Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Biology prof: Whale, dolphin hip bones known for a long time to NOT be vestigial

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(But they made such a good example that … )

Further to “Vestigial” whale, dolphin hip bones actually needed for, um, reproduction (Lots of vestigial organs prove that Darwinian evolution is true, but not finding any also proves it true. Sign of a strong theory.):

David A. DeWitt kindly writes to say,

This is not really new. I have material from several years ago that showed that the pelvic bones were attachment sites for muscles involved in copulation. Pythons also use their ‘pelvic girdle’ during mating. The males use them to rub a particular patch of scales on the female which help them to become receptive to the male.

The only new aspect to this is the analysis of 3D shapes and the correlations to testes size which makes an evolutionary story. These bones never were vestigial and it has been known for a long time.

He adds,

I am convinced that Darwinists ignored the known function of the whale pelvic bones until they had a Darwinian ‘just so’ story to link it too. Let’s see how long it takes for this to show up in biology textbooks since they now discuss them as ‘vestigial’ and evidence for evolution.

Note: Some have written to say that an appendage can be vestigial but still functional. Actually, if it assists reproduction, it may be critical, but we won’t quibble.

The problem is that the qualification (vestigial but functional) takes all the punch out of the claim that vestigial organs demonstrate explicitly unguided (Darwinian) evolution. If evolution were guided or designed, we might expect that some parts greatly change their function as a response to changed circumstances, as here.

Evidence for Darwinian evolution would be vestigial parts that are actually useless but not naturally selected out because they do not compromise survival. Perhaps discussion should focus on those parts, if anyone can identify them.

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Pythons mating:

