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To: Aquinasfan
One day, a bird's tongue jumped from its normal length to three times its normal length, and wrapped around its head at the same time.

No, sorry, try again.

Either that, or over countless generations the tongue slowly increased in length and gradually wrapped around its head.

Yes, exactly. Now was that so hard?

Although the survival advantage of a tongue that wraps halfway around a birds head is unclear, to put it kindly.

The number of things that are "unclear" to you is likely quite large, to put it kindly.

I already showed you that the chicken's tongue "wraps halfway around" its head. I even gave you a pretty picture in case you found the words too difficult. Did you miss that, or was the significance of it just "unclear" to you?

If the survival advantage of a tongue which "wraps halfway around" its head is so "unclear", then why do so many freaking birds *have* one that does so? They seem to be surviving, do they not? And if this is *not* a useful trait, why did (in your view) your god "design" them that way?

Woodpecker hint for the "unclear": In a species which uses its tongue to reach food under bark, even a small increase in tongue length provides a *clear* survival advantage since it will be able to reach food deeper in crevices than will its shorter-tongued cousins. This is so obvious that I'm boggled that anyone could possibly find it "unclear".

The moving eye spot thing is simply laughable.

Giggling is a poor substitute for reasoning, son.

I can imagine a worm turning into a 747, but that doesn't make it so.

Is that the best rebuttal you can come up with? Sigh, I suppose it is.

But don't move the goalposts now that the game is over.

Your original question wasn't a request for what was necessarily "so", it was a challenge to show that the eye was not "irreducibly complex" by showing how "intermediate stages" could have "benefitted" the creature which had them. I slam-dunked your challenge by showing how a gradual series of steps could lead from the existence of light-sensitive neurons all the way up to a mammalian-type eye, with any given step providing an increased vision capability (and therefore increased survival advantage) over the preceding steps. Therefore the eye is *NOT* "irreducibly complex". QED.

Rather than acknowledge this, you attempt to move the goal posts by whining about how that doesn't prove that the eye actually arose by that exact sequence. Well gosh, Mr. Wizard, that wasn't the point under discussion now, was it? Bait-and-switch much?

What is lacking is a theory that is even remotely plausible.

Oh, "plausible" -- that handy weasel word which means "only those things I'm willing to believe".

Sorry, son, but we weren't discussing "plausible", we were discussing "possible" (since "irreducible complexity" is the creationists' fancy word for "impossible"). And the evolution of the eye has been shown to be quite possible, contrary to creationist dogma to the contrary. Game, set, and match.

But if you want to try to demonstrate (not simply *declare*) why the proposed sequence would not be "plausible", do feel free to explain why. Be sure to show your work.

70 posted on 12/22/2003 7:37:20 AM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon
The woodpecker's tongue goes over its skull. Explain to me how an intermediate stage, where the tip of the tongue reaches backwards to the back of the head, offers a survival advantage. In these cases, the tongue could not even be used.
74 posted on 12/22/2003 8:07:52 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Ichneumon
I slam-dunked your challenge by showing how a gradual series of steps could lead from the existence of light-sensitive neurons all the way up to a mammalian-type eye, with any given step providing an increased vision capability (and therefore increased survival advantage) over the preceding steps.

No, you showed me a gradual series of illustrations. What you need to provide is a plausible mechanism by which your imagined morphological changes could occur. You need to provide a plausible and mathematically possible explanation of how simultaneous genetic changes occur providing all of these structural changes (and simultaneous changes in the creatures supporting circulatory and nervous systems).

On a wider scale, you need to explain why the fossil record doesn't show a continuum of "morphing" species, but rather shows species appearing fully formed and disappearing millenia later in exactly the same way. This is the rule, not the exception.

76 posted on 12/22/2003 8:19:49 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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