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Originally posted by Kil

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Bill:
Geeze, the links that naturalists will go to in order to protect their sacred cow. Sad...

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The theory of punctuated equilibrium developed by Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge is often mistakenly drawn into the discussion of transitional fossils. This theory, however, only pertains to well-documented transitions within species or between closely related species over a geologically short period of time. These transitions, usually traceable in the same geological outcrop, often show small jumps in morphology between periods of morphological stability. To explain these jumps, Gould and Eldredge envisaged comparatively long periods of genetic stability separated by periods of rapid evolution.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_link

A Critique of Wallace: "There are no transitional fossils"

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"But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy." –

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Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, May 1994"

I could go on Bill… And really, I don't care about this debate. But I do care about lies. And taking quotes out of context is lying.

Also, I care about the source of your quotes. I'll give you 24 hours to provide them before I take administrative action…

Kil

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To explain these jumps, Gould and Eldredge envisaged comparatively long periods of genetic stability separated by periods of rapid evolution

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Bill:
Then why did Gould say, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.," if he did not mean " The extreme rarity of transitional forms?"

And how did Patterson mis-interpretate Gould when he resbonded with, "Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils.", if Gould really did not mean no transistional fossils?

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The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common—and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammal-like reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one composed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human, Australopithecus afarensis, with its apelike palate, its human upright stance, and a cranial capacity larger than any apeís of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity, reduced face and teeth, larder body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and test our faith thereby?

Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am—for I have become a major target of these practices…

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As for the comment about a definition of transitional forms, the exact opposite is true; creationists should supply a clearer definition of 'transitional forms' when they quote scientists. When quoting scientists like Patterson or Gould as saying 'there are no transitional forms' they neglect to mention that they are only referring to transitional forms a

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Originally posted by filthy




Devonian Meele

Devonian Sharks.

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(bill) Another tenant of ToE is natural selection as the working mechanism on random mutations, yet randomness creates dis-information every time. Always has and always will.

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Originally posted by Bill scott

(bill) I never claimed or implied that Gould was not an evolutionist. Only that he rejected "gradualism" and the transitional fossils, or lack there of, that demonstrate "gradualism", which is what we are discussing, correct? Gradualism...

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fuckin' sweet.


So in 2nd or 3rd grade( I cant remember which). I was in a school play about the tree of life. me and two other people were Dunkleosteus. Me and my dad spent a lot of time on that costume. In the end, it was six feet long and rested on my forehead. I could move the (fearsome) jaws to make it talk and I could also make the tail lash back and forth. The other two kids wore masks and gray sweat pants. They never forgave me.

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Originally posted by Bill scott
Dr Lee Spetner, a highly qualified scientist who taught information and communication theory at Johns Hopkins University:

But in all the reading I've done in the life-sciences literature, I've never found a mutation that added information.

All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.

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Originally posted by Kil

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Bill:
Then why did Gould say, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.," if he did not mean " The extreme rarity of transitional forms?"

And how did Patterson mis-interpretate Gould when he resbonded with, "Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils.", if Gould really did not mean no transistional fossils?

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So now extremely rare means none? Bill, I have already tried to explain the context of those comments. And by the way, as Filthy keeps on pointing out in his way, there are a lot more transitional fossils today then back in the 70s when Gould was coming up with his theory.

Old quotes taken out of context. That almost describes the whole creationist tool kit… (And of course, you did get those quotes off of a creationist site. You cited what they cited.)

Here is another old Gould quote. Follow the link and you can see all of the context…

From Evolution as Fact and Theory by Stephen Jay Gould

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The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common—and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammal-like reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one composed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human, Australopithecus afarensis, with its apelike palate, its human upright stance, and a cranial capacity larger than any apeís of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity, reduced face and teeth, larder body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and test our faith thereby?

Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am—for I have become a major target of these practices…

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And this from Patterson Misquoted
A Tale of Two 'Cites'

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As for the comment about a definition of transitional forms, the exact opposite is true; creationists should supply a clearer definition of 'transitional forms' when they quote scientists. When quot

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I have grown tired of debating evolution with those who don't understand the subject.

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Originally posted by R.Wreck:

Bill, you have spent countless words here in a lame, vain, attempt to counter the theory of evolution. You have failed not least because you don't know nearly enough about it to mount any kind of a challenge. (By the way, have you ever even stepped foot into a natural history museum?).

Be that as it may, you have also failed to offer any kind of plausible alternative to evolution. It's time to put up or shut up, Bill. Tell us your explanation for the diversity of life on planet Earth. With details. Please remember it needs to be supported by all the available evidence. And references would help.

Let's hear it Bill. Here's your chance to tell it like you see it.
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Bill's reply:


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DESIGN

<snipped lenghty quotemining>
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Originally posted by R.Wreck:

Who's the designer, Bill? Could it be a martian? What mechanism did it use to design and implement life as we know it?

