Missing-link fossil wasn't a fish -- it has a pelvis

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Thursday, July 4, 2002 | David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

[Phil V.]

A fossil previously mistaken for the remains of an extinct fish turns out to hold the earliest known creature to have emerged from the Earth's waters and walk on land some 350 million years ago.

This ancestor of every four-limbed, backboned animal living today -- the first creature clearly designed to walk on land, with forward-facing feet -- fills a major gap in the evidence for the evolution of vertebrates from sea to land, scientists say.

[Dementon]

A simple placemarker

[RadioAstronomer]

Just do not get started on how to determine the circumference of a non-circular ellipse! LOL

10,000 post would not get the job done! :-)

[balrog666]

[Gumlegs]

Circle is to ellipse as ...

1. Square is to rectangle.
2. Rectangle is to polygon.
3. Parabola is to curve.
4. All of the above.
5. None of the above.
6. What would AiG do?

[Junior]

Gore: if you think a circle is not a type of ellipse, please post your proof of this fact, and we'll gladly retract our assertion and leave you alone.

There just may be a Nobel Prize in Mathematics or Something-Not-Evolution in it for LBB.

[Doctor Stochastic]

FYI

[Gumlegs]

Noted. Would this apply to G3K, or to us for trying to make some headway, or both?

[Doctor Stochastic]

I've of two minds about that.

[RadioAstronomer]

I've of two minds about that.

I have none! LMAO

[PatrickHenry]

I was originally envisioning the MIF award going to the Freeper who accumulated the largest NUMBER of FReepers who put him on their "ignore" lists.

Oh, the arrogance of you eeee-vo-luuu-shunists! And just what makes you think that YOU won't win the award?
</creationism mode>

[Gumlegs]

That would put you, Vade, and Junior in the running. Junior may take honors for his various compendia alone.

[PatrickHenry]

That would put you, Vade, and Junior in the running.

If the creationists ignored us all, how would that be any different from the present situation? All they do is seize upon our posts as an opportunity to pour out nonsense. They never read our stuff; and if on occasion they do, it doesn't make any impression. They're all operating on "automatic ignore" right now.

[f.Christian]

5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution.
Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neandertals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more. These disputes are like those found in all other branches of science. Acceptance of evolution as a factual occurrence and a guiding principle is nonetheless universal in biology.

This is double talk, and merely closing ranks against creationists. This is the old trick of claiming ‘there is no doubt that evolution occurred; the only disagreement is about the mechanism.’

But modern evolutionary theory is all about providing a plausible mechanism for explaining life’s complexity without God. If the disputes undermine favored mechanisms, then the materialist apologetic crumbles. The supporters of various evolutionary camps score mortal blows against the mechanisms proposed by rival camps, so it’s perfectly reasonable for creationists to point this out.

For example, with the origin of birds, there are two main theories: that birds evolved ‘ground up’ from running dinosaurs (the cursorial theory), and that they evolved ‘trees-down’ from small reptiles (the arboreal theory). Both sides produce devastating arguments against the other side. The evidence indicates that the critics are both right—birds did not evolve either from running dinos or from tree-living mini-crocodiles. In fact, birds did not evolve from non-birds at all!

Similarly, supporters of ‘jerky’ evolution (saltationism and its relative, punctuated equilibria) point out that the fossil record does not show gradualism, and that the hypothetical transitional forms would be disadvantageous. But supporters of gradual evolution point out that large, information-increasing change is so improbable that one would need to invoke a secular miracle. Creationists agree with both: punctuational evolution can’t happen, and gradual evolution can’t happen—in fact, particles-to-people evolution can’t happen at all!

Unfortunately, dishonest creationists have shown a willingness to take scientists’ comments out of context to exaggerate and distort the disagreements.

Pure assertion. This ‘quoting out of context’ is a common fetish repeated by skeptics and their churchian allies. The silliest thing of all is to write to the author and ask whether he had been misquoted, which some anti-creationists actually do, as surprising as it may seem. All one needs to do to demonstrate misquoting is to compare the quote with the original.

Anyone acquainted with the works of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University knows that in addition to co-authoring the punctuated-equilibrium model, Gould was one of the most eloquent defenders and articulators of evolution. (Punctuated equilibrium explains patterns in the fossil record by suggesting that most evolutionary changes occur within geologically brief intervals—which may nonetheless amount to hundreds of generations.) Yet creationists delight in dissecting out phrases from Gould’s voluminous prose to make him sound as though he had doubted evolution, …

They do no such thing. Rather, they make it very clear that Gould was a staunch evolutionist, but criticised many aspects of neo-Darwinian theory. Quoting Gould was the perfectly honorable strategy of using a hostile witness. See Gould grumbles about creationist ‘hijacking’.

