Please Define Evolutionary Creationism? I am finding the Biologos website articles defining it a bit vague. Im left with more questions than answers

[T_aquaticus]

@RichardG

No, I am saying that if you predict you are jaundicing the findings. You find what you “expect” because you are not looking for anything else.

So the fossil with a dinosaur skeleton and feathers doesn’t actually exist? It’s just made up?

Also, do you reject all scientific theories based on this same criticism?

@RichardG

And exactly how are you going to "test " it?

Against you predictions?

That is circular.

That’s what hypothesis testing is. You make predictions of what you should see and shouldn’t see if the hypothesis is correct. You then test it against observations in nature. This is how ALL of science is done. Do you reject all of science?

@RichardG

All I am saying is that consensus can be proved wrong when the information changes. It means nothing.

So if we changed our minds and accepted your claims you would immediately reject your own claims because it became a scientific consensus?

@RichardG

You keep going back to that loop hole. It works inside the lab, it does not work outside it.

Then you reject all of science?

@RichardG

Always the same. We predict, ToE predicts. Woo care what yo predict if you cannot actually prove it!

People seem to care quite a bit given the acceptance of the scientific method.

@RichardG

The general size of a bird when compared with the general size of a dinosaur would indicate, to many, that they are not in the least bit related.

Yes, except for the dinosaurs that were bird sized. For example:

[Roy]

@RichardG

@T_aquaticus

we can predict what we should see and not see in the present if species share a common ancestor

Yeah very scientific

It is. That’s exactly how science works. Advance an idea, make a prediction based on that idea, check the preduction against what can be seen.

Apparently you don’t know this.

@T_aquaticus

This is a testable scientific hypothesis

And how exactly ae you going to witness it?

By looking at the observable effects resulting from a process that is not directly observable. This is, again, basic science which you apparently do not know.

@T_aquaticus

physical reality does trump their interpretation of God and scripture:

ToE is not a physical reality.

No-one has ever claimed that the theory of evolution is a physical reality, because theories are not physical.

This is yet another bit of basic science of which you are still unaware.

It is still a hypothesis And cannot be witnessed

No hypothesis can be witnessed, because hypotheses are ideas, not physical objects.

There doesn’t seem to be a single scientific concept or term you understand. Everything you say about science is wrong.

@T_aquaticus

Evolution is consensus science

So was the flat earth

No it wasn’t. The Earth was known to be round a very long time before the scientific approach began to be used widely enough to produce a consensus on anything.

A duck billed Platapus,: does it’s beak make it directly related to birds?

No, because it’s beak is only superficially shaped like a duck’s beak.

Literally everything you say about science is not only wrong, but betrays a fundamental ignorance not just of scientific ideas and knowledge, but also of the methods involved. Yet you claim to have qualifications in science . What were they, grade ‘D’ at CSE?

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@T_aquaticus

Yes, except for the dinosaurs that were bird sized. For example:

Hey - I’d like to try out a prediction (for real!) - from a question that your diagram provokes for me (and perhaps for @RichardG 's benefit so he can see how this works - even with my trivial example…). Evolutionary biologists here will all laugh at this because they will already know the answer, and I could easily look it up myself (but I haven’t) - so in that trivial sense, here is a real ‘prediction’ I’d like to propose; and the ‘testing’ will be whether reality matches my prediction or does not.

Prediction: So those little, almost useless looking, forelimbs shown on the small dinosaur species in your diagram - I don’t remember seeing any such things on any of our present-day avian friends, so natural selection must have done away with those, right? And if so, are there present day avians (birds) (or perhaps some fossil transition species) that show any signs on their frontal rib cage structures that still have some vestigial accomodation for those forelimbs, even as they disappeared from external appearance? (Sort of like the vestigial hind limbs found in whale skeletons but not seen on the outside)? My prediction is that there should be some.

