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Yes, Dolphins and whales descend from mammals that returned to the sea. In Darwin’s time no transitional fossils of that particular sequence had been found, but he predicted that transitionals between land mammals and modern cetaceans would be found and he turned out to be absolutely correct; a very nice sequence of such transitionals exist. No-one can say for sure that any particular “transitional” fossil is truly an ancestor of modern cetaceans but if Darwin was wrong his prediction was extraordinarily lucky (along with many other “lucky” predictions he made about the natural world and the fossil record.

I'm all for teaching Darwin in schools alongside other theories that are critical of Darwin (i.e. Intelligent Design, Creationism, etc.). The freedom of intellectual inquiry is the prerequisite of successfull and healthy society.

Ideally at the same time we should make sure that in science lessons we teach about crystal healing, tarot, astrology, lay lines, the hollow-earth theory, geocentrism, Lamarkism, Lysenkoism, alchemy, Noah's Ark, phlogiston, ether, the benefits of human sacrifice, the angry God theory of earthquakes, the demonic possession theory of mental illness, etc, etc, etc. With any luck there will be a few minutes left after that to teach well established science like the theory of evolution.

I deeply apologize if I wrote anything which hurt you personally, and will prevent you from knowing the greatest Hero to ever live personally.

Unfortunately Brian Clough is dead.

But this still does not take into account differential counts of chromosome pairs that identify a species. There is no way "evolution" can account for these changes. Again, there has to be some mutagenic factor involved. Like, a chromosome replication that does NOT involve the entire set of chromosome pairs. This can be induced in the laboratory, by careful selection of chromosomes and injection into a developing cell, but how would it occur naturally?

Take a look at the precise nature of the chromosome difference between chimps and humans and the problem resolves itself. Two of the chimp chromosomes are laid end-to-end in one human chromosome, the result of a historic accident. That chromosome even has in it, in the middle, at the place where the information from chimp-equivalent-2p and chimp-equivalent-2q join, a molecular marker *usually* seen at the end of a chromosome.

I want to know what "The General Theory of Evolution" actually is. Apparently it also includes the geology of sedimentary deposition if you read the article. That will be news to hundreds of thousands of professional geologists, worldwide.

If a retired Polish geneticist has a genetic disproof of evolution I'm surprised that he doesn't publish it and win a richly deserved Nobel Prize. Likewise Dr Guy Berthault should make billions from his apparent knowledge that all geologists, paleontologists and mineralogists are wrong about rock formation. With his superior understanding he should easily beat the mineral and oil companies to field finds, and become the richest man on earth.

Coming from Europe its sad to discover that we have these cretins here too. I wonder how many of the 700 French Speaking evolution rejectors have relevant credentials. I'm betting less than 20.

Actually the science awards don't suffer from the same problems of "flavour of the month" and PC as the Peace and Literature awards which have become pretty much worthless.

To be a science Nobel Laureate is still huge, and most such awards seem to be hugely deserved.

From Behe's book, "Darwin's Black Box":

For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it.

Spin it how you like, despite his attempts to hand the age of the universe off to experts in other fields, Behe is a molecular biologist, and as such is aware of the mountains of bio-molecular evidence that clearly indicates common descent and the billion-year duration of life on earth (and the earth can hardly be younger than life on it is ;) ). He is an expert talking about his own field of expertise, and he is the foremost brilliant ID scientist. In his own work he repeatedly talks of the billions of years over which the bio-molecular processes he observes the modern results of have been operating.

Michael Denton is another case. He started by doubting evolution, and even wrote "Evolution, A Theory in Crisis" in 1986 in which he expounded many of the standard creationist arguments and clearly rejected evolution. By 1993 however as he learned more, and as the crushing genomic data came in he had reversed himself in his book, "Nature's Destiny" (added emphasis mine):

One of the most surprising discoveries which has arisen from DNA sequencing has been the remarkable finding that the genomes of all organisms are clustered very close together in a tiny region of DNA sequence space forming a tree of related sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental natural steps

That is the definition of evolutionary common descent! Denton's entire thrust by then had reversed itself. So convincing is the molecular data for common descent that he is now a total advocate, and says that evolution is an inevitable result of God's grander design of the universe.

