Of Crocodiles, Snakes and Birds

Bob asked for a new thread, so here it is.

Bob originally posted the following.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=819631&postcount=5

Take very clear note of the claim that Bob is making. Bob says that science says that two reptiles, in this case a snake and a crocodile, should genetically test as being more closely related than a reptile and a bird, in this case a crocodile and a chicken. He then presents data that says that the crocodile and the bird genetically tested as being the most closely related pair of the three.

I made two responses.

 

The first response.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=819809&postcount=13

And the second.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=820304&postcount=15

 

Bob asked for the thread and he has it.

He made the claim that evolution predicts that a crocodile and a snake should be genetically closer than either are to a chicken. He then produces genetic testing data that shows a crocodile to be more closely related to chicken than to a snake.

I produced the logic and a link that if followed has a very long list of references that shows that evolution would actually predict that the crocodile and the chicken would be the most closely related of the three because they both are from the archosaur branch of reptiles. Snakes are from a different branch that split away earlier.

So Bob has two choices.

The first is that he can show his own reference to be incorrect.

The second is that he can try to show that science does not really say that both crocodiles and birds are from the archosaur branch of reptiles.

I predict that he will go for option three. Option three would be to use a red herring fallacy where Bob tries to show that Bob does not think that birds have an ancestor in the archosaurs. Now this approach would be nothing but a fallacy of distraction because he would not be telling us what scientists say but what Bob says. Whether they are even right about the origin of birds is not even an issue. Even if they are wrong, they still say that birds evolved from archosaurs and that would be the prediction that they would make. Therefore the genetic testing is a confirmation of that prediction even if Bob tries to distract you by saying that the prediction is incorrect.

BTW, I don't know what happened at the end there to put the "." in quote notation. Something funny is going on with the formatting. I fixed just about everything else but that won't go away.

 

Bob

You are the one that plagiarized the reptile/bird genetic data. You introduced it into the discussion.

You are the one who asked for a new thread in which to discuss this.

Well, you have your thread.

Where is the discussion?

 

You still have a chance to prove yourself in a subject of your own choosing.

Or are you only comfortable in your fictional and discredited script?

But thanks once again for posting data supportive of evolution. It helps my case AND shows that you lack even basic understanding of the subject which you criticize.

 

Come on Bob address the issue. Don't go down your normal path of obfuscation.

You posted that genetic testing showed crocodiles to be more closely related to birds than to snakes and said that it was a problem for evolution as it would predict that crocodiles should be more closely related to their fellow reptiles.

I then showed that this was only your lack of understanding speaking. That crocodiles and birds are both from the archosaur branch of reptiles according to scientists and should therefore be expected to test as being genetically more similar.

You, in your ignorance of evolution, posted material supportive of evolutionary theory and not against it as you claimed.

You only choices here are to prove your own post incorrect or to prove that science does not really think that birds evolved out of the archosaurs.

What you have done is merely to handwave and hope we don't notice that you did not address the substance.

But that is your pattern.

 

Well, except that the particular archosaurs from which birds evolved were the theropod dinosaurs. And we have a fossil record showing the theropod dinsaurs having lungs similar to those of modern birds aand very much like those of early birds. (Yes, early birds did not posses the lungs like what modern birds have.) So we have a series of transitionals showing how the avian lung evolved.

So not impossible.

John A. Ruben, Terry D. Jones, * Nicholas R. Geist, W. Jaap Hillenius,
Lung Structure and Ventilation in Theropod Dinosaurs and Early Birds, Science 14 November 1997, Vol. 278. no. 5341, pp. 1267 - 1270

Patrick M. O’Connor1 & Leon P. A. M. Claessens, Basic avian pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian theropod dinosaurs,
2005 Nature Publishing Group

 

Why would I need to alert the press about transitionals? I just gave you two published papers on transitionals showing the evolution of the lungs which you said it was impossible to evolve.

The feather issue has also been attacked from a few different angles.

First off, we now understand genetically how to make feathers. So that is one angle.

But let's look at the another. You wanted fossils.

As we saw in the lungs, the birds came out of the theropod brnach of dinosaurs. Now there are quite a few feathered dinosaurs in various stages of evolution in this group. Even Tyrannosaur fossils have been found with feathers.

Early feathers were nothing more than a downy covering. Sinosauropteryx is a good example of a dinosaur covered in such feathers.

Moving along, Caudipteryx is an example of more fully developed feathers. This dinosaur was covered in feathers including a tail of symetrical feathers very similar to that of birds.

For brevity, I'll give one final example. Microraptor is a dinosaur with fully developed, assymetric flight feathers on all four limbs!

So fossil feathers in various stages of evolution are represented in the fossil record.

This is following a typical YE pattern. The claim is made that something is impossible or that something fails to exist. When evidence is offered that counters that claim, a new claim pops up. When that one is shown to be false, a new one appears. It never seems to dawn that perhaps scientists are really on to something.

You might also wish to examine your quote more closely.

I think that if you reread the quote you will see that it is talking about the fossil record being "unmanageably rich" and that the new discoveries are coming in faster than they know what to do with them. Quite the opposite of a lack of transitionals. And that was over 40 years ago!

 

That is your answer!

You just posted it and didn't write it.

Wow! I think this may be as close as I have seen to you withdrawing a statement.

Let's get this with no ambiguity.

You, BobRyan, copied this material word for word, without quote notation and without a proper citation and without even the "Times Supplement" blurb in subsequent posts, and now you disavow what you posted. You no longer think that you should have posted the genetic stuff.

Am I getting this right?

So why did you post it? Were you fooled by a YEist?

 

So, do you have nothing else to say than that you posted false information because you were fooled by a YEist? No interest in defending what you posted to us as fact?

So you withdraw your claim that evolution says that a crocodile should be genetically closer to a snake than to a bird?

I am getting this right? You no longer claim what you posted.

Because if not, then this topic still has "life" as you put it.

 

I suppose that you plan to continue to run around talking about how I am running from topics on which I have posted dozens of times while you will continue to give us an object lesson in avoidance and running on a subject of your own choosing.

 

Bob

Why are you not man enough to own up to your own mistake here?

You know that you posted false information. It is obvious because of the way you are trying to shift blame to your lying YE source that fooled you yet again.

The fact of the matter is, however, that you are the one who brought the material to this thread.

You are the one who knows so little about evolution that you could not spot such a simple and obvious mistake.

You are the one who posted false information here as if it were the truth.

How can you pretend to be so confident that evolution is not true when you do not even understand the basics of what it says?

How can you pretend to be able to judge which arguments are good and which are bad when you do not even understand the basic principles of what you criticize?

How can we expect you to give us any factual information when you lack the basic understanding needed to sort the truth from the lies?

And, BTW, how does it feel to be repeatedly lied to and fooled by YE sources?