Science vs. Creationism

[One Brow]

Commenting on their findings, Grützner and his coworkers lamented: “This suggests an evolutionary link between mammal and bird-sex chromosome systems, which were previously thought to have evolved independently” Yet, Darwinians place mammals on the planet 100 million years before birds!

Supplementing what heyhey expressed so well, mammals and birds are both types of lizards, and lizards have a variety of sex mechanisms, including some that are ZW. The link between mammals and birds is that both come our of the ZW lizard branch.

Khamsi asks the obvious question: “What is the advantage of having so many sex chromosomes?”

Not every evolutionary trait is an advantage. Primates do not produce vitamin C because of an evolutionary mechanism know as genetic drift.

Sexual reproduction in animals with two sex chromosomes has a “selective disadvantage” of at least 50%—a disadvantage that will not budge!

Actually, there are many advantages to sexual reproduction, which is why it is the dominant form of multi-cellular life.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of two sex chromosomes—much less ten!

Again, the issue is not the lack of an explanation, but the presence of too many explanations, and no good way to choose among them.

As it turns out, the common “survival of the fittest” mentality cannot begin to explain the high cost of first, evolving, and then maintaining, the sexual apparatus.

The benefits outweigh the costs for multi-cellular beings.

Surely, to an open and honest mind, this beautiful complexity points to a Great Designer.

Actually, complexity points to a lack of a designer, if it points any way at all. Designers prefer simplicity.

 

[One Brow]

The platypus poses some interesting problems for evolutionary scientists. Here is a creature that appears to be right in the middle of a supposed evolutionary transition, yet fossils dated to millions of years ago look almost identical to the modern animal.

If the platypus is a transitional specimen, why did it seemingly stop evolving? Why has it remained virtually unchanged for its entire existence?

Well-adapted animals don't make major morphological changes. That said, among other changes, we know that some early platypuses kept their teeth, and they came in a variety of sizes.

https://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/monotremefr.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/05/giant-platypus-fossils-australia-species_n_4218149.html

Even the minor changes are disappointing to scientists, as they could more aptly be considered de-evolution. For instance, the fossilized adult platypus had functioning teeth. Yet modern platypuses lose their teeth at an early age, leaving only a horned plate with which to grind and mash their food to a pulp, prior to swallowing.

Hardly advancement at all!

1) Evolution is about adaptation. There is no advancement; that term is biologically meaningless.
2) What makes you think teeth are better than no teeth for a platypus?

Though it spends the majority of its time in water, the platypus never evolved an ability to hold its breath for very long, typically no more than 30 seconds. How is it that an animal living primarily in the water for “millions” of years still cannot hold its breath for more than half a minute?

Apparently 30 seconds is long enough for the platypus to thrive. Why would it need more?

Instead of gliding skillfully through the water, this poor animal would have flailed about, with no method to navigate or find food.

Actually, it would have been a shore predator, hunting in shallow waters where it could walk.

Given this unlikely scenario, this must have happened another way. The fossil record indicates that the platypus appeared fully formed, with all of its “adaptations” perfectly balanced.

How do fossils tell you when something first appeared?

 

[LogGrad98]

Are there any fossil records of a "proto-platypus"? Just curious. But not curious enough to inquire of the google.

 

[babe]

Supplementing what heyhey expressed so well, mammals and birds are both types of lizards, and lizards have a variety of sex mechanisms, including some that are ZW. The link between mammals and birds is that both come our of the ZW lizard branch.



Not every evolutionary trait is an advantage. Primates do not produce vitamin C because of an evolutionary mechanism know as genetic drift.



Actually, there are many advantages to sexual reproduction, which is why it is the dominant form of multi-cellular life.



Again, the issue is not the lack of an explanation, but the presence of too many explanations, and no good way to choose among them.



The benefits outweigh the costs for multi-cellular beings.



Actually, complexity points to a lack of a designer, if it points any way at all. Designers prefer simplicity.

While this may be true of some designers, you fail to embrace your own principles consistently. The benefit of diversity in design is a statistical gain in sustainability. . . . a very real "net gain" versus cost.

