quote:

Sure, there is Microraptor Gui, and Archaeopteryx, and other animals that appear to have fully formed feathers. But my skepticism is over the development of feathers and the willingness to see any fibrous dermal collagen in the fossil record as some sort of proto-feather. Indeed, Archaeopteryx seems to precede most of these others by some millions of years, and it has fully formed feathers.

quote:

Yes, I have read it, and will have to leave to others if you desire creationist responses as I am not one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
The fact that Archaeopteryx lived before any of the dinosaurs whose fossils contained preserved feathers is a little misleading, because it’s the result of what environments are capable of preserving feathers, rather than which animals were actually alive when.

quote:

The point here is that we would expect proto feathers to come before fully form feathers, not the other way around. Yet, here we allegedly find fully formed feathers coming before your alleged proto feathers, which makes no sense. Jhud isn't arguing whether these are feathers or not, he is arguing whether or not they are proto - feathers when fully formed feathers seem to appear suddenly very early within the fossil record showing no indication that they evolved from anything else. What, did the fully formed feathers devolve to proto feathers and then evolve again to fully formed feathers?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
It’s still possible to tell that protofeathers existed before fully-formed feathers, because the same animals on which protofeathers are preserved

quote:


What we can’t expect to find before Archaeopteryx is protofeathers themselves, because there are only two places in the world capable of preserving them

quote:


because the same animals on which protofeathers are preserved have been found from time periods before Archaeopteryx

quote:

They are not preserved proto feathers if they came after the fully formed feathers.

quote:

So why should we expect to find fully formed feathers before these earliest alleged proto feathers (that could just as easily be degenerates of earlier animals with fully formed feathers)?

quote:

You are simply interpreting them as the ancestors of proto-feathers based on your presuppositions that they evolved (and based on your subjective opinion regarding how proto feathers should look).
[…]
Even if their ancestor fossils exist before the alleged fully formed feathers that already existed, this does not indicate that those ancestors branched off into an organism that had fully formed feathers. Instead, it indicated that those ancestors pretty much stayed the same and the organism with fully formed feathers had an independent lineage. Or it could indicate that they branched off an ancestor that had fully formed feathers and they lost their feathers. You are merely interpreting it based on your presuppositions, but the fact that you can interpret the evidence based on your presuppositions is not evidence that your presuppositions are true. I can just as easily interpret the same evidence with different assumption.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
I would say that since the earliest known dinosaur which would have had protofeathers (Epidendrosaurus) lived 169 million years ago, 150 million years ago (when Archaeopteryx was alive) is about when it would be reasonable to expect the first fully-formed feathers to exist.

quote:


And again, even though protofeathers aren’t preserved on Epidendrosaurus itself, they’re found on all other members of maniraptora whose skin is preserved, which makes it pretty clear that Epidendrosaurus (a maniraptoran) had them also.

quote:


The first is that in the 1980s, several paleontologists predicted what the precursors to feathers would have looked like, and which animals would have had them. Gregory Paul predicted they would have existed on dromaeosaurids, compsognathids, troodontids, and oviraptorids; the same groups of animals that were found to have them around ten years later. He also predicted what their structure would be like.

quote:


For example, Answers in Genesis believes that all big cats are related to one another, but the difference between a lion and a cheetah is about the same as the difference between Microraptor and Archaeopteryx, and I’ve described the reasons for this in both that essay and Raptorman’s thread.

quote:


If in some cases animals which are this similar are actually related to one another, and in other cases God created them so that they would only appear to be related

quote:

He speculated. That still doesn't mean they are profeathers. Darwin was wrong about a lot of stuff and so were many other evolutionists, it's a hit and miss thing. Sometimes they get stuff right, sometimes they get it wrong, but either way doesn't falsify evolution.

quote:

Can you quantify that difference for me?

quote:

Just because they have similarities does not mean they are related, neither does it mean they appear to be related. You infer their similarities as evidence for their relationship based on your presuppositions.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
This seems to be the only way creationists are able to explain the ability of evolution to make these predictions: that it’s all just guesswork.

quote:


I’m looking at this from your perspective at the moment: that some of the times when two animals are this similar to one another they’re related, and some of the time they aren’t. That means in the latter case, God made them look a way other than what they are.

quote:

It is guesswork, it's hit and miss. Different evolutionists predict different stuff and something is bound to be right no matter what the evidence.

quote:

Just because certain characteristics are similar doesn't mean they "look" related. Whether or not they, "look" related is your subjective opinion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim

quote:

It is guesswork, it's hit and miss. Different evolutionists predict different stuff and something is bound to be right no matter what the evidence.

