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.
petrushka,
No, petrushka- today’s intelligence is the result of many generations of genetic entropy. It isn’t the originally designed intelligence.
Here are a few that I happen to have handy. I could find dozens more with a little search. Of course you won’t believe any of it, so it isn’t clear why I should bother.
Geisler J.H., Uhen M.D. Morphological support for a close relationship between hippos and whales. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 2003; 23:991-996.
Gingerich P.D., ul Haq M., Zalmout I.S., Khan I.H., Malkani M.S. Origin of whales from early artiodactyls: Hands and feet of Eocene Protocetidae from Pakistan. Science 2001; 293:2239-2242.
Shedlock A.M., Milinkovitch M.C., Okada N. SINE evolution, missing data, and the origin of whales. Systematic Biology 2000; 49:808-817.
There’s more to life than science.
True.
How do you know what this purported Designer did or didn’t do? How do you know that the potential for pain has been maximized? How do know that there are not beings with vastly higher consciousness than humans who suffer much more pain than you are capable of dreaming about and they can do nothing about it because that is just the way it is?
The simplest way is by phylogenetic analysis. If marine mammals are embedded within clades of terrestrial mammals (and they are), the clear inference to draw is that they are descended form land mammals. The vestigial bits being discussed here are another kind of clue.
Charlie, I’m simply not interested in your pain problem. There is more to life than science, but currently no better way to figure out how things work.
No better way to feed people or to prevent disease or to cure disease. No better way to forecast the long term consequences of having more and more healthy people. No better way to prevent overpopulation or overuse of resources.
My cursory reading of the bible provides me with numerous examples where feeding people and comforting the afflicted and healing the sick are presented as good and morally desirable things. Science is good at these things. Better than prayer or faith. By its fruits you know science is a Talent to be invested and not hoarded away out of fear.
John Harshman,
I particularly like the SINE stuff. Hard to refute, though I’ve had fun watching some try.
Wait, that is the same way I would go about determining the common design tree for any particular sequence, protein or group of organisms (like Linne did is systema naturae).
How do you test the claim that the morphological changes can be accounted for by genetic changes? Why is it even after mapping many genomes we cannot put that map to the territory? 😉 That is we can’t say what genes say “make a fish eye” as opposed to “make a human eye”. People do say it is the sum of the genome that does that but that claim is never tested.
Assuming common descent and then making a tree to confirm it is not a test of the concept.
So the SINE stuff can’t be a common design feature?
Yes, DNA influences development but there isn’t any evidence it determines what will develop.
I don’t know why you think I won’t believe any of it. Why wouldn’t I think that hippos and whales could be closely related? They are both mammals after all.
From Kenyan fossils show evolution of hippos
Well that doesn’t contradict anything I wrote. From my point of view whales may have returned to the water as they evolved but this may not be necessarily so. But it doesn’t help you so well with your attempt at providing evidence. You are convinced that whales definitely evolved from land dwellers and so you provide what you say is evidence to that effect. But the known ancestors of hippos date back to 40 million years ago and the oldest fossil cetaceans are 53 million years old. From this you may tell me that they are sisters or cousins but all you can do is spectulate about their common origins. How can you tell if their common ancestor came from the land or the sea?
As I understand it, ALL of the close relatives of cetaceans are land mammals. So that’s strongly suggestive. Also, as noted, cetaceans have some physiological characteristics at some point in their lives which makes a lot of sense as a land mammal (for walking around in a gravity field), but no sense for a common ancestor that was never terrestrial.
Then there are shared characteristics like the need to breathe air.
What all these things do is make a “return to the sea” narrative simpler and more plausible. They also suggest geologic times and geographic places where a possible partly-aquatic ancestor might be found. And sure enough, as I recall fossils of exactly such a critter have been found in strata dating to when this process happened.
