When he wrote ‘Darwin’s Missing Evidence’, H. B. D. Kettlewell was right to think that the fossil record cannot possibly be evidence for evolution – after all, fossils do not come with proof of link to other existing or fossilized organisms. For one to see a link, one must presuppose a link, rendering the whole argument a classic example of circular logic. But is the peppered moth experiment any better?
The photographs have been staged with dead moths pinned to tree trunks – since peppered moths don’t normally rest on trunks but rather up in trees where they can’t be seen. And even if this were not the case, color changes are ubiquitous in nature as in chameleons, crustaceans, insects, cephalopods, flamingos, seasonally changing coats, and even sun tanning humans. If the argument is that color change is “speciation” (whatever that means), then the human races are also different species? This racism is indeed in line with the Darwinian views: Malthusianism, “struggle for survival”, “survival of the fittest” and the Nazism/Communism-inspiring eugenics, but very wrong.
Color changes as well as metabolic, antibiotic, antibiotic-resistance, and many other adaptations is what organisms do day in and day out. Yet none of these normal adaptations has ever been observed to cause transmutation into other organisms – the primary claim of Darwinism. And no, classifying closely related organism into arbitrary and poorly defined “species” for the unstated purpose of fabricating evidence does not constitute serious proof on behalf of Darwin’s theory.
Yeah, that’s not and has never been the argument as far as peppered moths go. Seriously?
So, Is Darwin’s missing evidence just racism disguised as science? I’m going to go with, no. Once again, you just haven’t given much evidence that you have a good grasp on the big “issue” you are bringing up.
You might do much better if you allow someone to read your draft posts. It’s tough to see you invest so much thought into postings that do not cover the ground you think they cover and which are not internally consistent.
Section 1:
Your comment about Kettlewell’s conclusion that the fossil record cannot be evidence for evolution is incorrect, and not by just a little bit. The fossil evidence can be scanned and assessed from any number of angles, the two principle ways being:
Section 2.
is the fossil evidence consistent with any known property of flood dynamics? No. I received a letter from Henry Morris himself back in the late 1970’s that pretty much conceded the point, but he hoped I would consider joining with his group to find a solution.
Section 3.
2) the other way is to show any number of times that animals that don’t appear to have existed at all when dinosaurs died, suddenly appear in the middle of the fossil stack … and they appear in the sequence that Evolutionary Theory proposes that they would:
a] For example, while the Bible says that birds were created before land animals, fossil evidence shows that at a time when fish were the most developed creatures on Earth, there are no birds in evidence. Further, when tetrapods derived from fish life, were the most developed creatures on dry land, there were still no birds. Further still, birds do not appear until after dinosaurs have died off, with the Avian branch (comprised of quite small specimens) being the surviving branch.
b] Per theoretical expectations, large mammals do not apper in the fossil stack until the dinosaur rivals are gone.
c] Per theoretical expectations, whales do not appear in the fossil stack until large mammals have become a dominant life form, and the absence of marine reptiles has allowed the fish populations to swell.
d] Per theoretical expectations, bats do not appear in the fossil stack until their rodent predecessors were able to flourish in the absence of dinosaurs.
e] Per theoretical expectations, mammalian speciation in Australia is distinctly different from anything we find anywhere else on Earth – because Australia’s drift into the middle of the ocean kept evolutionary trends within Australia isolated from other influences.
Section 4.
Regardless of what any of the critics and counter-critics say, the moth experiment pales in comparison to a very recent demonstration of evolutionary processes put on by Harvard Medical School:
Your comment is terribly uninformed and could be ignored with the rest of the spam. But I am weak, so here it goes:
This is not about some Darvin or Darooin guy that wrote about a boring, plain sight adaptation. Big yawn. This is about Darwin, the guy that dreamed but never delivered the transmutation of “species” (a meaningless word btw).
Kettlewell observed and made clear the lack of evidence, and then tried to correct that. But he failed as shown. Remember, the target is transmutation of “species”, not some plain adaptation.
Good job - not - indoctrinating your children. Now is the time they can best “understand” this bedtime story, as later in life they might learn a thing or two and then start to dis-understand the nonsense. Consider yourself lucky if they ever question the doctrine as that is a sign of intelligence.
To the extent human/moth color is “speciation”, we’re talking pure racism here. There’s no way around that.
That is not the argument, as you would know if you went to @Christy’s link and read the very interesting paper in Biology Letters that’s linked in her article. In fact, I can’t find a single source that uses peppered moth color variation as an example of speciation. It’s an example of natural selection, yes, but not speciation.
Perhaps you’re aware of the straw man fallacy — if not, do feel free to follow the link to read up on it. In most academic degree programs, they teach you to scrupulously avoid straw men in your argumentation by making sure you’re actually responding to your opponent instead of just making fun of a parody of them. Even outside of academic programs, it’s considered good manners to make sure you’re not talking past your dialogue partner.
