Richard Dawkins Exposed: Part IV – Moscow’s Stray Dogs “Evolving Greater Intelligence”!
I want to draw your attention to this article: Moscow’s Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence, Including a Mastery of the Subway, which appeared on Dawkins’ website at the weekend.
Firstly, I don’t know whether Dawkins added this article to his website himself, or if one of his evolved apes did, but it is quite bizarre that anyone could believe the angle to this story, which was reported in Popular Science. It is amazing how people who think of themselves as scientists can believe that ‘evolution’ can explain away everything.
For every 300 Muscovites, there’s a stray dog wandering the streets of Russia’s capital. And according to Andrei Poyarkov, a researcher at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the fierce pressure of urban living has driven the dogs to evolve wolf-like traits, increased intelligence, and even the ability to navigate the subway.
Poyarkov has studied the dogs, which number about 35,000, for the last 30 years. Over that time, he observed the stray dog population lose the spotted coats, wagging tails, and friendliness that separate dogs from wolves, while at the same time evolving social structures and behaviors optimized to four ecological niches occupied by what Poyarkov calls guard dogs, scavengers, wild dogs, and beggars.
The guard dogs follow around, and receive food from, the security personnel at Moscow’s many fenced in sites. They think the guards are their masters, and serve as semi-feral assistants. The scavengers roam the city eating garbage. The wild dogs are the most wolf-like, hunting mice, rats, and cats under the cover of night.
But beggar dogs have evolved the most specialized behavior. Relying on scraps of food from commuters, the beggar dogs can not only recognize which humans are most likely to give them something to eat, but have evolved to ride the subway. Using scents, and the ability to recognize the train conductor’s names for different stops, they incorporate many stations into their territories.
You have probably noticed the silliest suggestion, i.e. that the dogs are evolving “wolf-like traits”.
Domestic dogs were bred from wild dogs, silly. And with an increased gene pool due to interbreeding, the dogs will be more like their wild ancestors than domestic dogs are, which were bred to favour certain characteristics.
The spotted coats, wagging tails, and friendliness that separate dogs from wolves can be explained by an experiment carried out by Soviet biologist Dmitri Belyaev, who:
…set up a Russian silver fox research centre in Novosibirsk, setting out to test his theory that the most important selected characteristic for the domestication of dogs was a lack of aggression. He began to select foxes that showed the least fear of humans and bred them. After 10-15 years, the foxes he bred showed affection to their keepers, even licking them. They barked, had floppy ears and wagged their tails. They also developed spotted coats – a surprising development that was connected with a decrease in their levels of adrenaline, which shares a biochemical pathway with melanin and controls pigment production.
Biologist Andrei Poyarkov explains,
With stray dogs, we’re witnessing a move backwards, that is, to a wilder and less domesticated state, to a more ‘natural’ state.” As if to prove his point, strays do not have spotted coats, they rarely wag their tails and are wary of humans, showing no signs of affection towards them.
Poyarkov reckons that “dumping a pet dog on the streets of Moscow amounts to a near-certain death sentence” and “fewer than 3 per cent survive”.
So there are tough mutts down there. Wily ones too.
Naturally, the dogs have adapted (not evolved) to their new environment. Poyarkov reckons that the pack leader is “not necessarily the strongest or most dominant dog, but the most intelligent – and is acknowledged as such. The pack depends on him for its survival.” With fewer than one in thirty abandoned pet dogs surviving, we can understand why intelligence is so respected by the other dogs.
It should worry us that such bad science is being perpetuated in the popular media. A lie told often enough becomes the truth. I suggest this describes the Theory of Evolution. If there is so much indisputable evidence for it, why are we presented with such desperate attempts to try and convince us/perpetuate the myth?
The other posts to date:
Richard Dawkins Exposed: Part I
Richard Dawkins Exposed: Part II – Five Minutes
Richard Dawkins Exposed: Part III – Indoctrination Camp for Children
Electric Monk,
I think I answered your points in my last comment to Mr Pattinson.
By the way, isn’t this a far better discussion than you get on Dawkins’ blog? I was banned from it yesterday, presumably for exposing the intellectual frailties of Dawkins’ supporters.
Stewart, I’ll see your raspberry and raise you a turkey.
Mr Pattinson, did you not used to go out with thon Kirsty Young? I met her once. Once was enough. For her, poor woman.
Stewart,
Evolution is the adaptation of a population of a species over time to the pressures of its habitat. Selective breeding is evolution where the main pressure is the desire of the breeder to enhance, or decrease, a particular characteristic. The genome for the short haired dog is not less complex than its long haired ancestors- the DNA is still the same size and it still holds the same amount of information, it’s just different information.