Now … I’ll wait for responses here to see if I’m right. (I know - I’m being lazy and could look this up for myself - but … it’s more fun this way.)

[T_aquaticus]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

So those little, almost useless looking, forelimbs shown on the small dinosaur species in your diagram - I don’t remember seeing any such things on any of our present-day avian friends, so natural selection must have done away with those, right?

Microraptor has much more pronounced forelimbs.

And Microraptor was about the size of a chicken.

Bird forelimbs are the same forelimbs found on non-avian dinosaurs (theropod dinosaurs to be specific).

At the same time, there are birds that don’t have forelimbs (aka wings). They include the extinct moa and the modern kiwi.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

Ok - I’m feeling pretty silly! … of course the ‘forelimbs’ turned into wings! (the opposite of going away!) … Hypothesis discarded … thanks for your patience with dumb questions and ‘predictions!’ Since reality didn’t match my temporary ‘mental map’ there … I think I’ll choose to revise my mental map - and go with reality.

[T_aquaticus]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Ok - I’m feeling pretty silly! … of course the ‘forelimbs’ turned into wings! (the opposite of going away!) … Hypothesis discarded … thanks for your patience with dumb questions and ‘predictions!’ Since reality didn’t match my temporary ‘mental map’ there … I think I’ll choose to revise my mental map - and go with reality.

There’s nothing wrong with honest questions. I’m sure I’ve asked some pretty stupid questions about modern Christianity here and there.

All vertebrates are tetrapods (four feet) with some who have lost one pair of limbs. I don’t know of any tetrapods that have evolved a 3rd pair of limbs or a new pair of limbs to replace lost ones. This is why biologists often chuckle at dragons with four limbs and two wings since that is not how it would work.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@T_aquaticus

So the fossil with a dinosaur skeleton and feathers doesn’t actually exist? It’s just made up?

Where on earth do you read that from what I wrote?

@T_aquaticus

Also, do you reject all scientific theories based on this same criticism?

Why do you insist on bringing in other science?

@T_aquaticus

You then test it against observations in nature

Go on then. Show me the natural births and successions you are claiming!

@T_aquaticus

Do you reject all of science?

Stop asking the same question. I have answered it, many times!

@T_aquaticus

So if we changed our minds and accepted your claims you would immediately reject your own claims because it became a scientific consensus?

Now you are being just plain silly

Clearly you have not understood anything i have said

@T_aquaticus

@RichardG

You keep going back to that loop hole. It works inside the lab, it does not work outside it.

Then you reject all of science?

NO!b stop bringing up other science!

I am saying that you claim about theories is a scientific view. People outside science would not know it and just take it as proven fact. Because that is what they would expect a fact to be.

@T_aquaticus

People seem to care quite a bit given the acceptance of the scientific method.

FCOL Will you listen! and understand! (clearly not)

ToE does not abide by the scientific method. It cannot. You cannot observe what you are claiming.

@T_aquaticus

Yes, except for the dinosaurs that were bird sized. For example

One example. I said the general. Or the Average, or the majority. Even the size of Archaeopterix. Are you incapable of understanding any principle? (Or plain English)

@Roy

It is. That’s exactly how science works.

I answered that above.

@Roy

Apparently you don’t know this

No you just ccan’t be bothered to read what i write. ( or understand it)

@Roy

By looking at the observable effects resulting from a process that is not directly observable

Nice try. But…

You cannot observe the actual things you are claiming.

You cannot trace a family line or witness the births. You are just “guessing”. You compare fossils. And then “guess the rest. Or should I say “surmise”, or Calculate”, Postulate, or some other technical word for guessing.

@Roy

No-one has ever claimed that the theory of evolution is a physical reality, because theories are not physical

Are you going to play linguistics as well?

You know perfectly well what I am driving at and you just refuse to accept it as valid.

@Roy

This is yet another bit of basic science of which you are still unaware.

Wrong again.

But I am not in a science environment as you were quick to point out earlier.

