Free Republic

The DITSY SLITS

The Dipsey Slits are most famous for aping other peoples' music.

Fed Kennedy.

The deed is done.

"If knowledge prevents ending such life, then maybe we have our answer to the abortion dilemma. Why is it so repugnant to accept that, knowing more now, we may have been wrong in our initial embrace of abortion?"

What self-absolutionist propaganda. Any thinking person knew that abortion meant the death of an infant decades ago. Would the slave owner have been justified if he had said: "oh, we didn't realize they were human beings...maybe we were wrong in our initial embrace of slavery."

I'm sorry I missed this post. It is more than I hoped for. Soon, perhaps tommorrow, there should be some sel-indulgent remarks by VadeRetro and others to keep your strength up.

Bravo! That's more like it! A true full-throated display!

But of course I should not construe your identification of "workable in between methods" employed by various species as an espousal of a specific evolutionary continuum. No, that would be idiotic of me! That staw man was toppled long ago. After all, your beliefs are valid even if..."Darwinian evolution happens not to be true...and even if God [were] trying his hand at gradualism."

This is certainly a self-important statement even from one such as you. Yours is a trite assumption that the mere exisitence of an animal with particular feature of reproductive anatomy proves your point. You cannot claim that any organ system is an "in between" another unless you have already marked its position on the evolutionary continuum. But of course that was the staw man that I knocked down before, wasn't it.

Being obnoxious takes hard work, but you have made a valiant effort. Is it dawning on you that you have been checkmated, or I have used #435 before?

I fully understand the context of these posts. Look, the Theory of Evolution is very creative (pun intended) idea devised by highly intelligent minds comparing anatomic features between various species, both living and extinct. The years of collecting data, making comparisons, disproving the null hypothesis, minimizing bias, statistical analyses, and finally wading through the peer-review process is laborious work. And all for a single data point.

Ah, but connecting these points is fairly easy, and I might add, open to debate. A creative mind, artistic flare and a rudimentary knowledge of biological sciences is about all that is required to understand the theory. Anyone who played "one of these things is not like the other..." can grasp it. It seems so satisfying. It appears to make teleologic sense. It is seductive. It can be skethced out on a peice of paper while sitting in in the drawing room on a comfortable oxblood chair. "We can easily get there from here."

Can we really? Mutation is lethal nearly every time its tried. Would not an incremental accumulation of hypothetically beneficial mutations pose an even geometrically greater satistical challenge? Are environmental pressures patient enough to allow an organism "to get there from here?" Can the fossil record be interpreted in another way?

Since historical events cannot be directly tested using classical scientific methodology, I view the Theory as another speculative discipline, like psychology and the social sciences (no disrespect intended). However, unlike these areas of study, defenders of evolutionary dogma seem to have a particular disdain for alternative points of view. Regards.

That was *sniff* beautiful, although not nearly as fuel-injected as some of your other posts. I am shocked and amused that you would call my incisive commentary a "lame non sequitur," particularly when you initated the undignified excoriation of Gore3000's presumed lack of scientific education. I think your education on the matter is quite relavant, or perhaps you "graduated from the Pee-Wee Herman School of Debate" and simply don't know what non sequitur means.

Oh good...I see I haven't been written off just yet, being "that close" and all. I re-read your rambling post 378 as you suggested, just to make sure I jumping to conclusions over your disapointing egg/placenta analogy/homology "defense." Though less than riveting, the following statement caught my attention:

"(blah, blah, blah, belaboring the point)...FURTHERMORE, an examination of placentas even among different mammals shows several "stages" of sophistication, showing that gore3000's "all or nothing" belief is not only pure hogwash, but based on a fundamental ignorance of basic biology...(yada, yada, rag on creationsits)..."

Though you desparately wish it weren't so, you were indeed making the case that the deep answers of evolution could be found the hamerhead-marsupial-cow-human placenta continuum. An as you correctly stated, only an idiot would believe this.

..."And it's not like this is PhD level stuff. I'm working on what I vaguely remember from high school biology, and from what I researched on the web in about an hour..."

