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Natural selection v Intelligent design

Archaeopteryx

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This doesn't address the post and evidence I linked recently about mutations being able to evolve new functions. There is absolutely no genetic evidence included in these posts. Just talk about the theory which is just talk. There needs to be solid evidence addressing these issues.
Archaeopteryx said:
Actually, he did. He spent years collecting the evidence. In any case, it has been over 150 years since Darwin published his seminal work. Since then, multiple parallel lines of evidence have provided further support to evolution. The theory is so well established that it is considered foundational to contemporary biology.
"This goes nowhere near addressing what I have posted. This is just talk with no backup and is nothing to do with the peer reviewed genetic based papers that were posted." We often hear some say evolution is fact but when we go into the details about how the process actually works it is a different story.

Archaeopteryx said:
Those cases that you call "variations within a kind" are exemplary of evolution. The theory does not predict a crocoduck, which is what creationists seem to expect of evolution.
"This doesn't address what I have posted. No one is saying anything about crocoducks. We are talking about the genetic ability and processes as defined by the tests I posted. This is a detailed test done on the ability for proteins to evolve new functions through random multi mutations".
Archaeopteryx said:

I recommend watching Aron Ra's brilliant Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism series. Specifically, the 11th episode in the series, which focuses on macroevolution.
This also doesn't not address what I have posted. You seem to think that this one off post is the answer to everything. For starters what I posted has nothing to do with creationism. It is genetic testing and there are peer reviewed papers to support this. The episode on video doesn't go into any peer reviewed testable evidence. It just continues the story that because there is micro evolution there must be macro evolution. But all of the examples used only show the great variations of the same type of animals.


Dogs are dogs no matter if big or small or good looking or ugly or wolves or poodles. They have been dog types for millions and millions of years. The same for all the other creatures. Its just the great variations within those types for which evolution says can also make one creature into another. But apart from all that talk the actual tests show it cannot happen. Changes are with recombining or loss of existing genes. The tests show limits and they also show the opposite of evolution where there is a loss of info and a creature becomes less fit and not more able to survive. So you havnt addressed the post and have have given some irrelevant answer.
Already addressed. Go back, re-read.
 
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stevevw

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No, steve, just no. Go back, re-read. Einstein was not calling his beliefs childish, but yours. You believe in a personal god. He didn't.
Thats all irrelevant as I wasn't talking about my God or beliefs and thats the point I am making. You came into that conversation and made it personal. It wasn't about a personal belief in God or Einsteins or my personal belief in God. It was about a belief that God or a god or a spiritual entity or force was behind the science or beyond the science in which Einstein and other scientists were willing to acknowledge may be present and real.

You reject the concept of a personal god?
That is irrelevant to what my point was.

No. Try reading what you are responding to next time.
I dont know as you have side tracked things. As far as I was concerned it was about a general belief in something beyond the science that was responsible for how and why things seem designed and orchestrated and that science can only answer so much.
 
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SteveB28

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Stevevw, your argument is extremely hard to follow? What point are you trying to make?

It is undeniable that some men and women of science also have religious beliefs.

So what? What bearing could this possibly have on the evidence of their enquiries? How does it contribute to the likelihood of gods existing?

You are making a 'non-point' as far as I can see.
 
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stevevw

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Already addressed. Go back, re-read.
Are you talking about the post you just linked that I have just pointed out in the pink text highlighted with the 11th episode of Foundational Falsehood of Creationism. That is the only link you put for showing you have addressed what I posted. I included everything you said which doesn't address what I am talking about. I have listened to the video twice which also doesn't address what I was talking about. Have a look at the video. When it comes to addressing macro evolution it talks about species and how from a horse we can get Zebras or Donkeys. Or from lions we get tigers and leopards. But just like dogs they are all variations of the same type of animal which is what we would expect if there are limits to how far an animal can change.

The pictures they show for bird evolution talks about the fossil record showing transitions from Dino's. This has been proven wrong as well. For starters modern birds have been found with fossil dinos. But the fossil records are up for interpretation and many things can be read into it as we have seen with the skulls at Georgia. Scientists found that several skulls which has all the variations that were attributed to several species were actually variations of the same species. So several species that were discovered in the past were wiped out and the transitional links were lost.

So the tests done in labs show that evolution has limits and actually does the opposite by reducing fitness. The observable so called macro evolution doesn't seem to have any evidence because it only shows limited change within the same species. The fossil records dont show evidence because the evidence is up to interpretation. What can be seen as proof for transitionals can just be variations within the same species. Considering that the best evidence comes from the lab tests in genetics which will be the most accurate because it doesn't rely on observation it seems that the interpretations of the fossil record and other observable evidence may be unreliable.
Feathered fossil proves that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...rds-did-not-evolve-from-dinosaurs-713382.html
Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm
Ancient Skulls Suggests One Lineage for Early Human Ancestors
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ancient-skull-early-human/2013/10/18/id/531753/
Of heads and headlines: can a skull doom 14 human species?
https://theconversation.com/of-heads-and-headlines-can-a-skull-doom-14-human-species-19227
 
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stevevw

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Stevevw, your argument is extremely hard to follow? What point are you trying to make?

It is undeniable that some men and women of science also have religious beliefs.

So what? What bearing could this possibly have on the evidence of their enquiries? How does it contribute to the likelihood of gods existing?

You are making a 'non-point' as far as I can see.
No that debate has been taken to this place and has been complicated from an interjection from someone else. I was merely saying that some scientists can have a belief and still maintain a scientific point of view. It wasn't a competition about how many scientists were on each side of belief and non belief.

But because you have brought this up here is a question for you. Do you think that all those great scientists who have a belief in God are deluded. On the one hand they can have an analytical mind and judge everything by the falsifiable process of science. Yet on the other they can still believe in something that cannot be verified and is supernatural.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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Are you talking about the post you just linked that I have just pointed out in the pink text highlighted with the 11th episode of Foundational Falsehood of Creationism. That is the only link you put for showing you have addressed what I posted. I included everything you said which doesn't address what I am talking about. I have listened to the video twice which also doesn't address what I was talking about. Have a look at the video. When it comes to addressing macro evolution it talks about species and how from a horse we can get Zebras or Donkeys. Or from lions we get tigers and leopards. But just like dogs they are all variations of the same type of animal which is what we would expect if there are limits to how far an animal can change.

:doh: What do you expect, steve? A crocoduck?
 
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Archaeopteryx

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No that debate has been taken to this place and has been complicated from an interjection from someone else. I was merely saying that some scientists can have a belief and still maintain a scientific point of view. It wasn't a competition about how many scientists were on each side of belief and non belief.

But because you have brought this up here is a question for you. Do you think that all those great scientists who have a belief in God are deluded. On the one hand they can have an analytical mind and judge everything by the falsifiable process of science. Yet on the other they can still believe in something that cannot be verified and is supernatural.
That a scientist can hold religious beliefs doesn't imply that their religious beliefs were reached scientifically.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Its not just about turning scales into feathers though and I am not sure it could happen just like that. I am not a biologist to know whether scales are very close to feathers in all their protein sequences to make the jump easily. I would say there are many changes that need to happen so therefore many mutations are needed. Its not just a case of one simple mutation and then hey presto feathers.
You're quite right, and you won't find anyone with a basic understanding of evolution who would claim that; it's a straw man and a red herring. Such changes take hundreds if not thousands or millions of generations. If you're interested: Evolution of Feathers (in need of updating, but it's not bad).

Feathers are only useful for wings when a whole lot of other changes also happen. Feathers on their own may be a set back as much as an advantage. They maybe be deformed feathers or partly formed feathers. Theres a whole range of possibilities.
Individuals with feather mutations that are maladaptive in their environment will not be as successful as the rest of the population, and so their mutated genes will not spread. A whole range of useful possibilities of feathers are known apart from gliding and active flight; from protection (insulation, padding, etc.) to signalling (threat, sexual display, etc.). They're all seen in modern birds too.

