A creationist model

[newhope101]

PW, it is too bad that your own researchers have no clue. eg birds may not have decended from dinos after all..
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm

Your fossils are evidence of your researchers grabbing at straws by purporting a kind that is extinct is any ancestor to anything living.

What you need to do is stop asiding with your crap and explain how miacis dated 60-55mya that is the genus that was meant to give rise to all carnivores including Creodonta dated to 65mya. Maybe these creatures had time machines. The progeny predates the ancestor, much the same as the basis for the bird debarkle.

Miacis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Creodonta (fossil mammal order) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia


Order Creodonta 65mya


Miacis 60-55mya

Go for your life......

My bet is on yet another more ancestral common ancestor invented to explain it all. In which case I prerespond with rubbish!

You have evidence of the cat kind being around 65mya and that is that. All your modelling that evolves around your own presumptions relating to the insertion values used is a poor excuse for explaining why cats appear as cats and do not look like miacis, the cat, or a bear or any other kind

 

[painted wolf]

PW, it is too bad that your own researchers have no clue either eg birds may not have decended from dinos after all..

Well, they have yet to provide a workable alternate hypothesis and a paper that isn't full of errors. I've discussed this before... plus, they aren't saying birds didn't evolve. And they aren't "my own researchers".

What you need to do is stop asiding with your crap

Um... I'm not asiding, I'm responding to your asides actually.
If you want I'll ignore your asides from here on.

and explain how miacis dated 60-55mya that is the genus that was meant to give rise to all carnivores including Creodonta dated to 65mya. Maybe these creatures had time machines. The progeny predates the ancestor, much the same as the basis for the bird debarkle.

Miacids have never been proposed as the ancestor of the Creodonts.
Creodonts are not carnivorans. They are carnivores but not carnivorans, big difference.

I've mentioned this before. :yes:

wa:do

ps... what "cat kind" was around 65mya?

 

[Jose Fly]

NewHope,

In addition to the questions I've recently posed to you, i.e.:

If a fossil of a specimen that doesn't look much like something that exists today is partially formed, does that mean much of the Ediacaran specimens, or early Cambrian are partially formed?

Do you admit that you're guilty of the same faults that you chastise scientists for (i.e. using less than certain language)?

Does kind = family? Yes or no.

I have one more. What exactly is your point in continually citing disagreements among scientists over specific evolutionary histories (e.g. birds/dinosaurs)? Are you saying that if scientists don't know everything to a 100% degree of certainty, then they don't know anything at all?

And may I add, it certainly is reassuring to know that you'll answer all these, given your previous guarantee that you don't avoid, dodge, or ignore questions put to you.

 

[newhope101]

NewHope,

In addition to the questions I've recently posed to you, i.e.:
FGS what do you not answer my question re miacis? Answer you have no clue and can oly spooke to common thinking
If a fossil of a specimen that doesn't look much like something that exists today is partially formed, does that mean much of the Ediacaran specimens, or early Cambrian are partially formed? You do not have any evidence that anything form the cambrain is related to the precambrian or anything else for that matter.

Do you admit that you're guilty of the same faults that you chastise scientists for(i.e. using less than certain language) I do not chastise scientists. How old are you????. I say they do not know what they are talking about with all their probablys and maybes?

Does kind = family? Yes or no.

I have one more. What exactly is your point in continually citing disagreements among scientists over specific evolutionary histories (e.g. birds/dinosaurs)? Are you saying that if scientists don't know everything to a 100% degree of certainty, then they don't know anything at all?
The do not know what they are talking about and use rubbish as evidence. eg miacis
And may I add, it certainly is reassuring to know that you'll answer all these, given your previous guarantee that you don't avoid, dodge, or ignore questions put to you.I answwer your quations and this is the standard of refute. More questions? I am not the idiot![/quote]

Now can you solve the miacis debarkle or not? You win the hot air prize for today!

