User talk:Bonesiii

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Please feel free to ask me any questions here. :-) --Bonesiii 21:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Huh? 2 Brilliant! 3 Your essay 4 "No increase in genetic information." 5 Reply to Joshua 6 To Sheep 7 The Trouble With One-Liners 8 References Cited 9 Greetings 10 Up for a debate 11 Notice from bones 12 Abortion

[edit] Huh?

What's up with this comment?

Format error. The paragraph was pushed down by the added tag. It just needed to be at top. --Bonesiii 19:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brilliant!

Bravo, Bonesiii, bravo! Your Origins Essay was absolutely incredible! Very well thought out, and well worded also. It was a joy to read and presented itself respectfully, and I'm sure it will appeal to Evolutionist and Creationist alike. You seem to have put a lot of work into it, and it has more than paid off in my oppinion. It has lead me to have far more respect for your writing talent, though I still think that your posts on BZP are pleasant as well. I agree with you on most of the issues adressed, and I think that you should most certainly finish the essay. Respectfully, Gravitan 22:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Gravitan. I'm glad you liked it--just as long as we all take note that it's nowhere near finished and seriously need sourcing at the moment. :) (To be clear, sources for all that do exist, and I have read them.)--Bonesiii 23:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like it needs a little sourcing. And I understand that it's not close to being finished; I simply wished to convey that, while it is a rather small article for the subject, it has the makings of a great essay (which I am sure you will be able to mold it into). (Though one thing that I must point out is your reference to God as "he" or "his", rather than "He" or "His". And while different religions have different perspectives on that issue, I believe that most favor the latter of the two. So just something for you to consider.) Respectfully, Gravitan 23:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I considered capitalizing, however, most non-Christians today don't follow that tradition and may not understand it, and this is written with them in mind as readers too (if they should so choose to read it, heh). I might change it, not sure... It does look jarring, to me, to read it lowercase, but maybe that's mostly just me and you and some others, dunno.

Update note: I've added a few new sections, and set up the reference section (I'm using footnoting, which I'm still relatively new at here so figuring out format as I go, lol). Only one reference (two links to one site) is added so far; it's one I only found out about this morning; "Dissent from Darwin." A list of scientists that doubt evolution, basically, though unlikely to be a complete one. Also reformatted to hopefully be a little more readable (the problems list, that is). --Bonesiii 03:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your essay

Hi, Bonesiii, I saw your comments on Talk:Dinosaur regarding your essay and came over to have a look. I'll incidentally note that saw you were a logician and am curious what your area of expertise is. Now as to the essay: I don't have time to commnet on every detail in the evolution section. The section on a whole is full of problems. Since my time is limited I will only address the most serious problems with the essay except to note that I think you meant to refer to the Talk Origins Archive rather than talk.origins. First your comment that you are only comparing YEC to "Without God Evolution" misses to a large extent the entire reason that there is an issue. The majority of people who accept evolution(at least in the United States) also believe in a Deity. In that regard, you have set up what is essentially a false dichotomy. Now, regarding a few of your specific points:

The Talk Origins FAQ conclusively refutes just about all of his points anyway. They're recycled ideas from like 10 years ago. I came here expecting to have to do some research. : ( Sheep81 08:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Missing links."

A large part of this section seems to be based off of some misunderstanding of "transitional form" means. I've never seen the term "complete species" before and all the google hits for it turn up just using it to mean "complete species list of Genus X" or something similar. What I am able to piece out of this section seems to be that you are claiming that we should see many more of what amount to morphological transitionals in the fossil record. In fact, we see many morphological transitionals. One nice example of this is whales where the fossil evidence was so good that it essentially forced scientists to accept the unintuitive hypothesis that whales came from land mammals. The fossil sequence of Sinonyx, Pakicetus, Ambulocetus and then the roughly contemporaenous Basilosaurus and Dorudon shows a gradual progression from a wolf-like mammal to a well-ocean adapted mammal. (I've omitted a few other fossils that make this sequence even more fine grained since they aren't that relevant).

Not to mention two things. 1) The most powerful thing about the fossil whale phylogeny is that it corroborated the molecular data. DNA analysis first suggested that whales were related to artiodactyl mammals, a fact which was then beautifully confirmed by the later discovery of artiodactyl ankle joints in those early whales. 2) A very large number of fossil species, including most land vertebrates, are known from one specimen. There is no way to tell if these specimens don't represent "transitional forms" even if you use the ludicrous definition of a transitional individual. Sheep81 08:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "No increase in genetic information."

This section seems to conflate somewhat abiogenesis issues with evolution so I'm am going to ignore the abiogenesis related issues for now and only deal with the more direct problems. You state that "Creation... predicts decrease of genetic information, and speciation and natural selection, as results of the Curse, as well as variation within kind as a part of the original creation, and that is what we find. Evolutionists choose on faith to believe that increases have occured, despite it never being observed, and despite it arguing against common sense; information comes from intelligence." First, it is interesting to note that it wasn't until the 1940s at the earliests that creationists began to accept that speciation could occur and even now AIG lists the argument that speciation cannot occur as an argument creationists should not use. Thus the claim that "Creation" predicts speciation is at best a very post hoc claim. I would discuss in more detail the problem of increase in genetic information but I can't since you (and indeed, AIG or almost any other creationist) hasn't defined what they mean by "information". Now, my main area of interest in mathematics is number theory and so I may be wrong but as I understand it there are two basic ways to measure information in mathematics; Kolmogorov complexity and Shannon information theory. Now, it isn't at all hard to give examples of fairly common mutation types that will in general be likely to increase the Shannon information density or the Kolmogorov complexity.

(A small aside- in fact a short thought problem should convince one that any non-trivial defintion of information will allow some mutations that increase the information level. Argument: Premise 1) Any mutation is reversible although some are unlikely to be reversed. Premise 2) For any reasonable defintion of information any two identical strings (substance doesn't matter but for our purposes say DNA) have the same information value, regardless of how the strings were formed (so for example, if we had mutations taking string X to Y to Z and had also string X to Z, at the end both Z's have the same amount of information). Now, suppose we have some mutation that results in a loss of information taking X to Y. Then by premise 1, the mutation Y->X is possible, and by premise 2, this mutation must be an increase in information).