As for us having gills as a fetus this is not the case and is a thing evolution uses to try and say that this is a left over feature from our evolutionary past. The same as so called tails at our coxis or that our appendix are a useless bit left over from the past. They have found that all these things have a use and play a part and are very important. The so called gill slits are not slits at all but folds that dont penetrate the surface. As the fetus develops the spine and brain grow faster than the rest and therefore are longer that the rest of the body. This forces the embryo to curl up and cause the folds. Those folds have nothing to do with breathing or the lung area. They go on to form the neck, ear and jaw area.
It's true that Haeckel's Recapitulation Theory ('Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny') is discredited, but it is formed around a nugget of evolutionary truth; the embryonic pharyngeal arches that develop into the jaw, ear, tonsils, etc., of mammals are the same embryonic feature that in fish develops into jaw and gills; their development is controlled by the same family of Hox genes in all species who show these embryonic pharyngeal arches, although the results of that development may be very different. This is true of the majority of similar-looking embryonic features, including the coccyx ('tailbone'). If anything, it is a strong confirmation of the common ancestry of these species.

The vestigiality of the appendix is debatable. It is likely to be a repurposed remnant of a larger ancestral caecum that shrank and was restructured as the diet changed from mainly vegetarian to omniverous.

Micro evolution has been observed and proven. Macro evolution where one creature can eventually turn into another has not been observed even in tests with fast evolving bacteria.
If, by macro evolution you mean speciation, it has been observed many times, in the lab and in the wild. Links have already been posted to examples.

... tests have also found that there are limits to evolution and that all changes are the results of changes or even a loss of info in existing genetics.
Citation needed. What tests? links? references?

But once again just because birds will speciate doesn't mean that they will change shape and become a completely different animal. In fact there is evidence that birds have been the same even when the dinos were around. There is evidence that many animals have not changed at all or very little for millions and millions of years. The only difference for many is their size. They are more or less the same but bigger in the past. All of the main body plans for modern day creatures popped into existence from nowhere during the Cambrian period.
You're not going to see major structural changes in diverging species with the generation span of most vertebrates because that degree of change takes thousands or millions of generations and correspondingly long term changes in their environment (major structural features are highly conserved), and your life is short. But there is plenty of evidence available; I would recommend picking an animal, e.g. one you particularly like, or whose claimed origins you doubt, and tracing its history, both developmental (embryo to adult) and evolutionary (genetic & paleontological), online. The resources are freely available and fairly detailed for most well-known creatures, and will give you a good idea of the processes and timescales ('deep time') involved.

The dinosaurs were around for over 135 million years; birds evolved towards the end of that period (the Jurassic) from a branch of the therapod dinosaurs, but there would still be many other dinosaurs, including various therapod dinosaurs, around at that time.

You don't have to agree with the interpretation of the evidence, but you need to know what the evidence is and how it has been interpreted before you can dispute it.
 
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stevevw

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:doh: What do you expect, steve? A crocoduck?
Thats what I mean you havnt addressed the post at all. You are playing games. You keep saying you have addressed this or that and say go back and read. But when I do it doesn't say much about what we are talking about. You mentioned the crocoduck thing a few times now but that is old hat and no one thinks this is the case anymore. Its like thats your only answer and you dont have anything to say about any of the details mentioned for the tests on genetics and that evidence. Its like using outdated reasons that are not relevant anymore and you dont want to come into the 21st century of the new evidence.

We are talking about peer reviewed science here which deals with how mutations can evolve new functions. Most modern day understanding know understand what evolution is saying with the gradual steps taken to morph a creature into another. It isn't a half and half creature. Each step has the creature looking pretty much the same but with a small change which is built upon. Each small change is selected if advantageous and then added to over a very long time until it may change shape.

