The Fossil Record- As God Would Have Made It Through Time

[xianghua]

How do you know that external designers do not need a designer but internal ones do?

bebcause they had a beginning.

 

[tas8831]

So lemme get this straight: string theory "computes" for you but evolution simply does not?

String theory is exceedingly complex and mostly (as I understand it) implications from mathematical constructs. Evolution, however, has evidence and a relatively simple model.

Could it be that since String Theory doesn't have any implications for threatening one's religious beliefs that it is easier to accept despite the fact that it is nearly incomprehensible to the common person, while evolution is more theologically threatening and much simpler to understand?

By Jove - you may be onto something!

 

[tas8831]

Consider my ongoing argument about the RLN. Science admits that there are things unknown about the nervous system, yet they are absolutely certain the left RLN has no purpose in it's route around the aortic arch.

I will say that I am absolutely certain that there is nothing relevant whatsoever about the FUNCTION of the LRLN in its route.

In fact, I am certain that no up-to-date evolutionist has indicated otherwise.

What we DO mention is the curious routing of the nerve, as in creatures like the giraffe, it clearly goes WAYYYY out of the way.

As creationists like to say everything is great design, what is so great about that tortuous route? Would a human designer that had wiring in a house that went from the breaker box to the attic and then back to the basement be considered a great designer?

In essence, you have set up a strawman in your head about what the argument about the RLN even is, and gone to great lengths to argue against THAT by positing all manner of absolutely absurd and counter-factual nonsense about the gut sending impulses to the larynx via the RLN, apparently solely because they are close to each other.


It is very true that we do no know everything about everything, but here are things we DO know, and one of the things we DO know is that the larynx does not receive motor input directly from the aorta or any part of the gut, because the only neural output of the gut/aorta is sensory, and even if there were motor outputs from them, they would have to go first to the nucleus ambiguus at the very least.

For crying out loud, even what you linked to as "support" for your claims did not actually offer ANY support. Did you even READ the Scientific American article you linked to, or was I correct about your keyword search antics? Because if you did actually read the article, that means that you either could not understand any of it, or you engaged in a rather transparent and pathetic attempt at deception.


AGAIN - why can't creationists ever admit they were wrong about anything?

 

[theQuincunx5]

the claim that a robot need a designer isnt science?

Have you integrated anything anyone has said in response to your "robot designs" or "car designs" posts?

Just curious because it seems that you may be just ignoring what others have said about them.

Let me ask you: how do you know that a robot (say a Roomba that you may have in your home) was "designed"? How, exactly, do you know this?

(Hint: because humans make robots. We design them.)

What evidence, apart from personal incredulity, do you have that life forms cannot evolve to be a very good fit in their environment without an overarching designer being involved?

Let's take a step back and look at bacteria. They reproduce quickly and in vast numbers. We see them adapt to poisons which have killed almost all of their predecessors. And they do it a few years.

Do you think God is reaching in and "re-designing" their core chemistry every couple of years? Or can you accept that evolution is occurring there. That mutations that allow survivors will result in more of the survivors surviving and the rest dying off, leaving an entirely new trait (resistant to this or that antibiotic).

(And please do NOT resort to "micro vs macro evolution"...we're talking about the idea that a thing can adapt to survive that which killed almost all of its predecessors. It would be like YOU adapting to survive the application of deadly nerve gas which would kill your parents. It's pretty astounding and amazing, it is not to be tossed off easily).

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I have looked into several of your claims and found that you are 100% wrong on each of them - why would this one be different?

Let me guess - you saw that claim in a creationist essay?

Or maybe you googled 'blind spots' and came across something like this:

"Peripheral Vision Problems - Blind Spots, Hemianopia and Tunnel Vision"

and ran with it?

But didn't bother to read and discover that these kinds of blinds spots are caused by things like strokes or trauma?

Because, you see, THE blind spot does not affect peripheral vision - try Wiki -

Optic disc - Wikipedia




In reality, there is a little exercise we do in A&P lab to detect it. Anyone can do it, it is pretty cool, actually. Give it a try for the first time.

Has virtually nothing to do with peripheral vision, considering the location of the optic disc.


No, they are just off to one side of the area of most acute vision:

My gosh - you cannot even make up things that sound sort of correct.

Let me help you - in the future, when confabulating things to support your religious beliefs, do not do so in the following subject areas:

anatomy
physiology
cell biology
evolution
phylogenetics
genetics

these are the subjects that I have either graduate-level education/experience in or have used in graduate and post-graduate research and thus understand via application.

Or just keep doing what you are doing and help me have some fun.