Beyond some reasonable limit, evidence becomes moot. I saw it written that OJ’s jurors acquitted because they WANTED to acquit. If there had been 50 witnesses, they’d have decided it was mass hypnosis. If there had been videos of the murders, they’d have decided they were doctored. If OJ confessed on the stand, they’d believe he was coerced into it somehow.
In the words of Richard Dawkins, for the True Believer, ” no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference.”
Flint,
Appeal to emotion and special pleading is exactly what is expected from pseudoscience.
Do you think that just any genetic change caused the changes necessary to get a cetacean starting from a land mammal? I ask because if it requires specific changes then you are asking quite a bit of blind and mindless processes. Durrett and Schmidt, in an attempt ot refute some claim of Behe, showed how long it would take to rebuild a binding site- a mere binding site- if it took two mutations, specific mutations- to do so. So if it requires continued coordinated hits then NS, drift and neutral changes are minor players and evolution by design the only possibility. HOWEVER we don’t even have a mechanism capable of producing the changes required.
“Common design tree” is word salad. There is no reason to suppose that common design (especially if the designer is a deity) would produce any sort of tree structure. Linnaeus tried to find a natural classification, but he had no idea why that classification was a nested hierarchy. The second paragraph would appear to have nothing to do with the question of common descent, so I don’t understand what point you were trying to make.
Yes it is, as long as we find that one tree fits the data much better than other trees. The expectation if the characters didn’t evolve on a tree would be that many trees would be an almost equal fit.
A. natans tread through much the same environment as a croc and yet the croc remained the same and A. natans was off to larger and sleeker things?
Some things change, some things never change except perhaps at an unnoticeable molecular level. And some have evolved 60-100 times faster than the average vertebrate and have remained virtually the same!- Meet the vole
Which is why ID is considered pseudoscience.
FrankenJoe doesn’t understand ID.
Of course not. It was the random genetic changes that helped in survival which were selected for and fixed in the population.
FrankenJoe doesn’t understand evolution.
If you refuse to read the papers I cite, I don’t see any reason to keep citing things. You can tell if their common ancestor came from the land because the whales are one branch on a big tree, the rest of which is on land. The fossil ages have nothing to do with it. Whales are mammals, eutherians, laurasiatherians, artiodactyls, etc., meaning that they are many branches deep in the middle of a land mammal radiation. And the land mammal radiation is many branches deep in an amniote radiation; all land animals. Before that we get a tetrapod radiation. There really is no room for doubt on this score.
John Harshman,
Only to the uneducated. To me it is an observation and an experience. I see it with computers, cars, planes, houses, etc. It is inevitable with designs that need to play together or do similar things.
Other than to control a very complex design. A tree is exactly what we build with networks and network rights. It is easy to control that way.
Of course he did- it was based on a common design, ie a common archetype
It says the concept is untestable and no one knows how to test it. It gives the reason for that. So yes, it has something to do with it
Evolution would be OK with any pattern.
No. SINEs are junk DNA. They do nothing other than get inserted in random places in the genome. They don’t even code for the proteins that insert them. And yes, there is good evidence that DNA determines what will develop; everything we know about development tells us that the differences between species are genetic, and that differences in development depend on differences in DNA sequences.
John Harshman,
That is your opinion. They could be spacers so the genes line up correctly once coiled. And no, there isn’t any evidence that DNA determines what develops. We have known that for some time. The differences between species of the same Genus is genetic, yes. The difference between chimps and humans is not. Only personal bias says that it is
John Harshman,
That is what the evidence has said for decades
Well no, it’s what the ID-Creationists have said for decades. But then again The ID-Creationists are well know for saying stupid unsupported things.
What happened to Byers? Was this just a drive-by?
Of course, there is a large, active, and growing branch of science dedicated to the fact that DNA determines what develops.
Your denials range from implausible to gobsmacking pants-on-fire hilarious;
Frankie,
I don’t think you have thought very much or very deeply about what you’re saying. You’re just tossing out sound bites, and I’m afraid they’re all word salad. It’s hard to try to discuss anything with you.