So we all understand what evolution claims. But thats not the issue. The issue is that this is only what they claim and isn't backed up by the evidence. They claim this from visual evidence which links the two animals together by some similar features they both have as they progress from one form to another. This is mainly derived from the fossil evidence. So when they find that the dog like creature may have some inner ear bone that is similar to a whale this is one of the links. Because the whale is a mammal and evolution says that mammals were formed from creature coming out of the water they have to say that some other creature must have went back into the water because thats the only way a mammal could have ended up in the water.

But this is all assuming and there is not evidence for the links. They dont look at all the differences which will detract away from the evidence for these links such as different features which the animal may have in common with a completely different creature that isn't related. They dont consider that some of the similarities maybe just variations of the same species as with the skulls at Georgia. But mostly they dont take all the molecular evidence into account which is contradicting the tree of life and all its links that have been made based on the observational links. Its the genetic evidence that will be the most reliable because it doesn't rely on observation interpretations.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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Thats what I mean you havnt addressed the post at all. You are playing games. You keep saying you have addressed this or that and say go back and read. But when I do it doesn't say much about what we are talking about. You mentioned the crocoduck thing a few times now but that is old hat and no one thinks this is the case anymore. Its like thats your only answer and you dont have anything to say about any of the details mentioned for the tests on genetics and that evidence. Its like using outdated reasons that are not relevant anymore and you dont want to come into the 21st century of the new evidence.

We are talking about peer reviewed science here which deals with how mutations can evolve new functions. Most modern day understanding know understand what evolution is saying with the gradual steps taken to morph a creature into another. It isn't a half and half creature. Each step has the creature looking pretty much the same but with a small change which is built upon. Each small change is selected if advantageous and then added to over a very long time until it may change shape.

So we all understand what evolution claims. But thats not the issue. The issue is that this is only what they claim and isn't backed up by the evidence.
:doh:
But this is all assuming and there is not evidence for the links. They dont look at all the differences which will detract away from the evidence for these links such as different features which the animal may have in common with a completely different creature that isn't related. They dont consider that some of the similarities maybe just variations of the same species as with the skulls at Georgia. But mostly they dont take all the molecular evidence into account which is contradicting the tree of life and all its links that have been made based on the observational links. Its the genetic evidence that will be the most reliable because it doesn't rely on observation interpretations
You don't even know how wrong you are. The "molecular evidence" you allude to supports evolution.
 
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Larniavc

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The Limits of Complex Adaptation: An Analysis Based on a Simple Model of Structured Bacterial Populations
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.4
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/pdf/Behe/QRB_paper.pdf
Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022283604007624
Threshold robustness is inherently epistatic—once the stability threshold is exhausted, the deleterious effects of mutations become fully pronounced, thereby making proteins far less robust than generally assumed.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7121/full/nature05385.html
A systematic survey of loss-of-function variants in human protein-coding genes
Genome sequencing studies indicate that all humans carry many genetic variants predicted to cause loss of function (LoF) of protein-coding genes, suggesting unexpected redundancy in the human genome.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299548/
The cost of gene expression underlies a fitness trade-off in yeast
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/14/5755.full
Evidence Of Design In Bird Feathers And Avian Respiration
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/dne-volumes/4/2/399
The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.abstract



Fascinating. Thanks for the links.
 
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stevevw

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You're quite right, and you won't find anyone with a basic understanding of evolution who would claim that; it's a straw man and a red herring. Such changes take hundreds if not thousands or millions of generations. If you're interested: Evolution of Feathers (in need of updating, but it's not bad).
If thats the case just for just feathers then how would all the rest of even greater complexity happen in the time evolution claims. Not just that if one or two rare beneficial can possibly mutate one small step towards complete feathers how do they fixate in the population if they are neither here nor there for any purpose.
Evidence Of Design In Bird Feathers And Avian Respiration
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/dne-volumes/4/2/399

Individuals with feather mutations that are maladaptive in their environment will not be as successful as the rest of the population, and so their mutated genes will not spread. A whole range of useful possibilities of feathers are known apart from gliding and active flight; from protection (insulation, padding, etc.) to signalling (threat, sexual display, etc.). They're all seen in modern birds too.
Yes but I question many of these things ever taking hold in the first place. Its not as if a male in the species is not going to mate at all or feathers would ever have made it more appealing. We can say that now because that is what is happening. But animals have an attraction any way and that has always been there.