Comments
Lefsy, exactly and that is why evolutionists like RodW are smuggling philosophical worldviews and trying to pass it off as but toe science . Once your eyes wake up to this fact like mine did 5 years ago you start to recognize the theory for what it truly iswallstreeter43
September 12, 2014
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Not only is there only a handful of so called transitionals but you now also have another huge problem in a basilosaurus whale fossil found swimming the oceans as roughly the same time as ambulocetas which basilosaurus was supposed to have evolved from 16 million years later. What's ridiculous is that major problems like this don't make evolutionists question the theory . Evolution is a non falsifiable theory and that is why I left it 5 years ago. The more they ignore problems like this the easier it becomes to look at evolution as science mixed with philosophy then pure science .wallstreeter43
September 12, 2014
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RodW
The tiny speck of a bone thats all thats left of the pelvis is not performing its original function- therefore its vestigial. Its performing a new function -anchoring the ‘mobile penis’.
Exactly. Vestigiality is the product of your imagination about some mystical transition from a past function, and otherwise is completely useless as any kind of scientifically relevant anatomical description.lifepsy
September 11, 2014
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RodW
There is a beautiful series of transitional fossils that show the transformation of a land-dwelling artiodactyl to a fully aquatic whale.
Pure fantasy.lifepsy
September 11, 2014
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Rodw. Many evolutionary scientists have admitted the fossil evidence doesn't exist, Gould comes to mind. So I'm curious as to what evidence you're referring to?humbled
September 11, 2014
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rodw we even find a six digit. is not mean that we evolve from six digits human. we even find a shark with "legs". do its prove that shark was walking in the history? not at all. about the series of fossil of the wale evolution. i can show you hw a truck evolve from a car= a car--> a van--> a truck. its prove that a truck evolve from a car? lets say that they even have a self replication system like living things.mk
September 11, 2014
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RodW:
I dont think imagination is required. There are a large number of species of transitional form just where you'd expect them.
What is this alleged large number? I have seen a small handful.
I think the evidence from the fossil record and from embryology is clear: the fluke evolved from the tail and the hindlimbs dissappeared.
Except there isn't any such evidence.
My knowledge is out of date but from what I remember if whales divereged from hippos about 60 million years ago then the differences in their proteins will be about 10-15%. For non-coding it would be higher so there could be 800mil – 1 billion nucleotied differences between the 2. The vast majority wont be involved in the differences…maybe 1 million to 10 mil would. I doubt anyone could give a precise number on this ( and most wouldnt be careless enough to hazard a guess)
Science requires measurements and you don't have any. Got it. Also there isn't any evidence that genomes determine the form.
The entire scientific community would dissagree with this. Natural selection does build.
Without any evidence to support them their disagreement is meaningless. And they don't have any evidence to support them.
More to the point, our eperience tells us that the way natural selection builds is utterly different than the way designers build.
Except we don't have any experience with natural selection building anything
When we look at the natural world we see mountains of evidence thats consistent with the natural mechanism and little or none consistent with ID.
Nonsense. For one design is a natural mechanism as it exists in nature. Also yours doesn't even have a model- just how can we model natural selection producing complex protein machinery? Please be specific and show your work. Thanks.Joe
September 11, 2014
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Please read this post even though it is a tad long. Have a look at this image http://tinyurl.com/pk94xzu The Icthyosaur reminds us that we have seen other marine creatures with hind limbs before and polydactyl limbs. Of course Ichtyosaurs are thought to have come from land dwelling reptiles and cetaceans have followed their example in returning to the sea. Alternatively nature may be trying to give us a message. That this design plan is particularly efficient. After all, given the chance of returning to the sea why did these creatures both assume such a similar design? Why not alter the limb design or revert to fish fins? Or is nature telling us that the pentadactyl limb design is particularly efficient? What the evolution of cetaceans highlights again is the importance of Homology. To the vast majority of people Homology is the central pillar of evolution. Without it, evolution would crumble in the minds of many. I have been reminded playfully on this sight that similarity of features can be explained by common design. While this is true it doesn't seem to cut much ice for many. If a designer has the imagination to engineer such wonders as the brain and the blood clotting cascade, then why would they limit themselves to a repetitious use of body plans and limb designs? That, I believe, is the rub, as they say. Cars, lorries, vans etc share a great many features because they are the most efficient design for their purpose and environment. Now is that the same for animals? I have heard it said that there appears to be no reason why creatures should possess five digits. Why not 7 or 13 or 20? Even by the evolutionary paradigm the fact that creatures share a similar number of digits leads to the conclusion that about five is optimum for nature otherwise it would've gained more. If Five is the optimum in most cases then it makes sense that an intelligent designer would also use that number. The question is though, are the body plans and limb designs of most creatures more suited to the environment than any other design? If they are then one would expect an intelligent