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StAnastasia
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What cohorts will you yourself bring?
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buffalo
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I do agree our understanding gets fuller. Dawkins is way off and shows he is not a student of OT. Of course to sell his position he has to demolish the attributes of God.
We agree then that Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium guides us innerrantly?
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buffalo
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Me, Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium, Holy Spirit and the constant teaching and understanding of Scripture. What else do I need?
I will however, accept other humble folks who volunteer.
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edwest2
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I appreciate your detailed reply. When I link to a source in its entirety, I do not invent the claims made by the source. OK? If the source tells me that there is a fundamental difference in bone structure between birds and theropod dinosaurs, is the source wrong?
Regarding Junk DNA. I did not invent the term. Here, at junkdna.com, junkdna.com/ipgs_staged/postgenetic_medicine.html
you can see that progress is being made in determining what other roles the so-called junk does play. I realize it is the media’s job to sell magazines, newspapers and so on, but if the text does not match the claim in the headline, I’m not convinced. If it does, then the argument makes sense.
Peace,
Ed
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reggieM
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Here are some relevant paragraphs from the article I posted:
Because new animal groups did not continue to appear after the Cambrian explosion 530 millions years ago he believes that a unique kind of evolution was going on in Cambrian seas. And, because his years of examining rocks from before the Cambrian period has not turned up viable ancestors for the Cambrian animal groups, he concludes that their evolution must have happened quickly, within a mere two or three million years.
Chen enjoys seeing his fossils get the attention. But to him, the big story is not that he has discovered our earliest traceable ancestor, but that the Cambrian explosion of new body plans is proving to be real, not an illusion produced by an incomplete fossil record.
And some of the over 300 fossil specimens Chen’s team has recovered are so well preserved that paleontologists practically swoon over them.
“They’re almost like a photograph of the anatomy of the animals,” said French paleontologist Philippe Janvier.
But all this newfound clarity only adds to the larger problem, framed succinctly by Holland of Scripps Institution: “Where the hell are you going to get an animal like that?” In his view, Haikouella’s high level of development makes it more difficult to explain the evolutionary steps that produced it.
The place to find steps to Cambrian animals, of course, should be among the Precambrian rocks. Darwin wrote that, if his theory is true, then the world must have been swarming with the ancestors of the Cambrian critters during long ages before them. He expected future generations to find them.
Today, paleontologists still lack viable ancestors for the Cambrian’s forty or more animal phyla. Most researchers explain this by assuming that Precambrian animals were simply too small or too soft to leave a fossil record, or that conditions were unfavorable to fossilization.
But for the last three years, Chen’s discoveries at Precambrian fossil sites with Taiwanese biologist Chia-Wei Li have magnified this mystery. While sifting through the debris of a phosphate mining site, Chen and Li eventually discovered the earliest clear fossils of multi-cellular animals. They found sponges and tiny sponge embryos by the thousands — but nothing resembling the fish-like Haikouella or forerunners of other Cambrian creatures such as trilobites.
When word of the discovery got out, Chen and Li suddenly found themselves in the international spotlight. But when the hoopla was over and their discovery established, they wondered what evolutionary problems they had actually solved.
**In fact, the pair had failed to find any recognizable body plans showing steps along the way toward the complex Cambrian animals with their legs, antennae, eyes and other features.
What they had actually proved was that Chinese phosphate is fully capable of preserving whatever animals may have lived there in Precambrian times. Because they found sponges and sponge embryos in abundance, researchers are no longer so confident that Precambrian animals were too soft or too small to be preserved.**
“I think this is a major mystery in paleontology,” said Chen. “Before the Cambrian, we should see a number of steps: differentiation of cells, differentiation of tissue, of dorsal and ventral, right and left. But we don’t have strong evidence for any of these.”
This is not that controversial – it depends on how you interpret it. For Chen and these Chinese researchers, it just means that evolution happened very rapidily and probably didn’t work through Darwinian mechanisms. They’re proposing something like self-organizing systems that enabled new body plans to emerge spontaneously (and not through slow, step by step evolution).
They mention the common explanation that the reason we don’t have strong evidence of the ancestors of Cambrian organisms is that the fossil record is imperfect (due to the difficulty of the soft-bodied PreCambrian organisms to fossilize). But they question that view since they did find “thousands” of sponges and sponge embryos (both very soft and very small).
So, if the Precambrian fossil record is relatively complete (or “perfect” as you said it), then the new phyla that appear in the Cambrian strata cannot be explained by transitional organisms evolving through Darwinian means.
If the Precambrian fossil record is incomplete (or “imperfect”), then one can propose that ancestors to the Cambrian forms did exist but that we haven’t found them yet.
At present, there is very little evidence for the kind of “viable ancestors for the Cambrian animal groups” needed to explain the Cambrian Explosion.
Again, that fact is not controversial and it has been widely acknowledged in evolutionary science today.
Whether the fossil record is imperfect or not, the observed evidence in the fossil record does not presently match the claims of Darwinian theory.
Many will say that “eventually we will find the transitional forms”. Others might claim that “we cannot find those ancestors because they didn’t fossilize”.
In either case, those views are not strictly in accord with the evidence – since there is an assumption that there were transitional forms leading to the Cambrian phyla, even though very little has been found that would support that assumption.
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StAnastasia
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Reggie, is it your contention that if we don’t find transitional fossils leading to the Cambrian explosion, then the Bible is literally true after all, and the word is only 6,000 years old? I’ve forgotten your interpretation of the geological timeline.
StAnastasia
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rossum
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You yourself have already shown that new animal groups, such as Bryozoans, did continue to appear after the Cambrian; indeed you quoted Dr Gould to that effect. You really should read what you are posting and check it for consistency first. Posting contradictory quotes is unlikely to advance your argument much. Dr Chen also fails to explain why every land plant phylum originated after the Cambrian. Was the same process restarted? Was a different process in operation? What about the various phyla of fungi?
There are a few viable ancestors known; I have already mentioned Kimberella etc. Dr Chen is investigating a single deposit so organisms that did not live in that location will not show up there. Fossil deposits in Europe will not have kangaroo fossils.
Again, your source is giving incorrect information. There are about 35 animal phyla (Wikipedia lists 36). 4 are known from the Precambrian. 9 are known from the Cambrian and 20 are known from post-Cambrian rocks. Of the post-Cambrian phyla 13 have no fossil record and so may possibly be Cambrian, unless you continue to assert that the fossil record is perfect. You really do need to find better sources to quote from. At the very least take half a minute to check obvious facts before posting something that others can easily check for themselves.
It is indeed imperfect, at the very least we have not found all the fossils that are still in the earth.
How little is “very little”? Kimberella, Spriggina and Parvancorina are all viable Precambrian ancestors for Cambrian animal groups.
rossum
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StAnastasia
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rossum
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Of course. I am surprised that we have not had reports of the Space Shuttle bumping into the firmament before now. Perhaps AiG could fund an expedition to see how high up God placed it.
rossum
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buffalo
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Just what do you think the ancients were referring to by the firmament?
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reggieM
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Showing that evolutionists contradict themselves does, indeed, advance my argument.
The key word in that sentence is “few”. A better way to say it would be “hardly any”.
I think you said something about posting contradictory information …
You have a chance to offer a good prediction here. When will we find fossils of these phyla? You could just round it to the year.
The question remains as to what we can expect from Precambrian fossils.
According to James Valentine, Parvancorina is not “convincing” as an arthropod ancestor; it lacks a head, jointed limbs, compound eyes and antennae." [Valentine, J.W., On the Origin of Phyla (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 287, 397.]
additionally …
Dolf Seilacher claimed that the Ediacaran fauna represents a unique bodyplan which arose early in metazoan evolution and became extinct before the Cambrian and thus all the forms within the fauna are members of a now extinct, separate phylum – with no connection to modern forms- or even Cambrian forms.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ediacara_biota
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rossum
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Your quotes contradict each other - you could have selected them more carefully. I talk more about disagreement below.
The key is that there are not “none”. I am glad that we can agree on that.
What problem do you have with the word “about” in that context?
Three years, six month and seven days before the second coming.
We can expect confirmation of some hypotheses, disconfirmation of other hypotheses and a whole load of new questions. Pretty much what you would expect from any new scientific result.
