Religion of Evolution: UTEOTW

However I also admit that the data Simpson had in the 1950's was sufficient to show that the horse series that was so well published at that time - had failed.

My earlier post made it appear that I was trashing Simpsons expose on the failure of that sequence - that was a mistake on my part.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I'm back. What a trip. Back to the action.

Bob, if you have an objection to the horse series, why don't you just come out and put your facts before us. For the umpteenth time, Simpson is saying that the smooth, continuous series proposed like 100 years ago was wrong. The full quote actually shows that it was the idea that evolution goes in smooth, linear steps A to B to C to D is what he was attacking. Not the horse series. Same thing with your Eldredge quote. As has been pointed out to you, what he thought was "lamentable" was that they were displaying a series with only four members. Again, the whole smooth, continuous thing.

You have not made an actual scientific statement of you problems yet. Only misquoting scientists so far. The closest you have come is to say "The series is made up of a probable non-horse and multiple varieties of true horses. The many different types of horses are static and coexistent in the fossil record."

Now I say, give us you evidence for this. So far, none. I am guessing that your one "probable non-horse" is Hyracotherium. This means that you think that everything from a quarterhorse to a small 20 inch high animal with three toes instead of one, pads instead of hooves, completely different teeth including a different number of molars, and many other differences are all just "multiple varieties of true horses." That is an unsupportable assumption I challenge. So support it. Tell us your factual objections to the horse series. And please include why the genetic evidence linking horses and rhinos matches the fossil evidence if there really is not a series to be found.

And yes, Bob, I am going to continue to ask you to support your claims about the 1980's archy conference until you can either factually show that the perponderance of the evidence presented at the conference was that archy was only a bird and that it had no relationship to reptiles at all (as opposed to the data from the conference and from the authors you cited even to the contrary of your claim) or you admit that the claim really is not true.

 

Perhaps we could clear up the question on horse fossils by taking a look at them, starting with the oldest, and seeing if they did actually form a series that would end in Equus.

Would you like to see that, Bob?

 

I know I would; however, I'd like the dating of the fossil restricted to bone and not the age of the surrounding fossil forming materials.

 

There is no bone left, in almost all cases. It's all fossilized. And we can't date sedimentary rock directly by physical methods. We can only date igneous rock. So we have to date igneous rock above and below the sedimentary rock and then date it between those two accurate dates.

However, we don't have to date it at all. The first geologists didn't do that, but they did know which fossils came first by the order in which they appeared.

So, let's leave "how old" out of it for a bit,and just concentrate on what happened. I'll put the dates in parentheses, if you like.

Fair enough?

 

You do raise an interesting question though. Why is it that we see fossils grouped so narrowly in the geologic column? Go back and look at the links I gave Gina above about fossil digs. I pulled out just the horses but they found quite a wide variety of other animals. But it was a very narrow slice of life and it was that same narrow slice when digging in layers of the same age through the years.

YEers often try to assert that the fossils were hydraulically sorted some how. Why then sucha diversity of life in a particular layer and a consistency in that particaulr diversity at different locations? If you are talking about horses, should not the sorting have placed all the horse "kinds" in one fairly narrow layer along with a few other animals of simalar size? But this is not what you see. YOu see the horses sorted through tens of millions of years of layers and with other fossils of all different shapes and sizes.

The other curious thing is that genetic evidence. The reference is somewhere above, but I provided it. Horses and hippos do ot appear to have much in common. Yet through the fossils we can trace them back to a common ancestor. You have your doubts. Fine. So then, when we genetically test horses and hippos, why do they show the same relationship genetically? Surely you don't think that horses and hippos are the same "kind." This is an example of the kinds of predictions that evolution makes and succeeds at where YE cannot do so. Sure, you may after the fact wave hands about a common designer. But if that is the case why do we find the horse to be closer match to a hippo than something much more similar like say an elk or moose, other large long legged grazing animals?

 

And genetics of the same kind that we use to establish paternity and other human relationships, shows that horses and hippos are descended from a common ancestor.

And going the other way, we find that whales are more closely related to hippos than to any other animal.

 

I made a mistake above. It is horses and rhinos that share the common ancestor. Galatian got it right by pointing out that fossil and genetic evidence both converge to show the whale / hippo relationship. My mistake.

 

Actually, it depends on how far back you go. Ungulates are no longer considered monophyletic, but placentals are. The perissodactyls form one large group, and the artiodactyls another.

But they have a common ancestor. They just don't have a unique common ancestor; there are other groups that derive from that one.

 

Sure sounds like a religion to me.

 

Sure sounds like a religion to me. </font>[/QUOTE]JC: making deductions is not exclusively a religous pasttime!

 

No, but tracing one's ancestral lineage back to apes is.

 

No, but tracing one's ancestral lineage back to apes is. </font>[/QUOTE]Nope. Empirical.

Link - Some of the Genetic Evidence for the Evolution of Man

 

No, but tracing one's ancestral lineage back to apes is.

</font>[/QUOTE]Nope. Empirical. </font>[/QUOTE]Empirical nonsense.

None of the apes in the zoo are my relatives.

You can claim them if you like.

 

You do realize this is a thread on horses don't you? Have you read the thread completely? If you wish to stay on topic, why don't you explain the following.

"Use of mitochondrial DNA sequences to test the Ceratomorpha (Perissodactyla:Mammalia) hypothesis," C. Pitra and J. Veits, Journal of Zoological Systematics & Evolutionary Research, Volume 38 Issue 2 Page 65 - June 2000.

This shows how the horse and the rhino are related genetically just as the fossil record indicates we should find. The predictive power of biology in action.

 

No, but tracing one's ancestral lineage back to apes is.

</font>[/QUOTE]Nope. Empirical. </font>[/QUOTE]Empirical nonsense.

None of the apes in the zoo are my relatives.

You can claim them if you like. </font>[/QUOTE]Apparantly JC makes the following equation: empirical nonsense = religion

I deplore this identity, and I wish to declare that I do not believe my religion is empirical nonsense.

I also wish to declare that my science is not empirical nonsense, either, and I challenge JC to point out any way in which asserting we are related to the apes can be shown to be empirical nonsense. Part of the challenge is to keep the assertion on an empirical level, leaving out all appeals to religious sources for the conclusion.

 

UTEOTW posted November 24, 2004 05:06 PM
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"You do realize this is a thread on horses don't you?"

Nope. It's a thread on the religion of evolution.

"Zoological Systematics & Evolutionary Research, Volume 38 Issue 2 Page 65 - June 2000.

This shows how the horse and the rhino are related genetically just as the fossil record indicates we should find. The predictive power of biology in action."

Horsefeathers!

 

P of E:

"Apparantly JC makes the following equation: empirical nonsense = religion."

Nonsense. They don't equate.

"I deplore this identity, and I wish to declare that I do not believe my religion is empirical nonsense."

Me too.

"I also wish to declare that my science is not empirical nonsense, either, and I challenge JC to point out any way in which asserting we are related to the apes can be shown to be empirical nonsense."

It's not empirical knowledge. It's hypothetical, theoretical and highly speculative.

"Part of the challenge is to keep the assertion on an empirical level, leaving out all appeals to religious sources for the conclusion."

Huh?

 

Karl, is that you? It's good to hear from you again. I haven't heard that foolishness so long...

Have you been well?

 

Ho, ho ho.