Scientists prove raptors had feathers.

[Grouch]

AVengeance you still haven't intelligently replied to my posted short proof of evolution. Why not?

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

Allthatshitbyyou

None of that is "proof" or even "evidence" of anything. Just meandering philosophy.

I think, that you are missing the very basic concepts of Smith's Law of Faunal Succession and the law of superposition.

It isn't philosophy, it isn't a guess or even a theory, it is fact.

[jimeigh]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

I get paid for being scientific (not religious). What do you get paid for, jimeigh ?

depends what time of day it is

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by Dylith

You didn't answer my question with regards to evolution

You didn't address vestigial parts at all

Yes, I did. Vestigal parts are not evidence of evolution. It was once believed that these once-useful-but-now-useless things were evidence that something was evolving away, just as it had long before evolved into existance. This erronous notion was supported by apparently (although erronously) similar organs. More recently, scientists have discovered that once-supposed-useless organs aren't really useless at all. They changed the definition of "vestigal" to include organs that aren't useless (one of their "evidences" of evolutionary succession) but maintain an insistance that it still works as evidence. Then they continue to point out how something in one animal, because they IMAGINE that it has or had the same or similar function in an imaginary intermediate or predecessor, is evidence of evolution, becaues they give it the same NAME. A bone does not come stamped with a name on it. Scientists give it one, then CLAIM because of the name THEY gave it, that one must have come from the other. That's as silly as claiming that bat WINGS came from bird WINGS because they both have the same name, same location, and same function. So you find one in apparently older strata, claim that one came first, then *poof* you have your evidence of wing evolution.

So tell me, what is a vestigal organ? Do you even know what that means?

You still have yet to give me the names of these Triassic birds of yours

Birds aren't going to fossilize as well as dinosaurs, for obvious reasons. You, as someone that believes in evolution so, must realize that there are many "missing links" we'll probably never find in the fossil record, right?

Protoavis texensis would be one that they've found. Archaeopteryx is considered a bird because it has feathers.

You still haven't given me an alternative to dinosaurs when it comes to Aves evolution (unless "God created them" is going to be your answer).

Yea, God did it. All of it. Made everything out of nothing, JUST LIKE WHAT YOU BELIEVE. Only I think God made something out of nothing, and you think nothing made something out of nothing.

You still have not addressed the many intermediary fossils that we have and the thousands of intermediary fossils which exist (not only in dinosaur aves connections but elsewhere) which helps to prove evolution as fact.

It's only an intermediary by name. You see something with similarities, and assume that one somehow came from the other. I look at two things with similarities, and see similar design.
The difference between my belief (common design = common designer) is that mine is observable and testable here in the real world. Yours (common design = one mophed into the other) is not.

You seemingly toss the use of homologous anatomy (and chemistry) with regards to looking at evolution out the window for no reason at all

Because it was proven wrong. Something looking like something else does not mean that one thing came from the other.

The Rise of Birds

However, the discovery of a Triassic bird is not totally surprising. More than a century ago, Yale paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh (1880) cogently argued that three Mesozoic taxa, Archaeopteryx, Hesperornis, and Ichthyornis, differ so widely from one another that the evolution of birds must have taken place at a much earlier time, perhaps at the end of the Triassic. He predicted that Triassic birds with a freely movable quadrate bone would be found to fill the major morphological and evolutionary gaps in avian history. Protoavis approaches the predicted structure and size of the ancestral bird envisioned by Marsh. It pushes the avian origin back to the Late Triassic, to the very dawn of the age of the dinosaurs.

[Grouch]

You still haven't replied to my post. Lame man.

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by Grouch

You still haven't replied to my post. Lame man.

My reply was that it's not "proof", it's just meandering philosophy. Sorry if that answer just isn't good enough for you. I'm sure I could find a similar argument for the proof God Did It (or aliens, or whatever).

[Grouch]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

My reply was that it's not "proof", it's just meandering philosophy. Sorry if that answer just isn't good enouigh for you. I'm sure I could find a similar argument for the proof God Did It (or aliens, or whatever).