Anyway -

Even better design - have the axons exit around the periphery of the retina instead of converging near the macula, and have the blood vessels converge in the choroid instead of running through the retina. That way, there would be no blind spot at all - much better design.

Thanks for the entertainment!

To repeat, no one on earth even knew they had a blind spot until the eye was dissected and it was determined that the position of the optic nerve on the retina of the eye would result in a "blind spot" in one's peripheral vision, and would only be detectable in one's peripheral vision (in other words you can't 'see' it directly. The need for near perfect peripheral vision is necessary to detect it using the 'dot on white paper ' method. Like this you just don't comprehend what I'm saying most of the time. Really, all you had to do was think about what I said for a moment to realize that I did know what I'm talking about.

I think you suffer from your own version of the Lombard effect; whenever I say something your voice immediately goes to a fever pitch to shout it down (and that's hard on the vocal chords, doncha know).

 

[dad]

Yes there is. What exactly would you expect to see that isn't visible?

How about having the first books of the bible written by chimps?

 

[tas8831]

To repeat, no one on earth even knew they had a blind spot until the eye was dissected and it was determined that the position of the optic nerve on the retina of the eye would result in a "blind spot" in one's peripheral vision,

My gosh, you just cannot help yourself.

Did you not see the graph I presented showing the location of the optic disc? I thought you pretended to have "designed" things and to have 'studied' anatomy - do you not understand how peripheral vision works?

Answer: clearly not.

Peripheral vision is the field of vision that is produced by light striking photoreceptors on the PERIPHERY (i.e., not in the center)of the retina.

The optic disc - the blind spot - it literally irrelevant to peripheral vision as generally understood by lay folk. It lies right next to the macula lutea.

and would only be detectable in one's peripheral vision (in other words you can't 'see' it directly. The need for near perfect peripheral vision is necessary to detect it using the 'dot on white paper ' method.

Not even close. Please define "near perfect peripheral vision". Because I can't find it anywhere.

Like this you just don't comprehend what I'm saying most of the time.

I understand the words, but the concepts they are producing are in error - you seem immune to recognizing or admitting this.

You think that the blind spot can only be seen if one has "near perfect peripheral vision." This is, frankly, plain stupid. Peripheral vision is irrelevant - the blind spot is typically 3-4 mm from the fovea - the site of sharpest color vision. True, it affects visual reception that is not 'straight ahead', but seeing as how people generally have about a 170 degree visual field (plus or minus), 'near perfect' peripheral vision (what does that even mean?) is irrelevant, since the 'peripheral' vision we are talking about is only a few degrees off center, the area generally considered to be 'peri-central'.

I actually googled "near perfect peripheral vision" and - not surprisingly, not a single return.

You appear to take the embellished rantings of creationists on websites at face value - the overuse of superlatives is a dead giveaway (perfect, great, etc.).

Really, all you had to do was think about what I said for a moment to realize that I did know what I'm talking about.

And yet, no, you don't.

Not on this or any other biological topic.

I think you suffer from your own version of the Lombard effect; whenever I say something your voice immediately goes to a fever pitch to shout it down (and that's hard on the vocal chords, doncha know).

I am pretty sure you suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. Big time.

I am not at all trying to shut you down - I am merely correcting disinformation and/or deception and/or correcting your ignorance (which, remember, you have admitted to). A better lesson to take from this is to be humble. But that seems impossible for electricians, 3D modelers, engineers, computer scientists, etc. who are also creationists.

 

[tas8831]

So, I'm guessing a certain someone simply did not understand the relevance of my references to things like GVA fibers and the like - the guy claiming to have studied anatomy....



My prediction was 100% accurate!


THIS:

Was the entirety of the IQ of 135 creationist super-genius' response to this:

You implied you know about Gray's anatomy, right?

By the way - I ALREADY provided you with a source, but you probably just didn't bother to read it. Creationists are like that - they don't actually want to know how little they know.


So, since you think Google U makes you the expert you pretend to be, I found these in a couple of minutes:

The Neural Basis of Speech and Language (this is the one I linked for you before and you clearly ignored or more likely could not understand)
http://samples.jbpub.com/9781449652678/74738_CH02_FINAL.pdf


Vagus Nerve
http://www.caam.rice.edu/~cox/wrap/vagusnerve.pdf

Why, even Wiki:
General visceral afferent fibers - Wikipedia


From here:

General visceral afferent fibers


The general visceral afferent fibers (GVA) conduct sensory impulses (usually pain or reflex sensations) from the internal organs, glands, and blood vessels to the central nervous system.[1] They are considered to be part of the autonomic nervous system. However, unlike the efferent fibers of the autonomic nervous system, the afferent fibers are not classified as either sympathetic or parasympathetic.[2]

GVA fibers create referred pain by activating general somatic afferent fibers where the two meet in the posterior grey column.

