Wow, canid evolution. What a great topic. Evolutionists say that domestic dogs evolved from wolves. This means not just that there was change in the species over time, but that through evolutionary processes, new genetic material was added to differentiate domestic dogs from wolves.
On the other hand, a biblical creationist would find the best explanation to be that wolves, domestic dogs, coyotes, dingos, foxes and most or all canids are all descended from a common ancestor, the original created canid, or more recently, the pair of canids on Noah’s Ark. So both evolutionists and creationists accept speciation from a common ancestor, but posit differing and contradictory mechanisms.
The creationist expects that the speciation takes place from loss of information, or devolution. Each of the species (or sub-species) result from loss of genetic information, not an increase. How do we come to that conclusion? Most or all of the canids are inter-fertile, meaning that they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. And not to get into an argument about the meaning of words, but to promote understanding-- using a common definition of “species”—inter-fertility, these canids being inter-fertile means they are rather sub-species of the same species.
It also seems that in hybridization of the canids, as often happens, there is an increase in viability. There are canid hybrids, such as the coyote-wolf-domestic dog hybrids, that are stronger, faster, smarter and bigger than their parents. This indicates that the genome is reverting toward the original vigor through an increase in genetic information. And this increased genetic information does not come through evolutionary processes, but from remixing the existing information available in the greater gene pool.
Intelligent selection may also have been a factor in the development of the domestic dog in the first place. A further example of the loss of genetic information-- is the development of varieties in the domestic dog. Of course, this is a process of intelligent selection, not natural selection, but the following illustration is instructive.
There is a range of sizes from the Chihuahua to the Great Dane. One could breed Chihuahuas indefinitely and never come up with a Great Dane, because in the breeding of the smaller dog, the genetic information for “largeness” was lost. The same would apply to short and long haired dogs. The only way to breed shortest hair dogs back to long hair would be to interbreed them with longer hair dogs to replace the genetic information that was lost.
So here is a challenge for evolutionists. You have access to the research institutions, the genetic sequencing equipment in laboratories and the billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for research which creationists don’t have. And don’t tell us to get our own money and do our own research. Evolutionists already have lots of creationists’ money through grants of tax dollars. The amount of research funding for creationism from creationist tax dollars is essentially zero.
Here is the challenge—identify the genetic information from all the canids and make it available to all genetic researchers. As a creationist, I predict that the data will show that there is a loss of information that has resulted in speciation from a common ancestor. Evolutionists will posit that the speciation is a result of new information developed through evolutionary process. Research should be able to determine which prediction is correct.
Let’s do that for Darwin’s finches as well—get all the genetic data and make it available for research. As a creationist, I predict that the changes in beak sizes are primarily from genetic information already available in the finch populations, and not from new genetic information developed through evolutionary processes. The ability of an organism to adapt is a design feature, not an evolutionary genetic add on.
I almost wept when I read the article by an elderly couple that spent their lives researching the Galapagos finch population, only to conclude that evolutionary processes are much more rapid than previously thought. The most likely answer is that the changes over time are rapid because the genetic data needed for adaptation is already there in the gene pool. Then natural selection works on those adaptations. Tragically, a whole lifetime was dedicated to finding the wrong answer because of the defective presuppositions of an evolutionary worldview.
I guess that is an implicit affirmative to one of the options I listed, probably one of the latter two?
So fear-inspiring! Why don’t you visit an adult library and see what’s already been done.
Wonderful! So you are telling us that before the discovering paleontologist assigns a new name for the fossil they have dug out, they get information from museums ad excavation sites from all around the work, and utilize “X-Rays, CT scans, measurements, DNA analysis, chemical analysis, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. All kinds of stuff!” to assure that they have a unique fossil—one that has not already been named? Really? Are you also suggesting that these paleontologists already know about all the fossils that Werner documented, and stand by their calling their discovery a new species? That beggers belief. Wonderful! Where are your peer reviewed studies that show this?
And further, most fossils are fully permineralized. And you are telling us that researchers can do DNA and chemical analysis on these permineralized fossils? And then they can compare this with the DNA and chemical compostion of other permineralized fossils and currently living species to ascertain that they are related or not? And that they routinely do this? Wonderful! Where are your peer reviewed studies that show this?