All you rlingo, and scientfic definitions are not valid. Facts mean fact (not theories) And last time I looked Evolution was about a physical process. And you are claiming it as real = Physical reality.

@Roy

No hypothesis can be witnessed, because hypotheses are ideas, not physical objects

Scientific jargon.

@Roy

Everything you say about science is wrong.

No.

Everything you say about science is within the scientific understanding and within science. Outside of the scientific circles words do not mean the same. And you take advantage of this.

@Roy

The Earth was known to be round a very long time before the scientific approach began to be used widely enough to produce a consensus on anything

Again you are just diverting. You know what i mean.

@Roy

Literally everything you say about science is not only wrong, but betrays a fundamental ignorance not just of scientific ideas and knowledge,

I know what you think. And you insult me everyy time you repeat it.

@Roy

What were they, grade ‘D’ at CSE?

No. tat would mean I failed. And, as I told you I took Biology to collegic level. I took physics to A level and passed Chemistry GCE.

Not that it is any of your business to question such things.

The fact is I see through your scientific jargon and smokescreen and you do not like it.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Ok - I’m feeling pretty silly!

Don’t be.

The trouble is that the predictions are based on combining features from different (disparate) skeletons and then claiming each one progresses in some form or another. IOW You will find a dinosaur with an enlarged sturnum, Or pronounced forearms, or feathers, or… etc, etc, etc, but they combine to form a bird. And then shrink so that birds can fly easier (large birds accepted) And of course feathers are not specialist for flying at all are they!

My point is that it is still circumstantial and has only really been postulated since DNA comparisons When we were younger birds had their own beginnings away from dinosaurs.

The main problem is that scientists do not like to be questioned by non scientists, They take offence and claim superior knowledge, understanding and principle. Sort of ad hominum for scientists.

It is the volume of their offence that speaks volumes.

Richard

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

It is strange how people single out this one theory of evolution in this way to complain that God has no part in it.

The same people tend to be fervently opposed to the Big Bang as well.

@TomS

The Bible has all the appearances of being produced in, for an audience of, Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Cultures.

Which, given the Incarnation, should not be a surprise.

@knor

Your claim suggests much knowledge about the nature and plans of God. Do we really know what kind of creation reflects the nature of God?

Definitely.

@RichardG

Stepwise cannot cross certain divides.

Why? You’ve never made a solid argument on this.

@RichardG

I am claiming that ToE is based on random, and that theistic evolution is based on Intelligent mechanisms.(with lattitude) Parameters that guide and channel.

Statistically natural selection is an intelligent mechanism that guides and channels.

Why isn’t that a sufficient mechanism for God’s input?

@TomS

How about the probabilities in forecasting weather,

We can’t see past weather, we can only roughly see current weather, so it is really just as uncertain as evolution.

@TomS

Is God going to determine that some particular gene is going to be favored?

And if He did, would we even be able to tell?

Something that struck me about that friend’s work that said only seven mutations were required to get from single-celled animal to humans was that it was a minimum; it leaves the question of what might be the maximum numbers of interventions God could have made and it wouldn’t rise above background noise.

As Richard said–

I do not know how much chance is built into the system.

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

If you strip away the details the underlying impression is that it is the shape and form that is being reffered to.

Sure, if you read it from a MSWV rather than its actual worldview.

@RichardG

There is no reason with ToE for there not to be a Griffin, or a Manticore, or a Pegasus, IOW there are parameters or guidelines that defy chance,

Really? Do you have a mechanism for such developments? Statistically and genetically those are less likely than there having been complex life on Mars.

@knor

If creation of you in your mother’s womb is the work of God, why could not the creation of humans through evolutionary processes be God’s work?

Prezactly.

@RichardG

Science is about knowing. It is the need to know. That is the antithesis of faith.

Knowing and faith go hand in hand. Indeed faith requires knowing!

