There is also this research that states there is a limit to genome mutation otherwise the organism will die.

If enough mutations push an essential protein towards an unstable, non-functional structure, the organism will die. Shakhnovich's group found that for most organisms, including viruses and bacteria, an organism's rate of genome mutation must stay below 6 mutations per genome per generation to prevent the accumulation of too many potentially lethal changes in genetic material.

Beyond A 'Speed Limit' On Mutations, Species Risk Extinction

Macroevolution requires function change, not just colour change and changes in beak sizes.

Mankind has the human version of the Foxp2 gene. Researchers say that mankind and chimps having this gene is another sign of ancestry. However, this gene that is called foxp2 in both human and chimp actually function differently after 5 million years or so of separation.

"We showed that the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 not only look different but function differently too," said Geschwind, who is currently a visiting professor at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London. "Our findings may shed light on why human brains are born with the circuitry for speech and language and chimp brains are not."
Why Can't Chimps Speak? Key Differences In How Human And Chimp Versions Of FOXP2 Gene Work


Demonstrating how God created limited in kind adaptive capability to respond to environmental change and immunity is not the same as demonstrating the complexity of genetic fuction change that is required for macroevolution from land dweller to whale, from beast to highly functioning mankind. So for me, it is about researchers showing how complex and irreducably complex systems and genes, that work in families, change function within the limits identified, while not being lethal to the organism.