Now we know that some fossils do have portions of DNA and soft tissue intact. Or maybe they are just biofilms. What do you think? Well, if they are just biofilms, then there is still no DNA or chemical analysis to help in the quest for comparison of fossils. There isn’t much left for that, is there?
And if there is actual DNA, where are the peer reviewed studies that show that there has been significant change over time with later fossils or “living fossils?”
Just thought I’d ask. Maybe photographic evidence is the best initial way of comparing fossils after all, and for most of them, all that is needed.
Well, if you want to further argue with Werner’s findings, maybe you ought to actually find out what he said and did by reading his book rather than arguing with me.
And when you ask for peer reviewed papers published in scientific journals, what you are asking is if evolutionists have published creationist findings in their evolutionary journals. Of course not, and in a few cases when they have, the editor lost their job. So much for the “self correcting nature of science.” It has been crushed by the sinful nature of humankind.
It’s a misleading half-truth. And as the proverb goes, a half truth is a whole lie.
Circular reasoning would be rock A being used to date fossil B and then fossil B being then used to date rock A, with no cross-checks or cross-references to anything else.
What happens in reality is that rocks A, B and C are first dated using multiple independent methods. radiometric and otherwise. These rocks are then used to date fossils D, E and F, which are then used to date rocks G, H and I. To claim that that is circular reasoning is quite simply patent nonsense if not outright lying.
No, they do not just “assume” that radiometric dating is correct. They test radiometric dating by cross-checking different methods against each other, and by carefully testing the mechanisms by which it works under laboratory conditions. And no, ages are not assigned, they are measured.
The problem here is that you aren’t addressing what exactly radiometric dating brings to the table. It doesn’t just confirm long ages; it makes the leap from vague initial estimates of long ages to much more precise figures. For example, you may start off with a rock that you can only identify as Triassic, so 250-200 million years old or so. Radiometric dating zooms in on that and narrows it down to a much more precise figure of, say, 231.3±0.8 million years. There’s nothing circular about that whatsoever.
The problem with you YECs is that you repeatedly take basic principles and practices of measurement that work the same in every area of science and twist them to make them look dishonest when they are not. Usually with a whole lot of hand-waves such as crying “assumptions” as if it were some sort of magic shibboleth, without even discussing what is supposedly being assumed or why.
No that is not how science progresses. Science does not just progress by “positions always changing.” Certainly, they do not change arbitrarily. Positions only change in science if new evidence demands that they do, and even then only in very controlled, methodical, and limited ways. Ways that have to be consistent with the basic rules and principles of how measurement works.
Well if the Earth really were just six thousand years old, there would be an abundance of T-Rex DNA. We would have sequenced the entire T-Rex genome by now. It would be so readily and abundantly available that even the most hardened “evolutionist” (as you snidely put it) would be unable to deny its existence. You’re talking about the same level of preservation as the woolly mammoths or bodies found in peat bogs here. If the Earth really is six thousand years old, where are the T-Rex carcasses in that state of preservation?
Then I wrote about canid evolution, and Dale responded:
Of course, another possible explanation is that unlike the infinite God, I am finite. So even if I wanted to respond to every comment and read every recommended document, I could not.
Here’s another possible explanation: In my finiteness, I also have to prioritize how I use my time. I have a life outside of the BioLogos Forum, including a wife, four children and 13 grandchildren and other interests.
And then there is an additional limitation, from the BL Forum itself, that I can only respond to three posts until one of mine has been responded to. So I have to choose what to respond to first and even if I want to respond. Thanks for allowing me to choose what I respond to.
Or of course, I could be lazy, in denial, delusional, unable to understand. I’ll let you decide.
Thanks for your understanding
Okay, I read the recommended paper. It is short as you promised. There are two assumptions that I can identify. First, that these shorter lived radioactive nuclides did exist but no longer do. The article does not tell us the evidence that they did at one time exist, only the evidence that they do not currently exist. And we are also not told where these radioactive nuclides came from in the first place. If they were generated by natural means, why are they no longer being generated by those same processes?