There are numerous, numerous examples of mutations creating new traits, even beneficial ones, anyway:

• Nylon-eating bacteria - Nylon was not invented until 1935 and there is nothing remotely close to it in nature. However, by 1975, bacteria were discovered that had evolved whole new enzymes able to digest nylon. And not just one enzyme, but THREE different enzymes. DNA analysis showed that the new enzyme was a result of a deletion mutation in a pre-existing gene that created a frame shift, resulting in the new gene.
• B. safensis and B. odysseyi, new species of bacteria that evolved in NASA's spacecraft construction facilities.
• A single-gene mutation in Japanese snails that produced reproductive isolation by changing the direction of coil in the shell.
• A study in E. coli that showed 12% of insertion mutations sampled (3 out of 26 genotypes) resulted in improved fitness (you can read this paper in its entirety at the link - check it out, even the authors were surprised).
• lots of others

Sheep81 08:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Your other sections are similarly flawed, and I don't have the time to go through them all at the moment and furthermore would prefer to do so by email if possible rather than take up Wikipedia resources. I will however, note that you ignore the best evidence for evolution indeed, evidence so strong that even if we had never dug in the earth it would still be the most reasonable hypothesis- the phylogenetic tree. There is no reason to at all expect such a tree to work if species or even groups of species were individually created. The most common retort of "common designer, not common ancestor" or something similar in fact doesn't deal with it at all since designers don't make things in convenient trees (if for example you looked at the history of cars or computers and attempted to make such a tree one would be stuck with an obscene amount of horizontal transfer of traits). Genetic evidence which corresponds closely to the morphologically derived tree only reinforces this conclusion. In summary, you start off with a false dichotomy, then use flawed arguments and you don't even address the strongest evidence for evolution. Regards, JoshuaZ 04:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Nail in the coffin. Sheep81 08:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Sheep, remember what I said about many debaters of worldviews having made up their mind beforehand and not willing to consider the other side, and thinking in short, one-liners? That last comment there is one of them. I thank both of you for taking the time to reply, though. The most important question in response to you, though, Sheep (and in general, to Joshua, etc.) is this: Are you willing to consider that you might actually be wrong? It doesn't sound like it, Sheep, and there's several points where I would think that if you were, you'd have caught some logical mistakes talk origins (and you yourself) were using. But you didn't, and even went so far as to post what amounts to a "gotcha" post. I'm not interested in "gotchaism", I'm interested in truth-seeking debate. All that said, I very well might be wrong.

Specifically, then, and I'll respond to Joshua then Sheep point-by-point (in case it's not obvious, I've been working on this reply for several days). --Bonesiii 00:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to Joshua

• Joshua--well, not being a scientist, I'm not sure "area of expertise" is what you meant (or if I'm understanding the question correctly). If you mean what aspects of science am I interested in, other than origins, I really don't like to limit what I study, but I'm interested in astronomy/astrophysics, physics in general, geology, paleontology, and genetics. I'm especially interested in temporal/spatial/causal mechanics, chaos theory, and plant and animal anatomy. If you mean any area of expertise, history (and logic, obviously), and I'm also a writer and artist. I may have forgot things, lol, and that is certainly nowhere near the extent of subjects I study. Understanding everything is a very wide-ranging endeavor. :)

• Both are worth linking to, but yes, the archive would be better.

• False dichotomy -- Actually, you brought up a debating mistake (probably without realizing it) that I need to address in its own section -- a type of Hasty Generalization fallacy. I call this the "Dichotomophobia Fallacy" --it's essentially the opposite of the Either/or fallacy, in which you assume that there are never any "either/ors" (figuratively, in which you are afraid of dichotomies or afraid of logically testing alleged dichotomies). For the record, I was using neither fallacy. (You'll find that I tend not to use fallacies--identifying them is what I do. :P) It's one thing to automatically state that a dichotomy is false just because you see a dichotomy being discussed--it's another to show how it is false or consider that maybe it's a "true dichotomy".

• You didn't do that, notice--and I'm also curious as to what the "reason that there is an issue" is, that you mentioned? A "Without God Evolution" that conflicts with a "God Creation" is the most oppositional the debate can get. I addressed the idea already in the article. Genesis claims that death came into the universe only after Adam sinned, therefore the evolution model, which depends on death before human development, cannot fit with Genesis. What defines a false dichotomy is not popularity, but logic. Logically speaking, a hermeneutical reading of Genesis (YEC) cannot fit with Evolution. It doesn't matter if many people don't know that, or if many people choose to read Genesis metaphorically in order to facilitate that worldview mixing--the simple fact remains that Genesis cannot fit with Evolution.

• Also, while there are compromise views (as I mentioned in the essay), the most activist evolutionists are atheists. ^[1] To me, to use the false dichotomy argument as an argument against one of the two views is oxymoronic. A false dichotomy should be able to show that the two views can both be correct at the same time, and that's not the case with this view. A YEC view cannot be wedded to a OE view, regardless of whether it is evolution or creation. What you're doing here is assuming that all religious views of creation are equivalent. They are not. Only the YEC is supported by the hermeneutics of Genesis (and in my judgement only the Bible, read hermeneutically, has the whole "God thing" right). I can understand the appeal of mixing, but I also see the logical problems it has.

• Missing Links -- The basic concept of transitional forms is relatively simple. The evolutionary view is that a type of creature that lived in the past evolved into a new type of creature, with many differences between the original creature, and the new creature, so in the fossil record we should see at least a few (if not many or even a majority) of fossils that are a "transition" between one past creature and the new creature, that hold up to careful analysis. The creationist view is that within a created "kind", there is plenty of room for variation and speciation, so we should see varied and even very similar creatures, but no creatures that, upon careful examination, make sense as transitional species (like Archaeopteryx). Instead, what we see are a mere handful of "alleged" links, the vast majority of which have been shown in analysis to be no link at all but a seperate branch or "type of species" (sometimes just a variation in kind, sometimes a new kind). In fact, more and more are being "demoted" to non-transitional creatures, such as Archaeopteryx, Lucy, etc. etc. And regardless of whether they get "demoted" or not, there are far too few for evolution to fit with the fossil record. The media, and even evolutionist scientists themselves, encourage the misconception to spread that there are (a) transitional fossils that have withstood careful analysis, and worse, (b) plenty of them.