 

[newhope101]

Well, they have yet to provide a workable alternate hypothesis and a paper that isn't full of errors. I've discussed this before... plus, they aren't saying birds didn't evolve. And they aren't "my own researchers".
So you agreee they do not know what they are talkng about past theoretical crap! The reason a researcher would look for other ancestry is their not being happy folks.
Um... I'm not asiding, I'm responding to your asides actually.
If you want I'll ignore your asides from here on.
No you take on asides ie. You have not explained miacis in relation to its ancestor the cat that fossil evedence says predates miacis
Miacids have never been proposed as the ancestor of the Creodonts.
Creodonts are not carnivorans. They are carnivores but not carnivorans, big difference.
It looks like a cat regardless of the excuses and assumptive classifications. I know how scientists explain it. You obviously do not.

I've mentioned this before. :yes:

wa:do

ps... what "cat kind" was around 65mya?

This one was around 65mya

Creodonta (fossil mammal order) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Can't you read?

 

[Jose Fly]

NewHope,

FGS what do you not answer my question re miacis? Answer you have no clue and can oly spooke to common thinking

Because you are discussing that with PW, not me.

You do not have any evidence that anything form the cambrain is related to the precambrian or anything else for that matter.

That's not at all what I asked. You stated that "fully formed" refers to a fossil specimen that "looks much like they do today". So obviously, something that doesn't look like anything that exists today must be "partially formed", right? And if so, then that makes many of the specimens from the Ediacaran fauna and early Cambrian "partially formed", correct?

I do not chastise scientists.

Ok, let's use a different term. Do you admit that you're guilty of the same faults that you criticize scientists for (i.e. using less than certain language)?

The do not know what they are talking about and use rubbish as evidence. eg miacis

So is that a "yes"? Because scientists don't know everything to a 100% degree of accuracy, they therefore don't know anything?

And you also didn't answer: Does kind = family?

Now can you solve the miacis debarkle or not?

I think PW is handling that quite well.

 

[painted wolf]

So you agreee they do not know what they are talikng about past theoretical crap!

Did I say that? I said the papers you chose were really embarrassingly badly done.

No you take on asides ie. You have not explained miacis in relation to its ancestor the cat that fossil evedence says predates miacis

um, I just did in the previous post... did you miss it?

It looks like a cat regardless of the excuses and assumptive classifications. I know how scientists explain it. You obviously do not.

And a Thylacene looks kind of like a dog... but it isn't. Are you really judging what is and isn't "cat kind" by doodles on wikipedia?

This one was around 65mya

Actually that one Sarkastodon lived 35 mya... not 65mya. It right there in the wiki article you took the picture from. Sarkastodon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :slap:

That isn't a cat... it lacks most "cat" features like: retractable claws, mobile wrists, very different dentition, stiff vertebrae and so on. Admitidly the pretty drawing makes it look rather cat like. I hope you aren't judging by the pretty drawing though.

Sarkastodon is actually described in the wiki as "bear like"... so I guess that makes it "bear kind" now?

Creodonta (fossil mammal order) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Can't you read?

Sure I can... but I still don't see anything here saying Miacids are ancestral to creodonts...nor is there anything about creodonts being cats. Here is the whole thing so everyone else can read it:

Creodonta, order of extinct carnivorous mammals first found as fossils in North American deposits of the Paleocene Epoch (65.5 million to 55.8 million years ago). The last creodont, Dissopsalis carnifex, became extinct about 9 million years ago, giving the group a more than 50-million-year history. Creodonts were diverse and ecologically varied. More than 180 species have been described. They ranged from the small weasel-like Isohyaenodonto the giant bearlike Megistotherium. They were diverse through the Eocene and Oligocene epochs (55.8 to 23 million years ago), but their numbers declined through the Miocene. For much of their history, creodonts coexisted with members of the Order Carnivora. The two groups probably had slightly different ecological specializations, and the creodonts may have been analogous to living carnivorous marsupials. Two main families are distinguished: the Oxyaenidae and the Hyaenodontidae. The oxyaenids had relatively short faces and powerful limbs, perhaps resembling badgers, wolverines, and bears. They first appeared in the early Paleocene Epoch (about 65.5 million years ago) and became extinct at the end of the Eocene (about 33.9 million years ago). Oxyaenids lived in Europe, Asia, and North America. The hyaenodontids were more diverse and abundant than the oxyaenids. Small species were generally like foxes or civets, while the larger ones were more like dogs or wolves. Hyaenodontids lived in North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Well-known genera of hyaenodonts include Sinopa and Hyaenodon.