So C-14 is constantly decaying, but it is also being replenished by natural processes.
How do you support your assertions? From my understandings, these are nowhere near correct. In fact, just a couple of decades ago, deep time advocates would not have expected to find any DNA or soft tissues. They were shocked when these were discovered. Prior to this time, based on observations, it was held that this type of tissue could not survive more than 1000 years. Even biblical (sometimes called young earth) creationists were surprised. And now your assertion is that we would expect to find much more than we do.
Now that these intact soft tissues have been discovered, deep time advocates are scrambling to change their narrative and come up with plausible explanations. One such is Schweitzer’s hypothesis that they are preserved by the iron in the blood. That idea has been soundly demolished. (I am bracing for the predictable and inevitable flood of denials.)
So why is there more intact tissue for the Woolley Mammoths than the dinosaurs? The fossilized dinosaurs were buried during the flood of Noah’s time about 4500 years ago. They were buried during cataclysmic events, so are rarely found intact. And many of them are found in far less than ideal conditions, even very close to the surface and in areas that experience high temperatures. It is amazing that any DNA or soft tissue exists.
The Woolly Mammoths were most likely buried at the end of the Ice Age, which would have been about 3000 years ago. Assuming an exponential rate of decay which is reasonable, after 3000 years there would still be a lot more intact tissue than at 4500 years ago. So your observations help validate the biblical timescale. Further, the evidence is that the Mammoths most likely died of suffocation in severe dust storm conditions and were rapidly buried in dust. In addition, they have been subsequently preserved in low temperature conditions much more favorable for preservation. Hope this helps.
Interesting. I just obtained a book this weekend, "Frozen in Time, Woolly Mammoths, the Ice Age, and the Biblical Key to Their Secrets” You might want to obtain the book and read it too.
Well first of all let’s get our facts straight about what Mary Schweitzer actually found.
She did not find sequenceable DNA, and she did not find intact tissue. The soft tissue remnants that she found were partly mineralised and she had to soak them in a demineralising solution for a week to extract them. They only had the same structure as blood vessels, osteocytes and blood cells; they did not have the same chemical composition as blood vessels, osteocytes and blood cells. This is the first problem that I have with YEC claims about soft tissue in dinosaur fossils. They grossly exaggerate and misrepresent the state of preservation of the soft tissue remnants.
For what it’s worth, here’s a link to Schweitzer’s original paper.
Second, let’s get our facts straight about what scientists actually expected to find. Even if they were surprised to find the soft tissue remnants, they had no evidence or measurements to prove that this was impossible. This is the second problem that I have with YEC arguments. They latch on to every surprise, minor discrepancy and anomaly in mainstream science, blow it up out of all proportion, and trumpet it as evidence that hundreds of thousands of very well established, rigorously cross-checked, high precision measurements about the deep past are not just wrong but out by factors of up to a million in such a way as to all give the same wrong answers as each other. I’m sorry, but being wrong doesn’t work like that.
I’m sorry, but scrambling or not, the “plausible explanations” that scientists come up with are fully consistent with the known laws of physics and chemistry.
By contrast, the “plausible explanations” that young Earth science deniers have to scramble to change their narrative with consist of nuclear decay rates accelerated by a factor of a billion during Noah’s Flood. Besides the fact that this would have required highly coordinated and fine-tuned changes in the fundamental laws of physics and constants of nature, it would also have raised the temperature of the Earth to 22,000°C if it had actually happened. And that was the young Earth researchers’ own admission.
Seriously, young Earth cries of “rescuing devices” or “scrambling around” are a case of trying to take a speck of dust out of “evolutionists” eyes while having a Travis Perkins sawmill in your own.
Mary Schweitzer’s T-Rex and hadrosaur weren’t. They were found buried several metres underground, and the soft tissue remnants were found in large, near-intact bones that had effectively acted like a sealed canister. And even then the soft tissue remnants were partly permineralised.
Go back and read for meaning. I was answering your question.
Have you been in a coma? Sometimes we can get DNA from fossils. We even have sequenced the complete genome of our Neanderthal and Denisovan relatives.