• Yes, I'm about to quote Gould. :P Gould said this, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology."^[2]

• A good concise definition of transitional form would be "A fossil that is shown to be a transition between a past established creature, and a different established creature afterwards (that is, lower in the fossil record and higher, respectively), and that passes rigorous analysis." Also note that while evolutionists have so far done much of the "demotion", their bias has prevented them from acknowledging much of their own "demoting" in the media or in education, and obviously they dismiss any creationist analysis, so a "truth seeker", if you will, must look carefully at both evolutionist and creationist analysis and consider them. There's no easy name-tag on any fossil, so the term is obviously hard to define, but that definition makes the most logical sense to me. By that definition, unfortunately for evolutionists, there are no transitional forms. There are a shrinking handful of possible transitional forms, however, so the key right now is, to me, to begin analyses of those.

• I'm well aware of the variation in whale types--those are not transitional forms, however,^[3] and that has been well-known for years in the origins debate. Frankly, there's a lot of circular reasoning that evolutionists like to use, like with this example -- whales are known to be mammals, so we should expect to see similarities between them and land mammals, regardless of whether we are creationists or evolutionists. This is akin to the ape-human genetic similarity argument -- evolutionists like quoting a percentage of similarity in the 90-range, as if that proves something -- apparently without realizing that genetics causes appearance. Apes look like humans, so of course they're similar. Neither the genetic similarities, nor the physical appearance results of them, are relevant to this debate (creationists see similar design as hint of a common designer). Essentially, the evolutionist whale argument is this: whale evolution is true, therefore whale/land-mammal similarities indicate evolution, therefore evolution is true. It's circular reasoning.

• By the way, that example is one of the reasons there's a "true dichotomy". Genesis says water creatures came before land creatures; thus whales before the mammals evolutionists think they evolved from. The two views cannot wed; one or the other is wrong.

• "Complete species" -- Well, it's probably not the best wording (and no offense, but I find it hilarious that you googled it, lol). "Species" is better worded as "type of creature" -- i.e. a bird is not a dinosaur (despite however much wikipedians lately have enjoyed saying so or posting featherified drawings, lol), and no transition between the two has ever been found (some have been alleged but did not withstand analysis). It is very possible for a single type of creature to "speciate", hence the term "speciation" in the first place. Creationists call the concept "kind". Horses, for example, have always been horses, and they appear in the fossil record with no previous transitional fossils, but at the same time, we see much variation and likely speciation in the horse kind, including cool creatures like Hyracotherium. The problem is that evolutionists want to see varied creatures as an evolutionary line, and so group them that way without actual evidence of it, and as more study is done, the vast majority are "demoted" to a seperate branch. --Bonesiii 00:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

"Logically speaking, a hermeneutical reading of Genesis (YEC) cannot fit with Evolution. It doesn't matter if many people don't know that, or if many people choose to read Genesis metaphorically in order to facilitate that worldview mixing--the simple fact remains that Genesis cannot fit with Evolution." - No, this is STILL a false dichotomy. A true dichotomy is "a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities" according to Merriam-Webster[4]. Two entities. But you just put forth a third entity in that very sentence! It's not a title match between young-Earth creationism vs. evolutionary theory, it's battle royale: young-Earth creationism vs. old-earth creationism vs. progressive evolution vs. theistic evolution vs. evolution by natural selection vs. Lamarckian evolution vs. several combinations of the above vs. any other possible hypothesis you could come up with. Even IF you somehow falsified evolution by natural selection (which you haven't and won't), it wouldn't prove young-Earth creationism based on a literal reading of Genesis any more than it would prove Lamarckian evolution! Evolution by natural selection and young-Earth creationism could potentially BOTH be falsified! THAT'S why it's a false dichotomy. I'm forced to conclude that either a) you don't know what a dichotomy is, b) you do know what a dichotomy is but aren't thinking as logically as you claim, or c) you do know what a dichotomy is and are thinking logically, but are intentionally trying to obfuscate things. Sheep81 17:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Polychotomy :D Sheep81 18:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

You missed the point, Sheep. ;) I said right in the introduction of the Problems section that I was comparing Genesis creation with evolution. Between the two, there is a dichotomy. Just as there is a dichotomy of good and evil, etc. Rather than understand this, your argument above amounts to this: "Creation and Evolution aren't the only two options, therefore Creation must be wrong." That's a non-sequitar. And regardless, I clearly stated that they are the two options I was looking at in that section. ;) Therefore, in that context, it is a dichotomy, just as you cannot disprove the dichotomy of good and evil by saying that there is also cheese. Compromise views are not in the same category as Creation and Evolution, because they are not consistent with the founding principles of either "pure" worldview. As I said, death could not both come only after Adam, and also before him at the same time.

The point being, that considering the third (and fourth, and fifth, etc, Hinduism, Islam, various views within religions like that, etc. etc.) is a different question than the one I'm looking at. Since I have already found what I consider to be glaring problems with them more so than evolution or creation, my task is now to narrow the consideration to only one of the two. :) That is the dichotomy. --Bonesiii 00:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I know you are only comparing two options. You have created a dichotomy, yes, but you can create a dichotomy between any two things you like. However, the problem we have here is that after choosing the two things to compare, you then proceed to assume that those are the ONLY two possible options, when clearly they are not. It's a false assumption. Hence, "FALSE dichotomy". It's a dichotomy that doesn't apply to the real world, so you can talk about it all you want, but the fact remains you can't prove Creationism by disproving evolution, any more than you can prove evolution by disproving Creationism. And I said nothing like "Creation and Evolution aren't the only two options, therefore Creation must be wrong" either... in fact I pretty clearly said the opposite of that. Sheep81 03:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad to hear that is not how you intended it. As I cleared up above, however, nowhere did I "assume" anything about the other options, so your "hence" does not apply, and it it thus not a false dichotomy, by your own logic. I simply did not address them in detail (I did address the main problems with mixing the two I have referred to, however). Also, if I choose strawberries, and choose oranges, and considered that a dichotomy, you would be correct that it is false. However, I chose ideas that are mutually exclusive. This is necessarily a dichotomy. Anyways, it's really rather irrelevant, since my origins essay is in support of one particular worldview. Nobody said that only evolution competes with that worldview (I said the opposite right in the essay); however, evolution is quite obviously the one that is the mainstream view of the scientific community about origins, therefore it is the one that was most important to discuss (and it's also the one that was in question in previous debates that were off-topic on other talk pages, of which you should be aware because you participated in at least one). :) The question is if evolution, or any other worldview-based logic, can show clear problems with creation. I can show, and did, many problems with both evolution and OEC/ID/Theological evolution (that is, many of the problems with evolution also are problems with those worldviews, and the key Genesis-related problems for those worldviews present serious logical hurdles they so far have not been able to leap over). --Bonesiii 03:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To Sheep