So, do you agree with these brilliant ID scientists who have used their specific scientific knowledge to infer that evolution has occured, and that life on earth is an ancient phenomenon, or do you disagree with their scientific conclusions?

From the Dover transcript, Behe being examined by a friendly lawyer.

It is hard to format this so I'll put it in a post on its own.

1 Q. I want to return to Ernst Mayr and ask you
2 are the parts of Darwin's theory as he's listed
3 here well tested?
4 A. No, they are not. If you look at the
5 top ones, evolution as such, common descent,
6 multiplication of species, those are all well
7 tested. The claim of gradualism is in my
8 opinion rather mixed. There's evidence for,
9 and some people argue against it. But the
10 component of Darwin's theory natural selection
11 which is sometimes viewed as the mechanism that
12 Darwin proposed for evolution is very poorly
13 tested and has very little evidence to back
14 it up.
24 15 Q. I want to go through in a little bit more
16 detail on some of these claims. Going back to
17 that first claim, and I believe you testified
18 probably akin to an empirical observation, is
19 that correct?
20 A. Yes, evolution as such that the world
21 is changed over time, and life as well.
25 22 Q. Does intelligent design refute the
23 occurrence of evolution?
24 A. No, it certainly has no argument with this
25 component of Darwin's theory. As a matter of
19
1 fact I think there is a, on the next slide
2 there's an excerpt from Of Pandas and People
3 where the authors write, "When the word is used
4 in this sense, that is the sense of change over
5 time, it is hard to disagree that evolution is a
6 fact. The authors of this volume certainly have
7 no dispute with that notion. Pandas clearly
8 teaches that life has a history, and that the
9 kinds of organisms present on earth have changed
10 over time." And let me make the point that
11 Ernst Mayr calls this component evolution as
12 such. That is the basic idea of evolution.
26 13 Q. So when you hear a claim that intelligent
14 design is anti-evolution, are those accurate?
15 A. No, they are completely inaccurate.


Here is another one:

Q. I'm sorry. I'm pointing to down here, and that's
-- you're not that good a mind reader. Now bacteria had
been on the Earth for billions of years, correct?
A. That's right.

And another one:

Q. Okay. And no human laboratory can duplicate all
of the selective pressures that have existed in the
billions of years that bacteria have been around?
A. That's correct. So we can't rule out all
explanations. We have to investigate to see what are
likely.

That's a stupid deduction. I differ philosophically with some assumptions.

Giving your disagreement an incorrect highflown motive and insulting me doesn't diminish the vast gulf of almost total disagreement between you and the brilliant ID scientists. You don't disagree with their assumptions, unless you are disagreeing with the scientific method. You disagree with the conclusions they have come to (and which they share with almost every other professional biologist in the world) from studying abundant data. Namely:

• The world is billions of years old
• Life on earth is billions of years old
• All of life on earth shares common descent
• Evolution is a fact
• The scientific theory of evolution is the best explanation of the fact of evolution yet found
• There is no physical evidence of supernatural (Designer) intervention for the past several-million years

Again, those are conclusions, not assumptions. Only young earth creationists incessantly and dishonestly try to paint well-founded conclusions derived from following the evidence where it leads as assumptions.

However, their scientific findings certainly does not undermine creationism.

You don't think that the above scientific findings undermine creationism? Then you are happy to endorse all of the scientific findings listed above? I doubt it.

Perhaps you could update me and share what scientific findings that specifically would give a creationist problems with ID?

See the above list of scientific findings endorsed by the prominent brilliant ID scientists that stick in the craw of creationists. The sum total of ID is that because there are gaps in our knowledge we can speculate that sometime, somewhere, a Designer did something, but we don't know what, where, when, why, or how. Not a scientific statement, but a philosophical one, derived from ignorance, and leading nowhere. That is the extent to which the brilliant ID scientists disagree with the rest of science, that they wish to have that philosophical statement considered science too. A young earth creationist has no more in common with the ID scientists than she has with any other evolution supporting biologist who also believes that God created the universe and sacrificed Jesus for our sins (and there are many of those).

Gorilla, chimpazee and humans evolved from orangatang? And, Gorilla, chimpazee, humans and orangatang evolved from gibbons? I don't know if I read this right.

