#1046: — 03/12  at  09:18 AM

Sounds like Mr McEwen is reciting a (poorly articulated) version of the 'no new info' montra.

Whether the parameter is 'information' or 'genetic material', the claim is trivial to refute, as long as there exist a valid metric to compare relative values of that parameter between genomes.

If ANY change always reduces genetic material/info, then a reversal, in this case a back mutation, will induce a reducto absurdum.

EG:
If genome A is mutated to genome B, then according to Mr McEwen's view, the quantity of genetic material/info in B is less than or equal to A, for any and every change right? We Discard the 'or equal to' possibility as it would mean there was no chance at all.

Let's note the relative quantity of the parameter as function I
giving us the notation I(A) > I(B), read as 'The info/DNA material of A is less than the info/DNA material of B. '

Now, because *any* change can only result in 'less than', a back mutation from B back to A would mean that A now has less genetic material/'info that B which gives

I(A) > I(B) > I(A),
or by transitivty I(A) > I(A)
QED

LOL... A has more material/info than itself, and this is clearly false.

~DS~
replace nospam with aol

#1047: — 03/12  at  09:31 AM
I think McEwen's comments come from James Perloff's book(s) The Case Against Darwin and/or Tornado in a Junkyard.

#1048: Abiola Lapite — 03/12  at  10:02 AM
"If ANY change always reduces genetic material/info, then a reversal, in this case a back mutation, will induce a reducto absurdum."

We don't even need to go that far. Even on the assumption that back mutations cannot occur, it is clearly true that genetic mutations occur at a rather high rate (Motoo Kimura's 1968 paper* suggested a rate of ~ 1 in 10^7 amino acids per year), so if any changes can only lead to a loss of information, and if the rate of loss is constant (as it does indeed seem to be), we have a monotonically decreasing function tending inexorably to zero. Life has been around long enough for that final state to have been reached eons ago, so clearly the initial premise is absurd.

*Motoo Kimura, Evolutionary Change at the Molecular Level, Nature Vol. 217, February 17, 1968.

#1049: Ed Brayton — 03/12  at  12:28 PM
Oh Paul, this is hilarious. He left the exact same comment on my blog, which I answered at http://www.mblog.com/dispatches_from_the_culture_wars/012022.html How funny is that?

#1050: PZ Myers — 03/12  at  12:46 PM
It is pretty funny, and sad. This poor sap is wandering around wearing a big sign that says, "CLUELESS".

#1051: Mrs Tilton — 03/12  at  01:50 PM
Enough about the poor sap. Let's return to that now crossed-over chromosome, the one that got the extra whatsits rather than the one that is now causing its bearer to shrivel up and die. (And I'll have to ask you to humour my very rudimentary understanding of these things.) So, the chromosome now has two complete and indentical sets of a certain string of DNA. So set 1 does whatever it has always done (let's say, making arms), while set 2 is more or less redundant. Except that set 2 is now free to be rejiggered itself in future crossings-over, and so might at some point start carrying out a new and separate task (say, making awesome dragon wings). Okay, my examples are doubtless grotesque oversimplifications as well as frivolous, but in principle is this not precisely one of the ways in which mutations cause us to, y'know, evolve?

Thanks, too, for the tip about the mailorder mutant mice. Still, I think I'll give 'em a miss, though no doubt the kids would love 'em.

#1052: PZ Myers — 03/12  at  01:58 PM
You've got it exactly right: "duplication and divergence" is the proper magical mantra that we use.

Getting your animals from a stock center tends to be more expensive than just going to the pet store, anyway. My genetically defined zebrafish lines were started with fish that cost $5 each, rather than the 50 cents apiece I could get them for at the local aquarist.

#1053: Mrs Tilton — 03/12  at  02:25 PM
Getting your animals from a stock center tends to be more expensive than just going to the pet store, anyway.

Yeah, but it's so hard to find mice with human ears growing out of their backs at the pet store.

#1054: PZ Myers — 03/12  at  02:31 PM
Those aren't mutants. Those are fun and educational arts and crafts projects that your kids can do in the supportive environment of your own home. When one of the little tykes gnaws off a visitor's ear, nose, or other appendage, no one ever thinks to look under Igor the Hamster's dermis for it.

#1055: Mrs Tilton, all aggressive now — 03/12  at  03:26 PM
Right. So, when you pop by for that arm-wrassle and I tear yours off at the shoulder, you'll find it under the cuticle of Cuddles the Wolf Spider.