• It's interesting that you believe Talk Origins "refutes" everything I have said, and yet I myself recommended talk origins as a site to check out and explore. Have you been open-minded about this and read the countless articles at AIG that "refute" things evolutionists are saying, including countless arguments used by talk origins? Doesn't sound like it. It's easy to link to a source that "refutes" a viewpoint you want to be wrong, and just generalize that "it's all disproved over there". It's another thing to actually have logically studied whether the refutations do disprove the viewpoint, and then post, using your own words, or at least quotes or links, and reference how the viewpoint is wrong. (Not to mention it's another to avoid fallacies. :P)

• I am placing "refute" in quotes because it's an interesting word choice. Defensive debaters often use a type of "refutation" that has nothing to do with "debunking" or "disproving" or even "logical analysis, and that is what talk origins excels at. That is, when your viewpoint has been shown to have serious logical flaws by opponents, but you wish to be defensive rather than admit you were wrong, you simply write lots of text, regardless of how logical it is or is not, and hope that most people (who, let's face it, aren't logicians) will assume your extensive or fancy-sounding words mean you are right. (See Proof by verbosity. That's often how defensive debaters use the word "refute"--I've seen it countless times. So I would agree with the statement that talk origins "refutes" many of my points. However, logic is still on the side of my points, as I see it. I believe whatever is most logical to believe, and exactly nothing else.

• See above reply about the whales. You illustrated perfectly the sort of circular reasoning I'm talking about. Genetic similarities were found, so you assume this means something only for evolution. You then procede to assume that only evolution predicts that genetic similarities should fit with physical similarities. Then, when it's found, you say "this proves evolution." That makes no sense at all, lol. Genetics causes physical appearance, Sheep, and both sides agree on that. Again, your argument takes the form "whale evolution is true, therefore whale/land-mammal similarities indicate evolution, therefore evolution is true" but this time with an even worse subargument:

1) Whale phylogeny agreeing with DNA analysis proves evolution.

2) Whale phylogeny agrees with DNA analysis.

3) Therefore, Whale phylogeny agreeing with DNA analysis proves evolution.

Circular reasoning! Besides, if you had done any research into this, you would have found out that the initial premise is not just part of an invalid argument, it's also clearly false. Creationists also would expect whale phylogeny to agree with DNA analysis. Why? Because evolutionists decide whale phylogeny by appearance--it's another way of saying "Whale DNA matches whale appearance." Of course!

• In order to have a true transitional form between whales and land mammals, you would need to find a form that is clearly no longer fully inside the whale "kind" or in the corresponding mammal kind, and that could also not possibly be a seperate kind altogether. The whale example fails this test.

• As for your second point, I'm not even sure how it makes sense. Perhaps you're not familiar with Baraminology (a rough equivalent in evolution is Cladistics though it is rarely subjected to the high critical analysis standards of creationist studies and essentially assumes evolution to be true, rather than attempting to judge evolution's soundness as a theory), but by studying the specific features of a fossil, its similarity to other fossils can be determined (this is part of the analysis mentioned earlier), and thus it can be determined whether it is consistent with simply variation within kind, or not. So far, all the examples fit with variation within kind. Archaeoperyx, for example, is simply a bird, Lucy is simply an ape, etc.

Will continue later with a reply to the second half of Joshua's/Sheep's reply. :) And BTW, Sheep, it would be helpful if next time you reply one-after-the-other, rather than splitting up someone else's reply, okay? --Bonesiii 00:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC

Suggestion noted, I will avoid splitting in the future. See below for my reply to your reply!

I have read a few of the AiG "answers" to the talk.origins refutations of creationist arguments, and each time I had to suppress a giggle. I then went and read some of the talk.origins refutations of the AiG "answers" which I considered to a lot more convincing.

I'm going to concede the the semantics of "refute" because I don't really care about semantics, so you might be right, and I am certainly not an expert on disputation (ooo another big word!). However, I would ask: are you as open-minded as you seem to request that I be? In my experience, most young-Earth creationists aren't, simply because they wouldn't be young-Earth creationists in the first place if they hadn't already accepted the literal truth of Genesis. However, you could be one of the lucky few! (By the way, I am just going to use "creationists" in place of "YECs" from here on out, because I am lazy).

As far as my whale comment, here's where you're wrong: today's whales have no similarity with artiodactyls. You can barely find anything similar about them, aside from their common status as mammals. So no, creationists wouldn't have predicted genotypic similarity between whales and artiodactyls because there is no phenotypic similarity. There were no creationists out there proclaiming "whales are in the artiodactyl baramin!" before these molecular studies came out, and I haven't done research on the topic but I suspect there weren't many afterwards either. In fact, whales and artiodactyls appear so different that even paleontologists thought the molecular guys were nuts when they said they were related. That changed when early whale fossils (Ambulocetus, Pakicetus, etc.) were found in Pakistan and other places that clearly showed an artiodactyl ankle joint, and now (most) of the morphological workers agree with the molecular workers. The point is that only an evolutionary framework predicts this. We had done the genetic studies, and from that it was possible to predict that fossils would be found to support the phylogenetic hypothesis derived from the molecules. Likewise, if we had (hypothetically) found these fossils in the 1950s, it would have been possible to predict that genetic studies would confirm the relationship. A creationist framework would never have predicted this, because creationists will only admit that, in your words, "[g]enetics causes physical appearance" and refuse to concede that genetics could also indicate phylogeny. Phenotypically, is a whale more similar to a hippo than a hippo is to a pig or a camel? No. So why is a whale more similar genetically to a hippo than a hippo is to a pig or a camel? Hint: there's one simple answer, and we're playing science here, so it doesn't involve God working in mysterious ways (necessarily at least... not to state that He isn't, since that's unfalsifiable pretty much by definition). (Here is a free PDF of an article showing the morphological phylogeny uniting hippos and whales, and if you look in the first paragraph below the abstract, there are references to literally 20 different molecular phylogenetics papers with the same hypothesis).