There is no philosophy there, flat out none. That's a pathetic copout and a blatantly lie to claim that. You can't even point out what's "philosophical about it!


If you wish to attempt to perpetuate that lie copout because you’ve been confronted with a clear and easy proof that there has been massive MACRO-evolutionary change over time, than you've decided to throw any and all legitimacy you've ever had as a "scientist" and on this forum.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

They HAVE TO, to keep the math out of "impossible" and in the realm of "highly improbable".

They? People who study astronomy, geology ect. take their orders from biologists?

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

Yes, I did.

No, no you did not. Vestigial parts exist whether you want to acknowledge them or not.

Vestigal parts are not evidence of evolution.

Yes, they certainly can be and indeed are.

It was once believed that these once-useful-but-now-useless things were evidence that something was evolving away, just as it had long before evolved into existance. This erronous notion was supported by apparently (although erronously) similar organs. More recently, scientists have discovered that once-supposed-useless organs aren't really useless at all. They changed the definition of "vestigal" to include organs that aren't useless (one of their "evidences" of evolutionary succession) but maintain an insistance that it still works as evidence. Then they continue to point out how something in one animal, because they IMAGINE that it has or had the same or similar function in an imaginary intermediate or predecessor, is evidence of evolution, becaues they give it the same NAME. A bone does not come stamped with a name on it. Scientists give it one, then CLAIM because of the name THEY gave it, that one must have come from the other. That's as silly as claiming that bat WINGS came from bird WINGS because they both have the same name, same location, and same function. So you find one in apparently older strata, claim that one came first, then *poof* you have your evidence of wing evolution.

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about when it come to vestigial parts. I gave you examples and then you jump off and start spouting something about the appendix. OMG! The appendix has some left over minor use! That makes the other 100 vestigial aspects of humans disappear completely! Not to mention the large amount of junk DNA that we have (and before you go off and start ranting about how some of what we once thought of as junk DNA has now been found to have some use, there is A LOT still that humans do not use at all).

So tell me, what is a vestigal organ? Do you even know what that means?

I should be the one asking you this question.

Birds aren't going to fossilize as well as dinosaurs, for obvious reasons. You, as someone that believes in evolution so, must realize that there are many "missing links" we'll probably never find in the fossil record, right?

Of course, I don't claim to know how everything evolved or even where everything fits in, but anyone even remotely familiar with the fossil record that we possess cannot deny the existence of evolution. To do so is to be blind.

Archaeopteryx is considered a bird because it has feathers.

So if it has feathers then it must be a bird? Guess that means that raptors (a dinosaur which had feathers) are birds. Seriously though, have you ever studied Archaeopteryx? First of all, it isn't a Triassic creature, second of all Achaeopteryx was one of my examples of a feathered dinosaur and for good reason. It is a splendid intermediary form between the two. In fact, fossils of it that were found without the feathers were actually classified as its own dinosaur, before it was discovered that they were the same thing.

The fact that you use it as your "evidence" only weakens your position.

Protoavis texensis would be one that they've found.

I actually find it quite comical that you would use Protoavis Texensis as your Triassic bird. I find it funny for two main reasons.

1.) you were so quick to come into this thread and jump on us for thinking that raptors had feathers "simply because" they had quill knobs, when your example has never been found with any evidence of feathers and whose capability of flying is unknown.

2.) I mention the Liaoning province in China and you not only ignore the dozens of feathered dinosaurs that have been found, but you also merely respond to it with a link regarding some "hoax" in which the bodies of two different animals were put together and then the scientists, realizing this, corrected the mistake. Yet your specific example is thought also to be made up of several different ancient animals.

Your use of texensis as evidence of Triassic "birds" is actually quite telling.

Yea, God did it. All of it. Made everything out of nothing, JUST LIKE WHAT YOU BELIEVE. Only I think God made something out of nothing, and you think nothing made something out of nothing.

I fail to see how belief in evolution = disbelief in a deity.

It's only an intermediary by name. You see something with similarities, and assume that one somehow came from the other. I look at two things with similarities, and see similar design.