#1056: — 03/12  at  09:58 PM
This reminds me of Lee Spetner in Not by Chance; he apparently believes that both becoming more specialized and becoming more generalized are losses of information. But as DS has pointed out, if going one way is loss of information, the going the other way is gain of information.

And as to gene duplication, Ed from IIDB has claimed that that's not new information but saying the same thing in different ways. But duplicated genes can diverge..

#1057: — 03/12  at  11:42 PM
(from Rob McEwen)

...first of all, none of my post you refer to was copied directly from any other source... all of this I wrote myself... (I guess this just means that you all consider me an "original" idiot, not a "plagiarizing" idiot).

As noted, I did post this at two different blogs because, frankly, at the time, I was looking for blogs that had the pro-evolution viewpoint, and were willing to argue this viewpoint.... not that I like to argue... it is just that I find that the best test of something is to get the BEST opposing argument and facts and use them as a "crucible" to test the original viewpoint.

...OK... in my original wording... I probably did overstate my case regarding the mutations by using words like "NEVER" when clearly, there are some examples of mutation producing additional genes.

However, from what I have read from Dr. Lee Spetner, I think that these types of mutations you detail are, overall, rather insufficient AND too rare to produce the kind of evolution where one species evolves into another species of greater complexity... especially went juxtaposed against the VERY common mutations which delete and/or scramble genetic information.

In other words, I think that, to be a credible evolutionist, you have to consider the ACTUAL PROPORTIONS of these differing mutations AS FOUND IN NATURE. Going back to my shopkeeper example in my original post... So what if he does make a profit on a single sale every few years?... how can this possibly counteract or survive all the losses?

But, I must admit, the technical part of this discussion is beyond my expertise...

Therefore, I'll defer to Spetner and his book: "Not by Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution"

(Spetner taught information theory for a decade at Johns Hopkins University and the Weizman Institute, and spent years studying mutations on a molecular level.)

Also, Spetner debates Dr. Edward E. Max over these issues and the dialog is detailed on the following pages:

http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner1.asp
http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

Frankly, from reading this debate (both pages)... (and admitting that I'm not properly educated or trained to understand all that is said) I think Spetner eats Dr. Max (and everyone else who has posted here) for lunch on this one issue.... but you be the judge.

Finally, if you read over the rebuttals to my original post, many of the refutations of my other points were rather lame... especially to my issues regarding the first single-celled organism.

Like this one:

>"Those are only probabilities
>of exact duplication."

I wasn't even taking into account the fact that, for this first single cell to work, it would need such things as a means of consuming food, converting this to energy, reproducing itself, and many other metabolic processed needed for life to exist and propagate... not to mention the DNA/RNA and the means to decifer the genes. The simplest single-celled organism is like a small city. Also, proteins have very specific specs in order to work. There are countless things that could go wrong. Left-handed and right-handed amino acids occur about the same in nature, but only one of these works in organisms. Stuff like this complicates the process, making it impossible to occur through natural forces and random chance.

(I recall that one of the co-discoverers of DNA speculated that life was planted on earth by aliens because he couldn't get around these problems... of course these same improbabilities would still occur on another planet!)

Also, like I said before, what are the chances of survival for this first organism in a world void of other organisms & these other organism's by-products? Or.. do you think that more than one organism generated independently of each other? Also, is there in existence today a living single-celled organism which could survive, reproduce, and then thrive in an environment void of life, with no remains or by-products of life?

BTW, by the time these complexities of life were understood, Evolution was already firmly ensconced in our University’s science departments. (For example, I recently read a quote where Ernst Haeckel described this singled celled organism as just a bunch of goo... or something like that.)

>Evolution can be slow by familiar standards
>and fast by geological standards
(another rebuttal on the original thread)

The problems with this statement is that, even when brushing aside many things which make Evolution impossible in the first place, the number of "chances" needed for mutations with natural selection to work causes the Evolutionist to need trillions of years to work this stuff out... (This is detailed in the Spetner/Max debate listed above) The problem here is that Evolutionist doesn’t have this much time to work with. In fact, they only have time starting from that point after the Earth cooled sufficiently enough to support carbon-based life... and this is limited to a handful of Billions of years... not near enough! But, again, this is assuming that it all got started by chance in the first place... which is already impossible.

