Anti-Creationists Backed Into a Corner?

AgapePress ^ | February 24, 2003 | Jim Brown

[Remedy]

More than 200 evolutionists have issued a statement aimed at discrediting advocates of intelligent design and belittling school board resolutions that question the validity of Darwinism.

The National Center for Science Education has issued a statement that backs evolution instruction in public schools and pokes fun at those who favor teaching the controversy surrounding Darwinian evolution. According to the statement, "it is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible" for creation science to be introduced into public school science textbooks. [See Earlier Article]

Forrest Turpen, executive director of Christian Educators Association International, says it is obvious the evolution-only advocates feel their ideology and livelihood are being threatened.

"There is a tremendous grouping of individuals whose life and whose thought patterns are based on only an evolutionary point of view," Turpen says, "so to allow criticism of that would be to criticize who they are and what they're about. That's one of the issues."

Turpen says the evolution-only advocates also feel their base of financial rewards is being threatened.

"There's a financial issue here, too," he says. "When you have that kind of an establishment based on those kinds of thought patterns, to show that there may be some scientific evidence -- and there is -- that would refute that, undermines their ability to control the science education and the financial end of it."

Turpen says although evolutionists claim they support a diversity of viewpoints in the classroom, they are quick to stifle any criticism of Darwinism. In Ohio recently, the State Board of Education voted to allow criticism of Darwinism in its tenth-grade science classes.

[Dimensio]

Only an evolutionist would have such a low disregard for humanity (and himself) as to compare apes favorably with humans.

I'm sure that there are quite a few Muslism extremists who would places apes higher up than the "infidels" of the west, and they are not evolutionists.

The charlatan Darwin did that for chapeter after chapter in the descent of man showing absolutely his considering man no more than a beast.

And, of course, not holding Man in high regard is proof that evolution is false, or something. Maybe you need to wave your hands a few more times to make it more convincing.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Your single posts are clumping together to form a new organism?

[Condorman]

Ah, then you admit your charge that Junior makes stuff up just to make you look bad is utterly baseless.

Just checking.

Your posts are quoted accuately. They are documented with links for verification. You are a demagogue. Transparently so. At best.

Have a nice night.

[Ichneumon]

I’ve tried that; go and look at the posts that I’ve put up today on this topic.

Yes, thank you for your change in approach; I appreciate it, and I'm sure others do as well.

[Ichneumon]

Darwin said that traits are combined from mother to father. That the features 'meld' in the progeny.

Nowhere in the Origin of Species do either the word "trait(s)" or the word "meld" occur. Why don't you quote him to try to support your claim, instead of attempting to paraphrase him? (Because we all know how "creative" your paraphrases are.)

I just went through an online copy of Origin of Species, searching and reading every passage which contained the words "parent(s)" or "inheritance" (which was the term for "genetics" in Darwin's day). Not only did I find nothing at all like you describe, I found passages which flatly CONTRADICT your assertion about what Darwin said about genetics. For example:

The laws governing inheritance are quite unknown; no one can say why the same peculiarity in different individuals of the same species, and in individuals of different species, is sometimes inherited and sometimes not so; why the child often reverts in certain characters to its grandfather or grandmother or other much more remote ancestor; why a peculiarity is often transmitted from one sex to both sexes or to one sex alone, more commonly but not exclusively to the like sex. It is a fact of some little importance to use that peculiarities appearing in the males of our domestic breeds are often transmitted either exclusively, or in a much greater degree, to males alone.

[...]

Every one must have heard of cases of albinism, prickly skin, hairy bodies, &c. appearing in several members of the same family. If strange and rare deviations of structure are truly inherited, less strange and commoner deviations may be freely admitted to be inheritable.

[...]

Seedlings from the same fruit, and the young of the same litter, sometimes differ considerably from each other, though both the young and the parents, as Muller has remarked, have apparently been exposed to exactly the same conditions of life; and this shows how unimportant the direct effects of the conditions of life are in comparison with the laws of reproduction, and of growth, and of inheritance;

Contrary to your false accusation that Darwin believed that parental traits simply "meld" in the child, he SPECIFICALLY included in his work the realizations that, in modern language, 1) recessive traits can lay dormant and then pop up in the offspring, 2) traits often fail to pass during reproduction [today we know this is because the offspring only gets a random half of the paired genes from each parent], 3) there are sex-linked genes, 4) there are genetic diseases which pop up rarely and unpredictably in some family lines, 5) children of the same parents differ from each other and aren't just similar "averages" of their parents.