Count your blessings.
The bit you quote is true, but it doesn’t mean what you think. Yes, the genome is one part of a complex interaction among DNA sequences, RNAs, proteins, various non-protein molecular signals, and physical processes. But nevertheless, what differs among species is in the genome. In that sense, the genome is what controls development.
And that has nothing to do with whether there is common descent.
It isn’t my opinion. It’s what is clear from basic biology. No, they couldn’t be spacers. They get inserted in random spots different spots in different taxa and in the middle of otherwise nearly identical sequences. What makes you think the difference between humans and chimps isn’t genetic? What evidence is there for that?
Welcome to the wacky world of uber ID-Creationist Frankie / Joe G / Virgil Cain / ID Guy 🙂
Not the thread but other mechanisms. Just like to explain peoples looks.
It makes sense from a creationist stance also. The creatures going into the sea would affect many details and have memory of previous anatomical lives.
yet the big point here is about probability.
vestigial features are almost none existent when they should be the norm of evolution had happened to biology. The few cases show its a special case and are wrongly used to sample biology for evidence of evolution of traits.
Why? Please provide evidence for this claim.
why not and why not so much even if not the norm? why not the norm?
If it was the norm evolutionism would love it and say AHA creationists. Look at this.
Well we look at nothing!
Just as vestigial bits remain then they should remain for all.
Getting rid of vestigial bits would not be a purpose of evolution. So getting rid of them would never be so clean and perfect. As if they never existed.
Byers do you even know what vestigial means?
cute but my thread first.
Okay.
Since i would see these creatures changing from innate mechanisms and not step by step evolution then I don’t need expect vestigial bits remaining. so iot would only be a carelessness , as such, that bits remain. marine mammals are only having a few bits or cases of newly born kids showing bits.
A clean sweep can be expected from a real mechanism in biology.
YET in evolutions stepism its impossible vestigial bits are not the norm.
In fact even in marine mammals its so little.
Yet evolutionists use marine mammals to sample biology as evidence for evolution.
Its poor sampling or great sampling if evolution is not true.
Its about ideas and not good writing. One should follow the logic of the idea by paying attention. its better to have better writing but I don’t write well.
You don’t understand the concept I propose?
Why not?
I do know and said relative to biology its very few.
Yopu are making my case. you seek more but thats the point. there are so few relative to the group of life.
how much percentage do you think there should be?
I think 98% or better should have lots of vestigial bits in them.
not .00001% having one or three bits.
where are they.
What case is being made by pointing out vestigial bits if the opposite point is made better?
First you say evolution should leave lots of vestigial features.
Then you say evolution should erase them all and leave none.
You just directly contradicted yourself. Do you have the slightest clue what you’re arguing?
Stephen Talbott has this to say in Genes and Organisms: Improvising the Dance of Life
He has written many other thought provoking articles on the subject Here is an excerpt from one but it is worth reading in full:
The genome is not the controller, it is that which is being controlled.
Byers, one post
Byers, two posts later
It’s Robert Byers. What else need be said?
Well i’m saying two points here.
FIRST its a sampling error of evolutionists to point out THE FEW cases of vestigial bits as proving evolution to audiences. they do this all the time. YET if the few are to prove THEN the 99% absence, logically, proves the opposite. For not only are they not there but they should be there on the same reasons for the few that are.
Probability here is in question and poor sampling.
Second.
There are rules in these things.
Evolution does not have a purpose to fget rid of all remnants and every last bit of former vestigial anatomical status. Your side can say evolution must get rid of a problem but once its fixed its done. The marine mammals keep bits that evolutionists say they didn’t need to get rid of or reuse.
Yet the clean sweep you say evolution predicts is impossible without a purpose to do so.
There is no reason that all biology should not be crawling with bits in its biology that has evolved from this to that and so many times.
Evolution does have to say vestigial bits only remain for some use. otherwise just leftover bits should be the norm.