No it is not merely "by name" and once again, anyone who has even bothered to take a mere glance at the fossil record that we have would know better. It isn't merely a fossil of a bat and a fossil of a whale that we are looking at to draw comparisons between the two, it is thousands of fossils each slightly different as time progresses that forms a clear undeniable pattern. It isn't philosophy, it is fact.

Because it was proven wrong. Something looking like something else does not mean that one thing came from the other.

no, no it was/has not.




Once again, you are missing the very basic concept of Smith's Law of Faunal Succession, not a theory, not a guess, a law.

Also, do you even know what a dinosaur is?

[AVengeance]

Okay, start my edumucation. What is a vestigal organ?

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

Okay, start my edumucation. What is a vestigal organ?

Vestigiality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by Dylith

Vestigiality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wrong answer. I want to hear it from you. I have biology texts at home I could read. Since we're debating here, I need to know YOUR definition of what a vestigal organ is. I need to know how YOU understand it to be.

From Wiki:

In evolutionary biology and comparative anatomy, vestigiality is a term which describes homologous characters of organisms which have lost all or most of their original function in a species through evolution.

Can you please point out the known "original" function of the whale "pelvis"? Can you point out the "original" function of the human appendix?
This definition uses circular reasoning. We know the whale evolved from a land mammal, because it has a pelvis that has a use that is unlike its original use. We know the whale pelvis has a use unlike its original use because it evolved from land mammals.

Good god, the word "original" even implies creation. Nothing had an "original" function- it was a gradual evolution from nothing!

Thus, a "vestigial wing" is one useless for flight, but may serve some other purpose.

WTF?!? All they'd have to do is call it something else, and it would no longer be "vestigal". They see two things, they see that they "look" a lot alike, they give the two things the same name (e.g. "pelvis" or "wing") then they say "hmm, one of these must have come from the other".

Perhaps it is the feathers of flying BIRDS that are actually vestigal, and the feathers of dinosaurs are the original form and function, and they made them hard for predators to digest. The whole flying thing was just an evolutionary accident! So tell me- are the feathers of flying birds vestigal?

The definition of vestigal used to be useless. Then they started learning that so-called useless things (like the appendix) actually aren't so useless after all. Rather than remove those items from the list of vestiges (since they provided evidence of evolution), they simply changed the definition of the word, so they could continue to wrap those organs in the definition of "vestigal". Then they pick and choose what to call vestigal and what not to.

So again, I ask you to educate me. I want a solid, logical definition, from you, and I want to know why the appendix is a vestige and our nose is not.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

Wrong answer. I want to hear it from you. I have biology texts at home I could read. Since we're debating here, I need to know YOUR definition of what a vestigal organ is. I need to know how YOU understand it to be.

There really isn't multiple ways in which one can define vestigiality. You seem to try to assert that a part needs to be completely useless in order for it to be vestigial, but that is not the case. even if it were there are still vestigial parts such as that that do exist. As Wikipedia says though, the term "vestigial organ" is misleading in the sense that many vestigial parts/characteristics are not organs at all, such as the examples that I origionally gave.

Since you are the one who is apparently going away from the normal scientific definition of vestigiality perhaps you should be the one telling us what you think it is.


Also, I like how you left most of my other post unanswered. Why is that?

[Dylith]

By the way, while we are defining things I would also like to know if you know what a dinosaur is. What is your definition of it?

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by Dylith

There really isn't multiple ways in which one can define vestigiality. You seem to try to assert that a part needs to be completely useless in order for it to be vestigial, but that is not the case.

Stop telling me what vestigal is NOT and tell me what vestigal IS.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

From Wiki:

Can you please point out the known "original" function of the whale "pelvis"?

Certainly, It is left over from the time when the ancestors of whales use to live on land.



As whales evolved, (as we can see via fossils, and yes, we do have them) the pelvis eventually became a vestigial part of a whale as it moved from land dwelling to the water.

This definition uses circular reasoning. We know the whale evolved from a land mammal, because it has a pelvis that has a use that is unlike its original use. We know the whale pelvis has a use unlike its original use because it evolved from land mammals.

