I note many public evolutionists, Prothero and Shermer and many others always stress the cases of vestigial parts in marine mammals as evidence for evolutionary biology.
Yet in reality this is a sampling error that in fact makes the opposite case against evolution.
I agree marine mamnmals once were land lovers and only later gained features to surbvve in the water. Not the impossible steps said by evolutionists, as Berlinski demonstrates, but some other mechanism.
Anyways evolutionists persusde themselves, and try to persuade others, that the real changes found in marine mammals proves creatures changed greatly and by Darwins method.
Yet the great truth is that for all the living and fossil biology that is observed at least 99%% has no vestigial features whatsoever. If all biology evolved then all biology should be crawling with remaining bits but in fact its a great missing anatomy. There are no vestigial bits save in very few special cases like marine mammals.
Therefore if evolutionists use these few cases to make the evolution case then in strict sampling disipline they actually make the opposite case. If finding a few vestigial bits is to prove evolution then the glorious ascence makes the true case that evolution didn’t happen because it should be that vestigial bits are the norm and not the exception.
So i propose its a sampling error to say vestigial bits of marine mammals prove evolution and in fact it must be proving the opposite.
I think this is a good point unless someone can show otherwise.
If not evolution then what is your alternate explanation for the observed vestigial features of marine mammals?
Why do juvenile baleen whales grow teeth that they never use?
Makes sense evolutionarily, not from design.
I know Robert is a kind of hyper-evolutionist, so my point is to actual IDists/creationists, not the strange super-evolutionary (but only within phyla? Classes?) claims of Byers.
Glen Davidson
Oh, and I’d like to see any credible scientist who thinks that vestigial organs ought to be the norm. Under Robert’s hyper-evolution that seems likely, but not with real evolutionary time and change.
Glen Davidson
What counts as a vestigial feature, exactly? Don’t most organisms have “broken genes” (pseudogenes) which can be considered “vestigial features” by this same reasoning?
Robert, you say this above
I agree marine mamnmals once were land lovers and only later gained features to surbvve in the water.
What additional vestigial features do you think marine mammals should have that they don’t possess, and why?
I think it should be a requirement to initiate a post that the writer at least be able to write a clear, coherent sentence and organize a series of them into a coherent statement. Reactions?
Materialist oppression grammaring its persecution complexities causes censorship and untruth. To better and completely perform the science causes less than perfect comprehensity.
Glen Davidson
By the way, I have no idea why Byers thinks that vestigial organs are just found in marine mammals. Platypus juveniles grow teeth that they never use, snakes have vestigial pelvic bones (functional, I believe, but hardly what one would design for that function), and many birds grow claws on their wings during development, only to lose them again. We have a coccyx made of tail vertebrae that is rather suboptimal for its function as a muscle attachment. These are just off the top of my head.
This is not for Byers, who will stick with his “creationist” beliefs regardless of what anyone posts. It’s for any naive reader who might suppose that Byers was writing from a base of actual knowledge, however poor his writing.
Glen Davidson
There is no particular rule relating to loss of an anatomic part. On the evolutionary paradigm, if it existed in the past, it is reasonably assumed to have had survival value, and there is no consistent likelihood that parts with survival value be lost right across the board, contrary to your expectation. Only if there were a substantial change of mode would the pressure change – for example land to acquatic, or move from a flying to a land-based lifestyle. And if the pressure changes, then rapid loss could well be promoted by evolution, if the vestige not only lost its benefit but carried a cost.
So the evolutionary tendency would be against widespread vestiges, but those that occur would tend to correlate with a significant change in mode from the assumed ancestor. Which is pretty much what you get.
Allan Miller,
*aquatic. D’oh.
That would leave out too many people who post here.
If only there weren’t other lines of evidence, like whales being genetically a lot more similar to hypos than any fish… Look at the big picture, combine all the evidence and the only way to explain whales having bones that resemble those of land mammals is evolution.
Evolution is consistent at explaining all the facts. Creationists need to explain away each fact with a different ad-hoc explanation… or the epitome of the non-explanations, namely “God wanted it that way”
What we see is the answer to the question “What do you do when your mental model of reality is flat refuted by every aspect of reality, and the closer you look, the more refuted it is?”
Hint: you don’t change your model.
I disagree. It would leave out just about the right number of people. I’m not even proposing that the list be limited to people who say something constructive, which would seriously narrow the pool. I’m merely asking for minimum standards of comprehensibility.
My thoughts:
Life history reveals an evolution of consciousness. Thus it is directed towards higher consciousness. Conscious life forms could not develop without some of the forms remaining at a lower stage, just as a rose could not unfold without other parts of the plant remaning as stem, leaves, etc. Each of these parts had the potential within them to become an actual flower but it was necessary for the plant as a whole that they remain at an earlier stage of development. The same pattern can be seen in life as a whole.
Looked at in this way it is not surprising that whales show features which animal life on land has taken further. All land animals that have legs evolved from water dwelling animals whose legs began to form while they still lived in the water in preparation for their life on land. We can see a similar process in single animals when tadpoles develop into frogs.