"In order to have a true transitional form between whales and land mammals, you would need to find a form that is clearly no longer fully inside the whale "kind" or in the corresponding mammal kind, and that could also not possibly be a seperate kind altogether."

Let me see if I understand your definition here.

You're saying that if land mammals have features ABC, and whales have features ABCEFG, a form with ABCE would be a transitional form? But if it had ABCDE, it wouldn't be, by your definition?

That's pretty much a ludicrous definition of transitional forms that you could use to deny any creature anyone could ever throw out there. Because animals don't just GAIN traits over time, they can also LOSE traits (phenotypically at least). Think about it. If an animal exists in great enough numbers to actually be preserved, then almost by definition it has to be an abundant species, and a species can only become abundant if it is uniquely adapted to its environment, which means that it will have unique features. However, these unique features would not necessarily be selected for as the environment changes (this is the main catalyst for speciation after all), and if they aren't, they will disappear over time. So given the incomplete fossil record, it would APPEAR that they had a unique feature not shared by their purported descendants, which by your definition would exclude them as transitional forms, even if they were. A record of traits that were found in ancestors that are no longer expressed can often be seen in the genetic code and may even be expressed in embryonic development (not as clear-cut as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" but still). For instance, dolphins exhibit the buds of hindlimbs early in development, but another gene stops their growth and they are reabsorbed(another free PDF). Sometimes they aren't reabsorbed properly and then you see full-grown dolphins with hindlimbs like this! Also, chickens still have genes that allow them to grow teeth, but they are normally suppressed (yet another free PDF). If a mutation removes the suppression, teeth will grow, like in this chick! If genetics only encodes appearance and not phylogeny, why are there unexpressed genes for traits that animals don't have? Again, there's one simple answer, and it's not "God works in mysterious ways."

In any case, we actually do have some examples of anagenesis (one species evolving directly into another) out there in the fossil record, especially in ammonites. But that wouldn't impress you because it's just one species evolving into another very similar species over a (geologically) short period of time, which you already accept anyway (same baramin or whatever). You seem to be wanting us to find the entire chain of life from the beginning to every single organism that ever existed, which is never going to happen. In fact, I COULD show you plenty of fossils with no defining features of their own, because they are so incomplete, but I wouldn't claim any of them as potential "transitional forms" (your definition) because I would just assume that unique features would be seen on other body parts yet to be found. That's just a consequence of an incomplete fossil record, sorry. Even creationists agree that the fossil record is far from perfect, otherwise they would have to argue that only one Antarctopelta or Eoraptor ever existed.

I am in fact familiar with baraminology. It was invented to allow creationists to backpedal once it became very apparent how obvious natural selection was and what its results would be over time, not to mention that there were just way too many types of animals to fit on one boat. Basically because creationists wanted to cut their losses and say "Evolution happens a little bit, but only to a point! We're still right!" There are several major problems with baraminology, aside from the fact that not even all creationists believe in it, and that many actually believe God sat down and created all 5 million species of beetle independently (since He has "an inordinate fondness for beetles" - Haldane).

The first is that the concept of "baramin" is basically used to say that "Noah didn't have to get all the different types of extant and extinct types of dogs on his Ark, he just got the archetypal DOG and all the other types of dogs appeared after the Flood ended." This would mean that the ancestral DOGS dispersed all over the world and dozens of different types of canid evolved in only a few thousand years -- even FASTER than "evolutionists" would suggest! If evolution really acts that fast on the phenotype, why don't we still see new species of dog evolving every couple hundred years? We've killed off several species of wild dogs, so why haven't new ones evolved to fill their niches already?

The second is simply: how do you define a baramin? Definitions of groups of animals in an evolutionary framework are simple: a bunch of animals that are related. But where does a baramin start and end? To use one of your examples: what baramin is Archaeopteryx in? You seem very confident that it just a bird. So is "bird" a baramin? Isn't that kinda broad? Did Noah just bring two Archaeopteryx on his Ark and then all the other birds evolved from there? I already have trouble believing that three dozen dog species could evolve that fast, let alone tens of thousands of species of birds.

So Archaeopteryx would be in its own smaller baramin, I assume? That would have made sense in 1870, when Archaeopteryx was obviously a bird because it had feathers, but so different from other birds because of its teeth, fingers and bony tail. Not so today, when there is a whole spectrum of animals on both sides that show only incremental differences from Archaeopteryx. What baramin is Shenzhouraptor, which has feathers, fingers, teeth, and a bony tail, but slightly more birdlike features of the skull and wings? What about Confuciusornis, with teeth and fingers but no long bony tail? What about Hesperornis, with teeth but no fingers? And then what about all the birds between THOSE animals? On the other side of Archaeopteryx, there are a legion of theropod dinosaurs preserved with feathers, are those birds too? Asymmetrical flight feathers essentially identical to those of modern birds are preserved in dromaeosaurs like Microraptor and the undescribed specimen BPM 1 3-13. Symmetrical feathers unsuitable for flight are known in the oviraptorid Caudipteryx and several others. Long filamentous structures similar to the rachis of feathers are known in Sinosauropteryx, Dilong and many others. This progression from filamentous "protofeathers" to modern feathers corresponds exactly to the phylogeny hypothesized from skeletal elements. Meaning that even if the feathers are not taken into consideration at all, paleontologists would STILL find the same general phylogeny (there are smaller nitpicky differences of course, depending who you ask). Speaking of skeletal elements, the reversed pubis of birds, as well as modifications of the arm and shoulder that allow the flight stroke are present in dromaeosaurs, the semilunate carpal bone that allows wing folding is present in all maniraptorans, the furcula ("wishbone") is known as far back as Coelophysis, the three-toed foot with hallux is found in all theropods, and the cavities in the vertebrae and other bones that accommodate the air sacs of an avian-style respiration system are known in all saurischians! And honestly I could keep going, and going, and going, back to the beginning of Chordata, probably further if I knew anything about invertebrates at all.