@Mervin_Bitikofer

So I wouldn’t single out ‘science’ as this one problem child or uniquely driven enterprise whose adherents just “need to know everything.” It’s a human condition.

Amen.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Somehow, curiosity is one of God’s great gifts to us I think … not to be squelched.

Some have conjectured that God created out of curiosity – to see what creatures with their own wills would decide to do.

@RichardG

I know some will Quote
Before you were born I knew you, and chose you
as some sort proof that God is right at the root of all things, but I am not a Jew, and do not see God as manipulative as Judaism does.

This strikes me as a bit antisemitic.
And judgmental, again, over scripture. Dismissing parts of it as “Judaism” is ridiculous.

@RichardG

If you strip back Genesis 1 it is precisely that view that it is trying to overthrow.

ToE isn’t trying to “overthrow” anything – ToE doesn’t CARE about Genesis!

@T_aquaticus

If a map and your own observations of geography do not agree, is it the map or the territory that is wrong? Obviously, it’s the map.

Most frequently in actual life, it’s the assessment of the map and/or one’s observations. I’ve watched with fascination as people misread a map, wrongly judged what features they were seeing around them, and confidently gotten even more lost.
Interestingly, in one of the worst cases the error they made was common enough that the wilderness rangers had set up markers to get people back to the proper path. Well, it was interesting to me; the others were freaking out and then were upset at having made a substantial detour (I’d hiked the main trail several times so I enjoyed the wandering).

@RichardG

It is not the same reality as a gem or even an atom. It is historic, and therefore beyond your vision.

Much of science is historic – geology, astronomy, cosmology . . . .

@RichardG

No, I am saying that if you predict you are jaundicing the findings. You find what you “expect” because you are not looking for anything else.

That’s nonsense – there’s no possible way to only find the fossils you expect.

@RichardG

We predict, ToE predicts. Woo care what yo predict if you cannot actually prove it!

That statement demonstrates that though you may have had science courses, you do not at all understand science.

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

Everything you say about science is within the scientific understanding and within science.

That’s how everything in the world works – if you talk about golfing, you use the definitions of words that golfing uses; if you talk about concrete, you use the definitions of words that pertain to concrete; if you talk about law, you get confused because confusing things is what lawyers do best.

@RichardG

Outside of the scientific circles words do not mean the same. And you take advantage of this.

No – they quite properly use scientific definitions when talking about science. You’re the one trying to talk about science while using different definitions! – which happens to be a logical fallacy.

@RichardG

@Roy

Literally everything you say about science is not only wrong, but betrays a fundamental ignorance not just of scientific ideas and knowledge,

I know what you think. And you insult me everyy time you repeat it.

If a fact is an insult to you, fine. I wouldn’t go so far as “everything you say about science is . . . wrong”, but the second clause of that statement is, by the evidence here, quite accurate when you talk about evolution as well as a lot of other science.

@RichardG

The fact is I see through your scientific jargon and smokescreen and you do not like it.

The fact is that you plainly don’t know what the scientific method is, what a hypothesis is, what a theory is, what testing predictions is, because you make erroneous statements about them over and over and over.

I don’t care if you don’t believe the ToE, I just care that you get things right when you talk about it.

@RichardG

The trouble is that the predictions are based on combining features from different (disparate) skeletons and then claiming each one progresses in some form or another. IOW You will find a dinosaur with an enlarged sturnum, Or pronounced forearms, or feathers, or… etc, etc, etc, but they combine to form a bird. And then shrink so that birds can fly easier (large birds accepted) And of course feathers are not specialist for flying at all are they!

There’s a superb example – you got every single concept involved wrong.

Just for one item, “progression” is a conclusion from examining fossils.

And feathers probably started out as fuzz on the skin, which served as insulation. But on a forelimb of a dinosaur raptor, that fuzz made those forelimbs more useful for traveling – and the development was on.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

Stepwise cannot cross certain divides.