No, you are reading it wrong. The diagram is a partial species "family tree" on its side. The ancestor species go where the lines join. They aren't named on the diagram, and are now extinct.

I'm a total young earth creationist and proud of it.

So in reality you disagree with the brilliant ID scientists about almost everything. Glad that's clear now.

Are you going to respond to my post 287?

He'll probably get around to it at about the same time as he gets around to My post 291 Curiously he extols the wonders of the brilliant scientists who endorse ID, while posting evolution rejecting rants; yet Behe, Denton, and Meyer all endorse evolution.

Why should anyone be interested in your attempt to define punctuated equilibrium into something which it isn't, a rejection of evolution? Gould had utter contempt for people like you, who twisted his work and his words.

Any chance of an answer about whether or not you agree with the brilliant scientists Behe, Denton, and Meyer about the relationship between ID and evolution, and the truth of evolution? You are the one who called the ID scientists brilliant, yet you don't seem to accept evolution as they do.

Yes, but never forget, the lurkers can see who presents evidence, and who responds, "You can't make me see!"

It is a marvellous position that allows SD to ignore the evidence. If two fossils are extremely similar then he can say that they are the same species. If they are different he can say, "They are just different species. Where is your proof that they are related?" All the while ignoring the strata they are found in, the fact that they can be arranged in sequences of gradual change that fit with those strata and their geographical location, the fact that successful predictions are made of findings ahead of time, etc, etc, etc.

I am not interested your attempts to redefine "empirical".

People also commonly forget biogeography, a third great line of confirming evidence for evolutionary descent (though less sensational, perhaps...)

See 299.

Taking someones words out of context of other statements made, and ignoring those other statements in your attempt to "prove" whatever it is you believe you "need" to prove, is the argument of the weak.

Don't be absurd. I supplied the a link to the full context of your words, which were absolutely clear. That you want to back away from what you said (as it was ignorant folly) is hardly surprising.

If there is "empirical evidence" to support the contention of ToE that one animal species "evolved" into a completely different animal species, then please, by all means, provide the "empirical evidence". Show me this has happened between two different species. Don't give me biologic, or anthropologic, or paleologic, or DNA guesswork.

I haven't supplied you with any guesswork. That you choose to see vast quantities of carefully studied data, predictions, and conclusions as "guesswork" says more about you, and your determination to not examine the issue properly, than the data and conclusions drawn. You have been supplied links to so much empirical data that you could spend months reading it. Presumably you'll believe electrons when someone has shown you one, you'll believe that stars are suns like ours when someone has taken you to visit one, and you'll believe in quantum events when you've seen one directly. Science deals in inference. Almost nothing is ever directly observed. To demand direct observation of processes that take millenia is simply (and wilfully) to set an impossibly high standard for proof, so you can avoid confronting the real evidence that does exist that convinces well over 99% of practicing biologists that evolution is a fact described by the theory.

It isn't just a guess, and the reasons why it is far more concrete than a guess have been explained to you ad nauseam. But you continue to misrepresent it as such. Intellectual dishonesty of this kind is so common amongst creationists that it no longer surprises me.

What evidence have the biologists ever produced for us. They know nothing!

Well, there is the biogeographical distribution of the fossil record.

Yeah, Ok, but apart from that, what OTHER evidence have the biologists ever produced?

Yeah, pretty much nothing, apart from loads of startling predictions of the location of fossil finds, what strata they'd be found in, and subtle predictions of their morphology.

......

......

OK, apart from ERV predictions that precisely match the assumption of common descent, Linneous' observation that all life falls into a nested hierarchy, the continuing confirmation that the fossil record also falls into the same nested hierarchy with modern forms at the tips of the tree, the neatly arranged location of fossils in appropropriate strata so that they appear in sequences, numerous geographical predictions of fossil finds that match the assumption of modern descent and plate tectonics, the numerous successful predictions of modern species behaviour and distribution that bear out the idea of natural selection, the discovery of ring species in the actual act of speciation, startling detailed predictions like the baleen transitions and fresh-salt water transitions in the sequence leading to modern cetaceans, the marvellous sequences of recent fossil hominids, the correlation of numerous dating methods with all of the above, what evidence have the biologists ever presented that the theory of evolution is true?

I'll tell you. ABSOLUTELY NONE!