In short, you're absolutely, 100% wrong about Darwin's views of genetics. Not only was he *not* of the opinion that children are just "melds" of their parents' traits, but in fact he was way ahead of his time in recognizing the way that traits tend to remain distinct and are passed on in "all or nothing" fashion, and are similarly expressed (or not expressed) in "on or off" manners.

Although he hadn't mathematically quantified it as Mendel had, Darwin had *all* the qualitative observations of inheritance correct and said so in his book.

You're quite simply wrong. Again. Still. Do you *ever* get anything right?

This shows quite well that the man was no scientist.

On the contrary, the *actual* contents of his book show him to be a scientist way ahead of his time in recognizing the laws of inheritance, and *your* false accusation shows *you* to be "no reliable source".

In fact, I am sure he was led to this view due to his racism

Darwin was no racist (quite the contrary, in fact -- surprisingly so for his era), as has been shown to you again and again by enlightened quotes from his works. And again and again you have been challenged to support your slur, and you have repeatedly run away. You're despicable.

It took evolutionists some three decades to figure out a way to reconstruct Darwinism to account for Mendel's genetics.

You're hallucinating again. Or trolling. Neither option inspires confidence, but it's pretty par for the course for creationists. Are you *trying* to torpedo your side's credibility?

[Gore:] and even nowadays you can read arguments from moronic evolutionists saying that it is not true in all cases.

[Me:] Because it's not. Lateral transfer, for example, is one of the several ways that genetic information can be passed without Mendelian genetics.

[Gore:] Thanks for proving my point for me. Moronic evolutionists still deny the truth of Mendelian genetics.

CREATIONIST TROLL ALERT

Not even you could be as dense as you pretend to be here, so you're clearly trolling. Grow up.

[jennyp]

Blast! I was off by 73 minutes. (See 601)

I was busy working. :-)

[Ichneumon]

Goodbye loser.

Oh good, you're leaving? Bye.

More excuses from a lame evolutionist. You do not even understand your stupid theory, you cannot even argue for it and give facts in favor of it. All you can do is make up nice sounding names for links that prove nothing at all. If you and your lame friends have any facts to disprove my statements - post them here. You do know how to cut and paste do you not? Or are you too lame for that also?

How old are you, twelve?

Do you realize just how childish you sound going off on a temper tantrum about me posting a few links to address someone's common misconception instead of "cutting-and-pasting", when you just gave *me* a link to a post of yours which consists of nothing *but* ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE links to web pages (most of which don't even match your subject headings for them)?

You get the "hypocrite of the day" award, hands down.

Yes, I think that people who want to understand the problems of evolution should understand the terms. What's your problem with that? Stupidity is your friend? Ignorance and evolution go hand in hand?

Don't play dumb (or at least I *hope* you're only playing at being this dumb -- the alternative is even scarier).

The "problem with that" is that you categorized your links under various subject headings, and then listed tons of links which had nothing to do with those subject headings.

Your dishonest intent was clear -- you were trying to pad out each section with lots of links, in a cheap attempt to make it look like your "disproofs" sections contained a greater volume of material than they actually did. You knew very well that most readers wouldn't bother to go read all your 175(!) links. Most would read your subject headings (e.g. "Biology Disproving Evolution"), see the enormous number of links it contained, and think, "wow, there's really a *lot* of evidence disproving evolution!".

The fraud, of course, is that the majority of your links do no such thing. A great many of them are articles *supporting* evolution, many others are simply neutral articles describing various biological subjects. My favorite was the word glossary you linked in the "Biology Disproving Evolution" section -- how *that* "disproves evolution", I'd *love* to hear...

And I'm not the only one to notice -- your post of that link-o-mania quickly generated responses like, "From what I can see of the presentation, it is wordy, poorly organized and senseless obfuscation.". Right on target.

Your motive of "overwhelm them with sheer volume" (no matter that much of it actually *contradicts* your position) was clear from the wording of your intro, "This is a test which the theory of evolution has failed in spades as the following abundantly shows. You were stressing volume over substance.