designer to use said designs. Of course a designer may follow a pattern of design for aesthetic reasons, a global harmony if you will. But then why give that limb design to a whale when it doesn't look aesthetically the same from without. I cannot stress this point enough. Homology is the life-blood of evolution in the eyes of the public. Homology by common descent is visually powerful. If it were known that this homology is actually because it is a superior or optimum design plan, then a great avenue for intelligent design would be opened to the minds of many. A powerful question for Intellignt Design research would be: What are the advantageous design/engineering principles underlying the pentadactyl limb design? This would go beyond just design detection to the elucidation of design principles which in turn would advocate the power of Intelligent Design as a theory and undermine the undesigned approach of evolution. Biomimetics certainly is beginning to do this, but I feel that the reasons behind the overall body plans and limb designs would be particularly significant. Perhaps some on here could ask any engineers they know if they have any knowledge of the benefits of these plans found in nature. Thank you for reading, sorry I took so long.Ho-De-Ho
September 11, 2014
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bw @ 4: Some rather big mutations! Ever seen a fluke plus muscular support, change in bones to support up/down strokes strong enough to swim, plus neural controls co-ordinated with other things appearing out of a single point, frame shift or the like? That would argue for pretty serious dual-use code, pointing to major front-loading. A design hyp, BTW. KFkairosfocus
September 11, 2014
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RodW: There is a beautiful series of transitional fossils that show the transformation of a land-dwelling artiodactyl to a fully aquatic whale.
And you people look down on others for believing in the virgin birth... Sebestyen P.S.: Discovering a new speciesSebestyen
September 11, 2014
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Verse and Music Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Steven Curtis Chapman: Long Way Home - Official Lyric Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1p-QfgkLowbornagain77
September 10, 2014
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Moreover, embryological developement is an extremely complex, and tightly constrained, process that is unique for each species,,,
The mouse is not enough - February 2011 Excerpt: Richard Behringer, who studies mammalian embryogenesis at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas said, “There is no ‘correct’ system. Each species is unique and uses its own tailored mechanisms to achieve development. By only studying one species (eg, the mouse), naive scientists believe that it represents all mammals.” http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57986/ A Listener's Guide to the Meyer-Marshall Debate: Focus on the Origin of Information Question -Casey Luskin - December 4, 2013 Excerpt: "There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way." - Eric Davidson http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/a_listeners_gui079811.html Darwin's Doubt (Part 8) by Paul Giem - developmental gene regulatory networks and epigenetic information - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLl6wrqd1e0&list=SPHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&index=8 Gene Regulation Differences Between Humans, Chimpanzees Very Complex – Oct. 17, 2013 Excerpt: Although humans and chimpanzees share,, similar genomes (70% per Jeffrey Tomkins), previous studies have shown that the species evolved major differences in mRNA expression levels.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131017144632.htm Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F "Where (chimps and humans) really differ, and they differ by orders of magnitude, is in the genomic architecture outside the protein coding regions. They are vastly, vastly, different.,, The structural, the organization, the regulatory sequences, the hierarchy for how things are organized and used are vastly different between a chimpanzee and a human being in their genomes." Raymond Bohlin (per Richard Sternberg) - 9:29 minute mark of video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8593991/
Thus where Darwinian theory most needs plasticity in order to be viable as a hypothesis, i.e. in developmental gene regulatory networks, is the place where it is found to be least flexible, (always catastrophically bad!).Yet, it is in these developmental gene regulatory networks where the greatest differences are found! supplemental note:
Darwin or Design? - Paul Nelson at Saddleback Church - Nov. 2012 - ontogenetic depth (excellent update) - video Text from one of the Saddleback slides: 1. Animal body plans are built in each generation by a stepwise process, from the fertilized egg to the many cells of the adult. The earliest stages in this process determine what follows. 2. Thus, to change -- that is, to evolve -- any body plan, mutations expressed early in development must occur, be viable, and be stably transmitted to offspring. 3. But such early-acting mutations of global effect are those least likely to be tolerated by the embryo. Losses of structures are the only exception to this otherwise universal generalization about animal development and evolution. Many species will tolerate phenotypic losses if their local (environmental) circumstances are favorable. Hence island or cave fauna often lose (for instance) wings or eyes. http://www.saddleback.com/mc/m/7ece8/
Thus RodW, exactly how do you evolve from some cow like critter to a whale when you have no viable pathway to do it? In other words, Imagining that such an extraordinary transition of cows turning into whales can happen in you head is a far, far, cry from demonstrating the feasibility of it in the lab!bornagain77
September 10, 2014
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RodW you claim,,,
I dont know about the first one but the other 2 are definately evidence for evolution. They both show evolution building on preexisting structures. Mammals have a placenta so they dont need yoke, but they still have a yolk sac. Mammals dont have “slotted gills” but they do have pharyngeal slits early in development. In fish those structures form the gill supports. In mammals they mostly dissappear but parts form diverse other structures.