The cranial nerves that contain GVA fibers include the facial nerve (CN VII), the glossopharyngeal nerve (CN IX), and the vagus nerve (CN X).[3]

Generally, they are insensitive to cutting, crushing or burning, excessive tension in smooth muscle and some pathological conditions produce visceral pain (referred pain).[4]

Pathway
Abdomen

In the abdomen, general visceral afferent fibers usually accompany sympathetic efferent fibers. This means that a signal traveling in an afferent fiber will begin at sensory receptors in the afferent fiber's target organ, travel up to the ganglion where the sympathetic efferent fiber synapses, continue back along a splanchnic nerve from the ganglion into the sympathetic trunk, move into a ventral ramus via a white ramus communicans, and finally move into the mixed spinal nerve between the division of the rami and the division of the roots of the spinal nerve. The GVA pathway then diverges from the sympathetic efferent pathway, which follows the ventral root into the spinal column, by following the dorsal root into the dorsal root ganglion, where the cell body of the visceral afferent nerve is located.[5] Finally, the signal continues along the dorsal root from the dorsal root ganglion to a region of gray matter in the dorsal horn of the spinal column where it is transmitted via a synapse to a neuron in the central nervous system.[2]

The only GVA nerves in the abdomen that do not follow the above pathway are those that innervate structures in the distal half of the sigmoid colon and the rectum. These afferent fibers, instead, follow the path of parasympathetic efferent fibers back to the vertebral column, where the afferent fibers enter the S2-S4 sensory (dorsal root) ganglia followed by the spinal cord.[5]
Pelvis

The course of GVA fibers from organs in the pelvis, in general, depends on the organ's position relative to the pelvic pain line. An organ, or part of an organ, in the pelvis is said to be "above the pelvic pain line" if it is in contact with the peritoneum, except in the case of the large intestine, where the pelvic pain line is said to be located in the middle of the sigmoid colon.[6] GVA fibers from structures above the pain line follow the course of the sympathetic efferent fibers, and GVA fibers from structures below the pain line follow the course of the parasympathetic efferents.[6] Pain from the latter fibers is less likely to be consciously experienced.[6]


References

Moore, Keith; Anne Agur (2007). Essential Clinical Anatomy, Third Edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 635. ISBN 0-7817-6274-X.
Moore, Keith; Anne Agur (2007). Essential Clinical Anatomy, Third Edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 34–35. ISBN 0-7817-6274-X.
Mehta, Samir et al. Step-Up: A High-Yield, Systems-Based Review for the USMLE Step 1. Baltimore, MD: LWW, 2003.
Susan,, Standring,. Gray's anatomy : the anatomical basis of clinical practice. ISBN 9780702052309. OCLC 920806541.
Moore, K.L., & Agur, A.M. (2007). Essential Clinical Anatomy: Third Edition. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 180. ISBN 978-0-7817-6274-8
Moore, Keith; Anne Agur (2007). Essential Clinical Anatomy, Third Edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 220. ISBN 0-7817-6274-X.​

Same source, on the special visceral afferent fibers - uh uh! this one actually mentions the larynx! Maybe this will be my Waterloo, and will provide evidence for the creationist's anatomical assertions?

Special visceral afferent fibers (SVA) are the afferent fibers that develop in association with the gastrointestinal tract.[1] They carry the special senses of smell (olfaction) and taste (gustation). The cranial nerves containing SVA fibers are the olfactory nerve (I), the facial nerve (VII), the glossopharyngeal nerve (IX), trigeminal nerve (V) and the vagus nerve (X). The facial nerve receives taste from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue; the glossopharyngeal from the posterior third. SVA fibers in the vagus originate in the larynx and pharynx.[2] The sensory processes, using their primary cell bodies from the inferior ganglion, send projections to the medulla, from which they travel in the tractus solitarius, later terminating at the rostral nucleus solitarius.[3]​

Nope. Just more evidence that the creationist is out of his depth and that his claim of studying anatomy was a farce.

And wiki again on the RLN:

Recurrent laryngeal nerve - Wikipedia


Now please provide an actual source that shows that motor impulses for vocalizations can be produced anywhere other than the Nucleus ambiguus (which in turn receives inputs from the motor speech area).

Surely you know what that is, what with your keen grasp of the relevant anatomy, right?


Of course, you would have had to understand anatomy enough to know what to search for (e.g., vagus nerve, visceral afferents, etc.) which you obviously do not (and remember that according to you, if something is obvious it must be so). This is why your keyword search technique has, every time I have seen you employ it thus far, ended up making you look foolish for linking to articles that actually undermine your position.


