Looking for all the missing links

[Jazer]

What "new species" should they become?

It is what it is. You keep talking about what it should be.

 

[Split Rock]

Someone asked for more of the missing links than the few we are presented and told to trust fully in for the rest. No one was able to produce one such link. Therefore, I think the other side is saying "Head for the hills! We've been shooting blanks and don't have any real ammo and now they know it! Let's stop this crazy war!"

What "link" do you want? How many would be enough? Or will you just dismiss however many we give you just as you dismiss other evidence you don't like (such as phylogenetic trees)?

 

[Split Rock]

In creationism, everything only happened ONCE. If you try to find something which is created, either you find it, or you don't find it. Not finding something, in this case, is not a big deal.

But in evolution, the name suggests a CONTINUOUS process. In my mind, this kind of model simply asks for trouble. Because if you do not find a continuous feature, then the theory can not stand. If you do find a sor-of continuous feature on one example, then you have to apply that to other examples. Otherwise, the theory fails too.

Now, the argument is: how continuous the record should be? Should it be like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... or it needs to be 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 ... or a jumpy one like 1, 2, 5, 15 ... is also acceptable. Further more, if we find one quality of continuity on one species, should the same quality of continuity be expected on another similar species?

So, before we use this example of that example in an argument, it is the evolutionist's burden to define the degree of continuity and whether a described continuity is a general case or a special case. So far, everything evolutionists presented is spotty, fragmented, special case, and discontinuous. if we use a well-documented example of continuous morphological change as a ruler, then most other species will fail to meet the standard.

There is no need to use the same standard on creationism. It simply does not apply. It is a unique, heavy burden to evolutionism. This made the evolutionism an art, but not a science.

We see evolutionary change all the time. Doesn't that mean it is continuous?

 

[Guy1]

It is what it is. You keep talking about what it should be.

Jaz, why did you ignore my question? Is this how you treat people who want to listen to what you have to say?

 

[verysincere]

No, not me, you have to talk to my wife and brother about that. I would like to know your opinion on that though. Should I tell my wife to revive me, or should I tell her to tell the doctors to leave me alone? It is not really my choice that I am alive. People like you make that choice for me. In fact yesterday I told my wife NOT to revive me. Should I go back and tell her I was not serious and if something were to happen that it would be ok to revive me?

I have no idea how your struggle over whether you want you wife "to revive" you has anything to do with my surgery analogy. It sounds like you are worried about establishing a "living will" document. That has NOTHING to do with my discussion of the dynamics of origins debates.

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[Split Rock]

What would you call dinosaur to bird evolution? Is that now a huge change from one species to another? What about reptiles to mammals? What about invertebrates to vertebrates? What about unicellular to multicellular? What about plants and animals? Are none of those spectacular jumps that must be made from one fixed category to another? and that is exactly what they are too, jumps. There are no smooth lines of transition, only jumps millions of years and billions of changes at a time.

GB

The mammal-like reptiles were the dominant land vertebrates on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. We have a rich fossil record, including species that bridge the gap between reptilian and mammalian jaw joints (they had both). In fact, there is no objective means of determining which were completely reptile and which were completely mammal. Yet, we don't see creationists discussing these fossils. They just repeat over and over that they don't exist, or there aren't enough, or they don't see them all in museums, or they want to see the fossils in their hands, or "how do you know it mated" etc.
Jaws to ears in the ancestors of mammals
http://palaeos.com/vertebrates/therapsida/index.html
http://palaeos.com/vertebrates/cynodontia/overview.html

 

[Jazer]

I'm looking for a garden. The only problem with my "garden" is I have only an old book telling me it exists. Of the scant few hints I have as to its location, some of them do bear a vague resemblance to the Fertile Cresent, but I cannot get them to fit with each other. One of the problems I have with my "garden", among the many, is that it is filled with mythological creatures, like a talking snake and a man made from dirt.

I do not have any problem getting the Garden of Eden to fit with Myers Biodiversity Hot Spots. Science and the Bible pretty much agree with each other in this regard. I suppose you can have a problem with the talking snake, but what does Eve tells us the snake said? Because I hear a lot of "snake talk" right here on this forum.