Yet, contrary to what you believe to be 'knock down' evidence for evolution,,
"The so-called “yolk sac” is the source of the human embryo’s first blood cells, and death would result without it! ",,, and "The throat (or pharyngeal) grooves and pouches, falsely called “gill slits,” are not mistakes in human development. They develop into absolutely essential parts of human anatomy. The first pouches form the palatine tonsils that help fight disease. The middle ear canals come from the second pouches, and the parathyroid and thymus glands come from the third and fourth. Without a thymus, we would lose “half” our immune systems. Without the parathyroids, we would be unable to regulate calcium balance and could not even survive. Another pouch, thought to be vestigial by evolutionists until just recently, becomes a gland that assists in calcium balance. Far from being useless evolutionary vestiges, then, these so-called “gill slits” are quite essential for distinctively human development." https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-for-creation/embryonic-development/
Moreover, as to the "pharyngular stage", it turns out that the "pharyngular stage" is another Darwinian myth,,,
Three Flawed Evolutionary Models of Embryological Development and One Correct One - Casey Luskin - 2011 Excerpt: When biologists carefully compare embryological data, they find that there is considerable variability at the purported phylotypic stage, leading increasing numbers of biologists to question whether this pharyngular stage exists. As a paper in Nature said last year: "both the model and the concept of the phylotypic period remain controversial subjects in the literature." PZ generally refuses to address this literature, but it nonetheless calls into question the very concept that defines this model and gives PZ's Pharyngula blog its name. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/07/three_flawed_evolutionary_mode048541.html Vertebrate Gene Expression and Other Properties Don't Support a "Phylotypic" Stage - Casey Luskin - June 14, 2013 Excerpt: a new article in PLoS Genetics, "The Hourglass and the Early Conservation Models -- Co-Existing Patterns of Developmental Constraints in Vertebrates," shows that,, an analysis of the genome based on Darwinian assumptions fails to confirm many predictions of the "phylotypic" stage. ,,, (as they report),,, ,,,"Here, we first show that some of the previous conclusions do not hold out under detailed analysis of the data." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/vertebrate_gene073171.html Failures of Evolution: Phylogeny Recapitulates Ontogeny - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv1TyS09nLM
In fact, Darwinists have been 'fraudulent', (there's that word again), with embryological evidence almost ever since Darwin first wrote his book over 150 years ago. Haeckel's Bogus Embryo Drawings - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecH5SKxL9wk Haeckel's Embryos - original fraudulent drawing http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Haeckels-Embryos-Cropped-II.jpg Actual Embryos - photos (Early compared to Intermediate and Late stages); http://www.ichthus.info/Evolution/PICS/Richardson-embryos.jpg There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates: - Richardson MK - 1997 Excerpt: Contrary to recent claims that all vertebrate embryos pass through a stage when they are the same size, we find a greater than 10-fold variation in greatest length at the tailbud stage. Our survey seriously undermines the credibility of Haeckel's drawings, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9278154 bornagain77
September 10, 2014
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RodW, to revisit the video I posted. You seem to have severely downplayed the significance of Philip Gingerich's testimony,,, Thus I have written it out for you,,, At the 5:36 minute mark of the following video, Philip Gingerich, the paleontologist who discovered and reconstructed Rhohocetus, which has been called by evolutionists, 'the most spectacular intermediary fossil in whale evolution', states this about that, "most spectacular intermediary fossil",,,
"Well, I told you we don't have the tail in Rodhocetus. We don't know for sure whether it had a ball vertebrate indicating a (tail) fluke or not. So I speculated (that) it might have had a (tail) fluke.,,, Since then we found the forelimbs, the hands, and the front arms, the arms in other words of Rodhocetus, and we understand that it doesn't have the kinf of arms that can be spread out like flippers are on a whale.,, If you don't have flippers, I don't think you can have a fluke tail and really powered swimming. And so I now doubt that Rodhocetus would have had a fluke tail." Philip Gingerich - 5:36 minute mark Whale Evolution vs. The Actual Evidence – video – fraudulent fossils revealed http://vimeo.com/30921402
I suggest watching the video again to see how crucial Rodhocetus was for the Darwinian 'just so' story of whale evolution to see important that admission is by Dr. Gingerich.bornagain77
September 10, 2014
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RW 9, thanks for the reply. ---------------------------------------------------- Anthropic Sternberg says population genetics demonstrates that whales couldn’t have evolved. Pretty much every population geneticist in the world would say he’s wrong. Some of the mistakes hes makes are: 1. Thinking that mutations and adaptations ocurr in series. They can occur in paralell 2. Thinking there is one route to a particular adaptation. There are many 3. Thinking that whatever route occured to an adaptation was preordained. 4. Thinking that transitionals and extant cetations are perfectly adapted to live in water. They arent. Early forms seemed clumsy compared to whales and dolphins can suffer from decompression sickness. ----------------------------------------------------- At 43 million years on average to achieve two coordinated mutations, the odds are prohibitive that all the coordinated mutations necessary (dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands) to turn a cow like critter into a whale would occur and become fixed in the population in less than 10 million years. Even if they are all developing in parallel. The math really isn't hard, except for those who dislike the implications. Remember, whales don't survive in the oceans until ALL the key morphological changes (Berlinski counted 50,000 and stopped there) necessary for this environment are complete. Different breathing apparatus. Different skin. Blubber. Different eating & digesting apparatus. Different reproductive apparatus, including special blood cooling system for the internal testes. Different system for feeding young underwater. Ability to drink sea water. Sonar. And on, and on, and on.... All these demands must be met before the creature can survive in the oceans. Not just a few, or even most. All of them. Sorry, but no amount of chatter about "many routes ", "parallel adaptations" changes the utter implausibility of that occurring via unguided natural processes in less than ten million years.anthropic