One of the really funny things on that thread was where you wrote:

In TalkOrigins? You are not serious are you? That place is the craddle of evolutionist half-truths and plain lies. It is just a long series of personal pages by people with an axe to grind. Most of the links I give you are to published articles by people who have qualifications and who unlike most of the writeres on your site - stake their reputations on what they say.

Apparently, in your rush to cut-and-paste as many links as you could in order to expand the sheer size of your "Disproofs", you failed to realize that you had included three links to www.talkorigins.org *itself* (and falsely listed them in the "disproofs" of evolution sections). Try reading stuff before you randomly throw it into your bucket next time.

You also wrote:

Hey Dimensio, why don't you argue with what I posted? Why don't you refute the statements I have made?

The hilarious part is that a large number of YOUR OWN LINKS (posted under your "Evidence Disproving Evolution" header) actually refutes your OWN position. Dimensio doesn't have to refute them because THEY SUPPORT HIS SIDE, NOT YOURS.

You're either a fool, a charlatan, or a troll. I don't much care which.

Look, if you want to reformat your "barge-o-links" and put the articles under *accurate* subject headings, then I'd have no beef with it. But then, your "support of evolution" and "neutral biological articles" sections would be a hell of a lot larger than your tiny "arguments against evolution" section, and the problem with your collection would become apparent.

[I wrote:] Let's grab another at random, from the "Intelligent Design" category: Flagellar Structure and regulated transcription of flagellar genes

Another example of your ignorance. You expect everything to be spoon fed to you, you do not wish to learn the hard way. What that article shows is the names of the genes involved in the bacterial flagellum. The point of it being in Evidence Disproving Evolution is that as anyone can see the vast majority of the genes involved are unique to the flagellum, something which evolutionists deny.

Okay, I'll bite, where do "evolutionists deny" this? Nowhere in your linked article, certainly. Nor does your article in any way support (or even refute) your claim that "the vast majority of the genes involved are unique to the flagellum". You have absolutely no support for your desperate assertion that this was the reason you linked that article. Nor does that article in any way support any other "intelligent design" argument, except in lame sense of the usual creationist assertion that "if it's more complex than a rock, it had to have been designed, QED".

Admit it, that article in no way supports your side of the argument, it's just an inventory of some of the known genes that relate to flagellum development in *one* kind of organism (out of the countless which have flagella of varying types).

Unlike you and your fellow evolutionists, I do read what I link to.

Support that childish slur, or retract it. Or else we'll add it to the FABNAQs.

The article - from TalkOrigins - is there to show exactly what the quote from f.christian says - 'evolution is whatever lie you want it to be'. It shows that evolutionists are very afraid of their theory and cannot even agree on what it is.

Holy cow! If that's what you got out of that article, you didn't understand it at all!

The article shows tremendous problems with both gradual evolution and punk eek. Moreover, it shows that the evolutionists are saying that biology must be disregarded when talking about evolution! Now if that does not show my point (from an evolutionist!) that evolution is not science, then waht does??????

Um, what it actually shows is your defective reading comprehension, because it says no such thing. It always amazes me how often creationists can read clearly written articles on a given topic and then come away with some jumbled Alice in Wonderland misunderstanding of it.

More is at stake here than the reality of species, however. If species sorting is real, then the processes operating on the level of species (macroevolutionary processes) are not necessarily the same as those operating on the level of individuals and populations (microevolutionary processes).

What your excerpt is actually saying (contrary to your hallucinatory "summary" of it above) is that evolution is real, punctuated equilibrium has been demonstrated to be a validated theory, and that they are established facts in evolutionary biology. The interesting new notion, however, is that alongside natural selection working at the *individual* level to produce evolution at the *species* level, there may be a "larger" kind of natural selection (nicknamed "species sorting") that works at the *species* level to bring about change at the *taxon* level.

That's no refutation of evolution, son, that's confirmation and further discovery into the forces which drive it.

Not too good on the reading comprehension, are you?

[I wrote:] these threads consistently contain reams of facts,

Not from evolutionists,

I'll let the obvious falseness of this brazenly transparent lie speak for itself.

[Ichneumon]

I hope you don't mind if I ignore you in the future.

Ignore me too please! Thanks in advance.

[Ichneumon]

It's not goofiness, it's indoctrination and you and your friends have no answer to it.