And why such incompetence? Why do we have an appendix? Why are there blind fish with eyes? What about spina bifida? Or phenylketonuria How about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis? A friend of mine died of ALS, and it's a real bitch of a disease. It slowly wastes your body, but leaves your mind perfectly healthy so you know what's happening and what's coming. And it's 100% fatal.

Your designer sucks, Bill.
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Bill's reply:


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Yet man, in all his self-absorbed glory, can not duplicate the creation of bringing matter into existence from nothing, and then turn this matter into complex life. Heck, not only can man not duplicate it, he can't even come up with a plausible hypothesis on how it was done. Calamities on mars, which send the missing molecules for life from mars to earth on a cosmic asteroid shuttle system, is not plausible, but rather laughable. And evidence of your desperation for even a hypothesis for abiogenesis....
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Again with the non-sequiturs, Bill.

Please try to address the question. If you think the evidence supports design, then you must address the numerous examples of incompetent, bordering on malicious, design.



(bill) Sure, Wreck, I will answer your question as soon as you have answered mine. Where did Darwin's "simple Primordial Entities" come from and can you give me a basic description of them, before they began to evolve that is? Also, did these "simple life entities", that came about by chance, pop into existence with information already preprogrammed for natural and cumulative selection to use and if so who programmed them? Or did they pop into existence with no information at all for natural and cumulative selection to use?

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The simple and intellectually honest answer about the beginnings of life on Earth is: "I don't know". Nobody knows how life here began. Nor does anyone know exactly what the first entities which could be called "alive" were like. Of course they contained "information", but that is no evidence for a designer. Things such as rocks and snowflakes contain "information" in the way their molecules are arranged. So the information argument to support a supernatural origin is nothing more than a red herring.

I don't completely rule out the possibility of a supernatural origin of life. Reliable evidence, however, for any supernaturally influenced occurrence at any time in the history of the planet is non-existent. Evidence that natural processes determine what happens is overwhelming. So I think it is reasonable to conclude that the origin of life is most likely due to natural processes.


OK, Bill, I've answered your question.

Now, you have posited that life was designed, presumably by some intelligent agent. I have pointed out examples of design that range from incompetent to malicious. Please address that. How do you explain such poor design?

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Originally posted by Kil

Ok Bill here is the link you requested:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html
Why the other one doesn't work for you I have no idea. I just checked it and it works fine for me…

I have grown tired of debating evolution with those who don't understand the subject. There are others who enjoy this sort of thing. I once did but I'm over it. What energy I have for the subject of evolution, which I dearly love, is to learn more and keep up since my collage days when anthropology was by far my favorite subject. If I hadn't left school to pursue a career in music, I would probably have gone into paleontology or physical anthropology or something of that nature. I'm 56 now and since I left school there has been a fantastic increase in knowledge both in the laboratory and in the field. For example, A. Afarensis was not in the literature yet and molecular biologists were just starting to become major players.

I have also expended some energy in pursuit of getting a prominent creationist to agree to a formal debate in writing. No takers so far. (We will soon have in our fan mail section one such email exchange I had with a guy who writes creationist books for children.)

And, of course, there is the ongoing struggle to keep the teaching of science pure so our children don't grow up to be scientifically illiterate. (Our country seems to have the lions share of religiously motivated crackpots who seem determined to re-define science.)

So why am I telling you all this, Bill? Based on the replies you have posted to myself and others, you have demonstrated that you have no intention of increasing your knowledge of evolution even as you continue to attack it. For example, your response to my last post was to throw more quotes at me about transitional fossils with no regard as to which transitionals are being discussed. You have attempted to lump them all together by way of out of context quotes. And you show a complete disregard for how science works. For example, if gradualism is not supported by the fossil record, you seem to hold the position that the entire theory of evolution is in trouble which could not be further from the truth.

Here is a test for you Bill. Get it right and I may continue to discuss this with you. Get it wrong and I am out of here.

What would transitional fossils at the species level signify? How do they differ from transitional fossils at the family or order level if at all?

Simple, eh?

And again Bill I really couldn't care less about how you view evolution. I don't care about your religious beliefs. And I have nothing invested in changing those beliefs. Any battle I might have with you is of a political nature. My time has grown too valuable to spend it pissing into the wind…

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I have grown tired of debating evolution with those who don't understand the subject. There are others who enjoy this sort of thing. I once did but I'm over it. What energy I have for the subject of evolution, which I dearly love, is to learn more and keep up since my collage days when anthropology was by far my favorite subject. If I hadn't left school to pursue a career in music, I would probably have gone into paleontology or physical anthropology or something of that nature. I'm 56 now and since I left school there has been a fantastic increase in knowledge both in the laboratory and in the field. For example, A. Afarensis was not in the literature yet and molecular biologists were just starting to become major players.

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