I reckon you’re approaching the way mutations affect evolution from the wrong direction. You seem to be assuming that mutations affect the whole of a population at once and that over millions of generations any advances would be reset to nought by just one bad mutation. Mutations affect individuals, not whole populations. Given a million creatures of one species you have scope for a million different mutations- though it’s more likely to be hundreds or thousands. Any of those mutations which are beneficial to survival and breeding are passed on to the next generation. Any which aren’t, aren’t. Over generations those animals with the advantageous genes are more likely to breed, increasing the proportion of that gene in the population. And in every generation there are a few more mutations, and existing genes for useful characteristics are being favoured. Evolution isn’t about the exact right sequence of advances being made one after another, it doesn’t have to be. Every generation it has a million or a billion or more chances to improve the way things are done, even if only a little bit. Then in the next generation it has the chance to do it again and build upon the advances already made.
Mr Baxter,
You’re probably thinking of the other Ian Pattinson. The famous one.
I’m not famous yet.
Mr Pattison,
All genes are comprised of DNA, but less than 2% of DNA is comprised of genes. Genetic mutations are commonly used as an explanation for the variation of species, not variation in DNA, and in turn, the effect that these genetic mutations have on DNA.
One genetic mutation, over a period of say, five minutes, can produce a dramatic variation from ‘the norm’. Vast periods of time are not required to show how damaging defective, or mutated, genes can be on a species. These mutations are almost always detrimental to the species concerned and have never, ever, not even once, been observed to have resulted in a change species, usually only dreadful illness and physical impairment and not unusually death.
You can couch your terms in science, you can attempt to baffle and bamboozle cleverer men than me with all sorts of wonderful theses, but at the end of the day a spade is still a spade, a dog is a dog and a cat is cat. A cat is not now, nor has it ever been, a dog. Birds are not reptiles, hippos are not horses… do you need me to go on?
It just won’t do, this silly fairytale of yours.
PS I’ve never heard of you, nor your famous namesake. You didn’t play up front for Chelsea, did you?
English,
Just when I’d called a truce too. You are the one with the fairy tale. Ha. Never expected that as a comeback did you? Sigh. The trial of Sisyphus.
Species change all the time. Ever heard of the cichlids of Lake Malawi?
If there is a God He is a virus, utterly unaware of us. Not an original idea, but, to me, an intriguing one. Not that I believe it. But any idea that puts you narcissistic anthropocentric twits in your place is an interesting one.
“All genes are comprised of DNA, but less than 2% of DNA is comprised of genes.”
What? You’re just quoting something you read somewhere that you don’t really understand aren’t you.
The London Underground mosquito a species which has evolved within the last century.
Dinosaurs (reptiles) evolved into birds
Mutation
Mr Pattinson,
No. I’m not. For saying you like to criticise people who do research by reading other people’s work and ideas, posting links to the most useless of all sources of information as all conclusive proof of your arguments, ie Wik, is a little bit ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’, don’t you think? You seem to have moved away from trying to prove your points to highlighting my supposed (or not) lack of intelligence. The link is, in fact, further evidence of my point. A mosquito has turned into what? A frog? (perhaps you should give it a kiss and see what happens?) No. A bird perhaps? No. Well, whatever could it be. Ahh, I see it, it’s a MOSQUITO. It is now and always has been, a mosquito. No change of species there then.
Second only to Wiki for it’s inane, vacuous and downright deceptive methods of introducing ‘facts’ to the public at large is probably the Daily Mail. The link you provide shows a nice, Jurassic Park style ‘artistic impression’ of what a supposedly prehistoric bird looked like, all deduced from some allegedly prehistoric feathers and some splintered shards of fossilised rock. My understanding of the degenerative processes that occur to soft tissue after death would lead me to believe that the feathers are not prehistoric, and therefore this bunch of scientists are nothing of the sort. They are, after all, funded by a Marxist, Communist, ‘there is no god but The Chairman’ type of Government, so impartiality doesn’t count for much, a bit like the global warming scammers, but that’s another story.
Was it Nottingham Forest then?
Dr Baxter,
I confess to never having heard of the creatures, but having done some cursory research, they appear to be fish. Big ones, small ones, in-between ones, blue ones, red ones, thin ones, fat ones but every- last- man- jack of them are fish. There is no evidence they were ever anything other than fish. There is no evidence they are about to turn into anything other than fish. This (and the mosquito thing) is exactly my point. Dogs are not now, nor have they ever been, nor will they ever be, cats.