Even so if a creature ended up with feathers so what. They are useless without the 100s of other steps needed to actually make functional wings and its not just the mechanic of flight either. There are many changes in the blood and respiratory systems as well as bone structures and brain and nerve connections needed. To think that random mutations can build something like this when they are primarily a mistake and harmful is unbelievable. It would be like destroying something to make it better.

It's true that Haeckel's Recapitulation Theory ('Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny') is discredited, but it is formed around a nugget of evolutionary truth; the embryonic pharyngeal arches that develop into the jaw, ear, tonsils, etc., of mammals are the same embryonic feature that in fish develops into jaw and gills; their development is controlled by the same family of Hox genes in all species who show these embryonic pharyngeal arches, although the results of that development may be very different. This is true of the majority of similar-looking embryonic features, including the coccyx ('tailbone'). If anything, it is a strong confirmation of the common ancestry of these species.
Yes and it would be something we would expect for a similar design.

The vestigiality of the appendix is debatable. It is likely to be a repurposed remnant of a larger ancestral caecum that shrank and was restructured as the diet changed from mainly vegetarian to omniverous.
I can only go off what I have read and this seems to say that it is an important part of our digestive system that store good bacteria to fight off sickness when needed.
Your Appendix is Useful After All
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/17/your-appendix-is-useful-after-all.aspx

If, by macro evolution you mean speciation, it has been observed many times, in the lab and in the wild. Links have already been posted to examples.
As far as I am aware most people say macro evolution is changes above species.

Citation needed. What tests? links? references?
Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15321723
Stability effects of mutations and protein evolvability
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19765975
The Limits of Complex Adaptation: An Analysis Based on a Simple Model of Structured Bacterial Populations
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.4
The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.abstract
Unexpectedly small effects of mutations in bacteria bring new perspectives
http://www.physorg.com/news/20.....teria.html
Diminishing returns epistasis among beneficial mutations decelerates adaptation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21636771

Negative Epistasis Between Beneficial Mutations in an Evolving Bacterial Population
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1193.abstract

You're not going to see major structural changes in diverging species with the generation span of most vertebrates because that degree of change takes thousands or millions of generations and correspondingly long term changes in their environment (major structural features are highly conserved), and your life is short. But there is plenty of evidence available; I would recommend picking an animal, e.g. one you particularly like, or whose claimed origins you doubt, and tracing its history, both developmental (embryo to adult) and evolutionary (genetic & paleontological), online. The resources are freely available and fairly detailed for most well-known creatures, and will give you a good idea of the processes and timescales ('deep time') involved.
That would be interesting. Just a point though when you look at many creatures they seem to have not changed or have very little change in millions of years. The only real change seems to be in size. Things like sea life, insects, mammals, and even many trees and plants are the same as today but just bigger.

Other examples are of living fossils of many creatures that havnt changed in millions of years. There are modern animals that are very similar to today's ones found with Dino fossils like reptiles, birds, mammals, insects,fish and other sea life. Add this to the sudden appearance of many complex body forms in the fossil records and the lack of transitional fossils and you begin to wonder where the evidence points to.

The dinosaurs were around for over 135 million years; birds evolved towards the end of that period (the Jurassic) from a branch of the therapod dinosaurs, but there would still be many other dinosaurs, including various therapod dinosaurs, around at that time.
OK fair enough. But there seems to be some doubt about birds even evolving from therapods in the first place.
Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm
If as you say it would take millions of generations just to form feathers then how could modern birds of flight be around well before they supposed ancestors. Or even be around at the same time. Evidence has it that modern birds were around 40 million years before the Dino's died out. Thats modern birds which means that they still needed time to evolve into modern birds which would have taken even longer than just the wings for a complete morphing from one type of animal to another. Yet modern birds were around with the so called ancestors of birds Archaeopteryx and other who had teeth. It seems these teethed birds died off with the Dino's and left the modern birds to carry on. If they both flew then why would one die and the other not.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080208-bird-origins.html
A foot-long lizard that glided through the trees of prehistory 220 million years ago has overturned an established theory of how birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...rds-did-not-evolve-from-dinosaurs-713382.html

You don't have to agree with the interpretation of the evidence, but you need to know what the evidence is and how it has been interpreted before you can dispute it.[/QUOTE]Yes I agree.