In short, if you want to maximize the chances of life you design more kinds of life, more systems to sustain life processes, and design multiple competitors for every imaginable niche.

Folks like you who imagine only gods who think like you do, or deny even those possibilities, have less imaginative resilience than folks who leave open all possibilities in a universe with a scale so much beyond all possible "experience" or "experimentation" from the perspective of a few years of life on one little planet, in one little solar system, in one little galaxy. . . .

clearly, you're stunting your intellectual career hanging out with a few "progressive" ideologues. . . .spend more time in here, and we'll help you come out of your little shell, man.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

While this may be true of some designers, you fail to embrace your own principles consistently. The benefit of diversity in design is a statistical gain in sustainability. . . . a very real "net gain" versus cost.

In short, if you want to maximize the chances of life you design more kinds of life, more systems to sustain life processes, and design multiple competitors for every imaginable niche.

Folks like you who imagine only gods who think like you do, or deny even those possibilities, have less imaginative resilience than folks who leave open all possibilities in a universe with a scale so much beyond all possible "experience" or "experimentation" from the perspective of a few years of life on one little planet, in one little solar system, in one little galaxy. . . .

clearly, you're stunting your intellectual career hanging out with a few "progressive" ideologues. . . .spend more time in here, and we'll help you come out of your little shell, man.

Philosophy isn't a discipline of science...

 

[One Brow]

Folks like you who imagine only gods who think like you do,

babe, the whole point of the Intelligent Design argument is that we can recognize intelligent design in life. If you pull out the 'god doesn't design like we do', then we have no basis at all to claim we can recognize God's design from the undesigned. You're snuffing out that argument completely, and much more thoroughly than I try to.

 

[babe]

babe, the whole point of the Intelligent Design argument is that we can recognize intelligent design in life. If you pull out the 'god doesn't design like we do', then we have no basis at all to claim we can recognize God's design from the undesigned. You're snuffing out that argument completely, and much more thoroughly than I try to.

OB, the whole point of the ID camp is to discover the design of an unlimited "intelligence" whose work we all are.

If we want we can forever chase one another's intellectual tails and maybe have a lot of fun. And that is "as planned", as well.

 

[LogGrad98]

Wow posted this int he wrong thread it would appear....lol

 

[carolinajazz]

Actually, complexity points to a lack of a designer, if it points any way at all. Designers prefer simplicity.

....with a statement or belief as highlighted above, the ONLY thing I can conclude with "One Brow" is that most colleges are OUT of marijuana.....because Brow smoked it ALL! How in the world do you figure that "complexity points to a lack of a designer" whereas "Designers prefer simplicity!"

The more "complex" a thing is, the more thinking, planning, preparation and design must go into it! You take modern day cars, for example. Years ago, I could lift the hood on my car, immediately locate the "air cleaner" and change it! Now, you lift the hood on these extremely complex automobiles....and it takes just 30 minutes to locate the blasted thing!

Molecular biologist James Watson called our brain “the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.”

In The Brain Book the author states: “Within our own heads lies one of the most complex systems in the known universe. Its power and versatility far surpass that of any man-made computer.”

The Universe as well as all living things on earth SCREAM complexity and complexity SCREAMS a designer!

 

[babe]

Wow posted this int he wrong thread it would appear....lol

In the LTE, science sits in the same class as philosophy.

Just like it does in colleges. Arts. . . . . and crafts. . . . . are the other class. That's where I'd think "community organizers" sit, too.

 

[One Brow]

OB, the whole point of the ID camp is to discover the design of an unlimited "intelligence" whose work we all are.

Yes, that's what I said. It's an attempt to discover design by recognizing the signs of design. If, as you say, the design is completely unlike what we design, than we won't be able to recognize it. Personally, I'm quite fine with that position.

 

[One Brow]

Are there any fossil records of a "proto-platypus"? Just curious. But not curious enough to inquire of the google.

The Berkeley site I linked above says we have fossils over 100 million years old.