I *repeat*: "This goofiness was already dealt with a hundred posts ago. Do try to keep up." We already discussed and disposed of that nonsense. If you're too lazy to go back and read it, I'm not going to spoonfeed you, and I'm not going to go back over the same arguments for you.

[Ichneumon]

[I wrote:] "From my experience, though, the number of people who can properly assess the 'mathematical possibility' of something is far smaller than the number of folks who *think* they are competent enough to correctly do so."

Please pardon the peasants in the peanut gallery for rolling our eyeballs at such stunningly sanctimonious intellectual elitism.

What "intellectual elitism"? I'm just pointing out the crucial difference between those who can actually follow and verify a mathematical argument, and those who only think they can.

Are you actually going to tell me that there's *not* a meaningful difference in being able to verify a mathematical argument and not being able to?

Believe it or not, some of us can actually read, and thus are privy to the works of mathematicians, astronomers, AND molecular biologists

Believe it or not, some of us *are* mathematicians, and don't have to take someone else's word on faith that they properly analyzed the problem.

Thus my point -- there are a lot of people who think that reading a mathematical argument and believing it because it "looks" good is just as valid as having the ability and taking the effort to actually go over the material and personally validate it. But it's not. Period.

-- however admittedly none can be sure of just how many hundreds of thousands of zeros should be added in assessing the odds of matter randomly evolving into even the simpliest living single cell.

Case in point... *You* can't "be sure". People who are able to follow a mathematical argument *can* be.

And in this particular case, the calculations I've seen proffered for arguing a huge improbability of "the odds of matter randomly evolving into even the simpliest living single cell" are all grossly flawed. Most of them fall flat on the presumption that a "cell" would be the first type of life to arise. For a hint of the issues involved in such a calculation (and a reasonable rough estimate of odds based on more plausible scenarios), see: Probability of Abiogenesis FAQs

[Ichneumon]

[Try to work on your reading comprehension. We're talking about what evolution as a process does, not people.]

Try to work on not spewing garbage.

Go back and reread the posts in question until you see where you made a mistake concerning what was being said. I'll wait...

The fact is that evolutionists called DNA not in genes "junk DNA" and said that it was there only to prove evolution.

I already dealt with that false sloganeering of yours -- not just on this thread, but at least six times on other threads. Get some new material.

Nevertheless, the morons of evolution continue to claim almost every day that this or that DNA is just there to show how long it has been since two species separated.

No they don't, but thanks for demonstrating yet again how badly you can misunderstand what scientists have actually said.

Only evolution - the anti-science - is stupid and arrogant enough to claim that 95% of our genome is just there for no purpose at all.

Have you forgotten the time you were challenged to document that it's not, and you bone-headedly posted a link to an article that VERIFIED it?

Yeah, I guess you have.

[Ichneumon]

Evolution is garbage and that is why you do not post the 'facts' of evolution.

Tell you what -- if you think I haven't posted facts about evolution, then you won't have any objection to offerring to pay me $20 for each instance of such on extant FreeRepublic threads that I link to, right?

As a wise man once said, "never argue with a fool -- bet him money".

I await your "money where your mouth is" offer. Failure of you to make such an offer will be accepted as proof that you know you're lying your face off when you accuse me of never "posting facts".

There, that ought to send you running...

Instead you post a long diatribe about what facts and theory mean.

Because "some people" are not real clear on the concepts.

We are not talking rhetoric here buddy, we are talking scientific facts. If you have any, stop making excuses and post them right here.

I've posted them to you, and many other people, before son. You know I have. So stop the posturing.

You can read can you not? You can write can you not? Then stop giving us a lot of blather and just post the facts proving evolution.

$20 bucks per example in pre-existing threads, Gore. Put up or shut up.

It is also interesting that while you claim it to be a fact - which in common parlance means a scientifically proven fact - you say in your post "science does not deal in "proofs". " If that is not doubletalk, then I don't know what is.

Yes, exactly -- you don't know.

[Ichneumon]

The impossibility of random chance creating a Boeing 747 is not doubted by anyone.

Improbability, you mean. It's not "impossible", just vastly unlikely.

The impossibility of life arising from non-living matter is insurmountably greater than that.