Perhaps you can point out where they say miacids are ancestral to creodonts or where creodonts are cats? :help:

wa:do

 

[Big_TJ]

Actually that one Sarkastodon lived 35 mya... not 65mya. It right there in the wiki article you took the picture from. Sarkastodon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :slap:

Actually, this is in the FIRST sentence of the document. NewHope, how could you get it wrong? Where did you get 65mya from??

 

[lunakilo]

This one is also worth a look... more user/laymen friendly but not quite as comprehensive. North America only. *Actually this one may end up being more what you want.
The Paleontology Portal: Home

That is a fantastic site, a shame it doesn't cover the whole Earth.

Thanks

 

[painted wolf]

That is a fantastic site, a shame it doesn't cover the whole Earth.

Thanks

Glad you like it... and I agree, it is a shame.

If only I had time money and mad programming skillz. And permission from the various global museums.

wa:do

 

[lunakilo]

I took this from the following from the thread on Speciation

To go back to your earlier point, Lanakilo, I believe you're asking whether there is evidence to support a single tree of life, in which all living things are descended from a single common ancestor, as contrasted with an orchard, in which living things do change over time, but only within separate lines, called "kinds."

Yes I did ask that

I would like to point out a few things. First, this model basically accepts everything in ToE, except the number of original ancestors. Nevertheless, its proponents rail against every aspect of ToE, and assert that the evidence does not support it, fundamentally contradicting themselves. For example, creationists will assert that mutations cannot create new information, or as newhope has done here, that there are no transitional fossils. If either of these things were true, this hypoethesis would have to be false.

You are right, there are a lot of silly arguments. But I am not interested in all the stupid things people say, I am interested in whether or not you can make sensible arguments FOR a creationist model

Second, this idea assumes, at its beginning, an event of magic poofing that violates every rule of physics you can think of.

Well I don't know about that.
I seems to me that the beginning of life looks like magic even if it only occured once.
If it occured once why not 100 times, or 1000 or ... ?

But crucially, and bearing in mind it accepts the mechanism of ToE--descent with modification plus natural selection--it asserts that there is some limit that magically makes variation stop at an imaginary line, the "kind" line. However, if you really understand the mechanism that causes descent with modification, then you realize that there cannot be any such artificial line. It is in the nature of DNA to mutate during reproduction, and no mechanism that prevents this from happening.

Well, maybe.

You could also choose to see it like this.
You have X starting kinds.
There is no interbreeding between different kinds.
Each kind evolve according to the mechanisms of the ToE, but that does not make the different kinds mix.
Speciation may occur within a kind, but you can still claim that the two species are of the same kind.

What you end up with is X parallel evolutionary trees.
Or something like the top of the evolutionary tree in your picture.
Or the lowest "tree" in the picture above.

One other note: since creationists do not subscribe to the scientific method, they have no way to reach consensus on this or anything else. For example, in this thread, some creationists (newhope) assert that speciation happens, while others (rusra) deny it. They cannot reach agreement on the most fundamental questions their hypothesis addresses.

Yes, but just because they can't agree doesn't necessarily mean that they are both wrong

The biggest problem with the theory as I see it (and as painted wolf has pointed out) is the fossil record. It makes very little sense to me that there are only primitive life found in the lowest layers and nothing that looks anything like a modern mammal or a dinosaur.

 

[Gunfingers]

Lamarckian evolution actually proposed the orchard, too. It's one of the reasons he is not the father of evolution and Darwin is.

The fact is that nested hierarchies remain true at the very highest levels. We can say that all house cats share certain traits and are obviously related, then that all cats share certain traits and are obviously related, and then that all of carnivora share certain traits and are obviously related. This has been done morphologically and genetically all the way up to the domain level.

Interestingly there are some who propose that the domains actually did evolve separately, so the creationist orchard may be somewhat true in that regard, although it would only have three very large trees.

 

[lunakilo]

Interestingly there are some who propose that the domains actually did evolve separately, so the creationist orchard may be somewhat true in that regard, although it would only have three very large trees.

That does sound interesting, do you have more information on this?

 

[newhope101]

Creodonts were traditionally considered ancestors to Carnivora, but are now considered to have shared a common ancestor further back - possibly a Cimolesta
Cimolesta

Cimolesta is an extinct order of mammals. A few experts place the pangolins within Cimolesta, though most other experts prefer to place the pangolins within their own order, Pholidota....

Creodonta: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article

It appears you have more theory than fact.

So Creodonts were about 65mya or so. But you have nothing past a few bones to consolidate the theory of which creodont was which, only that they evolved from something else. There are no pretty pictures of any creodont that was 60myo, other than cat like creatures put up as examples...... OK.

I'd say this is about as robust as asserting that you have only ever found fossils that resemble a current life form as creationists allege. Reconstructing a creature from a bone or two really isn't solid evidence.

So from what I can see of representations actually made from fossils that were fairly in tact, cats eg miacis were cats, Indohyus was a deer like a mouse deer, your primitve whale was likely a platypus. That appears to be the evidence. While the theory that they evolved from some other creature, that does not resemble it, is an assumption with no robust fossil evidence to back that claim. Hence the fossil evidence appears to more support the notion of creation than evolution. Rather misrepresentation of the fossil evidence has been put forward then supported by some theroy as to how this came to be eg convergent evolution etc etc etc.

One also needs to remember the debarkle over Neandethal whom was grossly misrepresented untill DNA turned the chimp man into Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis. So in line with this I expect all representations to be scewed to what they are expected to look like in line with TOE, rather than actually being a representation of what they may have truly looked liked in life.

What have you got by the way of robust fossil evidence (close to complete skeletons) that present evidence of mid species between kinds.

We know that the dino to bird thing is contested by some evo researchers, Just because some creature could fly does not mean it is related to birds. Fish can glide also and were here prior to birds, according to your theory. Homoplasy really casts doubts on these sorts of connections. One may as well assert that humans and other primated evolved directly from whales or visa versa due to the similarity in brain composition. Really one could say the teletubbies are in the human line as they are bipedal. Even your genomic models and comparisons are presumptive of ancestry between kinds, and may be incredibly flawed.

Your models predetermine where an organism should be and the subsequent results will reflect a pre assumption. That is why a single unexpected fossil can change dates dramatically eg Ardi has pushed back the human/chimp split. There are also researchers that say Ardi cannot be in the human line as the split date is reconfirmed to around 5mya.

An example of fossil evidence supporting a creationist model is you found miacis and creodonts that appear to be cats. You have no rubust evidence of anything that appears part cat. Is there a cat/dog fossil? No. Why? Because a common ancestor has been invented that is supposed to resemble both a cat and a dog from whence both evolved but you have not found it. Miacic is supposed to be an intermediate but it is just a cat, and even with the biased misrepresentation still appears to be a fluff ball cat. The problem is, your researchers are still debating Neanderthal at 30mya and his classification has changed greatly since DNA testing which you are unable to perform on most fossils. What hope have your researchers got of getting anything millions of year old correct? Best guesses, changes, perhaps and hope are not robust.

I believe that the fossil evidence itself is the best support for the creation model. Take away the assumptions and misrepresentations made of bone fragments and gaps and what you are left with, is evidence for creation that supports the creation model.

 

[newhope101]

Lunakilo...other evidence for the creation model is this...

"Eldredge and Gould not only showed that paleontologists had been out-of-step with biologists for decades, but also that they had unconsciously trying to force the fossil record into the gradualistic mode. The few supposed examples of gradual evolution were featured in the journals and textbooks, but paleontologists had long been mum about their 'dirty little trade secret:' most species appear suddenly in the fossil record and show no appreciable change for millions of years until their extinction."2
Dr. Donald Prothero


General Rebuttal to the Theory of Evolution

We are certain that life is here and either came here by some natural way, formed here or elsewhere OR it had a helping hand by a creator. Toe is a theory in evolution and has no predictive power. Rather it is a thoery that responds to new information and is thereby a theory undergoing evolution itself..