Except we actually have the fossils of these land mamals and of the intermediary forms that clearly show the gradual loss of the use of the pelvis. We just don't jump from Mesonychid to our modern whale.

"original" function of the human appendix?

Which is why I have never used the appendix as my example of a good vestigial organ (I don't know enough about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if we did have good chemical or DNA evidence supporting its current status as a vestigial organ). This is why I instead used msuscles which we can see have no use in humans (indeed many of us are born without Subclavius Muscles, and those of us who are are almost always born with only one instead of two) but are found in other animals and in our ancestors.

Good god, the word "original" even implies creation. Nothing had an "original" function- it was a gradual evolution from nothing!

Who said anything about nothing? Once again why does evolution automatically mean that there can be no creator?

WTF?!? All they'd have to do is call it something else, and it would no longer be "vestigal".

That shows a complete lack of understanding with regards to the concept of what evolution is. New parts do appear out of "nowhere" as they evolve from other parts and other parts die off as they are no longer useful (such as our subclavius muscles)

They see two things, they see that they "look" a lot alike, they give the two things the same name (e.g. "pelvis" or "wing") then they say "hmm, one of these must have come from the other".

Once again, a complete lack of understanding what evolution is and how we determine it. yes homologous anatomy is important, but there are layers in which certain body parts and certain animals do not appear at all, ever. They had to come from somewhere and fossil evidence shows the the gradual evolution of these body parts as animal life spans the years. These body parts don't simply appear out of no where in the fossil reccord (as they would if God created them) rather, we have fossil evidence which shows the gradual creation of modern body parts and modern animals.

Once again (for the third or fourth time) you are missing the very basic concept of Smith's Law of Faunal Succession.

The definition of vestigal used to be useless. Then they started learning that so-called useless things (like the appendix) actually aren't so useless after all. Rather than remove those items from the list of vestiges (since they provided evidence of evolution), they simply changed the definition of the word, so they could continue to wrap those organs in the definition of "vestigal". Then they pick and choose what to call vestigal and what not to.

From wiki:

Those who question the existence of vestigiality usually claim a different definition for vestigial, giving a strict interpretation that an organ must be utterly useless to qualify.[19] This is a definition often used in dictionaries[20] and children's encyclopedias.[21] Biology textbooks[22][23] and scientific encyclopedias[2] usually describe an organ as vestigial if it does not serve the same function in the modern animal as the cognate organ served in an ancestor, even if the modern organ serves a completely different use (preadaptation).
Those who consider the true meaning of vestigial to be "completely without use" tend to claim that the meaning has been changed over time as structures thought to be vestigial were found to have other uses.[24] However, documentation indicates that from the theory's beginnings in the 19th century, vestigial structures have invariably been understood to "sometimes retain their potentiality"[6], becoming either "wholly or in part functionless".[25] It was thought that "not infrequently the degenerating organ can be turned to account in some other way".[26]


Plus, you are ignoring the fact that we do have useless vestigial parts.

In fact, out of the three examples that I gave you, you have addressed. . . none. Instead you have ranted on and on about the appendix when no one in this thread besides yourself has mentioned it.

[AVengeance]

You can't even see it. Vestigal Organ has become Vestigal Structure because vestigal organs were proven bullshit years ago. So now you can say a little slice of something- a bone, a muscle- is now "vestigal". Look. Everything is there for a reason. Think your coccyx is vestigal? have it removed. Yes, you can survive without it, but it is not a remnant of a long-lost tail. It so happens that we are designed similarly to mice, and mice have tails. We have a use for what we call the "tail bone". The whale has a use for the "pelvis", and it involves reproduction. I'm not sure how you find that the top creature in your pictures had a pelvis that was not vestigal. Was THAT creature created by God? Was that the "original" you speak of? If that creature is not the original, then we must assume that the "pelvis" that creature has is not the original pelvis. That pelvis came from some water creature, right? That water creature would have bones that would someday become the pelvis, right? So the pelvis of mesonychid was also vestigal, because it lacked the "original" function found in some earlier creature. EVERYTHING IS VESTIGAL right back to the goo in the pond that sprang to life. You don't have logic and reasoning, you have