Missing links that never were (part I)

Pravda ^ | 05.21.2009 | Babu G. Ranganathan

[valkyry1]

A great 2 part article expose on some of the assumptions, fallacies and deceptions evolutionists engage in to advance their beliefs.

Pravda was a good source for the article here because they are not on the FR Link Only or Deny Posting List.

[valkyry1]

ping for your lists

[GodGunsGuts]

Courtesy of Valkyry1.

All the best—GGG

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“Speak the truth and shame the devil on Pravda.ru forum”

I didn’t ever expect to read that!

[JeepInMazar]

Here is a generic missing link.

[Larry Lucido]

So I evolved from a website? :-)

[Oshkalaboomboom]

bfl

[raygunfan]

the evos and their superfantastik evolutionism taffy puller machine...no matter what the ‘evidence’, they can stretch it, twist and pull to ‘prove’ their religion....

[Born to Conserve]

The mixed up kind of science used by creationists make as much sense as Markov Chain versions of the Bible.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

I think there’s more ignorance than lying manifest in this article, but it’s hard to be sure.

[BlueStateBlues]

bookmark, thanks for what looks like an interesting read

[UnwashedPeasant]

Here is the other article referenced in this article, regarding bad logic used to support evolution:

Are fossils really millions years old?

[Westbrook]

> The mixed up kind of science used by creationists make as
> much sense as Markov Chain versions of the Bible.

How about a rational, logical reply to the author’s points, rather than specious ad-hominem typical of the Left and their cynical manipulators?

Evolution, like “global warming” and “anthropomorphic climate change”, are “consensus” science, which is not science at all.

Ad-hominem remains the “scientific” method most esteemed by the consensus “scientist”.

[Westbrook]

> I think there’s more ignorance than lying manifest in
> this article, but it’s hard to be sure.

Since your screen name mentions logic, let’s see you refute the author’s points with logic and reason, rather than specious ad-hominem.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Since your screen name mentions logic, let’s see you refute the author’s points with logic and reason, rather than specious ad-hominem.

Sure. But first of all, it's not an ad hominem to say someone is ignorant and/or lying. What would be an ad hominem is if I said something like, "The guy's an 'experienced Christian writer' with a degree from Bob Jones University--why should we credit anything he says about evolution?" But I didn't say that.

I don't have time to pick over every point, so I'll choose two:

A true transitional link or form would be something like a fish having part fins...part feet....A lizard with half-evolved legs and wings can't run or fly away from its predators.

Evolutionary science does not predict that there would be chimeras like that. Birds did not develop wings in order to fly--rather, they developed flying after they had feathered forelegs. Current thinking, I believe, is that feathers developed for warmth and long, muscular forelegs developed for climbing trees; once you have feathers and are up in a tree, you're on your way to gliding; and once you're gliding, you're on your way to flying. But the point isn't whether you accept that scenario or not; the point is that Babu is engaging in a classic straw man argument. It's a standard creationist technique: say "if evolution is true, x must have happened" and then argue against x, when in fact evolution doesn't claim x happened at all.

Number two:

[Lucy's] knee joint (the main evidence used) was found two hundred feet below ground from the rest of the bones.

This falsehood has been passed around creationist circles for 20 years now. An overview of why it's false and the way creationists continue to use it even though they've been told it's false can be found here.

I generously assumed that Babu doesn't know what he's talking about, which is why I said there was more ignorance than lying. There's always the chance, of course, that he's simply lying.

[Westbrook]

Thank you for the kind and reasoned reply.

> But first of all, it’s not an ad hominem to say someone
> is ignorant and/or lying.

Thank you for the correction, but it is ad-hominem without evidence.

> Evolutionary science does not predict that there would be
> chimeras like that.

My public school textbooks were filled with such. The development of the eye, the conversion from shrew to bat, the dino-bird, on and on. Perhaps those books were not written by scientists after all, which is what I came to suspect after I gave up on evolution.

> Birds did not develop wings in order to fly—rather, they
> developed flying after they had feathered forelegs...once
> you have feathers and are up in a tree, you’re on your
> way to gliding; and once you’re gliding, you’re on your
> way to flying.

I’m sorry, but this is laughable, much like the drawings I remember of the evolution of the eye. Indeed, there would have had to have been a chimera of some sort in between climbing and gliding, then gliding and flying. The genetic and structural framework to support these features are just too complex. And where did all the new genetic information come from anyway?

> But the point isn’t whether you accept that scenario or
> not; the point is that Babu is engaging in a classic
> straw man argument.