Lin etc (2006) -like arthropod from the Cambrian of South ChinaParvancorina:A new species is reported here of the Cambrian arthropod Skania, which bears an exoskeleton that shares homologies with the Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran) organism Parvancorina and firmly establishes a Precambrian root for arthropods.
This was published in 2006 so Valentine, writing in 2004, would not have been aware of it. To quote: “firmly establishes a Precambrian root for arthropods”. As you correctly pointed out above, scientists can contradict each other. Sometimes this is because they disagree on interpretations of the data - just as Christians can disagree on interpretations of the Bible. At other times it is because new data has emerged between the times the two scientists spoke. This appears to be an instance of the second.
Correct. When reading that Wikipedia article you will of course have noticed the section headed “Non-Ediacaran Ediacarans” which discusses Kimberella, Spriggina and Parvancorina. Ediacaran refers both to a period of time and to the dominant biota of that period. As Seilacher says, the very simple typical Ediacaran organisms all became extinct; what survived were the atypical “non-Ediacaran” organisms alive at the time.
rossum
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reggieM
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I wasn’t quoting myself but, rather, evolutionists who can come up with any number of contradictory explanations.
That is not what I’d call a convincing statement on the strength of the fossil record. There are “not none” and some of that little that is claimed is disputed.
If you’re saying that evolutionary theory is about as certain as that kind of prediction, then we may have some grounds for agreement.Three years, six month and seven days before the second coming.
My concern is that evolutionary theory contains a larger degree of disconfirmation and a larger load of new questions than what one would expect from a mature concept.
Very often it is, indeed, a disagreement on interpretations of the data. I’m surprised to see you compare it with disagreements on interpretations of the Bible, but that strikes me as an honest and accurate comment. The data requires interpretation and sometimes it is as difficult to offer a coherent and “firmly established” story about what the fossil evidence actually means, as it is to determine the precise meaning of some of the more difficult passages in the Bible.
With that in mind, Valentine’s statement from 2004 (and he’s an acknowledged expert in the field) is supposedly refuted merely two years later. How long will this new claim last before someone else points out that the supposed arthropod ancestors are not what Jih-Pai Lin, etc. have claimed? Again, these claims emerge rapidly and they are interpretations of the historical record. It can take many years for scientists to review the claims and offer their corrections or counter-points.
I could only read the abstract of that article so I can’t comment. But from experience, I wouldn’t necessarily accept (without review) a claim from a group of scientists – for reasons already given.
The same Wikipedia article directs readers to a paper (from 2004) that also disputes claims that Parvancorina is an arthropod ancestor (as Valentine did that same year). So eventually, the scientists who made the earlier claims (now supposedly refuted) will have to review the evidence and respond in kind. Very often, these claims of having now “firmly established” something are challenged again by those who made earlier, contradictory claims. Even the pro-evolution Wikipedia has not absorbed the new evidence by Lin enough to consider the situation to be beyond dispute:
The reference in question:
Our material does not display any new arguments favoring the arthropod affinity of Parvancorina. No signs of limbs were found in specimens of P. sagitta. In contrast, the similarity of Parvancorina to the new fossil form Temnoxa molliuscula, which lacks any arthropodian features at all, casts doubt on the arthropod affinity of Parvancorina.
vend.paleo.ru/pub/Ivantsov_et_al_2004_eng.pdf
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hecd2
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Perhaps or perhaps not (although in this particular case, the claims in the source can be shown to be unwarranted and wrong in several ways). But, that is not the point and you are being at best disingenuous. If you link to a source that tells you that the moon is made of green cheese then that does not justify you in repeatedly claiming thereafter that the moon is made of green cheese, especially when you have had someone patiently explain to you that that is not the case.
On this occasion, your “source” is a popular news article, which claims that an interpretation of one aspect of bird and theropod dinosaur anatomy is evidence against the theropod dinosaur-bird link, and it is misleading and dishonest to continue to repeatedly state that the dinosaur ancestry of birds has recently been shown to be false, when the opposite is the case. You cannot use the fact that you have linked to some popular news article as an alibi for false statements that you make in your own voice - you have to take responsibility for them.
Why have you linked us to a website, which has the primary purpose of promoting the bizarre ideas of a self-publicist as though it were some sort of authoritative source? If “the text matches the claim in the headline then the argument makes sense” does it? No wonder you are so often misled.