Funny - note that I was easily able to provide sources that actually do support my position, yet the creationist cannot seem to be able to do it ever.


PREDICTION - this will be responded to with first a one or two liner blow off, probably bringing up some ancillary subject, and perhaps later with a tangential link to a creationist essay.

Bets?​

 

[doubtingmerle]

bebcause they had a beginning.

A cowpie has a beginning. Therefore it has a designer?

 

[majj27]

A cowpie has a beginning. Therefore it has a designer?

It was an internal design. Also something something self-replicating-cow-robot-poopies something.

 

[Speedwell]

It was an internal design. Also something something self-replicating-cow-robot-poopies something.

Is a robot cow pie designed?

 

[majj27]

Yes, but it only works with frictionless, spherical cows.

 

[Speedwell]

Yes, but it only works with frictionless, spherical cows.

Horrible! The COMET cable channel has been running '50s monster movies--a rampaging robot cowpie would fit right in.

 

[FormerAtheist]

It is fact which has given Evolutions a black eye - out of billions of fossils inspected and documented there is not one single sequence/succession that shows Evolution by the fossil record.

Not one sequence showing morphological changes of one lifeform changing into another lifeform.

Again, not one evidence has been found.

What the fossil record does show is how God over time would have made Kinds of lifeforms. The fossil record proves this - since there is not one case of displaying by physical remains of postulated evolution of life forms.

Again, out of billions of fossils not one sequence showing hard physical fact of morphological change of one lifeform changing into another lifeform.

This is called no foundation for Evolution.

The fossil record instead has tantamount evidence in how God would have developed life over time. And their remains we would have physical evidence to display before all.

It is time for bias debaters and believers in Evolution to face up to the obvious. What the fossil record really shows.

To me what's funny is that life is like a laboratory there have been trillions of experiments done in this Laboratory and the results all point to a creator and yet atheists want to ask all the time where is the proof but where is the proof that life came without a creator?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

.

 

[PsychoSarah]

To repeat, no one on earth even knew they had a blind spot until the eye was dissected and it was determined that the position of the optic nerve on the retina of the eye would result in a "blind spot" in one's peripheral vision, and would only be detectable in one's peripheral vision (in other words you can't 'see' it directly. The need for near perfect peripheral vision is necessary to detect it using the 'dot on white paper ' method.

Nope, this is factually incorrect. The blind spot was first discovered by Edme Mariotte in 1660, and he didn't dissect an eye to do it. Heck, he essentially did the "dot on white paper" thing, but with a coin instead. And near perfect peripheral vision is not necessary; your old eyes may no longer be suitable for it, but most people with decent vision can find it.

Of course, I am sure the first eye dissection predates the 1600s, but you made it sound as if the blind spot was found by cutting eyes open, and it wasn't.

Like this you just don't comprehend what I'm saying most of the time. Really, all you had to do was think about what I said for a moment to realize that I did know what I'm talking about.

Ironic that these statements follow a historical inaccuracy provided by you.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Nope, this is factually incorrect. The blind spot was first discovered by Edme Mariotte in 1660, and he didn't dissect an eye to do it.

http://apps.usd.edu/coglab/schieber/pdf/Ramachandran1992.pdf

Gotcha!

 

[Jimmy D]

http://apps.usd.edu/coglab/schieber/pdf/Ramachandran1992.pdf

Gotcha!

I can't see it personally.

 

[Shemjaza]

To repeat, no one on earth even knew they had a blind spot until the eye was dissected and it was determined that the position of the optic nerve on the retina of the eye would result in a "blind spot" in one's peripheral vision, and would only be detectable in one's peripheral vision (in other words you can't 'see' it directly. The need for near perfect peripheral vision is necessary to detect it using the 'dot on white paper ' method. Like this you just don't comprehend what I'm saying most of the time. Really, all you had to do was think about what I said for a moment to realize that I did know what I'm talking about.

I think you suffer from your own version of the Lombard effect; whenever I say something your voice immediately goes to a fever pitch to shout it down (and that's hard on the vocal chords, doncha know).

The fact that our brains have some clever workarounds to make up for the flaw in our vision doesn't make it not a stupid design. Unfortunately the forces of selection and mutation are incredibly stupid. An actual intelligence could have cut past the incremental changes and done something better.

You could probably design a car with one wheel missing and some clever gyroscopes to make it not grind one of its corners on the road... but a better design would be wither to have four wheels or to centre one of the three.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I can't see it personally.

I'm sure most have never heard of it.