Posted on 07/29/2002 6:35:04 PM PDT by Tribune7
Printer-friendly format July 26, 2002, 6:11PM
A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest By JEFF FARMER
It has been said that if anyone wants to see something badly enough, they can see anything, in anything. Such was the case recently, but unlike some ghostly visage of the Madonna in a coffee stain, this was a vision of our ancestral past in the form of one recently discovered prehistoric skull, dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis.
Papers across the globe heralded the news with great fanfare. With words like "scientists hailed" and "startling find" sprinkled into the news coverage, who couldn't help but think evolutionists had finally found their holy grail of missing links?
For those of us with more than a passing interest in such topics as, "Where did we come from? And how did we get here?," this recent discovery and its subsequent coverage fall far short of its lofty claims. A healthy criticism is in order.
Practically before the fossil's discoverer, the French paleoanthropologist Michel Brunet, could come out of the heat of a Chadian desert, a number of his evolutionary colleagues had questioned his conclusions.
In spite of the obvious national pride, Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor. While looking at the same evidence, such as the skull's flattened face and shorter canine teeth, she draws a completely different conclusion.
Of course, one might be inclined to ask why such critiques never seem to get the same front-page coverage? It's also important to point out that throughout history, various species, such as cats, have had varying lengths of canine teeth. That does not make them any closer to evolving into another species.
A Washington Post article goes on to describe this latest fossil as having human-like traits, such as tooth enamel thicker than a chimpanzee's. This apparently indicates that it did not dine exclusively on the fruit diet common to apes. But apes don't dine exclusively on fruit; rather, their diet is supplemented with insects, birds, lizards and even the flesh of monkeys. The article attempted to further link this fossil to humans by stating that it probably walked upright. Never mind the fact that no bones were found below the head! For all we know, it could have had the body of a centaur, but that would hardly stop an overzealous scientist (or reporter) from trying to add a little meat to these skimpy bones. Could it not simply be a primate similar to today's Bonobo? For those not keeping track of their primates, Bonobos (sp. Pan paniscus) are chimpanzee-like creatures found only in the rain forests of Zaire. Their frame is slighter than that of a chimpanzee's and their face does not protrude as much. They also walked upright about 5 percent of the time. Sound familiar?
Whether it is tooth enamel, length of canines or the ability to walk upright, none of these factors makes this recent discovery any more our ancestral candidate than it does a modern-day Bonobo.
So why does every new fossil discovery seem to get crammed into some evolutionary scenario? Isn't it possible to simply find new, yet extinct, species? The answer, of course, is yes; but there is great pressure to prove evolution.
That leads us to perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this latest evolutionary hoopla. While on one hand sighting the evolutionary importance of this latest discovery, a preponderance of these articles leave the notion that somehow missing links are not all that important any more.
According to Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman, missing links are pretty much myths. That might be a convenient conclusion for those who have been unable to prove evolution via the fossil record. Unfortunately for them, links are absolutely essential to evolution. It is impossible for anything to evolve into another without a linear progression of these such links.
The prevailing evolutionary view of minute changes, over millions of years, is wholly inadequate for the explanation of such a critical piece of basic locomotion as the ball-and-socket joint. Until such questions can be resolved, superficial similarities between various species are not going to prove anything. No matter how bad someone wants to see it.
Farmer is a professional artist living in Houston. He can can be contacted via his Web site, www.theglobalzoo.com
No, I don't, you liar.
If you'd quit putting words in my mouth, rephasing statements, and misinterpretting everything said, you might learn something. Become a Christian and quit lying.
The construction "machinery" is already in place for all those other genes. You don't have individual, distinct protein constuction mechanisms for each protein.
You're proved wrong, so go away.
And RightWingNilla proved you wrong on this dishonest claim. Why do you keep lying about it?
And added the ability to digest polymers - a new beneficial function. So, why do you keep lying about it?
You've been provided, repeatedly and at great length, with how the platypus fits into the evolutionary scheme of things. Have you forgotten? Can't figure it out? Don't agree with it? None of those mean it didn't happen.
Ah yes, once again, for the bazillionth time, g3k claims the platypus "has always been a disproof of evolution." I'll say this for the lurkers, because there's no hope of communicating with g3k: If there were absolutely no evidence yet found of an ancestral track leading to the platypus, that wouldn't be "disproof of evolution." It would just be a situation where the evidence hadn't yet turned up. Alas for the "divine origin of the platypus" conjecture, there actually is evidence of an ancestral route leading to the platypus. It's been posted several times before. But g3k, as always, claims he's won his personal war against evolution yet again.