I concede this point, but you must agree that evolutionists use straw men of their own against the creationists.

> This falsehood [”Lucy’s” knee] has been passed around
> creationist circles for 20 years now. An overview of why
> it’s false and the way creationists continue to use it
> even though they’ve been told it’s false can be found
> here.

I will concede this point on behalf of the original author, who did not research the matter carefully enough.

However, here is a correction posted on the Website of the Institution for Creation Research.

“The statement was based on reports of Johnson’s public comments and the slides he used at the University of Missouri on November 20, 1986, (see ‘Bible-Science Newsletter”, October 1987 pp 1-3), compared with a photo he published in his book Lucy: the Beginnings of Humankind (1981) page 157 and a National Geographic article in November 1985, page 593.”

You can read the whole article at http://www.icr.org/article/was-lucy-ape-man/

Dr. Morris goes on to say, “it does not demonstrate human ancestry. The most that could be claimed for Lucy is that she was a chimp-like primate, who spent most of her time in the trees, who perhaps walked a little more erect than other tree-dwelling primates when on the ground. I would be willing to concede this point.”

[valkyry1]

talkorigins, your source, is an evolutionist propaganda site.

[goodusername]

I’ll tackle a couple other claims of the article (the first 3 paragraphs)...

“Does the recent discovery of a supposed 47 million year old fossil of a monkey furnish us with a finally discovered “missing” link? The monkey is fully-formed and complete...”

—Interesting, others are claiming it’s “fully lemur”, so it’s either fully lemur or fully monkey; at least they can agree that it’s not “intermediate”. :-)

“...but it shares similarities belonging to various species. That doesn’t qualify it to be a true transitional form or missing link.”

—Those other unamed species are, of course, lemurs.

“A true transitional link or form would be something like a fish having part fins...part feet. This would show that the fins actually turned into feet. There’s nothing like this in the fossil record.”

—Like this?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyostega

Or if that’s too far developed, maybe this?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthostega

“The duck-billed platypus, for example, has traits belonging to both mammals and birds but even evolutionists won’t go so far as to claim that the duck-billed platypus is a transitional link between birds and mammals!”

—The bird appearances of the duck-billed platypus are completely superficial. The “duck-bill”, for instance, is not actually a bill or beak, and it doesn’t open to reveal a mouth. His mouth is actually underneath the “bill”. The protrusion is mostly soft material, while the duck’s bill is made of hard keratin. The both do use their “bills” for feeling around in the ground, which probably explains their similar shape.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Thank you for the kind and reasoned reply.

Likewise. Thank you for the correction, but it is ad-hominem without evidence.

I don't want to get bogged down in an argument about logical fallacies, but my understanding is that the ad hominem fallacy consists of trying to invalidate someone's argument based on who that person is. I didn't do that--I called the author ignorant based on his statements, not the other way around.

My public school textbooks were filled with such. The development of the eye, the conversion from shrew to bat, the dino-bird, on and on.

I'd like to see those. I can't even imagine how that would apply in the development of the eye--your books talked about something that was half an eye, half something else?

And I'm not sure what you mean by the "dino-bird." If you mean archaeopteryx, I'd say that we only know it's half-bird because we know that eventually we'd have birds. At the time, it'd just be its own "fully formed" creature. It's not a lesser dinosaur or an incompetent bird--it's just its own thing. Only from the perspective of time can we see that it was part of the transition from dinosaurs to birds.

Indeed, there would have had to have been a chimera of some sort in between climbing and gliding, then gliding and flying.

Yes--it's thought to look something like these:

As you can see, having feathers doesn't mean it doesn't have a functional arm. Like I said, we only call it a "chimera" because we know it's a stop on the way to birds. But it's a "fully formed," fully functional creature in its own right, with nothing that only halfway works.

Perhaps I shouldn't have introduced the word "chimera." My point is that many anti-evolutionists seem to expect an animal to have to grow wings from buds or something and then lose its arms, rather than just have its arms gradually become something capable of flight without ever losing their function for something else.

However, here is a correction posted on the Website of the Institution for Creation Research.

Good for them.

The most that could be claimed for Lucy is that she was a chimp-like primate, who spent most of her time in the trees, who perhaps walked a little more erect than other tree-dwelling primates when on the ground.

Okay, and humans are chimp-like primates who spend most of their time on the ground and walk a lot more erect than the tree-dwelling primates. Sounds to me like Dr. Morris has perfectly described an ape-human transitional.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

talkorigins, your source, is an evolutionist propaganda site.

Thank you for providing us with such a clear example of the ad hominem fallacy.