Then creationism should make even more accurate predictions than evolution does. Why can’t you give me one? I’ve given you two of them for evolution. If creationism is right and evolution is wrong, giving me just one example of this for creationism should be easy.

quote:


This is not just my subjective opinion, it’s yours also.

quote:


All creationists believe that some animals are related to one another, and the way they determine this is based on anatomical similarities.

quote:


Can you address what I’m saying about why God would have done this when two animals aren’t related?

quote:

Creationism would predict that the fossil record would have many gaps and even Darwin acknowledged that it does.

quote:

Who are you to tell me it's mine.
[…]
Some may, but some may use that and a combination of other methods as well.

quote:

Why not? It is your subjective opinion that the anatomical similarities indicate relatedness. Even if two animals appear more similar, that doesn't necessarily make them more closely related (or even related). They may have used other criteria to determine the relationships (or lack thereof), though I think much of it is subjective either way.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
This is why I said a prediction that’s specific to creationism. Since Darwin predicted the same thing, this is a prediction that’s shared between creationism and evolution.

quote:


I don’t see how anyone could not expect there to be gaps in the fossil record, since only a tiny portion of the animals that have existed become fossils, and only a tiny portion of those fossils are discovered.

quote:


I asked you for a prediction that’s unique to creationism, and I also asked for a prediction about a specific anatomical structure, like the two that I provided. Are you able to provide what I’m actually asking for?

quote:


But if natural selection is such a profound idea, and Blyth published it before Darwin, then why isn’t Blyth’s name a household word? Perhaps because he was a creationist. It was not the scientific applications of natural selection that attracted attention in 1859; it was its presumed philosophic and religious implications.

quote:


I’ve been debating with creationists for eight years, and I’ve never encountered one who doesn’t believe that certain animals are related to one another on the basis of anatomical similarities.

quote:


The elephant shark's genome is so similar to ours that we wind up having more in common with it, genetically speaking, than with other species, such as teleost (bony skeleton) fishes, which are nearer to us on the evolutionary tree.

quote:


Are you saying you don’t believe this, or that you base it on other factors in combination with anatomy? The Bible doesn’t isn’t specific about which groups of animals constitute a “kind”, so what other than anatomy (and possibly genetics, which doesn’t apply to fossils) could be used for this?

quote:


Answer my previous question. What other than anatomy could be used to determine whether two species of animals belong to the same “kind”? If you can’t think of anything else, that means it isn’t subjective to say that a certain degree of anatomical similarities between two animals imply they’re related.

quote:

Darwin did not predict this, Darwin accommodated it after the fact. He admit (not predicted) the fossil record had huge gaps after it was known to have huge gaps. Creationism would predict the fossil record has huge gaps long before it was known and studied (that can be deduced based on the fact that the Bible said every organism lays forth after its kind. ie: we shouldn't see many transitions). You are confusing a prediction with an accommodation after the fact.

quote:

I don't think creationism or evolution can predict any specific anatomical structures. Darwin was wrong about a lot of stuff and that didn't falsify evolution and likewise if your alleged predictions were wrong, it won't either.

quote:

As far a Creationist predictions, another one is that a Creationist predicted Natural selection long before Darwin (and Darwin stole that idea). The evolutionist prediction at the time was Acquired traits.

quote:


But if natural selection is such a profound idea, and Blyth published it before Darwin, then why isn’t Blyth’s name a household word? Perhaps because he was a creationist. It was not the scientific applications of natural selection that attracted attention in 1859; it was its presumed philosophic and religious implications.

quote:

They are genetically more similar to us than an organism that is anatomically more similar to us. This makes no sense from an evolutionary standpoint, I would not expect to have a cousin be genetically more similar to me than a brother. I'm not saying that anatomical similarities can't be used to infer possible relationships to an extent, I'm just saying that it's not the only possible tool and that much of it is subjective either way.

quote:

The second article describes the antibody genes of sharks. In humans, an antibody gene is assembled by mixing-and-matching various DNA segments, which are all found lined up on a chromosome. In individual immune system cells, antibody genes are assembled according to the following schematic:

Genome: V1-V2-V3-V4-D1-D2-D3-J1-J2-J3-C
Possible Antibodies: V1-D3-J1-C

C is a region Constant between antibodies, whereas the V, D, and J segments (Variable, Diversity, and Joining) are each drawn from large pools of segments.

In sharks, however, the arrangement in the genome is:
V5-D5-J5-C V6-D6-J6-C V7-D7-J7-C

(Note: the numbers are just used as markers; they don't signify anything else).