The natural means is the interior of a sun. Last time I looked the Earth doesn’t fit that description. A creationist would be tempted to say God just created the Earth missing those elements, but why just the ones with short half-lives? And their daughter products are found which is a strong indication that the parent element has simply decayed away.
C-14 results from cosmic rays hitting nitrogen in the atmosphere. A very different process that produces an element with an extremely short half-life.
And you didn’t identify an assumption. Just information that was left out as it is generally known.
That is exactly the point.
It does tell us this:
This is not by measuring isotopic ratios and calculating an age, but from a simple unbiased atomic sampling of our corner of the known universe.
There is evidence of their prior existence, but that is more involved than I am prepared to pursue. If you are interested in further reading, I would suggest this,
and looking at some of these: extinct nuclides found elsewhere in the cosmos.
They are, but nowhere close to the earth, thankfully! They are formed by cosmic processes such as star collisions and star death. Here’s an example:
YEC ‘Flood geology’ has no way of explaining the facts about the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. Here is a well done and short video (5:34) here at BioLogos:
(Ken Wolgemuth was involved in producing that, too.)
If Werner is so well studied on the science, then why does he think finding bird and mammal fossils alongside dinosaur fossils is so devastating to the theory of evolution when it is clearly not?
Examples???
Before radiometric dating fossils were used to identify the relative position of geologic layers. Conclusions about deep time were not derived from the fossils themselves but from their understanding of how long it takes for those types of geologic formations to form.
The accuracy of radiometric dating is not assumed. It is continually cross checked and geologists are continually trying to discover any errors in the methods.
Like what?
What evidence would change your position?
What features would a fossil need in order to change your mind?
What features would a geologic formation need in order to change your mind?
“A biblical creationist” is the basic problem of your argument. You accept the claim that creation science is biblical and alternatives are not, and therefore accept the creation science claims. But an actual biblical creationist will carefully seek to understand and apply the entire teaching of the Bible. Biblical references to science are largely incidental and often vague, because it’s generally not theologically important. But the Bible is quite clear about issues such as ethics. Regrettably, it is true that all advocates of creation science are in violation of the 9th commandment (whether deliberately misrepresenting or by neglect of due diligence to investigate claims before repeating them). Not that all others are truthful, but the evidence of science clearly and unambiguously points to a vast age for the earth, as was discovered in the late 1600’s through the 1700’s. Creation science claims that Genesis 1 has to be interpreted as a modern scientific source, putting too much importance on science. Its roots are in the radical reformation error of reading the Bible not merely for oneself, but by oneself - without regard for the insights of others, especially those from other cultural settings (e.g., at other times in church history) who are likely to better see the logs in our eyes. Science is merely our best effort to understand the ordinary workings of the physical creation, but we must be honest about what it indicates.
Also, creation science has followed the path of inventing piecemeal attacks on science rather than putting in the serious effort to honestly examine the evidence, testing both their own claims and those of other views in an effort to develop a coherent, overall explanation. It’s propaganda rather than actually developing a valid case, and must be thrown out wholesale to have any hope of actually developing a viable young-earth model. For example, you accuse me of undue dismissal, yet you are making numerous unsubstantiated claims against honest old-earth geology and paleontology. Making a credible case requires examination of the evidence. I have organized major collections at several museums behind the scenes and probably have spent more time in the back than in the public areas at the Smithsonian, for example. I have also collected fossils in several countries. I have looked at the evidence and can confirm that the claims of Werner are false, slandering the work of many Christians as well as others.
“The creationist expects that the speciation takes place from loss of information, or devolution. Each of the species (or sub-species) result from loss of genetic information, not an increase. How do we come to that conclusion?” By relying on the false claim that no new genetic information can be formed without intelligent intervention. Ironically, there’s no particular reason for such an expectation, and you yourself contradict it a bit later by describing two ways of increasing genetic information. New genetic information is created all the time. You are not genetically identical to either of your parents, due both to the mixing of information from both parental genomes creating new combinations and to the mutations that create new information. Of course, you are pretty similar to them; the amount of new information in a single such event is generally not all that large, but it is new information generated by evolutionary processes. The claim that new genetic information cannot be produced by natural processes is clearly false, a mere invention of antievolutionary wishful thinking, promoted by repeated insistence that it is a fact rather than by serious consideration or examination of evidence. Likewise, the denial that these are evolutionary processes is false rhetoric, merely to keep up the pretension that evolution is being opposed while admitting that it is happening. One might honestly point out that these are relatively small-scale evolutionary changes, but they are evolutionary.