I rather thought of myself as kind of theocentric. As for the ‘narcissistic twit’, well, that’s just not nice, is it?
English,
I pointed you toward some further information. You keep throwing out assertions with no information to back them up. Just saying something is or isn’t so doesn’t close the argument.
You seem confused on the concept of species. Which is fair enough, I’m a little lost on what you mean when you use the word.
The Underground mosquito is a new species of mosquito. The little bloodsuckers on the Central line now are distinctly different from the ones that lived there when the line was opened. And they got that way through a process that is very simple to understand and far more logical than any other explanation could ever be. It evolved in less than a hundred years. Just imagine how complex an ecosystem could become over millions of years. Better yet, look around you, and watch some nature documentaries, and see how complex and beautiful an ecosystem can be after millions of years of evolution.
‘As for the ‘narcissistic twit’, well, that’s just not nice, is it?’
Nonsense. It is said in a spirit of friendly dissent. And you missed out ‘anthropocentric’ which took me ages to spell properly. If your going to quote my own insults back at me at least get them right.
The cichlids are indeed fish, but fish of many different species that have almost certainly diverged from common ancestry as a result of their habit of staying close, for life, to where they spawned. Oh, just one small example. But one is all you should need.
Ian,
The offspring of the dogs that were bred for short fur will never be able to grow long fur. You could say they have become less complex. The DNA isn’t the same, otherwise they would still have the ability to grow fur of differing lengths.
But what we see with, say any complex organ like an eye or heart, is that it is the end result of a series of millions or billions of minute changes over time. Don’t you think that the odds are just too great given the level of complexity and other factors?
Like English says, a mosquito has always been a mosquito, a fish a fish, etc. They are not becoming other creatures.
‘Like English says, a mosquito has always been a mosquito, a fish a fish, etc. They are not becoming other creatures.’
But English has no basis in sense for that assertion. Organisms are becoming other organisms, all the time. It’s happening now. We can watch it, we who have eyes to see, who are not blinded by dogma and terror for our own dear little selves.
The T. Rex is now a buzzard. OK, that’s more of a maybe: I’m giving you that.
Mr Pattinson and Dr Baxter,
OK. There seems to be some confusion over the definition of the word ’species’. This is to be expected. It is commonly known as ‘the species problem’. Perhaps you may wish to research this, but then again, perhaps not.
I (for what it is worth) think that the problem stems from the fact that Darwin called his book ‘The origin of SPECIES’ when he attempted to explain where different FAMILIES had come from. I have never disputed that different forms of fish have stemmed from a common form of fish, I have never contended that a Rottweiller is no less of a dog than a Pekingese. that a Lion, when compared to a Persian, or visa versa, is not a cat. What I say, again and again, is that cats are not dogs, frogs are not fish, men are not monkeys. If (and it is a stupendously vast if) evolution, in the form that Darwin, or even Dawkins, saw it, is true, there MUST have been a time when one FAMILY changed into another, again and again, otherwise all creatures currently living on this lump of rock would be related to each other, and they patently are not. The alternative is that the once in a multi-trillion year phenomenon of the THEORY of abiogenesis must have occurred tens of thousands of times. Either that or creation is true.
As an aside, I have seen many documentaries about men and women that have murdered their fellows. I have personally met and conversed with more than a few. They are, to a man (or woman) most definitely tortured, alienated, worried, depressed, saddened, guilty, remorseful (if you need more adjectives, I can supply them). Why is Man cut to the quick when he extinguishes the life of another Man, and a Shark does not think twice? Why are Chimps among the most violent and aggressive of primates, with ‘murders’ commonplace, yet they exhibit no remorse, although they do grieve over the loss of a relative? Why is the conscience of Man present? According to the laws of natural selection, it is a most deleterious thing to have a conscience. If these so called laws were true, the most brutal, most powerful, most aggressive species (or family, whichever you prefer) would have dominated the Earth by now. That puny, depressed, weak-willed and lilly livered Man does so now should surely raise an eyebrow on the most ardent of evolutionist’s faces, don’t you think?
Dr Baxter,
I am willing to give you a by on your mild insults this time, but, well… you never know what I might do next time.
BTW Have we shifted our ground by calling species ‘organisms’ now? Just wondered, because if so, it just won’t do.
‘ I have never disputed that different forms of fish have stemmed from a common form of fish, I have never contended that a Rottweiller is no less of a dog than a Pekingese. that a Lion, when compared to a Persian, or visa versa, is not a cat. What I say, again and again, is that cats are not dogs, frogs are not fish, men are not monkeys.’
