Uphill Battle said:
oh, good, so, they share charactaristics, that makes them all whales, eh? and where does it show them going from one form to another? Do you see housecats evoloving to cheetahs? It certainly would be a benefit, wouldn't you say?
UB, your logic is inconsistent.
Here you argue that if something cannot be observed then we have no reason to accept that it could exist or have existed. That being so, just how much science do you accept (other than the collection of data, about the only things we do observe)?
Do you accept that fusion reactions keep stars shining? Do you accept the existence of mesons? Do you accept that mesons hold the atomic nucleus together? Do you accept that photons of light can evaporate water molecules from the surface of a pond? Do you accept that germs cause disease?
It is odd if you accept any of this. Should you, then tell me who has observed it!
Uphill Battle said:
I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of creatures with mutations wind up dead.
You appear so ready to accept your own wild guesses in preference to arguments from evidence. On what grounds do you make this guess?
Uphill Battle said:
The evidence? There is no evidence at all that these forms proceeded from one to another, other than similar charataristics. So, you have similar charataristics, and a need to explain how the whale got where it is... bingo, lump them together in a chain.
If people argue that one form gave rise to another then I would disagree with them too. We cannot say that one form did give rise to the other. What we do say is that one form could have given rise to another. However that is unlikely. What is likely is that certain characteristics of this form would
also be characteristics of the form which did give rise to the other form.
The diagarams you see these days are generally cladograms - diagrams for which no claim for
direct ancestor/descendand relationship is being made.
These cladograms give rise to a "standard phylogenetic" tree. Unsurprisingly, since all the evidence points to common descent with modification, newly discovered bones (such as these whale bones) invariably fit nicely into the one tree. If descent with modification did not occur, then there is no reason to expect this. The ID could easily have designed a whale with wings leading to a tree where whales are grouped close to birds, and another tree where whales are grouped close to mamals. And there would be no objective way in which it could be determined that one tree is correct and the other false.
What is more, this "standard phylogenetic tree" can be created from independent data. That is both bones, genes, and proteins give rise to the same tree. This is so even for those genes and proteins which
have nothing to do with morphology (bones).
Again if an ID were behind this, there is no reason that independent data should give rise to the same tree.
Uphill Battle said:
And it's no caricature. ToE has an explination for everything that doesn't fit their model. More theorizing on top of the theory.
How much science do you actually read UB?
All scientists have explanations for everything that does not fit the standard model. The explanations:-
1) Call for modifications to the model, perhaps its rejection.
2) Can be just so stories. (Evolution certainly has its fair share of these. But they are not confined to evolution - and plenty of evolution is certainly not just so story. Creationism relies totally on just-so-stories. If you doubt me, then read creationists magazines such as
Creation and
TJ. The science that is unique to YEC and OEC
is just so story.
3) Can be shown to be correct with further research.
Uphill Battle said:
(for example, not about evolution, but the oort cloud theory.... no way to explain the rate of comets disintegrating... so there you go, we have the oort cloud. no real evidence, just a theory, but accepted because it helps. (or the kuiper belt, same thing.)
As for this last bit:-
1) You do understand a bit about Newton's laws and his gravitational theory to know why the obital dynamics of certain comets point to the existence of the Oort cloud - don't you?
2) You are aware of some observations which point to the possibility of Oort cloud like structures around other stars - aren't you? And you are aware of some models of solar system formation which demonstrate that an Oort cloud could form - providing the models are themselves matching reality?
3) Have you checked mainstream literature to ensure that "rate of comets disintegrating" is not a furfee? And if it is not, then why is it, supposedly, solid evidence that the Oort cloud and the Kruiper Belts are nonsense?
4) You are aware that, once upon a time, the Kruiper Belt was a hypothetical entity like the Oort cloud and that over the past two decades, numerous bodies have been detected beyond the orbit of Pluto? You are aware that these bodies form a belt around the sun? You are aware that these bodies are such that they have caused some debate (at times intense) within the astronomical community, as to the status of Pluto. That is, is it a planet or a Kruiper Belt object? (In short, it is deemed that the Kruiper Belt has been or is being detected.)
Regards, Roland