Just as an added piece of interest I found this link which talks about macro evolution in terms of the chemical evolution rather than trying to justify it with observational evidence. It seems when you try to explain or prove macro evolution in terms of biological chemical evolution it is a lot harder to do and there is very little evidence for it. To me this is a good example of how some can talk about the story of Darwinian evolution and use evidence which cant be verified because it can be up for interpretation. But when you look at the finer details of how it can actually work down in the genetic level it cannot be proven. I know this link is from a religious site but the content seems to be from scientific sources and makes some sense.
Macroevolution, microevolution and chemistry: the devil is in the details
http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...on-and-chemistry-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
 
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Jobar

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Stevevw, I looked at two of your references- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...rds-did-not-evolve-from-dinosaurs-713382.html and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm.

The first story indicates that feathers may have first evolved in lizards some 220 million years ago, rather than in theropod dinosaurs, some 75 million years ago.

The second describes differences between the functioning of the thigh bones and lungs of birds, as compared to theropod dinosaurs:
The newest findings, the researchers said, are more consistent with birds having evolved separately from dinosaurs and developing their own unique characteristics, including feathers, wings and a unique lung and locomotion system.

There are some similarities between birds and dinosaurs, and it is possible, they said, that birds and dinosaurs may have shared a common ancestor, such as the small, reptilian "thecodonts," which may then have evolved on separate evolutionary paths into birds, crocodiles and dinosaurs. The lung structure and physiology of crocodiles, in fact, is much more similar to dinosaurs than it is to birds.

"We aren't suggesting that dinosaurs and birds may not have had a common ancestor somewhere in the distant past," Quick said. "That's quite possible and is routinely found in evolution. It just seems pretty clear now that birds were evolving all along on their own and did not descend directly from the theropod dinosaurs, which lived many millions of years later."
Now, the first of those is from 2000, and the second is from '09- so it's quite possible both these matters have been addressed by more modern research. Not being a paleontologist, I don't know about that.

However, even if both those articles are correct, that does not in any way disprove or weaken the overall theory of evolution. That would simply mean that paleontologists are mistaken about one particular evolutionary pathway- i.e. the relationship between birds and theropods.

I frequently see creationists who have trouble understanding the nature of scientific hypotheses. Don't confuse them with religious dogmas! Hypotheses are tentative and flexible. Scientists put forth hypotheses as possible truths, which may on further investigation be disproven.

The hypothesis that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs is not the same thing as the overarching framework which contains it- the theory of evolution. A theory is much more solidly established; in fact the ToE is as solid as any theory in all of science.
 
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stevevw

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He doesn't listen.
I do listen but I dont respond well to people dismissing things without any explanation or support. At least FrumiousBandersnatch debates the topic and goes into some detail about why I may be wrong with some links to verify this. That way I can then investigate and find out. I may not understand many of these things but at least when you debate someone you need to point out what might be the alternative explanation and why. This then gives backup and a logical reason as to why something may be wrong or why there is another reason for it being seen a different way. Rather than short one or two line dismissive statements that keep saying your wrong.
 
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stevevw

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Stevevw, I looked at two of your references- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...rds-did-not-evolve-from-dinosaurs-713382.html and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm.

The first story indicates that feathers may have first evolved in lizards some 220 million years ago, rather than in theropod dinosaurs, some 75 million years ago.

The second describes differences between the functioning of the thigh bones and lungs of birds, as compared to theropod dinosaurs:

Now, the first of those is from 2000, and the second is from '09- so it's quite possible both these matters have been addressed by more modern research. Not being a paleontologist, I don't know about that.