Yet they should be the norm if evolution had happened.
You can’t say so easyily evolution has a goal to get rid of leftover anatomy or anything in bodies.
I’m sure you don’t but then it would not at all be possible to see a clean sweep.
(facepalm) It’s not the total numbers or percentages that are the evidence. It’s the fact vestigial features are found AT ALL which is evidence animals like marine mammals weren’t designed “as is” from scratch.
Christ. Now he’s back to saying there should be lots of vestigial features.
I know, I know. It’s Byers. Don’t expect anything coherent or intelligible.
I agree marine mammals were first land creatures that only took to the empty seas in a post flood world.likewise bats were first rats and only after the flood became fliers.
Yet these are tiny tiny cases.
The truth of their change is not proof of evolution and is not accuarate sampling of biology in making a case for evolution.
In fact theyt make the opposite casse. The rareness of evidence in creatures for change in body plans.
By observing all the features of marine mammals one is forced to see they share general traits with land creatures. Since there are only kinds then these general features are the result of general local needs. So air breathing demands marine mammals first lived on the land.
Then other things like cases of them born with full legs, I think I heard that, and so on. Testing is the wrong word. Its accumulation of data that forces a conclusion..
They are abscent from the fossil record below the k-t line. Which for may YEC is the flood line. The seas were first filled with all kinds of monsters that would make it difficult for marine mammals. so on.
Then why are the fossilized remains of the early proto-whales and fully aquatic but extinct whales always found in sediment that YECs claim was Flood-laid? Why do we find fossilized early proto-bats in the same supposed Flood sediment?
What mechanism caused the land dwelling whale ancestors and non-flying bats to make such dramatic anatomical changes in just 4500 years?
CharlieM,
Sigh. I see you are incapable of clarity or of anything other than a sort of fuzzy-minded poetry. Note that “gene” and “genomic sequence” are two different things. It’s differences in the genomes that are relevant for differences in all the complicated interactions. If you disagree, suggest an example.
Adapa
I ususally post day by day and also I might miss you if you post too quick.
I’m saying vestigial bits are missing where they should be IF evolution had taken place. So its wrong sampling for evolutionists to say the FEW bits found in some creatures PROVES evolution. In fact if this WAS the proof, vestigial bits remaining, then it would be proof against evolution by accuare sampling.
Then I also say there should be vestigial bits galore in all biology ioF evolution had taken place.
I’m saying two things in my thread at least.
Its skewered sampling and its impossible vestigial bits would not be everywhere in bodies evolving forever in all of biology.
Does everyone agree with me evolutionists WRONGLY use marine mammals/others vestigial bits of former anatomical body types asa sample of biological beings in making a case for evolution??
its only a other point that vestigial bits should be the norm in biology and not the 0.00001% exceptions iF evolution was true.
no hijacking my thread for some of ’em.
But evolution predicted tiktaalik, then we found it…
Frankie,
No they couldn’t. You get massive variation even within a species with respect to their SINEs and flanking sequences. This would argue against function, since they are reasonably assumed to be entirely ‘optional’ at any given site.
Indeed (as I know you have been told numerous times) this variation in transpositional sequence forms the basis of much forensic and legal DNA testing in humans. Something you presumably accept while simultaneously rejecting the same evidence when it comes to cetartiodactyla, presumably because the elements are fixed in their higher-level taxonomic groups.
So, a few 300-bp SINEs are ‘spacer’ in hippos and cetaceans but not required in ruminants or pigs. Another small set is in hippos, cetaceans and ruminants but not pigs. And so on, in a decidely hierarchical pattern. Not very likely at all – particularly since you can’t do much spacing with 300 base pairs in a 1-3,000,000,000 bp genome. It’s nonsense.
Robert Byers,
No. If a vestige is morphologically connected to a more complete feature, it is evidence for evolution. There could be other causes, the direction could be reversed – it’s a rudiment not a vestige – but evolution is certainly supported by such structures.