This is readily obvious...Please try again, but limit you stream on consciousness writing style. (# 435, #213..whatever)

Ahh yes, a dolt and a poo-poo head. How deliciously simple of you. Fits well with your series of evolutionary check points you so laboriously put together, and then rejected, as if you had never proposed it. Your foolish "analogy not homology" argument is tiresome. Why not simply admit you have no idea what you are talking about. How many peer-reviewed scientific papers have you published? Please write me off again.

"Only an idiot would attempt to argue that the shark, marsupial, and eutherian placentas were all inherited from a common ancestor, because they clearly are not."

Listen "son" this is precisely what you did. Your analogy of homology is effete and untenable. You sir, are an idiot. Now go ahead and write me off with #213 if you wish.

LOL! That was a good one!

It superfially resembles the avian sac in appearance, and that only "briefy". In mammals, nutrient acqusition is histiotrophic, meaning proteins are phagocytized directly from maternal secretions. This occurs first in the oviduct, and then later after implantation. Implantation into the uterus is invasive (note even prior to maternal vascularization at week twelve) inwhich the syncytiotrophoblast takes up proteins directly from secretions of the uterine glands. The conduit of this nutrient transfer is the secodary yolk sac which later becomes vitelline vessels of the umbilical cord and primary source of hematopoiesis. In this way, over exposure to maternal oxygen is avoided during the critical period of organogenesis.

In no way was I suggesting that the human yolk sac was anything less than vital. Despite the shared name it is most assuredly distinct from the avian structure . The avian yolk sac is maternally derived and exists prior to fertalization...pre-placed pantry for the developing chick to subsist upon while completely separate from the mother hen. Happily, we can even enjoy unfertalized yolks: fried, poached or scrambled. Regards.

"...was demonstrating that gore3000's "can't get there from here" claim falls flat since there *are* plausible gradualistic "baby steps" from his "before" picture to his "after" picture, and not only are they simply arguably plausible, the intermediate steps demonstrably ACTUALLY WORK because they *do* work in various species."

...And your rigorous google-search anaylis of placental evolution was intended to demonstrate just this point. As a matter of fact, you and others thought you had nailed it. And yet now you appear knocking down the straw man you yourself made...

"It's also quite clear that the fundamentally *different* nature of the hammerhead/marsupial/mammalian placentas preclude them from being mistaken for being homologous"

Please tell me how these baby steps can occur. I enjoy the debate. Really I do. But perhaps you "have failed and appear to be acting disingenuously."

Although named a "yolk sac" (perhaps misleadingly so) in human anatomy/embriology texts because of its superficial resemblance to avian species, this duel cell lined vacule in the early embriologic stage of human develop has nothing functionally in common with birds or reptiles. In the bird, the nutrient componants of the yolk are manufactured in the hen's liver which are transported to the ovaries and incoportated into egg. After fertilization it becomes the source of proteins and lipids for the developing chick.

In the human, the "yolk sac" appears only after fertilization adn during embriologic development. It remains a fluid filled sac only briefy before rapidly becoming the primary source of fetal blood cells and vascular conduit. Eventually, the liver and then ultimately the bone marrow assumes this task. Childhood malignancies can arise from remnants of this tissue.

Regards.

And so it begins...operation "Glowing Haj"

Bill, flushed with adolescent desire, once again ruins a nice dress with his DNA.

This dispute rages not because of the scientific facts concerning comparitive anatomy, but rather from a fundamental disagreement over the interpretation and greater significance of these facts. The facts themselves are not in dipute. The assumption of the evolutionary biologist, that homology implies common ancestory, most certainly is.
In your treatise, you have made salient points regarding the anatomy and physiology of certain shark species, points that are not in dispute. You can thank the hard work of many scientists over many years for that summary. However, it is a great leap to suggest that isolated similarities between a vast array of disparate animals can be hand selected as if from a buffet, in hopes of reconstructing an orderly transition from one organ system to another, even less one species to another.
So, herein lies the issue: homology need not imply common origin. If it did, one might assume that botanical phloem, complete with specialized cells with seive function and companion cells were more primative versions of fenestrated vascular endothelium supported by pericytes. An absurd notion to be sure, but no less so than the cladistic hierarchy of binary fission to hammerhead yolk-sac placenta to platapus pouch to human placenta to astronaut. Regards.

Hey..smell my finger.