What an amazing claim. Feel free to make a mathematical argument for it. If you can. *cough*

[Ichneumon]

Comment #491 Removed by Moderator

Wow! I admit I'm really curious to see just how bad a post would have to be to be so far beyond the average crevo post that it warranted moderation...

[Ichneumon]

There have been thousands of responses to Behe from evolutionists.

Oh yes, and with good reason.

However, there is not a single REFUTATION of the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum.

Sure there has -- go back and reread those links again. Here's what it boils down to: The "REFUTATION" (as you put it) of Behe's flagellum example is, "Behe has not demonstrated that the flagellum *is* actually "irreducibly complex".

Personally, I don't feel particularly compelled to work up a serious rebuttal to Behe's "feelings" about the matter. If Behe wants to believe that flagella are unevolvable, he's welcome to. I'm not going to lose any sleep over the matter until he claims to be able to *demonstrate* that his feelings are correct.

If *you* think you can demonstrate that they are "irreducible" -- that there is absolutely no possible pathway by which a working flagellum could arise through stepwise modification of more primitive structures which served some (repeat *some*) useful purpose for the organism which had it -- then let's see it.

But I'm afraid that just saying, "it looks too complex to me to have evolved because I have a feeling that evolution can't produce things that complex" isn't an argument, it's just a declaration of your opinion.

Since you have already shown your total inability to discuss any sort of scientific questions and your lack of judgement in scientific matters, your opinion on this matter is of no value at all.

Do all creationists have that on a keyboard macro or something?

[Ichneumon]

The burden of proof remians in the evolutionists court. What you and your buddies continually do again and again and even in your last reponse is simple critisize anyone who challenges the idiocy of evolution. Evolution is not anything more than a fanciful idea that provides an alternate universe for those who like to dismiss the idea of a creator and all that it implies. Still if you are so sure of yourself let's see if you can explain how life began. I always enjoy a good soup recipe so lets hear yours.

Since you don't include quoted text from the message to which you are responding to give it context, it's always interesting for me to go back and check what post of mine you're ranting about this time. This time, it was (condensed):

[snip] The linked material did a lot of fancy math and citations in order to try to convince the reader that it was being "scientific" and actually concluding something useful about whether life could or could not have arisen naturally. Unfortunately, either by design or incredible cluelessness, it fired an arrow right into the wrong target. It (correctly, as near as I can tell) showed that chemical processes would take place too slowly to form life "at equilibrium". Well peachy keen, but only an idiot (or liar) would claim that conditions on the Earth have ever been "at equilibrium". So the whole chapter was vastly irrelevant to the topic at hand. [snip]

Now, are you going to actually deal with that point, or are you going to just sit there and giggle some more?

Fascinating. I specifically asked you if you were going to deal with the particular point I made about the flaw in the creationist material that had been linked (since you had dodged it the *first* time I made it), and what do you do? You dodge it *again* by *again* failing to deal with the rebuttal and launching off into another generic anti-evolution/evolutionist screed that in no way attempts to refute or accept the point I took the time to make in my post about the creationist link.

Typical.

Look, if all you want to do is go off on rants, and you have no interest in dealing with the content of what I actually write, why should I even bother with you? If you're not going to bother with my challenges and rebuttals, why should I spend another instant on yours?

That is not a rhetorical question, I want an answer.

[AndrewC]

The linked material did a lot of fancy math and citations in order to try to convince the reader that it was being "scientific" and actually concluding something useful about whether life could or could not have arisen naturally. Unfortunately, either by design or incredible cluelessness, it fired an arrow right into the wrong target. It (correctly, as near as I can tell) showed that chemical processes would take place too slowly to form life "at equilibrium". Well peachy keen, but only an idiot (or liar) would claim that conditions on the Earth have ever been "at equilibrium". So the whole chapter was vastly irrelevant to the topic at hand. [snip]

You stopped too early. Read chapter 9.

Chapter 9 Specifying How Work is to be Done, p144

Summary of Thermodynamics Discussion

Throughout Chapters 7-9 we have analyzed the problems of complexity and the origin of life from a thermodynamic point of view. Our reason for doing this is the common notion in the scientific literature today on the origin of life that an open system with energy and mass flow is a priori a sufficient explanation for the complexity of life. We have examined the validity of such an open and constrained system. We found it to be a reasonable explanation for doing the chemical and thermal entropy work, but clearly inadequate to account for the configurational entropy work of coding (not to mention the sorting and selecting work). We have noted the need for some sort of coupling mechanism. Without it, there is no way to convert the negative entropy associated with energy flow into negative entropy associated with configurational entropy and the corresponding information. Is it reasonable to believe such a "hidden" coupling mechanism will be found in the future that can play this crucial role of a template, metabolic motor, etc., directing the flow of energy in such a way as to create new information?