":1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:"

 

[verysincere]

What would you call dinosaur to bird evolution? Is that now a huge change from one species to another? What about reptiles to mammals? What about invertebrates to vertebrates? What about unicellular to multicellular? What about plants and animals? Are none of those spectacular jumps that must be made from one fixed category to another? and that is exactly what they are too, jumps. There are no smooth lines of transition, only jumps millions of years and billions of changes at a time.

I think that one paragraph succeeds in helping readers to understand why you are so totally confused by the Theory of Evolution.

Clearly, the reason you imagine that everybody is "shooting blanks" at your "brilliant analysis" is that you have no idea that yours is a STRAW-MAN so nobody is bothering to shoot!

If I truly believed that the Theory of Evolution was in any way similar to your straw-man version, I would dismiss it in a second.
.

 

[Jazer]

I have no idea how your struggle over whether you want you wife "to revive" you has anything to do with my surgery analogy. It sounds like you are worried about establishing a "living will" document. That has NOTHING to do with my discussion of the dynamics of origins debates.

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Nope, just wanted to know what your opinion was, sense you seem to have an opinion about me and my medical treatment. I see now you do not like to deal with the real world, you just want to deal with hypothetical situations.

 

[Freodin]

It is what it is. You keep talking about what it should be.

No, I don't. This is what you do not understand. "Species" is a rather arbitrary distinction that humans make. It is a system of classification that we use for convenience sake.

So the "new species" that the descendants of finches, sabertoothcats or mammuts would become is "whatever humans want to call this certain group of descendants, to differate them from any other group of descendants".

Cats - the felidae - encompass a large number of "species". Each distinct of each other, each seperate... and each related. And all those are related to other "species" of the carnivora order.

It is the lines of descendence that are important, not the current situation that "you see."

 

[good brother]

What do you think a Family Tree is?

Uhh, missing? Oh wait, you said "what" I thought you said "where". The "what" it is would be like finding a leaf in Texas, a branch in Argentina, a piece of fruit in Egypt, and a small chunk of bark in Greenland and somehow figuring that it must all be from the same tree. That is what the "evolutionary family tree" really looks like.

In Christ, GB

 

[Jazer]

Jaz, why did you ignore my question? Is this how you treat people who want to listen to what you have to say?

Because I am talking to more then one person right now. What was your question?
Of course I would rather be talking to someone willing to listen.

 

[verysincere]

You said you could tell the entire story even after removing 99.9% of the frames. If an average movie is 2 hours long, you are claiming that you can tell an equally convincing story in one minute and twenty seconds.

By the way, I'm truly not trying to embarrass you but someone needs to inform you that your math is way off.

I recommend you double-check your calculations.

(But at least I can say that in this instance I don't think any dishonesty is to be found. Mathematical reasoning---as well as your reasoning in evolutionary biology--- is simply not your forte.)

Of course, there is a much bigger optical processing barrier that you will experience as to image recognition but I don't want to overload you with too many scientific factors outside of your experience.

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[Split Rock]

Uhh, missing? Oh wait, you said "what" I thought you said "where". The "what" it is would be like finding a leaf in Texas, a branch in Argentina, a piece of fruit in Egypt, and a small chunk of bark in Greenland and somehow figuring that it must all be from the same tree. That is what the "evolutionary family tree" really looks like.

In Christ, GB

And this is from your extensive understanding of paleontology, is it? One of the interesting arguments Darwin put foward was concerning biogeography and how the extinct fossil species in a given area so closely ressembled living species in the same area. But, go on and continue sprouting falsehoods from "creation ministry" websites. As verysincere has been trying to explain to you, it just makes your position look even weaker.

 

[verysincere]

I see now you do not like to deal with the real world, you just want to deal with hypothetical situations.

And yet you are asking me what your wife should do IF she has to decide whether or not to let you die without special medical efforts at revival.

Do you understand the meaning of the word "hypothetical"? Because you asked me a hypothetical question! And then you complained that I, allegedly, ONLY want to deal with hypothetical questions.

I get the impression that I'm probably not going to be able to help you. Sorry.

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[Guy1]

Because I am talking to more then one person right now. What was your question?
Of course I would rather be talking to someone willing to listen.