… and they present punctuated equilibrium as though it allows new species to materialize overnight or birds to be born from reptile eggs.

First, most creationists present Gould’s ideas correctly, and those ideas are not the exclusive property of evolutionists. Second, even many evolutionists think that Gould has largely himself to blame because of his injudicious (from an evolutionary viewpoint) comments. For example, Richard Goldschmidt was famous for promoting a ‘hopeful monster’ theory, which indeed said something very much like a bird hatching from a reptile egg. And Gould wrote an article called ‘The return of hopeful monsters’11 where he said:

‘I do, however, predict that during the next decade Goldschmidt will be largely vindicated in the world of evolutionary biology.’

When confronted with a quotation from a scientific authority that seems to question evolution, insist on seeing the statement in context. Almost invariably, the attack on evolution will prove illusory.

Easy to assert, but another thing to prove. If there is any ‘out-of-context’ quote on our Web site, for example, we would like to know about it, because we are not about misleading people. Where such things have very rarely occurred in our literature over the years, we have willingly corrected them. Rennie has made sweeping assertions, but without substance.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

I dont know? But I bet it's a toss up between these three: f.Christian Gore3000 Medved

You mean the ones that provide the greatest amount of legitimate refutations to your evolutionary theory? Imagine that...

It's so funny to see you goons sit around and make each other hee and haw at other posters' expense. I shouldn't be surprised, but it's pretty pathetic nonetheless. What's next? Y'all gonna stand in a circle and slap each other's but*s like in baseball?

[Junior]

Junior may take honors for his various compendia alone.

They love me! They really love me! < /sally fields mode >

[gore3000]

Oh, the arrogance of you eeee-vo-luuu-shunists! And just what makes you think that YOU won't win the award? </creationism mode>

Actually what this thread shows is what a bunch of losers evolutionists are. What a bunch of sore losers. Only a bunch of losers like yourselves would spend your lives insulting people because you know that your atheistic theory of evolution is a blatant lie. Only a bunch of losers like yourselves would use so blatantly dishonest modes of discussion as you do. Only a bunch of losers like yourselves would conspire to trash thread after thread with insults, irrelevancies and garbage so that people will not see the true statements of your opponents. Only a bunch of losers like yourselves would willfully waste their lives ignoring the truth. Therefore since all of you have worked so hard for it I hereby give all of you the following award:

[Junior]

You mean the ones that provide the greatest amount of legitimate refutations to your evolutionary theory? Imagine that...

Puhleaze! f.christian rambles incoherently, medved's spams have been dissected more times than I can count (I personally undid his claim that flight could never have evolved recently) and LBB has been "hoist on his own petard" (or haven't you been reading the above posts about ellipses, circles, insulting Christians by calling them creationists, etc.).

[f.Christian]

6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution.

Indeed it does, which is why AiG advised against using this in this section of Arguments we think creationists should NOT use. In the paragraph quoted next, Rennie makes the same mistake as many do concerning the common ancestor, but he does realise the main problem with this argument.

The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.

Which, according to G.G. Simpson and Gould would be called an ape or a monkey by anyone who saw it, so it’s just a petty criticism of those who say this.

The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, ‘If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?’ New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.

[ThinkPlease]

See, now Medved got on a bunch of kill files on usenet a while back (and occasionally still pops up to make sure he stays on them). If you count a total internet kill file count, I suspect medved would win. :-)

I read gore3k because he's at least entertaining. With Ted you get the same stuff over and over again. Blah.

[f.Christian]

7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.

The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed …

Actually, they have found out how some major building blocks CANNOT be formed, e.g. cytosine (see Origin of Life: Instability of building blocks).

… and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, …

This is just bluff, since spontaneous polymerization is a major hurdle for non-living chemicals to overcome (see Origin of Life: The Polymerization Problem). So is producing molecules all of one handedness (see Origin of Life: The Chirality Problem). Chemical evolutionists have yet to solve these problems, let alone produce any self-replicating system which has any relevance to cells (Self-Replicating Enzymes?).

… laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

Again, wishful thinking, partly motivated by the hopelessness of current theories about life spontaneously generating on Earth—see Sugars from Space? Do they prove evolution? and Did life’s building blocks come from outer space? Amino acids from interstellar simulation experiments?

Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science’s current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.

Here we go again with the bait’n’switch concerning the meanings of evolution. Anyway, that downplays the real problem. Evolution is a pseudo-intellectual justification for materialism, because it purports to explain life without God. So materialism would be in great trouble if evolution had a problem right at the start (‘chemical evolution’). After all, if the process can’t even start, it can’t continue.