That is, in sharks the genes are already assembled, and these genes are arranged in long strings of such assembled genes (tandem arrays). Molecular genetic processes which can generate such tandem arrays are well-known. Also note that these same processes could take the shark arrangement and generate:
V5-V6-D6-J6-C V7-D7-J7-C

by a single step -- which looks a little like the human case. Further such deletions, especially working in conjunction with re-expansions by tandem duplication, could easily generate the arrangement seen in humans. Of course, this arrangement is not useful without the splicing machinery, but the shark example clearly disproves Behe's claim that antibody diversity requires the splicing machinery.

quote:

Genetics for one. I think genetics is probably the most reliable indicator. Indeed, I've seen talk shows where a mother doesn't know who the father of her baby is and they do genetic tests to discover this (they don't merely look at the anatomy). Even so, much of it is subjective to an extent, I think genetics is very useful up to a certain point. The reason why we can make genetic inferences in this situation is because we can observe evolution creating certain kinds of genetic differences from generation to generation. However, we haven't been able to observe what genetic or morphological differences it would create after millions of years, that is only speculated.

quote:

In case you aren’t able to understand that, what it’s saying is that the genetics of sharks are such that it’s easy for them to mutate in a way that has a superficial resemblance to human genetics. However, the way the genome is arranged that results in this is still fundamentally different from that of humans. This sort of thing is called “convergent evolution”, and it’s the reason why when comparing two animals on the basis of either anatomy or genetics, it’s important to make sure the similarities aren’t just superficial like this. The easiest way to determine whether they are or not is whether they’re the result of something that tends to change very quickly in animals, and in this case they are.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agahnim
What creationism predicts is that there won’t be any fossils that could be considered transitions.

quote:


This should be obvious, since they fit the descriptions that Gregory Paul and William Beebe gave before they were found of what a transition between dinosaurs and birds should look like.

quote:


The thing that was predicted before Darwin’s time was simply that not every animal that lived would be found as a fossil.

quote:


This idea, and its predictions, have existed for as long as people have been aware at all that fossils are the remains of extinct animals.

quote:


In fact, since young-earth creationists have predicted (and continue to predict) that no animals which appear to be transitions should ever be found at all, the nature and size of the “gaps” that exist in the fossil record are closer to what was predicted by old-earth geologists than by young-earth creationists.

quote:


Evolution did predict these structures. Whether it can or not is not subject to debate; it predicted which groups of dinosaurs would have feathers,

quote:


In case you aren’t able to understand that, what it’s saying is that the genetics of sharks are such that it’s easy for them to mutate in a way that has a superficial resemblance to human genetics. However, the way the genome is arranged that results in this is still fundamentally different from that of humans. This sort of thing is called “convergent evolution”, and it’s the reason why when comparing two animals on the basis of either anatomy or genetics, it’s important to make sure the similarities aren’t just superficial like this. The easiest way to determine whether they are or not is whether they’re the result of something that tends to change very quickly in animals, and in this case they are.

quote:


As I said, though, genetics can’t be used to determine this about fossils. Yet you seem to think that even with fossils, we should base our understanding of what constitutes a “kind” on more than just anatomical similarities.

quote:


Since we have no access to the genomes of animals known only from fossils, what other than anatomical similarities do you think should be used to determine whether or not two of them belong to the same “kind”?

quote:


If you can’t come up with anything other than anatomical similarities that could be used for fossils, it isn’t subjective for me to state that a certain degree of anatomical similarity implies a relationship.

quote:

The new fossils were found in a quarry in Charente-Maritime, western France, by Vincent Perrichot of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, with Dr Loïc Marion and Dr Didier Neraudeau of the University of Rennes, France. The designs display a flattened primary shaft which has branches, called barbs, which have not yet been fused by sub branches called barbules, marking a step towards the flattened shape of modern feathers.

With Dr Paul Tafforeau, from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, they conclude that structure represents "an intermediate and critical stage" in the evolution of feathers that had been predicted but was hitherto undocumented by evidence from the fossil record.

They report the work in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences.

"What is very important in our discovery is that we have found a new clear example of the gradual trend of the evolution in general and in particular in the case of the transition between a primitive filamentous down and a modern feather," says Dr Neraudeau. "Moreover, it shows that in many cases, when an evolutionary stage is predicted by the theory, it can often be found in the fossil record. It is a question of time.

"Thus, it does not really change our picture of evolution but it gives for the first time a proof of the gradual evolution of feathers from the primitive filaments of some theropod dinosaurs to the modern feathers of Archaeopteryx and Cretaceous birds," he says.