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The TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy

Feedback for October 2006

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Author of: Dino Blood Redux
Response: There is not single "missing link" that if it were only discovered "all would be known." That is silly. There are transitional, or intermediate fossils to be observed in every major museum of natural history, and most minor ones as well. We had more in warehouses than there was floor space to display.

You should take a look at the TalkOrigins FAQ on Transitional Vertebrate Fossils by Kathleen Hunt.

Gary Hurd, Former Curator of a Very Minor Museum Which Displayed World Class Transitional Fossils.

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Response: You are correct about the problem of inbreeding depression. Population growth, though, is not quite the problem you suggest. Even at a fairly small growth rate, exponential population growth can produce a huge population in 4,000 years. If I recall correctly, the world's population growth rate in the last 100 years would more than suffice.

The real problem comes when you consider periods earlier in history. There is no way that the eight people could have multiplied into hundreds of thousands (or more) that history records at several places around the world just one or two thousand years after the Flood was supposed to have occurred. See CB620 for more.

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Author of: Dino Blood Redux
Response: You will find your requested information about creationist sites from the extensive Links provided.

A minor examination would also show that most of the TalkOrigins articles provide links to creationist sites and arguments. You will rarely find that creationsts provide links or clear references to scientific sources.

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Response: Darwin rewrote it himself, although he later in his correspondence bemoaned his use of "Pentateuchal language". He was very sensitive to claims that he had promoted atheism, given that his wife and many of his family were orthodox Christians.
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Author of: Bombardier Beetles and the Argument of Design
Response: I do not know how hydroquinones are produced in bombardier beetles specifically. However, converting quinone, C6H4O2, to hydroquinone, C6H4(OH)2, is pretty simple. It requires only reducing the former, which can be done, for example, with the presence of an acid. (The reverse reaction is also easy.)

(Sorry I couldn't send email; no address was left.)

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Response: A penis is worthless without the existence of the vagina? A look at the biological world refutes your claim.

Some fish just release sperm near laid eggs. Some animals without either a penis or vagina it is simply the cloaca of one the male rubbing against the cloaca of the female. In some animals the male has a penis but the female does not have a vagina. Only in mammals is there both a penis and a vagina.

I would also not agree with your assertion that males and female reproductive systems are independent.

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Response: The current hypothesis is that there was no single organism as such, but a "progenote pool" of organisms which didn't form species as such, but shared genes easily. Think of it as a "tangled root" hypothesis. It makes sense (to me) because a single organism would not be able to form an ecological community, and probably "organisms" weren't so tightly integrated as they are now and have been for the past 3.8 billion years.

There is no evidence either way as to what sort of habitat it existed in. Some think it occurred on iron pyrites substrates, probably in volcanically fed aquifers. Others think it occurred in the open ocean. We'll likely never know.

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Response: Yes it has. Macroevolution begins at speciation, and this has been observed. Longer term changes, of course, though they exceed the duration of human experience, have still been indirectly observed through evidence of genetics, paleontology and biogeography. Evidence for this is presented in the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ. If we only restricted ourselves to thinking things occur when we see them, nearly all our knowledge would be trashed.
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Author of: Dino Blood Redux
Response: You are doing a good job so far. I encourage you to continue your study of the geology of Mt. St. Helens, and how the creationist fraud is perpetrated. I encourage you to write down the specific errors you have discovered and to submit them to the TalkOrigins news group. You will find the submision guidelines at this link" Submission Guidelines.

Thanks for your effort.

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Author of: Dino Blood Redux
Response: Ronald, I think that you should read the TalkOrigins FAQ on The Age of the Earth a lot more carefully.

But first, maybe you should read "Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective" by Dr. Roger C. Wiens. And, you should also consider the information in "Radiometeric Dating Does Work!" by G. Brent Dalrymple. You should also read Dr. Dalrymple's excellent book, The Age of the Earth.

Your worry about the presence of oxygen is confused, since the chemical changes associated with weathering are more likely to incorporate oxygen into rock. This is the opposite of what you seem to think, but it is simply the way the Earth works. Contrary to your claim, there are minerals that do not have chemically bound oxygen, but that is also a different issue than the age of the Earth.

The theory of evolution does not assert that "monkeys" turn into humans, and if you would like information on cosmology and the "Big Bang," I suggest you explore the results from NASA's WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE (WMAP).

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Response: “All of this” is really explained quite easily.

First while there are currently living birds that retain some primitive (meaning “more like the original”, not inferior) characteristics, Archaeopteryx is far more primitive in its overall anatomy than any living bird.

Yes birds like the hoatzin have claws on their wings as chicks, but no living bird has not only claws, but teeth (no beak), and a long bony tail, just to name two obvious features, that no living bird has.

Archaeopteryx skeleton is far more like that of a small carnivorous dinosaur than it is like that of any living bird and if feather impressions had not been found around the fossil skeletons of Archaeopteryx they would unquestionably be classified as belonging to a type of dinosaur. In fact historically two of the fossil specimens now recognized as Archaeopteryx were originally thought to be Compsognathus, a small dinosaur.

See All About Archaeopteryx by Chris Nedin for lots and lots of more detail on this.

As for fossil horses and their ribs you must understand something that is very basic in biology, that being the fact that living organisms of any particular species vary in their morphology (shape). For example living horses normally have 18 pairs of ribs, however occasionally horses (who are otherwise healthy) are born with either 17 or 19 pairs of ribs. This sort of thing happens with people as well.

So given the fact that living horses vary in the number of pairs of ribs they have how is the fact that different fossil species vary slightly in the number of pairs of ribs they have supposed to be a problem for evolution?

Again this is very, very, basic stuff in biology, and anyone who propagates this sort of (quite frankly) silly argument, is doing far more to demonstrate their own ignorance than they’re doing to discredit evolution, and if I were you I would take anything else they had to say with a rather sizable grain of salt.

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Response: I'm afraid that is quite wrong. It was the idea prior to the discovery and research of the new (in 1900) field of genetics, but the inheritance of acquired characters, as it is sometimes called (or Lamarckism, as it is most often called) has been shown to be quite false.

Genes are not modified in response to changes that the body undergoes, and they are passed on, assuming the body is capable and has a chance to reproduce, unchanged. Mutations, though, can occur that will change some genes in the sex cells. These changes, though, do not occur because of what has happened to the body.

Instead, genes that are unable to produce a successful body, compared to the other bodies in the population, will tend to have fewer children, and so those genes will be eliminated over thousands of generations, depending on the size of the population and the degree to which the genes are troublesome.

Amputation changes the structure of the body, but not the structure of the genes.

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Response: There are several reasons why certain feedbacks do not get posted. In approximate order of commonness, they are:
  • The feedback covers points already covered many, many times.
  • The feedback covers several points, so that it would be tedious to address each one.
  • The feedback is incoherent, obscene, and/or off-topic.
  • The feedback asks a question which none of the volunteers here feel qualified to answer.
  • Occasionally a disk crashes and feedbacks get lost.
There are surely other reasons as well. Occasionally, I mean to respond to a feedback after thinking about it awhile, but forget to get back to it. Note also that we do post some feedbacks that fit into one or more of the categories above. And we post insults we receive as well as compliments.

The Sept. feedback you speak of most likely fell in the first category, but I cannot find it, so it may fall in the last. The probability of abiogenesis comes up quite often, and we have some FAQs on the subject. Since I do not know what you are referring to with regard to "infinite time," I cannot comment further.

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