Re: Sean Pitman and nested hierarchy

On Mar 3, 1:08 pm, Treus <treusd...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Greg Guarino wrote:
On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:56:00 -0800 (PST), Treus <treusd...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Greg Guarino wrote:

Birds that fly, birds that don't fly, and even birds that
swim use feathers for locomotion and insulation. Why doesn't even one
mammal have them?  Why do humans and fish, who occupy very different
environments, share a basic eye design, while fish and octopi do not?

Are suggesting fitness within the environmental does not by itself
account for all the features of a given organism?

Of course. Who suggests otherwise? Species are made from the
"available parts" of their ancestor species. Some longer, shorter,
reshaped a bit, a new mutation here and there, but the same basic kit.
Selection favors the fitter combinations of the available parts.

That's one of the more important bits of evidence for common descent.
Designers we know of tend to incorporate whatever parts and
technologies seem most useful, not just those from the same product
"lineage".

How would you distinguish between a feature that was adapted by design
from another lineage versus one inherited with modification along the
direct line?-

In nature there are no examples. Descent with modification is what we
observe. Prokaryotes are the whackiest because they can take up DNA
from the environment and use it, but that is a known natural mechanism
that we can observe happening.

Humans will likely be able to alter this reality by creating examples
that would not have occurred in nature. Say that someone wanted to
create a pegasus look alike. Even if it couldn't fly they might still
put on a pretty impressive set of wings. This animal would have the
basic body of a horse, but bird wings would be added. If we looked at
the wings, feathers, proteins and genes responsible for the wings we
would see that they did not nest within mammals, but came from an
avian source. No natural mechanism that we know of could do this.
Horses are so deeply nested within mammals that it would be a no
brainer. On the opposite extreme you can take whales. Here you only
see evidence for descent with modification too. limbs evolved for
terrestrial purposes have been modified. The basic body shape has
been altered, but it has all been done using preexisting structures.
Whales are still warm blooded mammals and even their aquatic
locomotion is based on terrestrial mammalian adaptations and not fish
or reptillian side to side motion. Just watch how a cheetah runs or
an otter and compare it to the motion of a fish or reptile. Whales
have fins and a streamlined body, but they didn't get the design from
fish. Compare the adaptations of ichthyosaurs that also evolved from
terrestrial tetrapods, but reptilian ancestors.

Sean is just blowing smoke. If this line of argument meant anything
worth while he wouldn't be running from his claim to have an
alternative to common descent and the evidence to back it up that is
just as good as the evidence that science has. He made this claim,
but all you see out of him is this kind of bogus snow job. If he had
an alternative and the evidence to back it up he would be blowing
smoke, he would just present it.

Why don't you ask him why he runs and pretends instead of making good
on his claim. The claim is pretty close to this topic, so why is he
blowing smoke with this type of argument when he could be presenting
the wonderful alternative that he has and the wonderful evidence.
Dishonesty is just a way of life for guys like Sean. The only real
value that you should get out of his antics is an appreciation of that
fact.

Ron Okimoto

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Whales are fish?
    ... you would actually have to have and present this evidence ... Whales are much closer to cows than they are to horses. ... Whales are NOT fish, they are mammals. ... They are more closely related to mammals than they are to fish. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is the Aquatic theory?
    ... terrible claims you make against Elaine Morgan ... >> other mammals and just which mammals those are, ... you look at the features they say we share with these "more aquatic ... why are you still using as evidence features found only ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bone density in mustelids
    ... skeleton = slow-diving (just see the abstracts papers of Fish, ... No reason why fossil Homo fossils with these features must be an exception: ... sea-otters (smallest marine mammals) spend 2 hours per day pruning ... deposits are similar in nature to those of aquatic mammals - they are not. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Cameron & Groves latest book positive about AAH
    ... > I thought McGinns capital ape theory has some merit before he ... > derived from fish, not out of desire but out of neccesity. ... > attraction of a habitat and other variations of the habitat. ... > certain specific form of evidence. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Terra Amata poo poo
    ... Absence of evidence then ... We know common chimps eat a small amount of monkey meat and ... which of course are savanna or open woodland type ... Don't forget that the C3C4 research did not include fish, ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)