;-)
Posted on 04/15/2005 6:39:50 AM PDT by doc30
In that case, I open up my question in post #472 to anyone willing to tackle it. According to creationism there's a wide gap between men and apes. Also, since there are no transitional fossils, there must have always been a wide gap between men and apes. Therefore, does it not then follow that given a fossilized skeleton or skull of a hominid, that it should be possible to conclude without difficulty whether that specimen is an ape or a man?
It's known as a tautology in the philosophical set.
No, it's not. A tautology is a conclusion drawn from a statement so obviously that it's vacuous. For example: "From the fact that 2+2=4, we can conclude that 4 is the sum of 2 and 2." That's a tautology. Assuming what you want to prove is a logical fallacy. A tautology is trivially true, and so, not fallacious at all.
;-)
This is getting a little silly, but you say tomato, I say tomato... (oops, I guess that doesn't really work in print, does it?) Anyway, I was using the definition here: http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Tautology.
Extra credit question: is "survival of the fittest" a tautology?
Thanks for the review, but when I said I was not aware of the mechanism, I didn't mean to say I was not aware of basic genetics. Apologies for the ambiguity. (See anguish's response.)
For you Archy fans out there, can you tell me what happened to peacock-osaurus (Longisquama elegans) that was claimed to predate Archy by 75 million years? (http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/release/2000/161B.html) Ya, it doesn't look avian to me either, but some guy with lots more credentials than I (well, in this field) seemed to think it could have been the first tweety bird.
Also, what happened to those ChiCommOpteryx fossil finds that supposedly predated Archy?
I don't get time to keep up on the professional literature on all this, but the talkorigins section on Archy doesn't seem to mention them.
Obviously, if the first bird existed 75 mill. yrs before our feathered friend from Germany, that might make all those nice TF arguments a little harder to swallow, but I genuinely don't know if those finds got accepted or panned after initial discovery. Just surprised no-one has mentioned them.
We'll call it a misunderstanding and move on...
His willingness to question his own theory shows his lack of dogmatic belief, something many anti-evolutionists assiduously ascribe to proponents of evolution.
Interestingly, he was far less dogmatic about his beliefs than were evenn his immediate followers, which is not that uncommon a phenomenon in human history I suppose. Indeed, Darwinism became dogma long before the criteria for its acceptance laid down by Darwin himself ever materialized.
I have always been willing to have a reasonable discussion. As do the vast majority of evolution proponents I know.
In the interests of human civility, I'm choosing to move on as if that were true.
...the evos are very stable in their position on what constitutes a TF...
At any moment in time, perhaps; what I was referring to was the evolving (!) definition as either the proposed mechanism has been adapted to better fit the fossil record -- and hence the expectations of TFs is changed -- or as certain class/family/genus/species-defining features are found out to be non-exclusive to that c/f/g/s (for example).
This is true, however I'll hazard a guess that few if any take this shortage of TFs as a serious threat to the ToE. I'll also guess many accept the standard reasons for this scarcity. Many of the complaints about lack of TFs are based on the lack in specific classes, not the entire phylogenic tree.
1) I've never understood the evo argument that is so common which says: you cited a quote by a guy that refers to certain data/evidence, but the fact that he still believes in evolution means that you've misused his data/research. No-one (I hope) is saying that the guy doesn't believe in evolution. Belief in evolution operates at a much deeper level than what the immediate evidence from one's particular specialty suggests. Data and basic research stands on its own and is available to the larger scientific community regardless to what ultimate hypotheses one happens to adhere.
2) Many refer to scarcity in the entire tree. You know how much discussion there has been over time regarding how to adapt the theories of evolutionary mechanism to the stark paleontological realities. Bird has a fantastic summary of these types of quotes, all fully cited/sourced/documented, which were current as of 1990. I'd encourage you to read them.
So can a reasonable person look at a meta-analysis of the current state of the entire paleontoligical record and be forgiven for being skeptical of the argument for evolution from transitional forms?
And to clarify, my "ChiCommOpteryx" was not Sinosaurus, referenced in post 30, but this Jinfengopteryx.
If only my employer paid me to do this I wouldn't have rushed that one out.
Assuming that is correct, would it be considered stronger or weaker evidence for the argument that archy evolved from protoarchy, et al., if maybe it had lived not on the other side of the planet?
Or being the first bird, maybe they all flew there?
Well then it's good that there are a few of us that begin with 'b'.
Then where did everyone go? I've got half a dozen pretty interesting challenges hanging out there for you guys, but you all ran away like, well, scared chickens.
Or did you all decide that I was too much of a bird-brain?
Yes that's exactly it jbloedow. well done.
Bragging about your brain size is unbecoming.:-)
Actually the problem is time. Frequently I only have enough time to respond with one liners, anything requiring thought gets pushed into the ubiquitous 'later' time slot.
Hopefully 'later' will come within the next couple of days.
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Note: this topic is from April 15, 2005. Must have been an early filer. :') |
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DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Scientists have unveiled a dinosaur with so many avian-like features, that it could help advance the theory that birds evolved from the ancient creatures.The rest of the article here."Bambiraptor feinbergi," which lived in Montana 750 million years ago, had wing-like arms and thin hair-like feathers, though it was clearly a dinosaur with sharp teeth in its snout. The first recovered skeleton of the species was unveiled Thursday by the Florida Institute of Paleontology.
Dr. Martin Shugar, the institute's director, said that the bambiraptor is one of the finest dinosaur skeletons ever found, with more than 95 percent of its bones recovered. Scientists are usually ecstatic when 30 percent of the bones are recovered.
Also, THIS SITE features Bambiraptor stuff. Thanks to Moonman62 for tipping me to this material. Neither of us knows if the very short cult cartoon Godzilla vs Bambi figured in the naming of this critter so don't ask.
And finally ANOTHER SITE turned up by the diligent lunar one summarizing what it all means.
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