>What was the justification for the prediction that the intermediate would be
>"a critter with both mesonychid and cetacean features which had four feet?""
What is being forgotten here is the prior to the discovery of Ambulocetus, the
earliest whales, were basically seagoing creatures. Their bodies were adapted
to the marine environment. But their teeth, and skulls shows a lot of
similarity to the Mesonychids.Thus it seemed reasonable to the researchers to
presume that if these animals evolved there would be found a critter like that
described above. Within certain limits, it is reasonable to think that their
might be something intermediate something which was more whale-like than the
Mesonychids and something more Mesonychid-like than the whales which lead a
life adapted to the shoreline. Living onshore like seals,otters or alligators
but finding food offshore. Such an animal would need legs.
Mark wrote:
>"You (and evolutionists) suggest that there will be (what we consider to be)
gradual changes from the mesonychid to the whale. This will _only_ be true if
gradual 'genotype' (DNA string) changes correspond to gradual 'phenotype'
(resultant animal body) changes. As I understand it, geneticists only have a
small understanding about how genotype changes affect the phenotype, thus
evolution, as it stands, has very little predictive power."<
Not nececssarily so. Some mutations have very little or not effect on the
phenotype. Others have huge effect. I do not have Yockey's book here, but
due to the degeneracy of the DNA code for proteins, there are changes in DNA
which will not alter the protein at all. Mess with a Homeobox gene and you
get something very strange. The way it would appear is that there is a
mixture of gradualism plus jumps.
You wrote:
"The only way to give evolution more predictive power is to add to your theory
something like the assertion "small changes in genotype lead to small changes
in phenotype."
Not true, see above.
Mark wrote:
>If you allow evolutionists to make this claim, why not allow Pregressive
Creationists to make the claim: "God formed the animals by taking one animal
and slightly modifying it to form another'. With this addition to the theory
of Progressive Creationism, PC would be just as likely to predict the
amulocetus as evolution.<
Sure you can do that. And God might behave in that fashion. But that view is
more closely akin to the theistically directed evolution rather than
Progressive creationism. God directing the mutations of evolution. What you
suggest here is not very PC-like.
Mark wrote:
>"Yes you can predict locations of electrons. You can not predict it with
arbitrary precision, but you can predict it."<
I must disagree. Have you ever heard of the Lamb-Rutherford shift? It is a
small spectral shift in light given off by electrons changing shells which is
due to the disturbance of virtual particles. In atomic physics, pairs of
particles are popping into and out of existence throughout space-time. As
long as the particles meet and destroy each other quickly enough, they do not
violate theHeisenberg relations. These particles are called virtual particles