Forgive me if this is insulting your intelligence or your upbringing. I’m only explaining because it seems you either never knew this or have forgotten.
I can help with more links to Wikipedia here, since you seem again unaware of some basics of biology. If the offspring of an interracial couple are fertile, then we’re all the same species. (But I’m pretty sure you actually knew that…)
You keep using that word — to try and make good on your clickbait title. I do not think it means what you think it means.
This is particularly speedy evidence for Godwin’s Law. Impressive! By the way, if you were trying to convince us of something other than that you have jedi trolling skills, you failed. But the trolling is definitely strong in this one.
In other news, I hope the moderators soon make a command decision to block you. Your tone is absolutely caustic and antithetical to gracious dialogue. I have been ignoring your threads until now, and made the mistake of reading this one this evening. I know moderators usually give more latitude to dissenters than they do to people within the evolutionary creationist tent, but… gosh. If you want to be welcomed to stick around, you should consider toning it down a little bit.
They don’t have to come with that proof. The fact that every known fossil fits into the predicted nested hierarchy is what makes the fossil record such strong evidence for the theory of evolution. As almost every creationist I have come across, you don’t understand that the nested hierarchy is the evidence that supports evolution.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:1, topic:37088”]
The photographs have been staged with dead moths pinned to tree trunks – since peppered moths don’t normally rest on trunks but rather up in trees where they can’t be seen.
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Doesn’t change the fact that moths do land on surfaces that were blackened by industrial soot, and that the population went from mostly white to mostly black moths during the time when industrial activity blackened the environment. You might as well claim that mountain lions don’t walk on four legs because someone staged a preserved mountain lion standing on four legs at a museum.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:1, topic:37088”]
And even if this were not the case, color changes are ubiquitous in nature as in chameleons, crustaceans, insects, cephalopods, flamingos, seasonally changing coats, and even sun tanning humans. If the argument is that color change is “speciation” (whatever that means), then the human races are also different species?
[/quote]
Show me a single person who has argued that the color change in peppered moths was an example of speciation. Otherwise, you are just beating on a strawman.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:1, topic:37088”]
Color changes as well as metabolic, antibiotic, antibiotic-resistance, and many other adaptations is what organisms do day in and day out. Yet none of these normal adaptations has ever been observed to cause transmutation into other organisms – the primary claim of Darwinism.
[/quote]
One step will not get you to the store, but repeating the process will. The same for speciation. A single genetic change will not cause speciation, but an accumulation of different genetic changes in different populations will result in speciation. It’s a simple concept, but you seem to want to misunderstand it.
I am reading “Darwin’s Missing Evidence” by Kettlewell here and I see no mention of fossils at all. In fact, Kettlewell says the following about Darwin’s missing evidence:
“Yet there were two fundamental gaps in his chain of evidence. First, Darwin had no knowledge of the mechanism of heredity. Second, he had no visible example of evolution at work in nature.”
Kettlewell offered the evolution of industrial melanism as an example that filled both those gaps. It didn’t have anything to do with fossils.
NonLinOrg’s perception of urgency seems to be shifting ever closer to the mean and nasty category.
He’s becoming increasingly incoherent. I figure the Moderators (@jpm, @christy, @Casper_Hesp ?) must be having the occasional chat with him.
He raises the question of the moths… and then when someone says his observation is wrong, he writes that it’s not about the moths, it’s about Darwin… and its racism?
There’s a difference between being kind and generous to overly terse antagonists, and just letting someone who is consistently inexplicable to just start abusing his correspondents.
If you NonLin was here any more… he would be happy to tell you why flu shots are not relevant to his objections.
He complains that many demonstrations of evolution - - which precisely state they are demonstrating shifts in allele ratios - - are not demonstrating speciation.
Ah… such a brilliant one. How true.
But when we did give him examples of speciation, he would say it wasn’t and we were being circular.
So, with folks who argue in this manner, one has to be paying close attention to whether plain ordinary “evolution” is being proved (any change in a population gene pool, including just changing proportions of alleles!) - - vs. “evolution” where Speciation is on the verge of occurring or did occur.
Plant speciation can be dramatically quick … it can happen in a single generation. But for some reason, evolutionists here avoid the plant kingdom … not their expertise! … and try to prove everything with animal genomes.
I think it’s time we started talking about plant speciation - - more good case studies there … with almost no other way to interpret the results!
True, George. I’ve brought up plants on occasion, having grown up on a farm where selective breeding of plants is necessary to make a living, but agree that it is interesting that no one really wants to talk about the plant kingdom.Perhaps if Noah had brought two of each plant on the ark…
