Posted on 07/10/2014 8:44:39 AM PDT by fishtank
Darwin's 'Special Difficulty' Solved?
by Nathaniel T. Jeanson, Ph.D. *
Darwin's hypothesis of evolution faced enormous scientific challenges from the very outset of its publication. Recently, a group of evolutionists, publishing in the journal Science, claimed to have simplified one of those challenges. Have they?
In Darwin's seminal work On the Origin of Species he identified numerous examples of biological structures that, at first pass, seem very difficult to evolve. He even wrote a chapter titled "Difficulties on Theory" which he began with this wry comment: "Long before having arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to the reader. Some of them are so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being staggered."1
One organ in particular that has dodged evolutionary explanation for over 150 years is the electric organ—the organ in fishes that generates electricity under water. Evolving this organ in one single species would pose serious challenges to evolution. But the organ is present in several fish species which, under the ancestry constraints imposed by the evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record, implies that the electric organ would have had to evolve, not once, but multiple times, making the naturalistic origin of this structure all the more implausible.2
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
Doesn’t matter. Keep it simple. The utter lack of evidence that fish “evolved” (transferred) into mammals (or visa versa) destroys Darwinism.
There is evidence of this though. Quite a bit actually.
Not the kind I'm talking about - transference between major animal groups. That's why Darwinism is dead letter. They're trotting around a corpse.
Compare that to the immeasurable and abundant amount of evidence of intelligent design.
This is like a summary judgment case: no genuine dispute as to a material fact.
I read and understood your post. There are discovered transitional species showing characteristics of different ‘major animal groups’. In the fish example cited earlier, species that have characteristics of both fish and amphibians.
So much of this evidence is at your fingertips, easily found with searches, and much of it simple enough for a non-biologist like myself to understand.
So it’s your contention that there is no evidence that mammals evolved from fish, albeit with many intervening steps? The evidence that fish are older than lobe-finned fish, which are older than amphibians, which are older than animals that could lay their eggs on land, which are older than animals that have characteristic mammalian structures...you reject all of that?
And furthermore, you claim that there is evidence for intelligent design that meets a higher standard than the above? Care to give an example?
It's even more obvious when you pick animal groups that are a little more obvious like fish and mammals.
“No, it is a scientific fact that there is no known evidence of transference between major animal groups.”
lol. Have a great day!
Nope, but it's not scientific evidence of transference between the two groups.
evidence for intelligent design that meets a higher standard than the above? Care to give an example?
Start with the purposeful makeup your own body, its DNA and all the intricate parts that work individually and together that make up a multi-functioning body. Evidence of purposeful and intricate design is evidence of a Designer.
Not much of an argument, huh?
Meanwhile, there is no genuine dispute of a material fact.
Have a good day.
What would count as scientific evidence of transference?
Start with the purposeful makeup your own body, its DNA and all the intricate parts that work individually and together that make up a multi-functioning body.
Prove that it's purposeful. Note that functionality does not prove purpose--the fact that St. Louis sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri doesn't mean the rivers' location was designed.
The part where you were apparently trying to say something meaningful but couldn't get the words out.
Nobody suggests "transference" between animal groups. It makes no sense.
There is no different "kind" of evolution.
"This kind of evolution requires transference between major animal groups."
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I'm guessing you are trying to talk about one "kind" of animal changing into another "kind" of animal, and suggesting this is some other form of evolution than the changes between "kinds".
This is typical creationist silliness based on profoundly wrong conceptions of evolution.
First, the "kinds" or "groups" of animals are a human creation. We categorize and label. The animals just are. There is nothing magical about where we draw the lines between different groups. Especially when talking about species in the fossil record. The lines reflect what fossils happen to have been preserved and discovered rather than any inherent divisions in "animal groups" over time.
Second, creationists talk as if evolution suggests that at some point an animal gave birth to a child that was a different species. Of course it proposes no such thing.
Every generation was very much like the generation before it. Speciation is the result of the aggregate total of minor changes over long periods of time and many generations, and where people draw the lines between species.
We are looking at intermittent records of very long very gradual changes. When we decide those changes are significant enough we label something a new species. However the actual changes were always gradual and usually insignificant between any two adjacent generations.
Fossilized evidence of the various stages. There is NONE. Darwinism is an imaginary pipe dream from a former Christian/church goer who tried to deny creation only to find himself disillusioned by his own myth at the end of his life.
the fact that St. Louis sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri doesn't mean the rivers' location was designed
A lousy analogy to intelligent design of all living things. Your example mixes inanimate geography with man-conceived purpose.
Functionality of design is absolutely evidence of purpose. Everything in your body is designed with a purpose. Name one thing in your body that DOESN'T have purposeful design.
Darwin's Doctrine of Common Descent, that all life on Earth has descended from one original primordial form, does. It demands transference between major animal groups.
"transference" between animal groups makes no sense
Well, I don't know if it doesn't make sense, but it certainly is a myth.
No, this "transference" you speak of is your own concoction. As I said, I don't think that word means what you think it means.
How much time do you allow yourself to move from lobe-finned fishes (remember we have found extant Latimerius in the Indian Ocean...many, many specimens)-to amphibians to amphibians/reptiles which are terrestrial egg-layers, all the way to mammals? Please explain how a coelacanth demonstrates 'evolution' to a mammal. I mean, you can say it, but how do you explain it, remembering that homologies are not the method of change.....it occurs at the level of the nucleotide base, not at the level of the change in metatarsal, metacarpal, carpal, phalanx ontology.
If you want to explain the theory it seems you must go back to the beginning....to the original organism which allegedly gave rise to every organism which has ever existed. If you cannot get the original organism how do you get the second? Then you can make the case for Decent or neodarwinism.
Of course there is. That progression I mentioned above (fish, lobe-finned fishes, four-legged amphibians, land-dwelling egg layers)--you really don't think we have fossils of all of those? All caps typing doesn't make them go away.
Functionality of design is absolutely evidence of purpose. Everything in your body is designed with a purpose.
Like I said, prove it. You're arguing in circles.
Name one thing in your body that DOESN'T have purposeful design.
This is what's known as begging the question. You define "designed" as "having a purpose." I do not disagree that things in my body have a purpose. I disagree that that is evidence that they were designed.
Because evolution is not true.
No, try fish and mammals where smoke and mirrors doesn't cut it.
I do not disagree that things in my body have a purpose. I disagree that that is evidence that they were designed.
Well then, you disagree with basic deductive logic and common sense. So if you walked into a garage and saw a car for the first time, you would deny that its components and overall makeup that a myriad of specific and definite purposes that operated together was evidence of a designer? Hard to imagine.
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