#1058: John — 03/13  at  01:34 AM
Thanks for this clear and accessible refutation of a common creationist error!

#1059: — 03/13  at  05:50 AM
OK, Mr. McEwen, where did I go wrong?

And here is the talkorigins.org version of the Spetner-Max debate.

I wasn’t even taking into account the fact that, for this first single cell to work, it would need such things as a means of consuming food, converting this to energy, reproducing itself, and many other metabolic processed needed for life to exist and propagate… not to mention the DNA/RNA and the means to decifer the genes. The simplest single-celled organism is like a small city.

Seems like Mr. McEwen needs to take a crash course in microbiology and some recent work on very early evolution. Here is a reasonable scenario:

In the interstices between vent-deposit grains in Hadean hydrothermal vents, lots of interesting organic chemistry was catalyzed by the mineral surfaces and driven by the redox disequilibrium between escaping gases and the Earth's surface. H2, H2S vs. CO2, etc.

Somehow, some simple self-reproducing organic-chemical system got started in one of those vents. It was "nourished" by diffusion from its environment and it did not have a well-defined cellular structure; it was something like Ernst Haeckel's Urschleim (original slime).

It somehow invented ribose, making a RNA organism, where RNA acted as both informational macromolecule and enzyme, just as its predecessor(s) had done. This organism still resided in those vents, lived off of its environment, and was still something like Urschleim.

But this early organism had a taste for using amino-acid cofactors; it gradually advanced its assemblage of such cofactors until they could take over enzyme duties. As it did so, it started making soap bubbles around itself, forming the first cells. They originally reproduced by getting too big and spontaneously splitting in to. But an early protein invented was a protein that acts as a cell-wall drawstring for making cells divide. Another early protein was involved in assembling ATP with the help of hydrogen ions leaking inward.

With their making cells out of themselves, they gradually transferred their metabolism from mineral surfaces to enzymes, sometimes keeping some mineral-surface chemistry in the form of iron-sulfur complexes. They also worked out how to build more and more essential molecules from scratch -- as they'd run out of one, they'd stumble on a way to make it from some similar, but available one, and so own down the line. Eventually, they succeeded in making everything they needed from simple compounds in chemical disequilibrium.

These RNA/protein organisms then invented a variant of RNA: DNA. Which became used as a master-copy molecule. At first, it was replicated by being copied onto RNA and back again, but eventually, it became copied from itself. This DNA-to-DNA copying was poorly-developed, if present at all, in the common ancestor of Bacteria and Archaea; it appears to have become developed independently in both groups of prokaryotes.

Eukaryotic cells have a more complicated structure than prokaryotic ones, and this likely reflects their multiple-endosymbiosis heritage. Mitochondria and chloroplasts are the more obvious cases; the nucleus was likely also a symbiotic prokaryote from Archaea.

This may seem long-winded and complicated, but it ought to indicate that one-celled organisms are not unevolvable.

As to the analogy with cities, though cities are designed, they are not built instantaneously by some single designer; cities are collectively designed, and some cities have existed for centuries. And evolution works much like that also.

#1060: — 03/13  at  01:18 PM
OK, Mr. McEwen, where did I go wrong?

When you assumed that he would look at the data that contradicts his authority with the fairness of a scientist. It's the nature of the beast. Conclusions first, facts later. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that.

#1061: — 03/13  at  10:32 PM
Recognizing that the Spetner/Max debate is shown over at talkorigins.org (as mentioned by someone else above), I encourage everyone here, in all fairness, to still (or also) read the ones here:

http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner1.asp
http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

Why? First, Spetner claims that, while both versions of this dialog are accurate, Max's version reorders the dialog.

But, most importantly, Spetner provides further rebuttals to Max. In particular, there are several places where Dr. Spetner claims that Dr. Max has "strawmaned" some of Spetner's arguments in Max's responses to Spetner.

Certainly, in all fairness, Spetner "gets the last word" here. Nevertheless, if you really want to refute Spetner... or if you stand behind Dr. Max's effort, you must get "the whole story" by reading the pages I have listed as well.

