Posted on 03/13/2002 4:47:26 AM PST by JediGirl
Cool word. What's the definition, as I'd like to add it to my vocabulary.
The clearest analogy to how variation and selection can lead to "progress" is quantum tunneling. There are everyday events in the subatomic world which cannot take place in classical physics -- particles having insufficient energy suddenly leaping from one state to another, apparently overcoming an insurmountable obstacle.
When an event has demonstrably happened, you cannot use probability theory to prove it could not have happened.
A/k/a "crackpots."
If Wells so mischaracterized the state of the fossil evidence, he's a bigger charlatan and humbug than I thought. This statement is right out of the old creationist pamphlets and it is dead wrong.
It would only be true if the Cambrian were the start of all life on earth. It once appeared that way but that was proven wrong a long time ago. Many phyla are in evidence before the Cambrian, and there is ample indirect evidence (tracks, burrows, etc.) of others.
It would only be true if we couldn't see the origins of phyla. We can.
It would be true if no phyla originate after the Cambrian. This too is false.
If one considers the Vendian/Cambrian animals as constituting the Cambrian Explosion, then we have 13 phyla appearing in the Cambrian Explosion and 20 AFTER the Cambrian Explosion. While one can assume that the 13 phyla which have no fossil record arose in the Cambrian, assumptions are NOT data. The plain fact is that the Cambrian Explosion doesn't even represent the majority of the phyla. Will these other phyla be found in the Cambrian? Maybe. But one can't rationally assume what the future holds in order to argue to his case.Phylum Level Evolution by Glenn R. Morton.
Wells, a senior fellow at the infamous Discovery (of Nothing) Institute, recently made a totall ass of himself trying to spin-doctor the announcement of of a study with evolutionary implications. Like one tallhappy, he apparently jumped in without reading to see what he was talking about, in this case, the study itself. I'll see if I can't find the thread for you.
The only reason for using coins is that they are easy to understand and are generally available. I didn't thing starting the Boolean algebra of Borel sets on a Polish space would be very informative.
The 1500' - 2000' number I was throwing out is not the depth of the thing but only the visual impression one gets of how far the thing goes more-or-less straight down before starting to slope inwards at all.
Reading about this one in books doesn't get it. If you've never seen it up close, you need to. The most major impression you get is of the sharp and jagged and pristine look of all the rocks in that initial 1500' drop. Rivers don't do that. If the thing had been cut by water, it would be totally smooth. The thing basically defies any sort of uniformitarian geology.
Skip 55. I never know what I'm talking about and everyone knows there are no transitional insect fossils.
Karl_Lembke's 57 exposes Wells pantless in public.
You might also want to read some less-fawning reviews of Icons, compiled here.
No. That was just an example of the type of junk science I am talking about that has been asscoiated with evolution over the years.
Jaw bones of lizards becoming "ear bones" (what the heck is an ear bone) is just another example.
OK, you've "clarified." Now defend.
We can spot a mammal just from the "'ear bones' (what the heck is an ear bone)." Nothing else has the three that all us milk-fans have. We can trace the formation of same in the fossil record.
Where is the "junk science" here?
Of junk science? How do you figure? BTW there are three little bones in your ear: Hammer, anvil and stirrup. You should have learned that in elementary school, HS at the latest.
"Smooth" is a silly strawman. You have finely layered sediments. They're going to cleave and crumble all over the place and they did.
Reptiles have multipart lower jaw bones. We have a seamless lower mandible, but we also have the extra bones in our ears, unique to mammals. We see this change happening in the fossil record. What exactly are we not allowed to infer?
You decided to stake your defense on the transition being "junk science," versus admitting what you have already admitted elsewhere. That is, you don't read the whole thread or bother to learn what is being discussed.
So be it. What is "junk science?"
Were you so ignorant of anatomy you didn't know about the ear bones? How wide are you?
I asked him that way back in #1084. He hasn't answered.
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