Surely both biologists and creationists agree that all of these features had their functions in the animals they were found in, they weren't just stored there to get ready for birds. So you could argue that God created those features in those animals specifically, but that would ignore the fact that those features don't happen in isolation. You don't find an animal with a semilunate carpal and no furcula. You don't find an animal with a bird-like foot that doesn't already have pneumatic cavities in its bones similar to birds. These features accumulate, so that there is a whole spectrum of animals that, taken as a whole, progressively appear more and more similar to birds, but still retain some "non-bird" features. Then you get to Archaeopteryx and there is another spectrum of animals that progressively appear more and more similar to today's modern birds but still retain some characteristics of more primitive forms. So the main problem for baraminology is that as our knowledge of the fossil record improves, the gaps that baraminologists rely on to demarcate their "baramins" will simply get smaller and smaller until they close altogether and you just have Baramin Biota, exactly the same as the "evolutionists".

Sheep81 17:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, thanks for your in-depth reply! I wish I had time to reply to all of it, but for now, some of the points.

• As to the question of whether I'm as open-minded as I ask you to be, yes, I am. To be clear, though, I'm certainly not demanding it of you. I can't read minds, so I can't even know for sure if you are. (Benefit of the doubt, obviously.) It's just that if you aren't willing to consider changing your mind if logic dictates (as I am), then it's probably better if I spend my time doing other things. :)
• Also, please don't take this as an accusation, but maybe you should think about your response while reading AIG points. You giggle--is that really an open-minded response? I'll admit freely that I find myself rolling my eyes sometimes when reading talk origins, and maybe I shouldn't either. But when I do so, it's usually because I see a logical fallacy, something that really shouldn't be on a scientific website. Many other times I simply read a point they're making, and think "that is actually a good argument; I'll look into that". So far I've always found reasons that debunk it, but I'm willing to consider it.
• Also, you need to realize that with both AIG and talk origins, the approach is not always an actual debate between two entire worldviews based on evidence, but often it's simply taking one aspect of the opposite worldview ("out of context", as it were), and showing how it does not fit inside their own worldview. To someone who is approaching the debate already accepting evolution, for example, what talk origins may seem to make a lot more sense than it does (or same with AIG). It's a fair reaction, don't get me wrong, but what I'm driving at is this. I've spent time reading extensively on AIG, and on talk origins and many other evolutionist websites, even OEC and ID sites, arguments, etc, and what I have found is that YECs like AIG tend to do the best job of showing real logical problems with the evolutionist worldview itself, in context, and talk origins (and others, but talk origins is the most in-depth I've found) on the contrary rarely looks at creationism in context (if ever), and merely shows how each point doesn't fit within the evolutionary view.
• That's a big part of what has convinced me AIG has it right (at least on the biblical issues). Admittedly, that's a big project, and not saying you need to do all of that work, but if you try to see past the "out of context" arguments, perhaps you could come to see what I'm seeing here. :)
• One example, to illustrate, quickly. This one, for example, is riddled with obvious logical errors. "Therefore, errors in an inerrant interpretation of the Bible can never be fixed." (Need I comment, lol?) Or look at number four. From the evolutionist perspective, that argument makes sense, but it can only fly if we don't actually study the Bible, and what it itself says--nowhere did Jesus declare the old law errant. He simply declared it no longer required. He was the author of it (according to the Bible), therefore he can suspend his own rules at will. Also, many of Paul's letters debunk the point as well. Number two is especially disturbing; apparently the writers of this response are unaware that the Bible forbids hate and requires that Christians leave judgement to God; it is those who believe things unsupported by the Bible who are guilty of things such as the Holocaust. Just to name a few mistakes.
• The whole argument misses the point; those who have tried to disprove any claim in the Bible have failed, alleged contradictions have all been debunked (notice their list in #7; I've personally studied much of what they list there and have seen clear disproofs of those being "contradictions"; they are simply misunderstandings or twisting of meaning just like the fulfillment of the law concept), and what "Some people believe" the Bible says is irrelevant; what matters to the issue in question on that page is what the Bible actually says. This section is 1,056 words long (by Microsoft Word's count, which is not infallible :P), and not a word of it acknowledges these key points. There is no actual sound logical argument against the point (it fails in both soundness and validity on many points, in fact). However, with that many words, and many arguments that seem convincing, those who are coming at this from an evolutionary perspective already are very likely to miss this aspect, and walk away thinking the page disproved the creationist claim.
• To be fair, AIG and other YEC sites certainly do the same on many of their pages, or in parts of pages. And I highly doubt they always include every relevant detail. Neither side is perfect at this debate, certainly. But Creationists can and do show fundamental problems with evolution, that pass the logic tests. That is huge.
• Anyways, I haven't responded to any of your other points yet, lol. To the whale one:

"That changed when early whale fossils (Ambulocetus, Pakicetus, etc.) were found in Pakistan and other places that clearly showed an artiodactyl ankle joint, and now (most) of the morphological workers agree with the molecular workers. The point is that only an evolutionary framework predicts this."

This is the key part of your argument there, as I'm reading it. Again it's falling back on the idea that genetic similarity manifests itself in appearances; both theories agree on this, as I said. The last sentence in this quote is simply not true. Firstly, because you yourself admitted that evolutionists did not accept it universally themselves, and secondly, because it is not even close to logically inconsistent with the creationist worldview.