>Conclusions first, facts later

Well..., why is the history of Evolution teaching is littered with the remains of illegitimate fossils and fraudulent evidence? (disagree?... I'll make a list) For example, ALL of the evidence on the pro-evolution side used in the Scopes trail is now utterly proven wrong or proven fraudulent. (disagree?... again, could make a list) Also, why do these frauds survive in high school textbooks for decades past when they were exposed as frauds? Why are some of the most famous pre-humans such pathetic & minute bone fragments surrounded by elaborate plastor-of-paris models for the Time Mag or Nat. Geo. photo shoot? I personally recall my oldest brother (when he was in high school) telling my second oldest brother that evolution was "a proven fact" because of the Haeckel drawing... which are now a proven fraud. Here are many examples of "conclusions first, facts later".

#1062: — 03/14  at  12:47 AM
Rob McEwen:
For example, ALL of the evidence on the pro-evolution side used in the Scopes trail is now utterly proven wrong or proven fraudulent.

Make a list.

Also, why do these frauds survive in high school textbooks for decades past when they were exposed as frauds?

Textbook writers often copy off of their predecessors; as Stephen Jay Gould has pointed out, it's unlikely that many textbook writers are dog fanciers, despite what one might conclude from the numerous comparisons of Hyracotherium to a fox terrier.

And if some scientists decided to set up a textbook-review committee, creationists would be crying foul. They'd say that those scientists are acting like the Inquisition or something.

Why are some of the most famous pre-humans such pathetic & minute bone fragments surrounded by elaborate plastor-of-paris models for the Time Mag or Nat. Geo. photo shoot?

I don't know where this comes from; the pictures of fossils in this fossil-hominid site are often much more detailed. Look at the Turkana Boy, for example. Below the neck, his skeleton looks very close to present-day Homo sapiens. However, his head looks noticeably different (brow ridges, no forehead, no chin, a smaller brain).

I personally recall my oldest brother (when he was in high school) telling my second oldest brother that evolution was “a proven fact” because of the Haeckel drawing… which are now a proven fraud.

They are not an absolute fraud; early vertebrate embryos often have a remarkable resemblance to each other. I've compared human and mouse embryos -- they look remarkably similar until after the hindlimb buds appear; after that, the human ones resorb their tails and stay flat-faced, while the mouse ones keep their tails and grow snouts on their faces. I've also seen chicken and parrot embryos -- they also look very similar until the hindlimb buds appear; after that, they grow big eyes and beaks. Frog and fish embryos do look more different, however, but they have the same basic features.

#1063: — 03/15  at  09:51 AM
I’m swamped with work… so I can only respond to this little by little. I hope that you don’t mind if I take this stuff piece by piece over a few or several days.

First, regarding the Haeckel drawings...

These were already exposed as a fraud almost a century ago in the following book:

Assmuth, J. & Hull, Ernest R. (1915) Haeckel’s Frauds And Forgeries, Examiner Press, 104

The following is a quote from this book:

"it clearly appears that Haeckel has in many cases freely invented embryos or reproduced the illustrations given by others in a substantially changed form. L. Rutimeyer, professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at Basle University, called his distorted drawings ‘a sin against scientific truthfulness deeply compromising to the public credit of a scholar.’"
F. Keibel, professor of anatomy at Freiburg University

Therefore, as you see, we’ve been stuck on Haeckel’s fraud for almost a century and these myths seem to perpetuate.

But in case you still have doubts about Haeckel’s drawing being fraudulent, there is more:

Dr. Michael Richardson, an embryologist at St. George’s Medical School in London, doubted Haeckel, and he couldn’t find any verification from other studies. Therefore, he conducted his own study where he assembled a scientific team that photographed the growing embryos of 39 different species.

As a result of his study, the following is his summary found in an excerpt from a 1997 interview in The Times of London:

Dr. Richardson stated: "This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud. It’s shocking to find that somebody one thought was a great scientist was deliberately misleading. It makes me angry. … What he [Haeckel] did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the same stage of development. They don’t. … These are fakes."

A more formal scientific summary of Richardson's findings is published here

Another good summary of Richardson’s findings is found here.

Haeckel’s whole point or conclusion is called “recapitulation theory”. This was one of the many fraudulent pieces of evidence used at the Scopes Trial. I’ll detail others later when I get some more time.

#1064: PZ Myers — 03/15  at  10:45 AM
You can also find discussion of this issue on this site, here and here. You are making an error here. Yes, Haeckel cheated, and yes, Haeckel's biogenetic law was wrong. But you are mistaken to claim that either Haeckel's false evidence or Haeckel's false interpretation are any part of modern evolutionary biology. There are similarities in embryos; we can illustrate that point any time with data untainted by Haeckel; one of the things Richardson did so well was to illustrate the similarities and the range of variation in disparate vertebrate embryos. As for the biogenetic law...it was dead on arrival. Von Baer had effectively argued it off the table in the 1830s. While it sidetracked a number of scientists at the end of the 19th century, it was abandoned with little regret as genetic and morphological evidence demonstrated with increasing forcefulness that it was untenable.