[Ichneumon]

[You "forgot" to support your claims. Feel free to take a shot at it. I'm especially looking forward to the "tremendous obstacles to be overcome".]

How about the evolution of Flight? You can start there and we'll go onto the next.

Wow, that's an easy one -- at least it is for anyone who has bothered to keep up with the scientific journals since, oh, 1861.

(Sidebar: You *did* mean flight in *birds*, didn't you? Your question wasn't clear, since powered flight has evolved at least 4 separate times on Earth [e.g. birds, insects, bats, pterosaurs] and many more times in the form of gliding, as in the flying squirrel and similar creatures.)

The cladogram for the evolution of flight looks like this:

Here's a more detailed look at the middle section:

Fossils discovered in the past ten years in China have answered most of the "which came first" questions about the evolution of birds from dinosaurs.

We now know that downy feathers came first, as seen in this fossil of Sinosauropteryx:

That's a close-up of downy plumage along the backbone. Here's a shot of an entire fossil

Sinosauropteryx was reptilian in every way, not counting the feathers. It had short forelimbs, and the feathers were all the same size. Presumably, the downy feathers evolved from scales driven by a need for bodily insulation.

Next came Protarchaeopteryx:

It had long arms, broad "hands", and long claws:

Apparently this species was driven by selection to develop more efficient limbs for grasping prey. One of the interesting things about this species is that the structure of the forelimb has been refined to be quite efficient at sweeping out quickly to grab prey, snap the hands together, then draw them back towards the body (mouth?). The specific structures in question are the semilunate carpal (a wrist bone), that moves with the hand in a broad, flat, 190 degree arc, heavy chest muscles, bones of the arm which link together with the wrist so as to force the grasping hands to spread out toward the prey during the forestroke and fold in on the prey during the upstroke. Not only is this a marvelously efficient prey-grabbing mechanism, but the same mechanism is at the root of the wing flight-stroke of modern birds. Evolution often ends up developing a structure to serve one need, then finds it suitable for adaptation to another. Here, a prey-grasping motion similar in concept to the strike of a praying mantis in a reptile becomes suitable for modifying into a flapping flight motion.

Additionally, the feathers on the hands and tail have elongated, becoming better suited for helping to sweep prey into the hands.

Next is Caudipteryx:

This species had hand and tail feathers even more developed than the previous species, and longer feathers, more like that of modern birds:

However, it is clear that this was still not a free-flying animal yet, because the forelimbs were too short and the feathers not long enough to support its weight, and the feathers were symmetrical (equal sized "fins" on each side of the central quill). It also had very reduced teeth compared to earlier specimens and a stubby beak:

But the elongation of the feathers indicates some aerodynamic purpose, presumably gliding after leaping (or falling) from trees which it had climbed with its clawed limbs, in the manner of a flying squirrel. Feathers which were developed "for" heat retention and then pressed into service to help scoop prey were now "found" to be useful for breaking falls or gliding to cover distance (or swooping down on prey?).

Next is Sinosauropteryx:

Similar to the preceding species, except that the pubis bone has now shifted to point to the back instead of the front, a key feature in modern birds (when compared to the forward-facing publis bone in reptiles).

Next is Archaeopteryx:

The transition to flight is now well underway. Archaeopteryx has the reversed hallux (thumb) characteristic of modern birds, and fully developed feathers of the type used for flight (long, aligned with each other, and assymetrical indicating that the feathers have been refined to function aerodynamically). The feathers and limbs are easily long enough to support the weight of this species in flight. However, it lacks some structures which would make endurance flying more practical (such as a keeled sternum for efficient anchoring of the pectoral muscles which power the downstroke) and fused chest vertebrae. Archaeopteryx also retains a number of clearly reptilian features still, including a clawed "hand" emerging from the wings, small reptilian teeth, and a long bony tail. After the previous species' gliding abilities gave it an advantage, evolution would have strongly selected for more improvements in "flying" ability, pushing the species towards something more resembling sustained powered flight.