English – a Rottweiler is not a species. A Rottweiler can breed with a Pekinese. These cichlids cannot breed with each other because they are different species. ‘Fish’ is not a species, and certainly not in some of the chip shops in Glasgow where, whetever it is that they serve up, it is not and never was a specimen of a ’species’. Specimen for sure though.
‘Why is Man cut to the quick when he extinguishes the life of another Man.’
Ask Stalin when you meet him.
Dr Baxter,
RE the species problem, it is not necessary, according to some definitions, for different creatures to be able to interbreed for those creatures to be of the same species. If your theories are correct, then man is split into several different species, yet he is capable of reproducing with any of his fellow creatures.
English,
‘it is not necessary, according to some definitions…’
It is according to the one I work to.
Dr Baxter,
Google ’species problem’.
English.
I shall do nothing of the kind. I am old school.
Stewart Cowan – “Being a Creationist, I don’t subscribe to these long-age periods.”
Stewart, but that is not the fault of science (geology/evolution), nor of the reality we live in. You’ve simply decided to stick your head in the sand and refuse to address the issue at hand. How exactly does that help? And all because you want *one* book, written by Bronze Age desert tribes, to be true. Can you not see how this *stops* the conversation instead of encouraging it?
And yet given the opportunity to confront/discredit the notion of evolution (a rabbit fossil in the Precambrian period), and Dawkins, you sit there sulking like a child who does not like the rules of the game. (What other aspects of science don’t you “subscribe” to, Heliocentrism? Gravity? Germ theory? Nuclear fusion?)
Can you not see why ye creationists are ridiculed so?
Tyler,
I don’t subscribe to these long-age periods because the evidence doesn’t support the theory, therefore, when you say X was found in Y period, it doesn’t mean the same to me as it does to you.
I think you’ll find that Dawkins is the one who makes up his own rules and then bans you from his blog for not behaving accordingly.
The last time I observed the sun, it was orbiting the earth. Of course, looks can be deceptive, so science confirms that in fact, the earth orbits the sun. Science does not say that man is descended from goo; people who misunderstand the evidence do that!
“Don’t you think that the odds are just too great given the level of complexity and other factors?”
No Stewart, I don’t. Millions, billions even, of permutations every generation, with mutations thrown in for good measure, force a way around any restrictions and result in beauty and complexity. If anything, the eye is evidence against creationism. The eyes of different creatures work in different ways. Dogs see in black and white, some creatures see different parts of the spectrum- ones we need specialist equipment to view. They all evolved parallel to, and separate from, each other as solutions to different needs. No Creator so lazy as to leave redundant bits like the appendix or coccyx in his/her/its greatest creation would take the time to redesign the eye over and over again
English
So now your argument against evolution hinges on the fact that the English language has evolved and species no longer means quite what Darwin meant when he used it? Also, congratulations, your argument seems to be evolving. Every time one of your arguments is refuted you try a different one. Keep it up and eventually you’ll evolve an understanding of how the science works.
Mr Pattinson,
You are almost as rude as Tyler. Your arguments are no such thing. You post something (usually backed by Wiki or the Daily Mail), ignore other people’s requests for proof or clarification and spout rot like ‘closing the argument’ after impugning my ability to understand your sub-GCSE standard propositions.
The main reasons for your posts appears to be a desire to be oh, so much cleverer than everybody else and not to actually substantiate your so called points.
You can be facetious about the meanings of words, but for one who claims to be a proponent of evolution to be ignorant of the ’species problem’ betrays a little ignorance in relation to your specialist subject. If you are not ignorant of it then you are being disingenuous to pretend it does not exist, amongst evolutionists, not those who believe the Genesis account of creation.
Why are there no fossils, not one, which show one family of creature changing into another, entirely different, previously non-existent family? What creature other than some form of cat, was the forerunner of the cat? What creature, other than a dog, was the forerunner of the dog? What, in your most humble opinion, was the forerunner of the mosquito, any mosquito, other than a mosquito?
Could you give a single example of a single proof of the falseness of my position, as expounded by yourself, during this discussion? I don’t mean,’he said-she said- so I said’. I mean you PROVING what I have said to be untrue. Thanks.
I’ve asked you twice now. If it wasn’t Chelsea and it wasn’t Forest, was it Spurs?
Stewart Cowan – “I don’t subscribe to these long-age periods because the evidence doesn’t support the theory”
On the contrary Stewart, the evidence is there if only you’d look and learn – you don’t “subscribe” to long-age periods because you want *your* bible’s account of creation to be true. Your bible is not a science book. Not only that but your bible does not even mention the age of the Earth, it’s merely an interpretation of ages/dates in your bible as made by Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh James Ussher in the 1650s.
I’d be interested to know what version of the bible, and what chapter/verse, you’re reading that gives you the age of the earth as *young* instead of billions of years old – Wycliffe, Tyndale, King James, Jewish Publication Society, World English??
It is actually possible to for you to believe that your particular god exists AND accept the science which proves the known Universe is 13.7 billion years old (red/blue shift in cosmology) and the Earth 4.6 billion years old (radioactive isotopes in rock strata in geology).
“Science does not say that man is descended from goo” – Once again, you’re showing your ignorance of the science, evidence and mountains of data that shows how we came to be here once life started. And how strange you will not accept being “descended from goo” but are more than happy to admit being made from dirt – “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Gen 2:7)
Science is not somebody’s opinion, it’s a collection of convergent evidentiary findings based on experiments, strict methodologies and falsification. Do you also dispute Newton’s findings on gravity, laws of universal gravitation and laws of motion?
English Viking – “What creature, other than a dog, was the forerunner of the dog?”
The wolf.
All species of domesticated dog (Canis lupus familiaris) evolved from the wolf (Canis lupus).
“Why are there no fossils, not one, which show one family of creature changing into another, entirely different, previously non-existent family?”
As I explained to Stewart, all fossils are transitional. What you seem to be looking for is some kind of ridiculous hybrid/Chimera/mutant e.g. the infamous “crockoduck”.
If you are actually interested in reading about transitional or intermediate forms in the fossil record, study Archaeopteryx (more a dinosaur than a bird) and classed as a dinosaur, as are all living birds.
English,
Evolution isn’t my specialist subject, I never said it was, but I understand the theory and can see how it’s so much more obvious and logical than that we were all made by some ill defined super-entity.
I pointed you to an example of an intermediate species- a feathered dinosaur, part of the evolutionary chain that has given us birds- but you dismissed it because it wasn’t something you wanted to see. I’m sure you’d have found some reason to disbelieve the BBC, Guardian, Scientific American and National Geographic as well.
Here’s Richard Dawkins showing you a few intermediates.
And (yes, I know it’s from Wiki and you’re going to make your usual accusations that an online repository of verified facts is somehow entirely made up) here’s a list of transitional fossils.
The thing is, every time you’re presented with evidence you immediately discount it simply because it’s not what you want to believe.
What exactly is your position? And can you include a few links to the evidence that supports it?
Tyler Durden,
A wolf is a dog. Where did the dog known as the wolf come from?
You’ve really shot yourself in the foot on the next one- Archeoptryx. The feather imprints of the London Natural History Museum Archaeopteryx specimen were forged. Evidence for this is that:
The feather impressions appear only on the slab, not on the counterslab.
The surface texture is different between the feathered and unfeathered areas.
Slightly elevated “blobs” appear which are not always matched by depressions on the counterslab.
The feathers show “double strike” impressions.
Hairline cracks which pass through both bones and feathers could have formed by slight movements to the slab after the cement was in place.
Under magnification, the limestone appears different in fossil and non-fossil areas of the specimen.
Unknown material appears within the matrix in the fossil area.
An x-ray chemical analysis showed chemical differences, including silicon, sulfur, and chlorine in the fossil area that were not present in the non-fossil area.
These points indicate that the feather impressions were made by someone impressing feathers in a cement-like matrix that was added to the stone. Without the feathers, Archaeopteryx would be identified as the dinosaur Compsognathus, not as a transitional fossil. This has been acknowledged as so by the museum and the piece has been withdrawn.
What about its little friend, the Archaeoraptor? The half frog, half bird specimen lauded by such luminary institutions as National Geographic (on the front cover of the mag and a 4 page spread inside) as cast iron evidence of a transitional species. Total fake, literally two different fossils on two different pieces of rock, superglued together.
Why the need for fakery (I can give you loads more examples, if you want) when these things should be abundant? It’s because there aren’t any.
I have no desire to convince you to believe this, that or the other about creation/evolution. It is not necessary to believe in a ‘young Earth’ to believe The Bible and The Gospel. I don’t, as I have said before, disbelieve these things because I am a Christian. I disbelieve them because I have seen mountains of evidence, mostly by non-Christian scientists, that at the very least raises very serious doubts over the veracity of the T of E. That and the fakery and quackery that surrounds the subject.
You seem (to me at least) to have made your mind up about the subject, that the T of E is scientific, indisputable fact, and then approach new evidence from the point of view of falsifying it, without actually considering that it may be true. You may accuse me of the same thing, but I like to think that I would change my mind if there was firm evidence, not theories, supposition and wot-not.
Mr Pattinson,
RE your request for the reasons for my disdain of institutions such as National Geographic, see my above reply to Mr Durden.
The BBC and it’s printed equivalent, the Guardian, are not Scientific Journals and therefore are no more qualified to speak on this issue than Walt Disney (I saw a talking mouse once. His name was Mickey. Does this count as ‘transition’?) Both companies have had to issue retractions on multitudinous occasion for inaccuracies, errors and downright lies, on such frivolities as which footballer has slept with which other footballer’s wife/girlfriend/tart/slapper etc. They cannot be regarded as impartial nor repositories of truth. The Scientific American is a publication I am ignorant of, so I cannot comment upon it’s content or editorial direction.
None, I repeat, NONE of the so called transitional fossils displayed in Dawkins’ film are anything of the sort. The 2 minutes 33 seconds of my life I wasted watching Dawkins pontificate about an artist’s representation of evolution are gone now. I will probably want them back at the end of my life, but I doubt I’ll get them. The film included a grand total of 3 partial fossils of dolphins, NONE of which displayed ANY features that could be attributed to transition. It also referred to an as yet undiscovered common ancestor of both the whale and the hippo. Shame that this ancestor is the very one needed to prove the point, but the drawings were first class. If you genuinely believe the T of E based on this evidence, you are no scientist. I would heartily encourage any reader of this post to watch the film, as it more than proves my point.
I do not need to post links to other people’s opinions on the truth, or not, of Creation. We are talking about my opinion. I am not an expert in this field. You have admitted, and shown, that you are not an expert in the field of the T of E. I am not asking you to believe in creationism. I am simply telling you that there is NO evidence WHATSOEVER of transitional fossils and without them, well, the T of E remains just that, a theory.
If you really want something to think about, can you explain the current strength of the magnetic field of the Earth, given that it is depleting by about 5% every 100 years? If the Earth is billions of years old and the magnetic field has constantly declined by a similar rate every 100 years, you need travel backwards in time just 10,000 years for the field to have been so strong that life of any form would have been impossible. What’s that you say? I suppose a uniform decay? Well, if you will not allow me a uniform decay, why should I allow you one, in relation to the various dating methods using isotopes?
English,
So link to a page laying out the evidence for everything you just said. If you can take the time to write it down, you can take the time to give us a link. Right now we just have your word on it. As you keep demanding proof from us it’s only fair that we should expect the same from you.
Or shall I do it for you?
All of your claims about Archaeopteryx have been proved false. Archaeoraptor was a fake, but the bit in the linked article that you won’t cite is that there are many genuine feathered dinosaurs. The feathered dinosaurs I provided links for earlier were neither Archopteryx nor Archaeoraptor by the way.
Please link to some of the mountains of evidence you’ve seen, because I’d like to read it.
Mr Pattinson,
Please stop asking for links. I doubtless could Google any subject I like, in any language, in any period of history, and I would be presented with a plethora of other people’s opinions and a multitude of links. I could post those links, and think myself very clever for having done so. It does not make a blind bit of difference to the argument. We are not talking about whether creationism is correct, we are asking whether the T of E is false. We are not talking about Professor so and so’s opinion, we are talking about mine.
My claims about Archeopteryx are not false. Many paleontologists reject this fossil as false, including those at The Natural History Museum. You admit (very quickly and quietly) that his frog-bird friend was a fake but fail to make comment on how supposed experts, from all over the world, were taken in by this scam and the serious implications that this has for their prognostications on anything else.
A book I read that posed a lot of questions (for me at least) about the ‘truth’ of the T of E was ‘In the beginning’ by Roger Forster. It is out of print now, but you will be able to get a copy from your local library, should you wish to do so.
What about that Magnetic Field? (Don’t you get Googling me now, will you?)
Mr Pattinson,
I’m waiting.
Have you fallen asleep, died (God forbid) or simply evolved into a higher form of creature?
Is there anybody out there?
I’ll see your Google and raise you an AltaVista!
Link me up, man!
English, I’ve popped in for a special guest appearance. I’m writing a new post, then will be going for a snooze and shall answer some of the questions here later.