Why? You’ve never made a solid argument on this.

I have, but you do not accept them

@St.Roymond

Statistically natural selection is an intelligent mechanism that guides and channels

And you claim that I do not undrstand?

Natural selection is secondary. it only works with what has already been created. It is the cause of deviation that matters,

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

If you strip away the details the underlying impression is that it is the shape and form that is being reffered to.

Sure, if you read it from a MSWV rather than its actual worldview.

And why is that wrong? I am a person living now. I have to understand it within my view. Isn’t that the same as changing 6 days to millions because of science? You can’t have it both ways!

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

There is no reason with ToE for there not to be a Griffin, or a Manticore, or a Pegasus, IOW there are parameters or guidelines that defy chance,

Really? Do you have a mechanism for such developments?

Random deviation. if a bird can have wings, why not a horse? If avians came from Dinosaurs, why can’t other offspring develop them? In terms of how it is portrayed there is no scientific reason for such developments.to not occur elsewhere.

You seem to have less knowledge about evolution that you claim, or at least the understanding of the mechanisms involved. (Back to conceptualisation!)

@St.Roymond

Knowing and faith go hand in hand. Indeed faith requires knowing!

Should I quote Paul’s definition of faith to you?

Perhaps there is a difference between knowing because you observe (scientific) and knowing because you believe (faith). But that still shows the difference between science and religion. (and their opposite views)

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

I am not a Jew, and do not see God as manipulative as Judaism does.

This strikes me as a bit antisemitic.

No it is pragmatism, even observation and understanding. You cannot read Scripture and not see it.

@St.Roymond

And judgmental, again, over scripture

No, Scripture just shows what the writers believe. What you do with that information is a matter of personal understanding and belief. God has given me freedom to behave as i wish, I am not a Christian because He willed it. I am a Christian because I believe in it. That is how I see it. Sue me.

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

If you strip back Genesis 1 it is precisely that view that it is trying to overthrow.

ToE isn’t trying to “overthrow” anything – ToE doesn’t CARE about Genesis!

If you cannot understand the basics, why do you claim authority?

Besides I never claimed ToE was trying to overthrow, ToE is naturalistic. It describes natural process to create without the direct influence of God. Therefore it is theisitcally opposed to Genesis 1. it is doctrinally different to Genesis 1. it is conceptually different from Genesis 1. It is a different method of thinking to Genesis 1. It has nothing to do with God. God is not mentioned or accounted for. It denies Genesis 1…

@St.Roymond

Much of science is historic – geology, astronomy, cosmology

In a different manner. Again, it is you lack of conceptualisation that gives you this view, Besides, there is nothing in Geology, or meteorology, or Astronomy that actually denies God, They are ambivallent. The causes are known, but the cause of the causes?

You claim to be able t see God in ToE as the cause of the changes, but that relies on you dismissing the word Random and replacing it with God. Once you do so, you are no longer abiding by the mechanisms of ToE. If God is the reason for a techtonic plate movement, how are we to know? Does it matter? No! If God causes deviations, that matters.

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

No, I am saying that if you predict you are jaundicing the findings. You find what you “expect” because you are not looking for anything else.

That’s nonsense – there’s no possible way to only find the fossils you expect.

I am not claiming you invent or look for specific data. It is how you assess or use it that is in question. Fossils are. ToE isn’t.

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

We predict, ToE predicts. Who cares what you predict if you cannot actually prove it!

That statement demonstrates that though you may have had science courses, you do not at all understand science

Back to the old insults. So I will repeat mine.

You fail to understand the concepts behind your science.

IOW you trot them out in blind belief that they are right a bit like your use of Scripture.

Richard

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@St.Roymond

there’s no possible way to only find the fossils you expect.

As evidenced by the fact that my research has found about 40 genera not previously known from the western Atlantic in one fossiliferous layer from the early Pleistocene.