September 10, 2014
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#19 bornagain77 I like it. Will bring it up in the future as a funny reminder. :)Dionisio
September 10, 2014
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Joe:
If one has a very good imagination</blockquote? I dont think imagination is required. There are a large number of species of transitional form just where you'd expect them.
Why can’t that be an atrophied hind fin? All you are saying is that formerly four-finned cetaceans just have two fins now.
I think the evidence from the fossil record and from embryology is clear: the fluke evolved from the tail and the hindlimbs dissappeared.
How many mutations did this evolution take? Science requires measurements so please tell us. Then tell us what genes were involved so we can test the claim
My knowledge is out of date but from what I remember if whales divereged from hippos about 60 million years ago then the differences in their proteins will be about 10-15%. For non-coding it would be higher so there could be 800mil - 1 billion nucleotied differences between the 2. The vast majority wont be involved in the differences...maybe 1 million to 10 mil would. I doubt anyone could give a precise number on this ( and most wouldnt be careless enough to hazard a guess)
Natural selection doesn’t build anything. It is an eliminative process in which whatever is good enough survives to get the chance to reproduce.
The entire scientific community would dissagree with this. Natural selection does build. More to the point, our eperience tells us that the way natural selection builds is utterly different than the way designers build. When we look at the natural world we see mountains of evidence thats consistent with the natural mechanism and little or none consistent with ID. I have to get to work and then catch a bus. When I get home I'll try to reply..if needed
RodW
September 10, 2014
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Dr JDD
I guess the embryology is on par with humans demonstrating tails, egg yolk sacs and slotted gills in embryology too
I dont know about the first one but the other 2 are definately evidence for evolution. They both show evolution building on preexisting structures. Mammals have a placenta so they dont need yoke, but they still have a yolk sac. Mammals dont have "slotted gills" but they do have pharyngeal slits early in development. In fish those structures form the gill supports. In mammals they mostly dissappear but parts form diverse other structures.
Anyway, I am not sure what the PLV gene is – could you please provide me with a real gene name? That one does not exist in public databases as far as I can see. My point is the same – show me a gene that is solely for the expression of a particular structure not present now in say whales but was present in a time past that offers an intermediary stage.
I mentioned that I made up PLV but SHH and DLX are real. You're right that most genes dont have a unique function, at least in development. Most of those genes are reused. There has been a debate within evolution for decades over whether most evolution of animal form is due to changes in proteins or changes in the regulatory regions of proteins. I think the latter group is winning the argument. This would mean that whales still have all or most of the genes to make a pelvis. A pelvis is, afterall just a bunch of fused bones. What they're missing is the specific network of interactions between those genes that cause the pelvis to form in its specific location and take on its shape. They havent lost the entire network because a rudimentary pelvis does form. The same would be true for the formation of the hindlimb.RodW
September 10, 2014
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You got it D,, they have no clue how to answer,,, Indeed, when it comes to the astonishing levels of integrated complexity being dealt with in life, there is no answer the class full of atheists can give,,, thus the 'anyone, anyone?' jab,,, :)bornagain77
September 10, 2014
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#17 correction:
...having no clue what how to answer the...
Dionisio
September 10, 2014
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#13 bornagain77 It took me a while, but now I see a correlation: someone standing in front of a class full of atheists and pointing to the list of over 300 posts with examples of different elaborate biological systems. The audience having no clue what to answer the gazillion questions? Is that what you meant? Did I get it right? Or was it supposed to symbolize a different case?Dionisio
September 10, 2014
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RodW- Whales do not have a femur. Why can't that be an atrophied hind fin? All you are saying is that formerly four-finned cetaceans just have two fins now.Joe
September 10, 2014
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RodW:
There is a beautiful series of transitional fossils that show the transformation of a land-dwelling artiodactyl to a fully aquatic whale.
If one has a very good imagination. However reality says there are only a hopeful small handful of such fossils when there should be thousands. How many mutations did this evolution take? Science requires measurements so please tell us. Then tell us what genes were involved so we can test the claim. Natural selection doesn't build anything. It is an eliminative process in which whatever is good enough survives to get the chance to reproduce. So RodW, you don't even have a mechanism capable of producing a whale from a land mammal. Try again...Joe