Ian,
I think you identified another problem. All those eyes evolving separately. Flight evolving in reptiles, mammals, insects and birds – separately, etc.
It really tests the Theory’s credibility.
Addition: the appendix may well a) have a use that we don’t know about yet – I seem to recall one being discovered, or else b) have been needed pre-Flood, when we were all veggies [or c) it is to confuse evolutionists].
Archaeopteryx is a complete bird, with feathers and avian lungs.
Tyler,
I don’t subscribe to long-age periods because the evidence doesn’t encourage me to. It just so happens that it fits the Genesis account.
I believe the time scale of 6,000 years since Adam is reliable based on the geneology in the OT.
Science doesn’t prove the universe is billions of years old. All the evidence is in the present. Rocks only tell us what radioisotopes are present at this precise time. There are quite a few *assumptions* that have to be made if you want them to whisper long ages to you.
The big difference between goo and dirt is the intelligent input required.
Many things can be tested beyond reasonable doubt. A quarter of the population doesn’t dispute gravity or think the earth is flat, but they do dispute the TofE.
English,
What about the magnetic field? It rolls around, moving magnetic North by kilometres a year and flips every few hundred thousand years. Yet life has evolved on planet Earth despite these constant changes. You’ve taken one figure and made something up based upon it. The dating methods you try to mock are derived from thousands of observations which can be replicated. As usual you are pretending your made up rules are somehow more important than reality.
Your arrogance is becoming boring. You can’t quote me any facts because you don’t have any to back up your argument.
Stewart
You’ve chosen to miss the point. Flight, eyes etc. evolved in different forms in different creatures. If there were a designer you’d expect the solution to be the same across the board. But it isn’t, because the problem wasn’t addressed by any deity. It was solved in myriad different ways by bilions of organisms over time facing problems and passing on the genes or gene combinations which created some part of the solutions. When you get your head around it you’ll see that this is so much more obvious than a Creator. What created the Creator? Where did it come from? Is there a God of God?
There’s the beauty of nature and the elegance of evolution or there’s the uncertainty and impossibility of a creator.
Mr Pattinson,
Now who’s refusing to even attempt to answer the question?
I was not talking about the MOVEMENT of the magnetic fields, as you can see from my post. I asked about it’s STRENGTH, which would have been so high as too have precluded the possibility of any form of life, just 10,000 years ago, given the enormous amount of heat it would generate. I have assumed that it has deteriorated at a uniform rate. Just like carbon dating assumes a uniform decay.
The replication of dates given from certain methods of testing that you talk about is self perpetuating. When a ’scientist’ dates a piece, and comes up with an unexpectedly low figure, it is assumed to be faulty and re-tested until the ‘right’ answer is found, because ‘we all know’ how old the Earth is, don’t we?
Carbon dating of living molluscs has given an age of approximately 20,000 years old, even though we know that they are no more than 5 years old.
The dating methods I question (not mock) are all based on the ASSUMPTIONS that whichever isotope is being measured has both deteriorated at a given, uniform rate and that the original amount can be known, therefore a comparison can be made with the amount remaining. It would seem obvious to me that these two guesses are more than enough to raise an eyebrow?
A lot of dating is done simply by stating which rock layer an item was found in, then saying ‘and therefore it must be from the so and so period, 1 million years ago’. I guess this method would be OK if we were sure of the original dates of the rocks to which we make reference to. We’re not sure, we just guess and then refer to that guess to date future finds.
You say I can’t quote facts to back my argument, well I can, but my whole point is that you have assumed a defensive, entrenched position in which you cling to the T of E as if your life depended on it. You have assumed that I am proposing an alternative, when I am merely questioning the dodgy science that requires faith to believe it.
Here’s three facts for you. Perhaps you’ll have an answer, or perhaps they will cause you to think again. None of these points prove the existence of God or the fact of creation. You will not be required to sing hymns if you come to a conclusion that questions need to be raised about the age of the Earth.
The distance between the Moon and the Earth is increasing. Assuming a uniform rate (there’s those words again) of movement, the Moon would have actually been touching the surface of the Earth only around 120,000 years ago.
The Sun is ‘burning’ itself away. It’s mass is decreasing. The rate of loss IS constant (no assuming there). If we extrapolate the figures, the Sun would have been so massive just 50,000 years ago that it’s gravitational pull would have pulled the Earth out of orbit and destroyed it.
