Re: Lung Fossils Suggest Dinos Breathed in Cold Blood

Glenn Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 17:58:09 -0600

At 06:21 AM 1/12/98 +0800, Stephen Jones wrote:
>On Sun, 04 Jan 1998 12:00:54 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
>
>GM>Thank you for pointing out that the resolution of the fossil record is at
>>best 10,000 years. I would like to note that the entire panoply of dog
>>breeds have been developed over the past 10,000 years. If a future
>>creationist only had the wolf from 10,000 years ago and a St. Bernard and
>>Chihuahua from today, he to would then argue that there were no connecting
>>links between the wolf and these two modern dog breeds. I can see this
>>argument appearing in some creationist book in the year 250,019 A.D. If
>>there were also a wolf alive today, the future creationist would be able to
>>argue that the wolf could not possibly be the ancestor of the St. Bernard
>>and Chihuahua because the wolf and these forms live side by side.
>
>This is all very imaginative but it only clouds the issue. Firstly,
>we are not discussing common ancestry (even the ICR believes that
>dogs came from wolves). Secondly, it says nothing about what we are
>discussing, namely *speciation*. All this "entire panoply of dog
>breeds" are just varieties of the *one* interfertile species, canis
>familiaris:

and

>The point is that knowing from the fossil record that the speciation
>event(s), that "originated" the dog "probably somewhere in Eurasia
>12,000 to 14,000 years ago", tells us nothing about the speed of
>that "speciation event(s)". Like all new species, they appear in
>the fossil record "all at once and `fully formed.' " (Gould S.J,
>"The Panda's Thumb", 1980, p150). Your imaginary "creationist"
>therefore is quite entitled to believe that the dog originated
>supernaturally and instantaneously, because: a) that is precisely
>what the fossil record shows; and b) for the last "10,000 years",
>despite some intensive selective breeding and an unusually plastic
>gene-pool, the dog has shown not the slightest sign of changing into
>a new species-canis familiaris has steadfastly remained canis
>familiaris!
>God bless.

I don't know why this is so difficult for you to understand. Another
gentleman didn't understand it either and we had quite a private discussion
about it.
First, no one is denying that dogs came from wolves. But we know that from
history. Suppose all you had were the bones and the bones were really old.
Suppose further you didn't know the history of the dog. In such a case, you
would have difficulty saying that a chihuahua is related to a St. Bernard.
The bone shapes are quite different the ratios of various skeletal
measurments are quite different. One might note that they are related but
the same species? Without prior knowledge, I doubt that any future person,
creationist or evolutionists would place them in the same species. REMEMBER
when RESPONDING TO THIS THAT THE HISTORY OF THE DOG IS UNKNOWN TO THEM. Put
your self in that position.

glenn

Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man

and

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm