<< So why is
it so difficult for you to acknowledge that a fish which can spend 12 hours on
land is something that must be of interest to the creation/evolution debate?
>>
I have no problem with the way you've now phrased it. It IS of interest, which
is why I hauled my buns to the library in the rain yesterday. But the article
was not helpful.
<<What do you expect from Scientific American. It is a generalist journal not
a specialist.>>
So why are you relying on it so heavily? Why do you assume, based on this
article:
<<Somehow this fish has done what this author is talking about.>>
You are assuming an evolutionary process again. In a Hugh Rossian, declarative
sentence you assert that the FISH has done this marvelous, miraculous thing.
Is there any possibility this fish may have been designed to live like this?
It is a reasonable hypothesis, too, that this fish was designed, like all
else, through a "gapless developmental economy." But as you know, I don't see
the evidence of this. I side with Taylor: "No evidence has been found of
intermediate forms between fishes and amphibians."
Glenn, however, writes:
<<Everything is a transitional form from what its ancestors were to what its
descendants will be.>>
See how this works? One can ALWAYS claim that ANY form is heading toward its
successor form--without having to prove that the form is a true intermediate
between species!
How convenient. Speciation, the very issue, is dealt with by a verbal trick.
That's the third in my catalogue: along with "imagined selective advantage"
and "not reasonable to expect," we have "transtional snake oil." I like what
Walter ReMine has to say on this, at pg. 296 of The Biotic Message:
"An intermediate or transitionial form is determined by lineage. Once a clear
lineage is identified between organisms X and Y, then the intermediate forms
are self-evident. Intermediates and lineage are bount-up together; you cannot
have one without the other. In principle, an intermediate can be entirely
different from the endpoints X and Y. It only requires a significant pattern
of lineage. This uses the terminology in a self-apparent manner, consistent
with common understanding.
Creationists reasonably argue that there are no intermediate formes [as does
non-creationist Taylor--JB], and evolutionists respond with their time-worn
counterattack: They claim that creationists misunderstand science.
Creationists typically seem to misunderstand the meaning of
transitional in taxanomic science. I was taught that a
transitional form is one that shows morphological genetic
traits connecting two distinct groups. To my knowledge,
biologists never insist that the "intermediate form" must fall
on a direct line of ancestry. Typical transitions are chimeras
or mosaics, combining significant characteristics (and patterns
of characteristics) from the two groups. (Nahaigian, 1991, p 46)
For the evolutionists' intended meaning, they could use other
terminology--like chimera, chimeric form, mosaic, or mosaic form--but these
fail to carry persusive power for evolution. Evolutionists prefer the words
intermediate and transitional from because these convey the illusions of
evolution."
Now Glenn, in the past, has asserted that a transitional form is an animal
that has "some features" of each group. On this, ReMine says:
"Another objection to that definition is that 'intermediate form' would have
essentially the same definition as convergent form. Convergences and
intermediates would be observed the same way, the only difference would be how
they are explained. If the situation cn be explained by common descent, then
it is an intermediate form. If not, then it is convergence. These are two
different ways of looking at the same data. Thus, intermediates reflect the
whims of phylogenetic speculation. As phylogenetic fads and fashions change,
so do the alleged intermediate forms. Many of today's convergent forms were
once thought to be intermediates." [Ibid., pg. 295]
Re: the problem of bones, Glenn writes:
<<In the paleontological case from the Panderichthys, there are new bones.>>
"The hard, inorganic fraction of vertebrate bone is calcium phosphate in the
crystalline form of hydroxyapatite, rather than the calcium carbonate in the
crystalline form of calcite or argonite that characterizes most invertebrate
skeletons." [Kardong, pg. 177]
"It is obvious that the creation of bone required not one but a whole burst of
mutations, all integbrated to a single end--an incredible thing to happen by
chance even if nothign else had been going on." [Taylor, pg. 57]
So we still can't explain the transition from calcite/argonite. We don't know
how, or WHY, it happened:
"Bone is found only in vertebrates. Why it should make an evolutionary debut
here and not in some other animal group is not known." [Ibid.]
Re: the development of the humerus, Glenn quotes Ahlberg:
<<If, however,tetrapod limbs evolved for aquatic rather than terrestrial
locomotion, as recently suggested, such a morphology might be perfectly
workable.>>
Now I find THIS "humerous." We can dissolve this knotty little problem by
imagining the very opposite of the standard view! If, as Ahlberg notes, "At
first sight the combination of two such extremities in one animal seems highly
unlikely on functional grounds," why, just change the function!
As Benton notes at pg. 50, this view lacks evidence. Of course, that's never
been an obstacle for staunch evolutionists.
I wrote:
<<* Lungs instead of gills ("Living lungfishes have functional lungs,
of course, and the same is ASSUMED for osteolepiforms and indeed most other
early bony fishes" [pg. 50, emphasis added])
Glenn:
<<Not assumed, FOUND.>>
They found some osteolepiform lungs? Where?
JB <<Semi-permeable skin coverings to cut down on water loss.>>
GM<< Skin is not preserved.>>
But lungs are?
<<As to respiration, I have already pointed out that the original transitional
amphibians did this by having BOTH lungs AND gills.?>>
So you believe that lungs were PRE-adapted? If not, where did they come from?
<<Recent theories say that the move to land may be no more complex than that
food was available in the form of insects and worms. These forms were on land
earlier than the transition.>>
We can always imagine something, can't we?
<< If I am ever in trouble I want you to defend me.>>
You couldn't afford it.
Jim