The Moon has a gravitational pull approximately 1 sixth the strength of that of the Earth’s. It attracts dust to its surface at a given rate (again, constant, not assumed). If the Earth is the same age as the Moon, and the Earth is billions of years old, or even just millions, the depth of the dust mantle on the moon should be literally miles thick, not the couple of inches we see on the NASA photos and Moon landing video footage. How can this be explained? (I would accept the answer ‘We do not know how thick the dust mantle of the moon is, because no-one has ever been there and the landings were faked’, as this seems a reasonable possibility.)
English
I’m finding lots of interesting stuff out when I go and investigate your claims. But none of it backs them up.
Mr Pattinson,
In the words of Mandy Rice-Davis, ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’
Age of the moon? Count the craters.
Dr Baxter,
I wondered where you were.
Counting craters won’t do I’m afraid. Too many variables, such as the amount of strikes per year, the amount of material in the area of the Moon that would be capable of striking, inconstancy of strikes, etc.
English Viking – “Why the need for fakery (I can give you loads more examples, if you want) when these things (transitional fossils) should be abundant? It’s because there aren’t any”
Once again the evidence shows you to be wrong, and ignorant of the facts:
Tiktaalik roseae, a transitional fossils of a lobe-finned fish and tetrapod (four-legged animal, limbed vertebrate). Tiktaalik represents an intermediate form between fish and amphibians: fish gills, fish scales, but half-fish, half-tetrapod limb bones and joints, including a functional wrist joint and radiating, fish-like fins instead of toes plus a tetrapod mobile neck.
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/081023/tiktaalik.shtml
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7085/abs/nature04639.html
Another example is Ambulocetus, an early cetacean that could walk/crawl as well as swim, and shows how whales evolved from land-living mammals.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gingeric/PDGwhales/Whales.htm
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/gould_leviathan.html
As for Archaeopteryx, perhaps you’ve been reading creation.com or some other creationist propaganda. Archaeopteryx has more in common with small theropod dinosaurs than it does with modern birds. In particular, it shares the following features with the deinonychosaurs (dromaeosaurs and troodontids): Femur with orthogonally inturned head, functionally tridactyl pes with retroverted hallux, jaws with sharp teeth, three fingers with claws, a long bony tail, hyperextensible second toes, and feathers.
“The feather imprints of the London Natural History Museum Archaeopteryx specimen were forged”
Really? Who told you that? And what about the other nine Archaeopteryx fossils, or did your creationist propaganda not mention those?
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.1120331
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.232.4750.622
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/dinoarch.htm
So, given the choice between actual empirical evidence as provided above and your “opinion”, I’ll stick with the evidence thanks. But thanks for playing!
Stewart Cowan – “Archaeopteryx is a complete bird, with feathers and avian lungs.”
Archaeopteryx lived in the late Jurassic Period around 145 million years ago, but I thought you didn’t “subscribe” to long-age periods because the evidence doesn’t encourage you.
English Viking – My previous post regarding transitional fossils seems to have been lost via the interweb, oh well, such is technology: here’s a recap:
Tiktaalik roseae, a transitional fossils of a lobe-finned fish and tetrapod (four-legged animal, limbed vertebrate). Tiktaalik represents an intermediate form between fish and amphibians: fish gills, fish scales, but half-fish, half-tetrapod limb bones and joints, including a functional wrist joint and radiating, fish-like fins instead of toes plus a tetrapod mobile neck.
Another example is Ambulocetus, an early cetacean that could walk/crawl as well as swim, and shows how whales evolved from land-living mammals.
As for Archaeopteryx, perhaps you’ve been reading creation.com or some other creationist propaganda. Archaeopteryx has more in common with small theropod dinosaurs than it does with modern birds. In particular, it shares the following features with the deinonychosaurs (dromaeosaurs and troodontids): Femur with orthogonally inturned head, functionally tridactyl pes with retroverted hallux, jaws with sharp teeth, three fingers with claws, a long bony tail, hyperextensible second toes, and feathers.
So, given the choice between actual empirical evidence as provided above and your “opinion”, I’ll stick with the evidence thanks. But thanks for playing!
English Viking – “A wolf is a dog.”
No, it’s the other way around – all dogs evolved from the wolf, in particular the grey wolf, whether by Darwinian natural selection or artificial selection by humans. We know this due to molecular biology and genetic analysis – a high-quality draft genome sequence of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), together with a dense map of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the breeds.
“Where did the dog known as the wolf come from?” The grey wolf has been around since the early Pleistocene era, DNA dates it at 800,000 years ago for Eurasia to 150,000 years ago for the American species. The common ancestor for this is Canis ferox, from the Canidae family which includes caniforms (dog-like) and feliforms (cat-like) carnivorans.