This is like someone harping on the phlogiston theory as proving that modern chemistry is false. All you do is show that you don't know any modern theory.

#1065: — 03/15  at  11:54 AM
Judging from Richardson's (and others) conclusions, it is obvious that science teachers in high schools and universities across the world are, at the least, "overplaying their hand" on this issue. The conclusions taught to the typical science student (even today) regarding recapitulation theory are generally far beyond the scope of what you (seem to) argue here.

But this brings up another common fallacy of Evolution. The proponents of Evolution always consider that common features ALWAYS means common origin. I have had several debates with Evolutionists who seem to think that common features found in extremely different creatures "settles it". They act like the've just done a "slam dunk".

Carl Linnaeus, "the Father of Taxonomy", was, at the least, a theist and he did NOT believe this mantra... at least, not at all in the way that Evolutionists do.

From what I have read, Linnaeus considered "Genus" to be a reference to the original creation.

Or, as one creationist site I recently read put it: Evidently, many of the types we now call "species" are really just "varieties" of a large, poorly delineated "kind." (kind referring to the "kind" described in Genesis.)

Therefore, "Species" would include decedents of a common ancestor. This ancestor would be at the head of the "family tree" for their particular "Genus".

The science to study this stuff in Linnaeus's time was very clumsy and, certainly, at that time, Linnaeus and his contemporaries probably made many clumsy guesses... Therefore, it wouldn't be fair to refute Linnaeus's overall conclusions based on his particular choices at the time. I think that even Linnaeus realized and readily admited that the science of classification would get more accurate in the future as science progressed. Also, current scientists who "decide" on classifications make these decisions through the "lens of Evolution" instead of creation/speciation. Obviously, the classifications would probably be somewhat different if most of the scientists of the world had the creationist/speciation point of view during the past century. Therefore, please don't waste time in this thread by showing how our current system of classification might contrast this view at a particluar point here or there.

In summary:

(1) Linnaeus, "the Father of Taxonomy" did NOT fall into the trap of always believing that "common features ALWAYS means common origin". He considered that many common features found in creatures from different "Genus" were perfectly explained by having a common "Creator" (God). ...in the same way that a Honda automobile and a Honda lawnmower might have also have similar features.

(2) Linnaeus, from what I have read, did believe in speciation where cats and tigers, for example, descended from a common ancestor. Modern creationists call this speciation and find this totally compatible with molecular biology (in contrast to Evolution, which depends of cumulative overall additions of genetic material via mutations).

Speciation can be summarized:

First, a population of a particular creature gets separated geographically into two or more groups...

Then, the following occurs:

(1) Thinning of the gene pool in one of these particular groups makes them "different" than the original. (Similar to what would happen if a racist dictator killed committed genocide... no evolution occurs, but there would be definite differences in the resulting gene pool). Black bears and polar bears are a good example: They are fully sexually compatible and descended from a common ancestor. All varieties of dogs are another good example of this. (While a chiwawa isn't going to "mount" a St. Bernard anytime soon for practical reasons, they are, technically, biologically sexually compatible and descended from a common ancester... and ZERO evolution occured here.)

AND/OR

(2) Mutations (which almost always REMOVE information from DNA) cause one subgroup to change from the original. Over time, this can cause much more drastic differences from the original (ancestors) than merely thinning the gene pool. Also, in more extreme cases, the resulting sub-group may not even be sexually compatible with their "cousins" who decended from the same common ancestor.

It is funny and telling that people get degrees in Biology all the time without getting this particular perspective.

#1066: PZ Myers — 03/15  at  12:15 PM
Incredible. A creationist learned something: he inserted an "almost" into his declaration about the effect of mutations.

He's still wrong, though.

#1067: — 03/15  at  12:35 PM
I though it was more revealing to read the following phrases from Loren Petrich's explanation of how raw materials turned into the first single-celled organism. I wish that I could go back and BOLD the following portions in his post:

...Here is a reasonable scenario:...

...Somehow, some simple...

...It somehow invented ribose...

