Transitional Fossils and the Theory of Evolution in relation to Genesis Accounts

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Obviously a mutation impacts the individuals that have it. But it doesn’t result in speciation unless it becomes fixed for the entire novel species. And the cases of lactase persistence and altitude are not increases in complexity nor do they result in speciation.
I am not explaining myself well. There is a difference between changing the order of words in a sentence and adding new sentences. The former case in genetics is well documented and much of the literature is speaking about this. Cancer is an example, along with sickle-cell, lactase persistence, etc. This is because those cases are altering existing cells and proteins, not introducing new functions or new cells.
If the rate of beneficial mutation is small in the first place, and it is self-evident that it is because we don’t observe rapid mutation of species on a regular basis, I don’t need to further demonstrate how astonishingly small the chances are that the mutation is writing additional information that is legible and non deleterious to the organism.
The fish can adapt to higher pressures or different saline levels using existing DNA in existing cells, but in order to grow lungs, legs, joints, hair, and other innovations to become a mammal it needs more than alterations to existing DNA. I don’t even see articles by geneticists answering this objection.
 
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If life was front loaded with the initial archetypes, transitionals can just as well be the organism in the process of losing features due to deleterious mutations as time goes on.
 
Continued lineage splitting (speciation) renders losses of information and ultimately leads to extinction. The organism becomes less adaptable to changing environmental conditions.
 
NSmith said:
Then the examples of symbolic thought and art work demonstrated by neanderthals and denisovans does not imply a rational soul in those species
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I’m thoroughly ignorant of Catholic thought with regard to the soul. Just for my benefit, is a soul required for the production of artwork? (This is a genuine question).

If so, how do the creations of the bowerbird, or the dances and songs of various creatures, fit?
 
PickyPicky said:
I’m thoroughly ignorant of Catholic thought with regard to the soul. Just for my benefit, is a soul required for the production of artwork? (This is a genuine question).

If so, how do the creations of the bowerbird, or the dances and songs of various creatures, fit?
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The soul is the animating principle of life. Plants, animals and humans all have souls. The human soul is special in that it is also immortal.
 
What can one conclude if the strongest possible case that science can present in its schema (as an historical science) is relatively weak? I think, “We don’t know, yet” ought to be one of the possible options.

The strongest possible case that affirms a particular purported transitional fossil as explanatory for a single speciation event will be characterized by a reliance on one or (more likely, many) more unproven assumptions. As a general rule, the greater the number of assumptions, the weaker is the claim. Further, arguments that depend on an argument that is flawed will not bear fruit.

Darwin arrived at his hypothesis in the usual inductive manner. He observed particulars and inferred a general conclusion. Unfortunately, his observations did not include a particular observation of his general conclusion.

He observed microevoutionary events, i.e., creatures physically adapting to changes in environment, and concluded that evidence of microevolution (adaptation) is sufficient as evidence for macroevolution (speciation). A logical error his advocates continue to make.

His conclusion did not extrapolate from his evidence (permissible, as a hypothesis), rather it is not in any logical way supported by his evidence. Speciation, therefore, can only be categorized as speculation, not science. Speciation via adaptation may be a very good speculation but, absent convincing evidence, it remains only speculation.
 
I thought the soul was the rational element, the aspect of life that is capable of reason.
 
Richca said:
God could have created the various species of plants and animals over many millions or billions of years.
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Why would God have done this? That’s a huge logical issue with this proposal. God’s desired end result was the creation of Man. Why make all sorts of things that stop us from living properly or at all, when the world could have been made just as it is now? Furthermore, why have such a linear progression of features over time? It’s all so coincidental.
 
NSmith said:
The fish can adapt to higher pressures or different saline levels using existing DNA in existing cells, but in order to grow lungs, legs, joints, hair, and other innovations to become a mammal it needs more than alterations to existing DNA. I don’t even see articles by geneticists answering this objection.
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NSmith said:
The fish can adapt to higher pressures or different saline levels using existing DNA in existing cells, but in order to grow lungs, legs, joints, hair, and other innovations to become a mammal it needs more than alterations to existing DNA. I don’t even see articles by geneticists answering this objection.
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You need to find better sources, or else do some more research of your own.

Land tetrapods evolved from a group of fish called Sarcopyerygians, or Lobe-fin fish. You will see that there are only two living groups of Sarcopterygii: Dipnoi and Coelacanths.

Dipnoi are lungfish – fish with lungs. They can survive for months out of water. Coelacanths (as well as most of the other Sarcopterygii) have fins-on-stumps. They do not have the more common ray-fins of other fish. See Coelacanth swimming and look at its front fins: they have a solid stump between the fin and the fish’s body. That stump contains bones. The limbs are not fully developed in a Coelacanth, but they have a shoulder/hip ball and socket joint and the beginnings of a knee/elbow joint. Later fossils like Tiktaalik have lost the fin and developed a wrist and digits. Unlike Coelacanths, Tiktaalik did not lose its lungs because, like Lungfish, it lived in shallow waters where lungs could be an advantage.

In short, land vertebrates evolved from a group of fish which already had lungs and stumps/proto-legs.
 
Not so much the duration, but the manner. If God’s end to creation was Man, why create all those other dead ends? It makes no sense.
 
buffalo said:
The entire belief in macro-evolution is extrapolation.
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We have examples of macro-evolution, buffalo. I have showed you, repeatedly on other threads. Why do you continue to deny scientific observations?
 
rossum said:
We have examples of macro-evolution, buffalo. I have showed you, repeatedly on other threads. Why do you continue to deny scientific observations?
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And I repeatedly pointed out these were examples of adaptations.
 
buffalo said:
And I repeatedly pointed out these were examples of adaptations.
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They are new species, unable to reproduce with the species they evolved from. That is macroevolution, by definition.

Your personal redefinition of the word is meaningless and has no effect in science.
 
My examples are obviously not very good. But the fact that lungs already existed doesn’t answer the question that I put forward, which is where did the information detailing how lungs are formed and operated come from? Terabytes of biological data don’t get written and interpreted by the cells of a living creature by accident, or at the very least this process has not been demonstrated or observed by geneticists.
 
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