Next is Confuciusornis:

This species had a nearly modern flight apparatus. It also displays transitional traits between a reptilian grasping "hand" and a fully formed wing as in modern birds -- the outer two digits (the earlier species had three-fingered "hands") in Confuciusornis are still free, but the center digit has now formed flat, broad bones as seen in the wings of modern birds.

Additionally, the foot is now well on its way towards being a perching foot as in modern birds:

It also has a keeled sternum better suited for long flight, and a reduced number of vertebrae in the tail, on its way towards becoming the truncated tail of modern birds (which while prominent, is a small flap of muscle made to look large only because of the long feathers attached).

From this species it's only a small number of minor changes to finish the transition into the modern bird family.

(Hey, who said there are no transitional fossils? Oh, right, a lot of dishonest creationists. And there are a lot more than this, I've just posted some of the more significant milestones.)

There's been a very recent fossil find along this same lineage, too new for me to have found any online images to include in this article. And analysis is still underway to determine exactly where it fits into the above lineage. But it has well-formed feathers, which extend out from both the "arms" and the legs. Although it wasn't advanced enough to fully fly, the balanced feathering on the front and back would have made it ideally suited for gliding like a flying squirrel, and it may be another link between the stage where feathers had not yet been pressed into service as aerodynamic aids, and the time when they began to be used more and more to catch the air and developing towards a "forelimbs as wings" specialization.

So in short, to answer your question about how flight could have developed in birds, the progression is most likely some minor refinement on the following:

1. Scales modified into downy feathers for heat retention.
2. Downy feathers modified into "straight" feathers for better heat retention (modern birds still use their body "contour feathers" in this fashion).
3. Straight feathers modified into a "grasping basket" on the hands (with an accompanying increase in reach for the same purpose).
4. Long limbs with long feathers refined to better survive falls to the ground.
5. "Parachute" feathers refined for better control, leading to gliding.
6. Gliding refined into better controlled, longer gliding.
7. Long gliding refined into short powered "hops".
8. Short powered flight refined into longer powered flight.
9. Longer powered flight refined into long-distance flying.

Note that in each stage, the current configuration has already set the stage for natural selection to "prefer" individuals which better meet the requirements of the next stage. Evolution most often works like this; by taking some pre-existing ability or structure, and finding a better use for it or a better way to make it perform its current use.

So where was that alleged "tremendous obstacle" again?

[Ichneumon]

(Y-a-w-n)

L-a-m-e

If you had no better response, why bother?

[Ichneumon]

Every evolutiory test proved to be true? Now really who's being dishonest here?

Not me. But you might want to try an honest response next time -- I did not say "every evolutionary test", I said "every prediction of evolution which has been put to the test has been confirmed". "Tested predictions" is a far different and more specific thing than "tests of any type", which you incorrectly tried to put into my mouth. For a list of specific predictions, and their confirmations and lack of disconfirmation, see my earlier posts in this thread on the topic of evolution's preditive ability and falsifiability.

Just haw many of the tests to animate life have worked?

Define "animate life", please. You're being unscientifically vague. And again, that's not the kind of test of specific predictions I was talking about.

And why are there competing theories in evolution are they all right?

That question reveals such ignorance about how science progresses that I'm not even going to bother with it -- it'd be too much work bringing you up to speed, and besides it's clear you'd rather just have an excuse to be combative than learn something about the subject.

Now that you made your claim how would like to back it up?

Sure, I never make claims I'm not willing and able to back up.

How many public debates have you participated in?

Upwards of a thousand.

Do you have a journal or record of all these supposed liars and frauds that you have encountered?

My memory serves as such, sure.

Have you actually corresponded with every creationist on the planet and completely disproved every theory, concept or idea they ever had?

Of course not, but then I never claimed that I had. Hmm, now that I look at my wording I can see that it might have given that impression, though. But when I wrote of my personal experiences and said "I've examined every creationist attempt to poke a hole in the theory", I presumed that a reasonable reader would know that I was talking about every attempt that I've encountered or has been thrown at me. Try reading what people write in a reasonable manner, and stop looking for an excuse to nitpick the wording by taking it in the most nonsensical way.