Note that such small-scale genetic changes between different canids are similar to the scale of genetic changes between apes and humans.
Hybridization in canids is not unusual within a genus, but does not seem to have been recorded beyond that. I.e., wolves (including dogs), coyotes, and jackals have a level of interbreeding capacity, but those can’t breed with foxes (which include several genera) or raccoon dogs or African wild dogs. Hybrids sometimes have features that are advantageous, though “advantageous” depends on the particular situation and is not easy to pin down. But they often have disadvantages, particularly in more complex animals where mate choice becomes a factor. In general, biologists have tended away from “can fertile offspring ever be produced by crossing these two populations?” to "is there evidence that these populations are not mixing much reproductively? As would be expected evolutionarily, there is a range of degrees of separation as new species, genera, etc. are evolving all the time. Hybridization can provide new genetic information, as you note, sometimes leading to unexpected results that can become a new species. Domestic dogs have a variety of features, which can result from new genetic information or from losses. Both happen; the claim that it is all loss is simply an antievolutionary myth. A good example of an evolutionary gain in information is the development of 3 color vision in primates. Primates generally have at least two different color sensors, one in the blue range and one in the red-green range. Mutations in the red/green -sensitive pigment can make it sensitive to either one. Duplication of that gene plus modification of one copy allows what we as humans consider normal color vision, though many animals have a wider assortment of color-sensing options.
In reality, one could breed chihuahuas and eventually get to a large dog - simply pick the biggest puppies and breed those. I don’t know of anyone bothering with chihuahuas, but it was done in the other direction to breed miniature horses, and significant size changes can be seen in experiments where animals are put into a new environment (such as putting tree lizards on small treeless islands or fish into new water bodies).
The claim that evolutionary studies are rolling in cash is mythical. I would like to be able to sequence a few genes for several snails and clams, if I had any research money. But Canidae - Genome - NCBI shows that genomes of seven species of canid are publicly available. New information developed through evolutionary processes is commonly discussed in papers published about genomes. Research already available shows that your prediction is incorrect, though your prediction is also based merely on a currently popular antievolutionary mantra and not on any inherent principle in a model of separate creation of “kinds”. Although only two species of Darwin’s finches seem to have genomic data so far, there are 118,221 sequences available in GenBank for the family that they belong to, so it is possible to do some analysis of that data. Change in beak form does reflect new information based on the available data.
The data are available. Creation science organizations take in a lot of money (and Answers in Genesis is getting tax support as a tourist attraction); they could do the analyses and check whether their claims are true. That would be a necessary prerequisite for being honest.
I am not surprised that the teaching Werner received on evolution was not very good. By only accepting the claims coming from within the anti-evolutionary community, you are insulating yourself in your position.
“We all share the same data” is not particularly true; even if it were, it would contradict many young-earth claims. More fundamentally, there are two contradictory claims made by young-earth and anti-evolutionary sources. One is that the data are ambiguous and the interpretation depends on one’s presuppositions. The other is that the data support their positions. If it were purely a matter of presuppositions interpreting data that could be read either way, then the data aren’t really telling anything and other lines of evidence are needed to decide between the options. If the data actually supported their positions, then it would be something obvious to people who looked carefully, no matter what their starting position was. But the reality is that the data clearly and unambiguously support an ancient earth and extensive use of evolution in the process of creating new kinds of organisms. (Age of the earth is a more yes/no question; “do evolutionary mechanisms describe every single case” is not possible to answer exhaustively and thus gets a more qualified description.) The data are available to everyone, but the young-earth and antievolutionary advocates do not pay much attention to it and often reject it. Yes, Werner went all over the globe, taking lots of photos and spending lots of money. No, he did not do the work right or properly document it. Examination of the fossils in detail will show whether things are different or not; making a book of photos claimed to not show differenced from modern organisms will fool people who aren’t knowledgeable about comparative anatomy and systematics.