...one-celled organisms are not unevolvable...

(...wording like this for something that is supposedly proven fact?)

Regarding my statement regarding mutations "almost always" removing information from the DNA... I standby my shopkeeper analogy, which I described in my original post on another thread and then fine-tuned on this thread.

Here is the latest version of the shopkeeper analogy:

(btw, this analogy is commonly used by creationist, this is not my original idea):

Believing that mutations with natural selection can produce evolution of creatures into different creatures of GREATER complexity is like a storekeeper who loses a little bit of money on ALMOST every sale, (the exception being that he does make a tiny profit on a single sale every decade or so), and then says, “don’t worry, I’ll make it up on volume”.

#1068: — 03/15  at  05:36 PM
Phlogiston was a substance supposedly released by combustion and calcination (rusting). However, around 1750, Lavoisier noted that both combustion and calcination involve the consumption of oxygen, and he decided that phlogiston was a vacuous hypothesis.

Also, has anyone ever tracked down a copy of "Haeckel's Frauds and Forgeries"? If that book exists at all.

Also, Dr. Richardson has published pictures of embryos -- and early ones do look similar -- especially early amniote ones. Examination of anatomical details only supports that conclusion.

About common descent vs. common design, what similarities would creationists NOT consider evidence of common design? Also, creationists often maintain something like:

* Similarity is because the creator wanted to use some shared designs.
* Difference is because the creator wanted variety.

Which is almost as vacuous as phlogiston.

As Charles Darwin himself had noted, evolution admirably accounts for the hierarchical pattern of similarities that one readily deduces -- if one did not see such a pattern, one would not reasonably conclude descent with modification.

Claiming that evolution inside a created kind is not really evolution is pure hooey. Evolution, by any other name, is still evolution. And evolution from an ancestor of a putative kind is not necessarily subtractive -- it can be additive.

Many creationists think that Felidae is a single created kind. But it includes felines with a variety of sizes (an adult housecat is about the size of a lion or tiger cub) and coloration patters (striped, spotted, solid). Some felines, like lynxes, have tufts of hair on their ear tips that most others lack. Some felines (Panthera - lions, tigers, leopards, etc.) roar; most others do not.

But the most dramatic differences of all are in the lion, Panthera leo. Lions are the only social felines; all the rest are solitary. Their social organization consists of small groups of females that males fight each other for. Male lions grow manes, female lions do not, and neither do other felines. Lion manes are a sort of virility advertisement; female lions are especially interested in male lions with dark manes, but dark-maned lions overheat more easily.

Furthermore, lions do not split off from the base of the feline family tree; they are most closely related to tigers and leopards.

Subtractive evolution requires that the original felines were lion-like with tufted ears. However, that requires losing ear tufts, roaring, sociality, and manes several times. It's much easier to suppose that the ancestral felines were solitary and non-roaring with lookalike sexes and tuftless ears.

But I'm sure that an imaginative creationist can think of a subtractive-evolution scenario that produces tufts, roaring, sociality, and manes.

If additive evolution is required to get from one created kind to another, and additive evolution is possible inside a created kind, then additive evolution can happen between kinds.

In fact, creationists have remarkable disagreements about what a created kind is, despite their attempts to create a science of "baraminology". Hugh Ross thinks that it's a species, while many others think that it's various larger taxa.

Consider this site. It divides mammals and birds more finely than reptiles and amphibians. Yes, it claims that all these are single created kinds:
Frogs and toads
Turtles
Snakes

Present-day turtles can pull their heads into their shells. Some of them turn their heads sideways (side-necked), but most of them pull their heads inward (hidden-necked). And the extinct Jurassic turtle Proganochelys was apparently unable to do either. Turtles come in a variety of sizes, and they inhabit a variety of habitats, including the oceans.

Snakes are also diversified; they have a variety of sizes, and they live in a variety of habitats, including the oceans. The venoms of the poisonous ones are very diversified, often being a mixture of hemotoxic and neurotoxic agents. Rattlesnakes grow rattles on their tails, but are most closely related to other viperids. Like lion sociality and manes, this is another challenge to subtractive-only evolution.

#1069: — 03/15  at  05:49 PM
Rob McEwen:
I though it was more revealing to read the following phrases from Loren Petrich’s explanation of how raw materials turned into the first single-celled organism. I wish that I could go back and BOLD the following portions in his post:

(reasonable, somehow, ...)