I'm not seriously asking that by the way. I am fully aware of the situation.

My question is the following:

Of course I can say. People go to Darwin's island all the time. They take pictures of Darwin's finch. You can compare Darwin's finch with the finch on the mainland. Your make believe story that someday it maybe more then a finch is not even relevant to the evidence that we have. You have evidence for what you have evidence for and that is all you have. You start with a finch and you end up with a finch. End of story.

So they're the same "Kind"? How would you define a kind?

 

[NailsII]

Dear good brother,
May I suggest a trip to your local museum?
There you will find many 'transitional' (whatever that is actually supposed to mean) forms recreated from actual fossils.

If you decide against this, try reading a book or two in your local library.
Try one written by a biologist.
You may find that your original assertion of many millions of missing links is simply wrong, and in fact the vast majority of what you claim to be missing has already been found.

Unless you're looking for a crocoduck.

 

[good brother]

Yet, again you dishonestly quote-mined.

I said NOTHING about an 80 second story. A movie Director's storyboard tells the entire story in a series of "frames".

[Perhaps you truly have no idea what a storyboard is and does. Imagine an entire movie as a series of cartoon frames. Most movies involve converting a screenplay into that storyboard and then the movie is filmed based upon that storyboard.]

The shame in your distortions is not simply because they utterly fail at making your "argument" convincing. (Such an experience in and of itself may be humbling for you but it is not an ethical issue.)

The shame is that you give the reader the impression that you habitually intend to be dishonest in restating (and changing) what my illustration demonstrates.

Rather than trying to salvage a worthless argument which backed you into a corner---and refusing to admit that the sequence of photos at an auto plant demolished your flawed characterization of the fossil evidence---you could at the very least have moved on to some other (and, hopefully, well-considered) argument.

Yes, the lack of evidential foundations for anti-evolution arguments bothers me plenty enough. But as a Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ, the ETHICS of so many "creation science" attacks on the theory of evolution bother me much more.

And I would gamble that the non-Christian readers on this forum would deplore the ETHICS of "creation science" debates just as much as I do. If you doubt that, I invite you to ask them.


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No, you had originally said that you could take 99.9% out of a movie and still tell the same story. I figured that an average movie is two hours long so you must be able to do it in one minute and twenty seconds. I was not being "dishonest", "quote mining" or "lying for Jesus" as you so often have accused me of. If the reader wishes to find the original post, here it is:

Originally posted by verysincere:
7) One more example: Suppose I take a full-length feature film (a cinema movie) and remove 99.9% of all of the frames. Could the remaining still-photos be used to tell the entire story? Certainly! We don't need EVERY "step" in the movie to know what happened.

That's what you said. If you wish to redact, retract, or just take back that statement, that is fine, but do not accuse me one more time of being "dishonest" or "quote mining" you or "lying for Jesus" or you will be reported. You said you could take out 99.9% of all the frames and the remaining still photos could tell the entire story. I simply figured that the average movie is two hours long, and that if 99.9% of the frames were removed, that would leave a person with one minute and twenty seconds worth of frames. You claim to be able to tell the whole story via that method and have accused me on several occasions of deception. I have not. I have only followed your logic to show you what that got you.

In Christ, GB

 

[Jazer]

And yet you are asking me what your wife should do IF she has to decide whether or not to let you die without special medical efforts at revival.

I asked you point blank if you care if I live or die. But you do not have to answer if you do not want to. Anyone can feel free to answer the question. The topic is should we allow science to revive us. It's called a living will.

 

[good brother]

By the way, I'm truly not trying to embarrass you but someone needs to inform you that your math is way off.

I recommend you double-check your calculations.

Thank you for correcting me. I apologize for the mismath (new term I just created.... or did it evolve?) I am a bit surprised you said anything as in my mismath I gave you more time than what you would have had I done my math correctly.

The truth of the matter would be that you would have 7.2 seconds (seven point two) to tell what Hollywood would say in two hours over the course of an average movie. That, I believe, IS the correct persentage of taking away 99.9% of 120 minutes.

I didn't quote your entire response as I felt it added nothing except a bit of character assassination.

In Christ, GB