• I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "predict". It does not necessarily mean that every detail of what a theory's basic concepts would mean is known and talked about. It does mean, however, that as new information is discovered, the evidence fits with the theory logically. What you are talking about fits both with evolution and with creation, so really isn't relevant to the debate. Several times, you use wording such as "that was invented in order to" or the like, which implies that the point is invalid, simply because nobody thought of it hundres of years ago, essentially. If this was a valid argument, creationists could simply point out that evolution itself (at least Darwin's variation of it) was not thought up until recently, and evolutionists frequently amend. In science, theories frequently do (and can) go through revisions as we learn more information. When this happens, the new "updated" theory is also testable (and could possibly be disproven, or confirmed; this happens both with evolution and with those aspects of creation theory that are not explicitely stated in the Bible). "Predicts" means that the evidence fits with this theory. I can see how you might assume I was referring to chronology with a word like that, so I concede my wording may have been confusing. Generally, that is one of the words to describe this aspect of the scientific method, however. :)
• "Hint: there's one simple answer, and we're playing science here, so it doesn't involve God working in mysterious ways"

Evolution is one possible answer, yes; Creation is another. Your argument here amounts to "Hint: The evolution answer is the right one, because you're not allowed to consider the Creationist answer." I hate to say this, but I just caught you in a clear example of close-mindedness. That's unfortunate. I could easily simply respond like this: "Hint, there's one simple answer, and we're playing science here, so it doesn't involve chance working in mysterious ways" and pretend it's a valid counterpoint. Problem is, neither argument would be valid. You cannot disprove a conclusion simply by saying "you're not allowed to come to that conclusion."

• "(necessarily at least... not to state that He isn't, since that's unfalsifiable pretty much by definition)"

"And you repeat the fallacy here. Who wrote the definition you're referring to? Evolutionists!

• Let me see if I understand your definition here. You're saying that if land mammals have features ABC, and whales have features ABCEFG, a form with ABCE would be a transitional form? But if it had ABCDE, it wouldn't be, by your definition?"

Well, how do you define "features", and on what basis do you say that whales would overlap with land mammals ABC? This is an "if" hypothetical, which is not what I'm talking about. It's also far too simple; for example, if we found reptile scales transitioning into feathers, how could we categorize it in such simplistic ways as "ABC"?

• If you want a super-simple definition, this would be it: If evolutionists could prove that any single fossil makes logical sense to be in an evolutionary chain involving increasing genetic information, that would be a transitional fossil. But if we look at an example like the supposed "scale-feathers", we find out that instead the fossil has been disproved as a transitional form.^[4] Lucy's knees, etc.
• But a less abstract definition might be this: If we saw features appearing in a transition that could not possibly be part of variation within kind, that would be a transition. To go back to the alphabetic example, pretend there was a creature called "ABC", and a creature called "XYZ". We might find examples of "ABC" who had lost the C trait, and we might find examples of XYZ that had lost Y. We might find creatures that could be labelled "A" or "B", etc. And A is similar to X but is not X, etc. Now, evolutionists would arrange these as a line; A, AB, ABC, then X, then XY, then XYZ (for example), and consider any other variants to be seperate branches.
• Creationists on the other hand would consider A, AB, ABC to simply be within one "kind", and "XYZ" be a kind as well, that are seperate.
• Now, the question of transitional fossils. It is not as simple as finding a creature ABYZ. That could potentially be a transitional form, but none of the features in that case are transitional; it could also simply be a seperate kind. What you'd need to find is features such as MNO, and find creatures such as ABC, ABO, ANZ, MNZ, XNZ, XYZ. You would NOT need a complete cycle, either, for a single fossil to count as transitional. A half-feather, half-scale, for example; this could not simply be part of a reptilian kind. This instance could also technically be a seperate kind that has never been established, of course, but it could also be claimed to be a legitimate transitional form, because it could not be disproved as transitional. We don't see that; we see Lucy, Archeopteryx, and whales and land mammals that all fit totally within established "kinds" and can be (and most have been) disproved as transitions.
• Running out of time, but real quickly, let me simply recommend you read the wikipedia page on Baraminology; it explains the various subtypes of baramin and such. Also, you ask specifically which creatures fall under which baramin; I'm not aware that specific categorizations have been determined yet. I'd recommend you look into that on your own time, but be aware that baraminology is a new science, and it will likely undergo recategorizations just as phylogeny does. I could also ask you, for example, where exactly Lucy fits in the evolutionary tree of man; but your answer today would vary from what was said a few years ago (if you're up-to-date on it, that is). Just glancing through, however, most of what you mentioned are simply complete features, that fit perfectly well within one or the other kind (or others, etc; don't get caught up with dichotomy confusion again :P). With Shenzhouraptor, for example, you listed feathers, fingers, teeth, and a bony tail. All of these things are consistent with birds we know of today, or are not neccessarily transitional, such as the bony tail. If, on the other hand, Shenzy featured half-feathers, then we could seriously consider it to be transitional. As we run down your list, we see the same general traits, but in varying orders and arrangements.
• "Did Noah just bring two Archaeopteryx on his Ark and then all the other birds evolved from there? I already have trouble believing that three dozen dog species could evolve that fast, let alone tens of thousands of species of birds."

I don't think you caught an important part of what I was saying earlier. You're again confusing increasing information evolution with natural selection, varying arrangements of existing material, and loss of some information. With dogs, your ignorance of this vital concept is especially obvious. Dogs do not "evolve" into varying breeds by millions of years leading to new information developing. Rather, they are bred, or "naturally selected" as you will, seperating or losing genetic information that was already there beforehand. This is known to happen in mere years/decades/centuries, not millions of years. This process is well-documented by dog breeders throughout history. It did indeed happen rapidly, and without any new genetic information needing to evolve.