(...wording like this for something that is supposedly proven fact?)

The details are less-than-clear, but I think that the concept of abiogenesis is fundamentally sound. And what would make you happy, Mr. McEwen? To go back in a time machine?

#1070: — 03/15  at  11:53 PM
>published pictures of embryos-and early ones do look similar

I am having a hard time reconciling this statement to Richardson's quote I mentioned earlier. Also, I've seen some of Richardson's photos beside the corresponding Haeckel drawings and the differences are severe... It is obvious that Haeckel did MUCH embellishment. Also, I've seen some of Richardson's photos with difference creatures at the same stage side by side and the differences between species are also very distinct. I suppose, on a certain level, anyone can look up at the clouds in the sky (for example) and see the shapes that they WANT to see. Moreover, even if you are correct, the similarities between creatures are not NEARLY as dramatic as Haeckel's drawings and, as I stated before, the average high school or college science student is given a very misleading impression.

Regarding Speciation:

The more well-thought-out creationists web sites I have seen which speculate about which kind or kinds the Felidae descended from consider that the Felidae classification is actually a combination or grouping together what really should have been separated into (at least) two distinctly different lines descended from (at least) two kinds.

Frankly, the truth of the matter on this issue (regarding all species/Genus) is probably somewhere in between the one extreme you listed (noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk) and the opposite extreme you mentioned (Hugh Ross). Sorting out which species share a common ancestor as their original "created kind" is a science which would take an enormous amount of research and study to determine in a definitive way. Because almost every University's science dept. is dominated by evolutionists... I don't see creationists having the proper resources to do this anytime soon. Also, in all fairness, the noahsarkzoofarm site qualified these statements with the word "probably". Nevertheless, the fossil record, molecular biology, and mathematical probability already strongly supports the creation/Speciation model over the classic evolution model where mutations add genetic info combined with natural selection. Therefore, proving EXACTLY which creatures fall into which categories is a NOT needed at this point.

The following explains why the Creation/Speciation model more likely or feasible than the Evolution model:

As mentioned earlier, the overwhelming majority of mutations delete or detrimentally scramble genetic information

Therefore, the few mutations that do add material are so rare and limited in scope that it would take too long to get enough of these to go from single-celled organism to human with a handful of Billions of years (probably not even possible with unlimited time). However, because mutations that cause deletions and/or which scramble genes are VERY common, speciation (where there is a loss of genetic information for a given population) can work in a MUCH shorter period of time and is more compatible with molecular biology and the timescale.

Overall, the fossil record shows very distinct creatures with tons of gaps in between these creatures. The fewer examples of remarkably similar animals are better explained by speciation because, frankly, the evolutionists gloss over the huge number of missing transitional fossils. The gaps are so big and pervasive... its like Swiss cheese run amuck where the cheese collapses because the ratio of holes to cheese leaves too many gaping holes and not enough cheese. After over a century of digging... this is our fossil record.

Next, Michael Behe's Irreducible Complexity (of stuff like The Bacterial Flagellum, ATP Synthase Molecule, blood clotting, etc).. kicks in and, at the least, further complicates the time problem. Its interesting... I have noticed that many evolutionists refute Behe by taking him to task for his mouse-trap analogy. They then show how the mouse-trap really could evolve. The funny thing is... once they are done... they say "case closed" ...as if refuting this one illustration really refuted Behe's whole point (pathetic).

But, ironically, even the evolutionist's explanation of the evolution of the mousetrap inadvertently damages the evolutionist's overall case from a different, unexpected perspective. Basically, the evolutionist always has to come up with very complicated and elaborate schemes to get around the Irreducible Complexity issue. They say that the many parts of the whole evolved independently and many DIFFERENT "ingredients" happened by pure coincidence to get each or most of these separate parts to develop independently of each other so that, eventually, and, again coincidentally, they then united to form the final system. Herein is the rub... when the Evolutionists does this, they may have found a fascinating explanation for overcoming Behe's challenge, by they have ALSO further RAISED the bar on the mathematical/probability side... which was already sky high due to the difficulties of getting to the first cell.

When you combine these elaborate schemes used to attempt to overcome Irreducible Complexity with the fact that those mutations which add genetic material are so rare and limited in scope in the first place... this is like combing the task of finding a needle in a haystack the size of a football field to having to do this task deaf, blind, and without feeling. One by itself is far-fetched... the two combined is totally impossible.