Don Quixote placemarker.
Now realize that simple geography does this kind of thing all the time. Millions of red squirrels in the world, but a squirrel in a patch of forest in Alabama has perhaps five potential mating partners from which to choose. All the other red squirrels in the world are inaccessible. Small gene pools happen even in large species.
Again, here is the modern definition of the word “phenotype”:
1. a. The observable physical or biochemical characteristics of an organism, as determined by both genetic makeup and environmental influences. b. The expression of a specific trait, such as stature or blood type, based on genetic and environmental influences.
Biologists call those processes by their proper names, they do not loosely misappropriate vague terms to cover up their total misunderstanding of experimental evidence like you do.
The definition was taken from dictionary.com. Are they in on the evolutionist conspiracy also?
Gore3000 would have us think here that after spending upwards of $100,000 on a transgenic mouse, they would be discarded if there were no overt, gross phenotypes.
Yes, you did. Several times. In more than one thread.
You went through some 700 posts trying to evade answering how you change a program by random evolutionary means.
Morton’s Demon was working overtime that week.
Just a sampling of molecular genetic data on the evolution of morphological "transformations” in arthropods (spiders, insects, lobsters etc.):
Studies demonstrating the mutation which gives rise to a constituitive repressor function of Ubx in the insect lineage. (Turns off abdominal limbs in insects.)
Studies characterizing the mutation which allows the Ubx gene product(and limb development) to be regulated in crusteaceans.
Studies that describe changes in gene expression which lead to the conversion of swimming limbs into feeding appendages in certain crustaceans.
Studies showing the evolutionary conversion of hindwings into rudimentary wings (halteres) in the insect group Diptera (Fruitflies vs. butterflies).
Gore3000 has been given more experimental evidence than Morton’s Demon can shake a stick at:
In fact, real scientists are loath to say that a duplicate does indeed work.
On the contrary, “real scientists” do not doubt that gene amplification is a common mutation leading to an increase in protein expression when it would be of benefit to the organism. Often the duplication contains the appropriate regulatory regions of the promoter along with the gene. When this occurs there is absolutely no reason why it would not be expressed as the parental.. In fact Gore3000 frequently cuts and pastes pages out of his favorite book which clearly says so.
Localized reduplication (gene amplification) of a DNA segment that includes a proto-oncogene, leading to overexpression of the encoded protein
My hypocrite detector just exploded.
LOL. You and your “arguments” are about as deep as an Adam Sandler movie.
Favorable mutations do not occur, period.
You’re back to this again?
You have nothing else better to do with your life than create 35,000 posts worth of rebuilding the same house of cards?
Remember this thread?
Or are you having another of your patented “memory blocks”?
Here’s where you blew it - many, many times.
Morton’s Demon will perhaps never let you will understand this, but one more time for the benefit of anyone else reading this:
Look at the picture, the minimal promoter region is immediately upstream from the start of transcription (the gene). It stands an excellent chance of being copied along with the gene. Therefore, the copy HAS the TATA box, it has the ENHANCERS, it HAS all of the regulatory sequences necessary for it’s expression.
The gene is an EXACT copy of the parental. It is as SIMPLE as that.
Gore35000 keeps playing the same card tricks.
This thread contains plenty of experimental evidence for functional gene duplications.
To summarize, spontaneous gene duplications associated with an increase in RNA levels have been observed thousands of times in all organisms. In addition, *countless* exogenous gene transfection experiments have confirmed that the processing machinery does not discriminate. Gore35000 is WRONG AGAIN.
Once again, Gore3000 shows us how detached from reality he is.
The population in this purely hypothetical scenario is skyrocketing in an ridiculously unrealistic fashion.
The reality is that the individuals with the superior genes are going to hog up the lions share of the resources in the population – the food, the mates, the prime territory, everything. The non-mutants are going to lose out big time.
And consider if you are talking about a beneficial mutation which grants even a slight immunity against an infectious agent, your 999375+ non mutants are all toast.
I've seen the estimate that the average human child has one or two novel mutations somewhere. If, per mantra, every mutation is deleterious, we'd have been finished as a species before we started. How many true beneficials come along? Enough to adapt bacteria to eating all sorts of weird toxic stuff.
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