September 10, 2014
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#13 bornagain77 Had not seen that video before. Poor kids, with such a boring professor like that. :)Dionisio
September 10, 2014
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Dionisio, I hope you did not take the 'anyone anyone' video as a diss, it was meant as a poke at atheists,,, I have your '3rd way' link referenced in my 'complexity notes',,, I know it took you a lot of work to put all that together and thank you.bornagain77
September 10, 2014
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Well a dolphin with 4 fins has convinced me.... I guess the embryology is on par with humans demonstrating tails, egg yolk sacs and slotted gills in embryology too. Anyway, I am not sure what the PLV gene is - could you please provide me with a real gene name? That one does not exist in public databases as far as I can see. My point is the same - show me a gene that is solely for the expression of a particular structure not present now in say whales but was present in a time past that offers an intermediary stage. Then I will be interested. The bottom line is despite asking this question many times of Darwinists I always get a blank. The same was true of human tail genes. I was informed that we still have the genes for tails like our ancestor but we don't have tails anymore. Yet the genes for tail patterning have a whole host of essential functions beyond tail formation so it is an illegitimate and deceitful point. I suspect the same istrue here. You very rarely in development find genes that only account/play a role in a single structure. This also heavily implies the control of development is regulated more extensively by non-protein coding DNA material.Dr JDD
September 10, 2014
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RW,, you claim "The evidence on its face is overwhelming for evolution." Really??? Since just a bit of scrutiny reveals the series to be fraudulent,,,, Can you at least provide evidence of one molecular machine arising by unguided Darwinian processes??? So as to quiet the doubts of those of us who question whether unguided processes can build machine that gratly outclass anything man has ever built??? Should be a piece of cake for you since you claim the 'evidence on its face is overwhelming'. "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation of such a vast subject." James Shapiro, molecular biologist, National Review, Sept. 16, 1996 Dr. James Tour, who, in my honest opinion, currently builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world,,, Science & Faith — Dr. James Tour – video (At the two minute mark of the following video, you can see a nano-car that was built by Dr. James Tour’s team) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR4QhNFTtyw ,,will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works: “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111 Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows That Evolution Doesn’t Work – James Tour, Phd. – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7t2_Ph-ckbornagain77
September 10, 2014
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Dionisio,,, "Anyone, anyone" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA :)bornagain77
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Anthropic Sternberg says population genetics demonstrates that whales couldn't have evolved. Pretty much every population geneticist in the world would say he's wrong. Some of the mistakes hes makes are: 1. Thinking that mutations and adaptations ocurr in series. They can occur in paralell 2. Thinking there is one route to a particular adaptation. There are many 3. Thinking that whatever route occured to an adaptation was preordained. 4. Thinking that transitionals and extant cetations are perfectly adapted to live in water. They arent. Early forms seemed clumsy compared to whales and dolphins can suffer from decompression sickness. BA77 The video seems to be saying the fossils are frauds. If scientists have been manufacturing evidence for evolution in some grand conspiracy then there is no real evidence for evolution. As a non-scientist I have to take the evidence at face value (knowing that science at the cutting edge is tentative) The evidence on its face is overwhelming for evolution. Dr JDD The link below shows a dophin embryo that has the same forelimb buds and hindlimb buds found in limbed vertebrates. In dolphins the hindlimb buds atrophy. http://bobjk.blogspot.com/2008/08/sampling-of-scienceblogs.html The link below contains info on abberant hind limbs. They are not just nubs of bone. Many whales even have a degenerate femur along with the pelvis. http://etb-whales.blogspot.com/2012/03/dolphin-hind-limbs-response-to-answers.html
And also please provide details of the genetic information responsible for these structures so we can determine that they don’t perform other vital functions.
These structures appear very rarely in animals so its unlikely they have any function. But even if they did that has no bearing on whether they are vestigial and its still what we'd expect from an evolutionary mechanism. I know that the genetic regulatory networks that specify bone have been worked out in some detail. I also know that there are cases when the activation of a particular gene is necessary ( and sufficient) to make a specific bone but I dont know if any candidate genes are known for the pelvis. Let me ask you guys a question: There are genes that specify the formation of limbs in mammals..for example SHH and DLX. If scientists were to look for those genes in the "hindlimb" bud of dophins do you think they'd find them? Take the simplistic scenario that the gene PLV specifies formation of the pelvis in mammals. Do you think the PLV gene would be found in whales and would its activity specify the reduced 'pelvis' of whales?RodW
September 10, 2014
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#6 bornagain77 I don't know much about fossil record, but can someone explain how we got the stuff mentioned in over 300 posts in this thread: https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-513919 Any clues? :)Dionisio
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