Thus IMO evolution is directed.
I don’t think anyone here disagrees with this. The question is whether environmental constraints and pressures are entirely, or partially, or not at all responsible for the direction. And if partially, are there factors beyond drift and selection involved.
I admit I’m not comfortable trying to consider the blossom of a flower to be a “higher stage of development” than the stem, leaves, or roots. I can’t help but wonder if my thumbs are at an earlier or later stage of development than my knees. I’m not sure this distinction even makes sense.
Which is no doubt why the dominant life form is bacteria, and though there are many large brained animals, only one lineage — a rather warlike one — evolved brains that speak and write.
Look at you fingers and toes. What have humans achieved with our hands and fingers once they are freed from the job of support and locomotion. Would you call this a higher use of these structures?
No, of course not. You are starting out with humans as the standard of height, and measuring all else as falling short. How arrogant of you. My cats can easily outrun me, and outclimb me, and catch prey I could not. Should I consider these abilities “higher” than mine, or only different?
In what respect are they dominant? No one would deny that they win if the aim of a competition is to reproduce.
If bacteria are here to form the basis from which life can develop further then they are doing a great job. We certainly could not be here without them.
They haven’t built nuclear bombs yet, but there are more of them than anything else, by number or by weight. Most of the DNA in your body is bacterial. They can affect your moods and food preferences. They can remove a rat’s fear of cats. You could not survive without them, but they survives quite well before there were humans.
They will be around when humans are gone.
So what?
The “age of bacteria” seems as old as life, and as permanent.
Bacteria evolved into humans in order to have something to eat when we die. they are at the top of the food chain and simply regard us as farm animals.
You have it backwards. Whales evolved from land animals. It’s true that those land animals had long before that evolved from aquatic animals, but the features of whales you’re talking about are either vestigial or are derived adaptations. And there is no scala naturae. That notion was abandoned long ago.
The trajectory towards more complex forms of consciousness and cognition is certainly one trajectory within the overall history of life, but it is not the only trajectory and it seems like a bit of anthropocentric narcissism to say that it is more important than other trajectories simply because it is ours.
“In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of “world history”—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.” (Truth and Lie in An Extra-Moral Sense)
Gould wrote Wonderful Life to address the apparent trend toward complexity. When you start with the simplest possible replicator and accumulate variations, the trend will always include variants that are increasingly more complex. You can’t have a trend toward simpler.
But the trend is an illusion. Simple is still the modal form of life.
Full House does it at greater length.
Good catch. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve read either.
Only someone stuck in a reductionist mindset would say that brains speak and write.
Only jerks word lawyer and think it’s a useful argument.
I am saying that when it comes down to consciousness of individual organisms humans are shown to have developed it most out of all life on earth. If it comes down to physical attributes like running or jumping or lifting using just muscle power then humans do not rate very highly.
So you should rate your cats abilities at catching mice higher than yours. From a standard of height I would say that we are well beaten by giraffes 🙂
So bacteria are far superior to humans in number and weight. Who could argue with that, and who would want to?
So life is a unity with all kinds playing their part. Through humans life can contemplate itself.
You seem to be fixated on intelligence as the only worthy criterion for design.
You see whatever patterns you want to see, but there is no “tendency” toward intelligence or any other attribute. Just constant change, some of which survives.
Human intelligence has survived so far, but it’s been around for an eyeblink in the history of the earth. Humans could be gone in a few more eyeblinks, but bacteria will still be with around.
The wood of an oak is more permanent than the acorn. But without the acorn oaks would not have continued to be here.
Just genes being selfish. 😉
There are billions upon billions of bacteria… none of them are known to be creationists.
Bacteria > Humans
QED
Only jerks resort to calling it semantics and word-lawyering when they get caught equivocating.
Mung,
Let the Butthurt flow through you.
OK enough!
You say this as if you know it as a fact. Please provide your evidence.
Yes the vestigal limbs are derived from the quadruped, pentadactyl limb plan of the archetype.
Yet another case of the baby getting thrown out with the bath water.
So if you came up with a scheme where you could breed animals so that their numbers on earth increased some orders of magnitude and they became much larger, say (some trajectory other than an increase in consciousness), but this was at the expense of causing them extreme pain in the process (An increase in consciousness), then this would be acceptable to you because objectively speaking, consciousness is of no more importance than any other evolutionary trajectory?
How does that makes sense evolutionarily?
How can we test the claim that marine mammals once were land lovers and only later gained features to survive in the water?
Flint,
Umm, evolution is said to be blind and mindless- it isn’t directed. Directed evolution is evolution by design
I don’t understand what this means.
Science is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Though I have no doubt that if someone could profit from your scenario, they would attempt it. People made poison gas as soon as chemistry discovered how, H-Bombs as soon was we figured out how.
Actually, it would seem that increased brain size has made it possible for individuals to experience depression and dread, which are among the most extreme forms of pain. People who tolerate physical pain kill themselves due to depression or dread.
So the Designer who favored intelligence did so in a way that maximizes the potential for pain.