Dogs have been specially bred to have a wide range of odd features, many of which would not be useful in the wild. Although it is possible that some things thought to be different species are actually varieties of a single species, there are many things that are clearly not the same. Young-earth claims that trilobites are no different from modern isopods, for example, are untrue - there are a number of significant differences. Fossils not kept are generally those too small to notice, in bad condition, or “the museum does not need 10,000 Mulinia congesta”. I just brought back several buckets of sediment to search for fossils - I am not leaving anything because it looks too recent.
I doubt that there are many paleontologists who have the money to travel to as many museums as the Werners did. But there are many who have studied particular fossils in far more depth than the Werners did. I have found several new species, and have had the time to publish about a few of them. It hasn’t done much for my reputation and career; most of the new taxa I have named don’t even show up on the wiki that’s supposed to be aimed at documenting species descriptions. True, there are people out there who name all sorts of things without proper investigation; that does something to their reputation. But serious paleontology requires careful investigation. You may not be able to visit all the museums, but researching the published literature will give you a grasp of what species are known and the patterns of variation. Visiting the museums within your reach will help. Sorting through large numbers of specimens (if they exist) gives you an understanding of the variation. If, after doing that sort of examination, you conclude that your specimen is different from the known species, then you can reasonably describe a new species.
Some species have changed very slowly; others more rapidly. Here in the eastern US, very few of the marine mollusk species from 3.5 million years ago are identical to modern species, but the survivorship has been a little higher in western Europe. Werner’s claims of “indistinguishable”, however, are not very reliable - he has not investigated the details of the fossils. Lingulid brachiopods have shown relatively little change for around 500 million years - there is some change and they are not indistinguishable - but not much. They have found a life habit that works and continued in it, in a habitat that has existed throughout the past 500 million years. The claim that the fossils were catastrophically buried is usually untrue. Few fossils show evidence of burial in anything other than ordinary conditions, perhaps a hurricane or landslide. The catastrophic effects of a global flood as imagined by modern young-earth advocates would destroy the earth, not to mention the fossils; it is far too catastrophic to match what is observed for any specimens. Evolution expects some things to change more than others - depending on whether their features do or don’t work in the environment. The basic idea that things not changing represents a challenge to evolution is wrong.
There are some young-earthers and some antievolutionists who sit on their duff and don’t do any field work; but that is also true of some not in those categories. I don’t know if any are in it for the money; if I wanted to be in something for the money I’d have abandoned mollusk paleontology long ago.
I have wasted considerable time examining numerous claims of young-earth and anti-evolutionary sources without finding a single case of a good argument; I also can name plenty of evolutionary arguments that are not good. I do examine the evidence.
There are vast collection of photos available, of all sorts of fossils. Here’s one that’s online and free: https://neogeneatlas.net/ (though if there were better funding for paleontology, it could be improved). Looking at them shows that Werner’s claims are incorrect; the supposedly indistinguishable fossils are often of totally different types of organisms.
There are people with impressive-sounding credentials whose work is no good, and people without formal academic credentials who do good work. Werner did not do extensive field work; he went to a bunch of museums and dig sites but did not do field work himself. One can get legitimate results that way, but your claims are not accurately worded.
Overall. your claims involve quite a lot of slander of me and other paleontologists, as is true of young-earth claims generally. Think more carefully before making such accusations.
Here is an example where in the wolf to dog transition there is gain of information:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/diet-shaped-dog-domestication
From my calculations, more like 15 million, except that to increase the decay rate, you would also have to decrease the energy involved (binding energy), which would make every atom larger than hydrogen disintegrate, and make fusion impossible.
Now, there are recent land snails mixed in, which we do not include in studies of the fossil fauna, but they are obviously that: recent land snails that lived in the quarry, died, and had their shells incorporated into the sediment. The taphonomy is obviously distinct: finding translucent brown land snail shells is not the same as finding Santeevoluta in the Waccamaw. Which should happen if the claims about age-mixing are accurate.