However, even if both those articles are correct, that does not in any way disprove or weaken the overall theory of evolution. That would simply mean that paleontologists are mistaken about one particular evolutionary pathway- i.e. the relationship between birds and theropods.
Yes these are just other examples that question how birds evolved and bring into doubt the traditional story which is primarily based on the fossil records and assumption. New discoveries give added details and add flesh to the bones of how this happened or whether it happened in the first place. But observational evidence is always like this because you are having to do detective work and piece clues together. What I disagree with is that some already have decided it happened and are making the evidence fit their pre conceived ideas. So if its up for interpretation then they are being bias towards evolution.

I frequently see creationists who have trouble understanding the nature of scientific hypotheses. Don't confuse them with religious dogmas! Hypotheses are tentative and flexible. Scientists put forth hypotheses as possible truths, which may on further investigation be disproven.
Yes I understand this and agree with you as far as science making a hypothesis and then they have to test that to verify it. That would be OK except what can happen is that scientists can also like creationists have preconceived beliefs and ideas which then skews the evidence towards their assumed ideas. But what happens is its easy to say a creationists will do this and a scientists wont because " scientists s always seeking the truth". That sort of give them an infallible status. But the problem is its the scientists behind the science who are humans who are subject to biases. The problem is the evidence can be seen in more than one way. Even two scientists who support evolution can see things differently ie a in taxonomy there is a splitter who sees the difference of most fossils as different species. A lumper sees the differences as variations of the same species.

The hypothesis that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs is not the same thing as the overarching framework which contains it- the theory of evolution. A theory is much more solidly established; in fact the ToE is as solid as any theory in all of science.
It depends what you mean by evolution. Most people including religious people, creationists and ID supporters agree that there is evolution at the micro level ie within a species. But some say that evolution can have more creative power than it has by taking this and saying it can keep going to changes above species level where one type of animal turns into another ie Dino to bird. No one would deny micro evolution as we see this all around in dog breeds for example.

But when we look into macro evolution and the finer details of how it can happen we find there is little evidence. Evolution within a species works because they need that variation to adapt to changing environments. It has limits and relies on existing genetics. But the further you move away from that existing genetics the more it is a cost to fitness which is the opposite of evolution. A mutation which is nearly always a cost to the animal is not something that improves things. I have already posted ample support for this if you go back and check.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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I do listen but I dont respond well to people dismissing things without any explanation or support. At least FrumiousBandersnatch debates the topic and goes into some detail about why I may be wrong with some links to verify this. That way I can then investigate and find out. I may not understand many of these things but at least when you debate someone you need to point out what might be the alternative explanation and why. This then gives backup and a logical reason as to why something may be wrong or why there is another reason for it being seen a different way. Rather than short one or two line dismissive statements that keep saying your wrong.
I explained why you were wrong on numerous occasions. You dismissed it without explanation and just rambled on. Later, you pretended that I had never explained to you why you were wrong! So no, you don't listen. This thread is replete with examples of you not listening and the confusion that results from that.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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It depends what you mean by evolution. Most people including religious people, creationists and ID supporters agree that there is evolution at the micro level ie within a species. But some say that evolution can have more creative power than it has by taking this and saying it can keep going to changes above species level where one type of animal turns into another ie Dino to bird. No one would deny micro evolution as we see this all around in dog breeds for example.

But when we look into macro evolution and the finer details of how it can happen we find there is little evidence. Evolution within a species works because they need that variation to adapt to changing environments. It has limits and relies on existing genetics. But the further you move away from that existing genetics the more it is a cost to fitness which is the opposite of evolution. A mutation which is nearly always a cost to the animal is not something that improves things. I have already posted ample support for this if you go back and check.
This has already been addressed several times! :doh: You keep saying that you don't expect evolution to produce a crocoduck, but then you keep using phrases like "one type of animal turns into another." What do you expect to see happen?
 
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