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@RichardG

dismissing the word Random and replacing it with God.

How could one dismiss randomness and replace it with God? “Random” does not mean “without cause” in any scientific usage; it means some subset of “not observably deterministic” (like much of quantum mechanics) or “observably deterministic, but so dependent on initial conditions that it is impossible to predict” (like dice rolls or weather). It says absolutely nothing about the cause of the event.

@RichardG

that actually denies God

There is nothing in any component of science whatsoever that could deny God, by the very nature of science. Science cannot observe God, and thus it cannot say anything about Him, other than statements like “God did not make the Earth with a mass of 10^30 kg”.

@RichardG

if a bird can have wings, why not a horse? If avians came from Dinosaurs, why can’t other offspring develop them? In terms of how it is portrayed there is no scientific reason for such developments.to not occur elsewhere.

The reason is that it has happened where it has, and hasn’t happened where it hasn’t. Probably the biggest reason that ungulates haven’t ended up with wings is that none of them are bipedal or great at climbing trees. It is impossible to predict the long-term future of evolutionary processes (thus, why they are stochastic/random).

[T_aquaticus]

@RichardG

ToE does not abide by the scientific method. It cannot. You cannot observe what you are claiming.

You don’t observe the hypothesis or the theory. That’s not how science works.

No theory in science is observed, including all of the scientific theories you currently accept.

@RichardG

One example. I said the general. Or the Average, or the majority. Even the size of Archaeopterix. Are you incapable of understanding any principle?

So you agree there were bird sized dinosaurs. So now what? What does that mean for your argument?

@RichardG

You cannot trace a family line or witness the births. You are just “guessing”. You compare fossils. And then “guess the rest. Or should I say “surmise”, or Calculate”, Postulate, or some other technical word for guessing.

We are testing hypotheses which is the scientific method.

You can reject the scientific method if you wish. All that we ask is that you not misrepresent what the method is or how science works.

@RichardG

But I am not in a science environment as you were quick to point out earlier.

When you claim something isn’t scientific you are in the science environment. It would be the same if you said someone was a Christian heretic. You are now in the environment of Christian theology.

@RichardG

The trouble is that the predictions are based on combining features from different (disparate) skeletons and then claiming each one progresses in some form or another.

False. We can’t know if a fossil has descendants, what those descendants looked like, or what the ancestors of the fossil looked like. That’s not what we are doing. What we are doing is testing a hypothesis.

Hypothesis: If two lineages share a common ancestor then there should have been a species in the past that had a mixture of features from both lineages. This species could be in the direct line of descent or a side branch that preserved the features found in the direct line of descent. As Darwin put it:

In looking for the gradations by which an organ in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal ancestors; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced in each case to look to species of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same original parent-form, in order to see what gradations are possible, and for the chance of some gradations having been transmitted from the earlier stages of descent, in an unaltered or little altered condition.
–Charles Darwin, “Origin of Species”

Experiment: Dig up fossils and compare them to living species and other fossils.

Observations: The mixture of features in fossils.

Conclusions: The predictions made by the hypothesis are supported.

@RichardG

My point is that it is still circumstantial and has only really been postulated since DNA comparisons When we were younger birds had their own beginnings away from dinosaurs.

It was postulated after the discovery of Archaeopteryx in the 1800’s, well before we knew anything about DNA. They found a fossil with a mixture of features from birds and dinosaurs which is what you would expect to see if birds evolved from dinosaurs.

@RichardG

The main problem is that scientists do not like to be questioned by non scientists, They take offence and claim superior knowledge, understanding and principle. Sort of ad hominum for scientists.

I don’t mind being questioned at all. In fact, I enjoy it which is why I hang around here.

The things that frustrate me is people who ignore facts and people who misrepresent how science works. That’s not me being questioned. That’s just misrepresentation.