As I said, it is true that some non-coding DNA is functional. That does not mean that it’s all functional (the vast majority has no known function) or that it is not the detritus of ancestral events such as broken genes, viral insertions and random duplications, which it clearly is. To claim otherwise as you repeatedly do is to falsely represent the evidence.
You take wrong, sensationalised or exaggerated claims from the popular press that you think support your case and represent them as being facts, whilst suppressing the vastly weightier and better attested evidence that stand against you. That’s not the way to uncover the truth.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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buffalo
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Some additional info on the dino-bird finding.
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edwest2
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I don’t take claims that I think supports my case. Have you taken the time to contact the names associated with the claims? I look for articles that list who the people making the claims are, and that show their link to a university or research center. I’m not looking for articles signed Bob Smith with no idea of who that person is. You say they’re wrong and I don’t accept that. What am I suppressing? You know you can post rebuttals whenever you want.
junkdna.com clearly points to an area of research begun to determine what functions appear in so-called junk DNA. I’m claiming no more or less. You are tending to believe it’s much ado about nothing. We’ll see.
Peace,
Ed
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StAnastasia
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A bowl-shaped dome with holes in it for the sun and stars.
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StAnastasia
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Alec, if some non-coding DNA is functional, that means the the Hebrew cosmogonic hexaemeral creation myth must be literally true. There’s no other possibility.
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hecd2
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Nonsense. Of course you do.
You take one data point that you think supports your case and ignore the hundreds that stand against it and pretend that that is justification for repeating a falsehood over and over again. Read my lips: the dinosaur-bird link has not been disproved or weakened in the last few weeks.
Not in this case - have you? But I’ve read the scientific paper. Have you?
It’s very sad - you really don’t get it, do you? It’s deceptive to take a single peripheral claim, particularly one made in the popular press, whether it’s made by someone with a university address or not, that stands in opposition to a huge body of evidence and the consensus of the palaeobiological community, and use that as a trigger to repeatedly state an untruth as a fact (in this case the untruth that the dinosaur-bird link has been demolished). Don’t you see how unethical that is? Probably not.
Well they almost certainly are wrong, and you do not have the knowledge to judge one way or the other so whether you accept it or not is neither here nor there, but that is not the point. The hypothesis of theropod dinosaur ancestry of birds stands on a huge body of evidence and remains in the same rude health after these claims in the popular press as it did before - in other words, as things stand the *fact *is that the link has not been disproved and by repeating your claim that it is, you are merely repeating a falsehood, which cannot be excused by a link to a popular article. What you are suppressing is the vastly more compelling evidence for the dinosaur-bird link and the fact that Quick and Ruben have not disproved it. No-one suggests that you shouldn’t link to contrary research, but neither should you misrepresent its significance. Do you understand now?
As I pointed out, junkdna.com is itself junk and therefore not authoritative. If you would like some respectable and authoritative sources for evidence that some non-coding DNA is functional, I can give you several.
However, again, that is not the key point. The key points are that a) the bulk of most non-coding DNA has no known function and is not conserved so is unlikely to have one; and b) even if every one of the three billion nucleotides in the human genome is functional then the origins of the bulk of the human sequences would still be retroviral insertions, retrotransposons, duplications, processed pseudogenes, tandem repeats - the legacy of molecular evolution. Your claims about non-coding DNA (that it has been shown to be all functional and not reflecting the history of molecular evolution) are therefore false. See above to try and understand why misrepresentation is dishonest.
Furthermore, it is wrong to imply that scientists held that non-coding DNA was all non-functional because of a preconception (especially one that you are unable or unwilling to identify - that’s merely poisoning the well). They held it as a best hypothesis based on what was known about the various molecular processes at the time. So, they have refined that view as new evidence has come along. No-one can truthfully claim that we know no more about the mechanisms of inheritance than we did in 1952, and that is all down to the work of scientists - not theologians, not philosophers, not apologists, not Young Earth Creationists, not Intelligent Design proponents but scientists. So yes, the objective of science is to find out the truth about the way the world works - in spite of your ill-informed contempt for it.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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StAnastasia
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Recognizing unethical behavior presupposes an advanced stage of moral development.
- Status