• An original dog "kind", to put it in the "ABC" context, might have traits "AbCdEfGhIj", capitals being dominant, lowercase recessive, and as dogs reproduce, the natural variations inherent in the reproduction process cause puppies to be born AACdffGhII, and bbddEEGhIj (let's say 20 puppies are born, ten of each type, and five of each type female, to keep this simple). This is not new information-evolution. This is simply variation within kind. Notice also that both kinds of puppy lost information. From here on out, different breeds could be formed, or the two could be mixed to form "mutts". This process need only take a few years; however fast the dogs reproduce! Loss can also occur in ways that cause us to end up with AACdff only, for example. With enough differences and reproductive isolation, speciation can also occur by this method, so that one type cannot reproduce with another type, simply because of too much loss of information. "New" traits can also seem to appear, when recessive genes pair up and thus allow the trait to "emerge" even though it was there in the genetic code all along. None of this is evolution; this all fits perfectly in the Creationist worldview. Not only is it reasonable to believe it occurs rapidly, we know for a fact that it can and does.
• By the way, you appear to have become confused or perhaps misinformed about the feather situation; you state several times that feathers or protofeathers are known to have been found in dinosaurs--this is not true at all (see the reference linked above, if you did not already). I know you could get that impression if you look at a lot of artistic sketches that put feathers on dinosaurs on Wikipedia lately, lol, but that's not scientific. All the known examples of feathers are on bird fossils; and the best alleged example of "protofeathers" so far has just been debunked. This is exactly what I am talking about--this leap to conclusions with alleged evidence, rather than being cautious and examining possible transitions before announcing them as transitions. The problem is, every time the alleged transition is disproven eventually, so I'm not surprised evolutionists have abandoned this scientific caution. It's unfortunate, though.

Anyways, enough for now. Homework piling up... And man, I guess I did respond to most of it, lol. Didn't think I'd have time... (Yes, yes, ironies abound. :P) --Bonesiii 02:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Trouble With One-Liners

In response to an off-topic comment on Origins essay by Jim62sch on the Talk:Dinosaur page which is copypasted here: --Bonesiii 00:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I read it...I missed the logic though, unless it was, to paraphase, "God exists, science is wrong". Anyway, this is not the place for rebuttal. •Jim62sch• 21:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Remember what I said about quick-one-liners, Jim: "too often 'debates' online or in real life on these issues [worldviews] seem to demand quick one-liners in answer to points, usually worded defensively or combatively. That's just not the way to get to the bottom of these matters." Origins is too complex an issue to be encapsulated in a mere five words. ;) Also, you probably did not realize it, but you just used a Straw man fallacy. What I am really saying was stated in the article. :)

One of the most important parts of my approach is that I concede that I could be wrong. Do you concede that you could be wrong too? If so, and we're both interested in finding the truth above all, then we can have a productive discussion. :)

So I'm open to learning what the logical errors you believe I made were. If, as a logician, my logic is lacking, I definately want to know. --Bonesiii 00:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can be wrong. Nonetheless, that was not my point (speaking of strawmen). Logical error #1 is that you preface your argument with "assume god". It goes downhill from there. •Jim62sch• 01:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, speaking of one-liners, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." You seem to be cool with that one when discussing such a deep topic as origins. •Jim62sch• 01:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Could you point to where I preface the argument that way? Because that is not my approach, nor did I describe my approach that way. My approach is, "assume nothing; investigate everything."

I thank you for admitting you could be wrong -- the next step that I would ask for is reasoning as to why you think that my conclusion is wrong. :) However, your emotional tone sounds somewhat combative... maybe almost bitter? I don't know why, and I can't speak to what in your life makes you see things the way you do, but please understand that I'm not trying to insult anyone here. Your last comment there sounds like one of those almost bitter "comebacks." If you think it through, you can easily see how neither a bible verse nor (for example) a quote from Darwin or an evolutionist is a "quick-one-liner" of the sort I'm talking about (I'm talking about combative, mud-throwing "debates"), and both examples generally have greater detail surrounding them. If I was to apply your logic, I could simply take the first sentence of Darwin's book, and call that a one-liner. You're obviously missing the point, I'm afraid...

Again, I repeat the request to show me logical errors I made. To do so, you have to show flaws in arguments I actually made, not straw men, like the "assume God" straw man you used this time. I'm listening. :) --Bonesiii 16:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Emotional? Hardly. Tired of Aquinian-type pseudo-logical arguments? Definitely. When you do some research into why man created the gods, then we'll talk.

Oh, read your own section here.

How do you mean, Jim? I wrote it, so I know what it says...

Also, is it not possible that man invented evolution as well? I'm curious how you would answer this question; this is a big one that convinced me. If man invented the gods, including the God of the Bible, how do you explain Jesus fulfilling all the prophecy he did? How is that possible? --Bonesiii 00:43, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

"how do you explain Jesus fulfilling all the prophecy he did?" Did he now? Did he fulfill them in the context in which they were intended? Bah. •Jim62sch• 20:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

"Bah"? You said earlier that you are open to the idea that you could be wrong about this... I understand frustration, but it sounds a little like you're dismissing the possibility outright. You didn't answer my question--you merely asked more questions you did not provide an answer for. You tell me--how do you answer both my questions and those you raised, and on what reasoning do you base it? If you have none, maybe you should look into it? --Bonesiii 00:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References Cited

[edit] Greetings

Hello, bones, I have greatly observed both your articles on the wiki and BZP, and I must say, you seem to be fairly intelligent for your age, and I would love to debate with you in one way or another on several matters discussed in your sections.(for lack of a better word at 3 A.M.)

[edit] Up for a debate

I can't promise to answer swiftly to everyone of your responses, but I do promise that my answers will be duly researched. You can reach me at Dracontes(AT)gmail(DOT)com. Dracontes 16:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notice from bones

Homework's clogging my schedule for now so all updates and replies are on hold for now (probably at least through 2007). Just wanted to say I haven't forgotten about this and still want to update it (especially working on the references) in the future. :) But thanks to the above commenters. Feel free to add any detailed debate-type comments here, as for now email's probably not the best route as it might get buried in page after page of spam, given my schedule (I know that takes wikipedia resources so it's best avoided but I can't do long emails justice in the time I have now). Anything posted here I will try to reply to eventually. :) If emails are short though I can try my best to reply right away. (I'm anon for the moment 'cuz I lost my password and I'm too rushed to find it for now, sorry.) --bones —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.143.249 (talk) 01:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abortion

Hey Bones, what do you belive on abortion, I, myself is a pro-lifer. What are you? BTW I am Zyglakky Shark from BZP. Shark112 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 03:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)