In fact what you see are kinds appearing in the fossil record and either still here today or extinct.

So by the words of your own evolutionsists you have evidence for creation everywhere and require the invention of theories such as punctuated equilibrium to explain why your outcome of the predictions of your theory is not apparent in the fossil record.

As stated in my previous post. The fossil evidence actually supports creation and not evolution

 

[painted wolf]

If anyone wants to see why the Prothero cherry picked quote is misleadingly used feel free to read the actual article here:

http://chaos.physics.swarthmore.edu/courses/SOC26/PunctEquil.pdf

Prothero is naturally a strong supporter of evolution and a very good writer to boot.

wa:do

 

[gnostic]

It can if God created it as you described in order to confuse us... just like he created light in motion and gave stars a short life.

If that's the case, then God is nothing more than a Trickster. And Christians called Satan the Devil or the "Prince of Lies", when it should be God deserving of wearing either of these titles.

 

[Autodidact]

Two reasons we know this model is not correct:

1. The principal line of evidence that supports ToE is the nested hierarchy of all living things. This is not a subjective or arbitrary classification system, but the only objective way that captures their relationship. ToE predicts this model, because it maintains that every species comes into existence by branching off of an existing species. Therefore, each new species will retain many traits of the species it branched off from. This will result in a big tree, with limbs, branches, twigs and twiglets, which is what we observe.

Another good way to visualize it is a set of boxes within boxes.

When I say it's objective, I mean this. Let's take the cat "kind" as creationists like to call them. Cat is a biological family, felidae, characterized by retractable claws, "tear stripes", sharp teeth including canines, a rough tongue, 5 toes on the forefeet and 4 on the back, long furry tails, a domed muzzle.

All felidae are carnivores, so they all have the traits of carnivores (order carnivora), so they have the ability to eat meat. They evolved from a pre-cat carnivore ancestor. Carnivores have certain features of their skulls, teeth and digestive systems. So if you tell me that you discovered a new species with all of the features of a cat, I will be able to predict some things about its digestive system, skull and teeth, because it must be a carnivore.

Carnivores descended from a pre-carnivore mammal ancestor. They are all mammals (inside the mammal box, or a twig on the mammal branch.) All placental mammals give birth to live young, suckle them with milk, have 3 middle-ear bones, and some other stuff. So again, if you tell me you discovered a new creature that meets the definition of cat, I will be able to tell you how many middle-ear bones it has. That's because they descended from an ancestor that happened to have 3 middle-ear bones, and have all retained this feature.

And so forth, and so forth, all the way up the big box, Eukaryotes. If you find a new cat, I can tell you that it will have mitochondria and other structures in its cells. The box within structure holds all the way up; there is no break at a line called a "kind." You can trace the ancestral relationships all the way up, from the twig to the trunk of the tree.

If you wanted to draw an orchard instead of a tree, there is no obvious or objective place to separate out the tree.

That's why creationists can't define "kind." There is no such objective classification.

[#2 later; that was a long post.]

 

[Autodidact]

2. We understand the mechanism that underlies the descent with modification now. We know that DNA exists, how it is transcribed, and that copying errors--mutations--are an unavoidable part of that process. If DNA replicates, you get mutations, a certain number per million base pairs. Descent with modification (mutations) plus natural selection = evolution.

The "orchard" model does not posit any reason, any mechanism, that would place a limit on these mutations. In fact, you can't prevent them from happening. We know of no actual reason that variation would stop at an artificial (undefined) limit called a kind. We know of every reason why it would continue in every reproductive act, and that results in every species continually changing and eventually, circumstances provided, changing enough to make a new species. And the same for that species. And that one. Until you have a new genus, family, order and so forth.

No creationist has ever proposed a viable mechanism for stopping this process at some barrier, which they call a "kind." They can't even tell us where the purported barrier is.