[T_aquaticus]

@St.Roymond

Most frequently in actual life, it’s the assessment of the map and/or one’s observations. I’ve watched with fascination as people misread a map, wrongly judged what features they were seeing around them, and confidently gotten even more lost.

I was thinking of the map that has the island of California.

[T_aquaticus]

@RichardG

Natural selection is secondary. it only works with what has already been created. It is the cause of deviation that matters,

We can observe those causes happening right now, even in humans. We can observe where these causes produce differences between parents and their children. When we measure how those mutations affect fitness we find they lower fitness in some cases while being neutral in most cases. A few are also beneficial. Statistically, the mutations we observe happening right now are random with respect to fitness in the same way that we would observe the outcome of a roulette spin is random with respect to where the bets are made.

@RichardG

Random deviation. if a bird can have wings, why not a horse? If avians came from Dinosaurs, why can’t other offspring develop them? In terms of how it is portrayed there is no scientific reason for such developments.to not occur elsewhere.

Other lineages have evolved wings, but you will notice that those other wings are very different, and only bird wings have feathers.

If the descendant of a horse did evolve wings then we would expect an already existing limb to be adapted to flight (not a 3rd pair of limbs as in the case of a pegasus), and we expect those adaptations to be unique to the horse lineage just as the bat wing is unique to the bat lineage.

That’s the whole point here. Heritable traits can only be inherited by descendants, at least in complex animals. There’s no way for bird DNA to (naturally) get into the horse lineage. If a horse does evolve a wing it will have to start from scratch, and since both mutations and the genetic background the mutations occur in are unique to each horse population the adaptations will be unique to that lineage.

This contrasts sharply with common design. A common designer would not have to start from scratch. A common designer could mix and match features from horses and birds, as well as creating a 3rd pair of limbs as seen with the pegasus. In other words, there is no reason to expect common design to produce a nested hierarchy where lineages have unique adaptations that stay within that lineage.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@T_aquaticus

Other lineages have evolved wings,

It is like talking to someone wearing headphones. You do not listen or understand. You latch onto a word or phrase and like one of Pavlov’s doge, off you go with one of you explanations for something i did not ask for or say.

I am not going to continue.

Richard

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

It is like talking to someone wearing headphones. Seeing you do not see, and hearing you do not hear. You jump on one part and ignore the full response. Jesus was well aware this is what people do when they do not want to understand. Your theology is your headphones and you refuse to hear/see God, the Bible, or any of the facts which doesn’t fit this just like the Pharisees in the time of Jesus.

@RichardG

if a bird can have wings, why not a horse?

That was your question and the question was answered. Though perhaps some things were not said because they are obvious to a biologist. There is no single random deviation which adds wings to anything. It comes from a series of small adaptations which lead in that direction. A flap of skin between leg and torso which helps them jump farther or from higher and that only works if they are small enough. How do we know? Because we see all of these adaptions in the world. Squirrels with such skin flaps which jump from longer/higher distances to the so called “flying squirrels” which can glide from one tree to another, and then bats which can fly long distances.

This shows why your question ultimately doesn’t even make any sense. If we surgically altered a horse and added wings it wouldn’t work. It could never fly and the added weight for wings big enough would likely make it impossible to even stand. Flight requires a long process of adaptation in the opposite direction from that taken by the horses.

[T_aquaticus]

@RichardG

It is like talking to someone wearing headphones. You do not listen or understand. You latch onto a word or phrase and like one of Pavlov’s doge, off you go with one of you explanations for something i did not ask for or say.

You asked if horses could evolve wings. I answered by saying yes, it is possible for horses to evolve wings. I then went on to explain what we would expect to see if horses evolved wings.

What’s the issue here?

@RichardG

I am not going to continue.

It’s strange that you think scientists don’t like being questioned while getting angry that scientists answer your questions.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@T_aquaticus

What’s the issue here?

Feathered wings.

@T_aquaticus

cientists answer your questions.

No you do not. You try and teach me.

Enough

Richard