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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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You cannot show that the horseshoe crabs did mutate.
You cannot show that they did evolve.
You cannot show that their genes did change.
You cannot show that their environments did change.
You cannot show that their environments did not stay the same.

What exactly can you show us, BVZ?

I find it interesting that evolutionists always manuever when evidence is non-existent!

Yeah, it 's as if I say, "There is no evidence that these organisms evolved" and the evolutionist shouts back, "You cannot show us there is no evidence!"

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What I am pointing out is you have no evidence supporting your case.

And you don't.

But maybe I am wrong. If you DO have evidence supporting your case, feel free to present it.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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What I am pointing out is you have no evidence supporting your case.

And you don't.

But maybe I am wrong. If you DO have evidence supporting your case, feel free to present it.

My case is that there are a number of examples of lengthy stasis contrary to the notion that organisms are ever mutating and evolving. I have provided several examples. I think the fact is pretty well demonstrated.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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What I am pointing out is you have no evidence supporting your case.

And you don't.

But maybe I am wrong. If you DO have evidence supporting your case, feel free to present it.

My case is that there are a number of examples of lengthy stasis contrary to the notion that organisms are ever mutating and evolving. I have provided several examples. I think the fact is pretty well demonstrated.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

If you cannot provide us with EVIDENCE of evolution, you have no case, BVZ. It works both ways!

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Which is my point.

Since you cannot show that the horseshoe crabs did not mutate, you cannot show that there is a problem for evolution.

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I don't need to provide evidence FOR evolution to destroy Juhds argument.

For his argument to work, he has to show that the horseshoe crabs did not evolve. He cannot do this. So he has no argument.

Since that is the only argument I am making in this thread, I see no reason to support another one.

I am not supporting evolution, I am destroying Juhds argument.

Do you understand now?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Which is my point.

Since you cannot show that the horseshoe crabs did not mutate, you cannot show that there is a problem for evolution.

Sure it is.

Organisms that don't change don't evolve. If these organisms (sponges, jellyfish, ostracods, ants, beetles, flowering plants, crayfish, horseshoe crabs) haven't evolved in hundreds of millions of years, then that means that evolution isn't necessarily a regular and expected condition of life, and it isn't necessary for long term survival. An organism can mutate all it wants, but if such a mutation evokes no change in the organism, it's not evolving.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I don't need to provide evidence FOR evolution to destroy Juhds argument.

For his argument to work, he has to show that the horseshoe crabs did not evolve. He cannot do this. So he has no argument.

Since that is the only argument I am making in this thread, I see no reason to support another one.

I am not supporting evolution, I am destroying Juhds argument.

Do you understand now?

Jhud's argument was never that the organisms weren't mutating - you can't 'destroy' an argument not made. Mutation is irrelevant in this case as presumed mutations evoked no change in the organisms in question. The organisms simply didn't evolve, because evolution requires an expressed mutation.

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You can dodge all you want, but before you don't show that these creatures did NOT evolve, you have no case.

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ORIGINAL: BVZ

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I don't need to provide evidence FOR evolution to destroy Juhds argument.

For his argument to work, he has to show that the horseshoe crabs did not evolve. He cannot do this. So he has no argument.

Since that is the only argument I am making in this thread, I see no reason to support another one.

I am not supporting evolution, I am destroying Juhds argument.

Do you understand now?

Jhud's argument was never that the organisms weren't mutating - you can't 'destroy' an argument not made. Mutation is irrelevant in this case as presumed mutations evoked no change in the organisms in question. The organisms simply didn't evolve, because evolution requires an expressed mutation.

You can dodge all you want, but before you don't show that these creatures did NOT evolve, you have no case.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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You can dodge all you want, but before you don't show that these creatures did NOT evolve, you have no case.

Well then, show that they weren't the product of ID, or you have no case - and I guess we are even.

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

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ORIGINAL: BVZ

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I don't need to provide evidence FOR evolution to destroy Juhds argument.

For his argument to work, he has to show that the horseshoe crabs did not evolve. He cannot do this. So he has no argument.

Since that is the only argument I am making in this thread, I see no reason to support another one.

I am not supporting evolution, I am destroying Juhds argument.

Do you understand now?

Jhud's argument was never that the organisms weren't mutating - you can't 'destroy' an argument not made. Mutation is irrelevant in this case as presumed mutations evoked no change in the organisms in question. The organisms simply didn't evolve, because evolution requires an expressed mutation.

You can dodge all you want, but before you don't show that these creatures did NOT evolve, you have no case.

No, you're wrong, BVZ. There are several marine species that have direct, or close to direct, representatives in the fossil record.

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In fact, my biology class is being taught as if the creatures that we are studying are those ancestors. The fact that they have remained unchanged since their "arrival" on this earth is not addressed or is waved over.

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For instance, it's "known" that the chambered nautilus has remained unchanged for 500 million years!

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They say "He didn't have to change because he's so well adapted." Stasis is not the exception, it seems to happen just as often as evolution. So genetic drift is a crock.

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ORIGINAL: BVZ

Of course there are fossils of these creatures. How else would we know of their existence?

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You should be more specific. The parts that CAN FOSSILIZE did not change. We have no access to the genetic material of these ancient creatures, so we have no way of knowing if genomes changed or not.

Yes. It is very interesting. But if you look at Juhds argument, he is saying that they did not EVOLVE. Yet he cannot show this, since there is no genetic material to inspect.

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Before this argument can continue, you have to show that these creatures actually remained static. Remember, creatures are selected for or against based on their phenotype. As long as the genes results in a phenotype that is well adapted, the phenotype will not change. But the biological processes that CREATES the shape might change. The molecular workings of these creatures might become more efficient and streamlined, but the phenotype will remain the same, since there is no reason for it to change.

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Questions:
1) Why do you say genetic drift is a crock, if you don't have access to the genetic material?
2) What makes you think that these creatures did not mutate?
3) What makes you think that a static phenotype is a problem for evolution?

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Yes. It is very interesting. But if you look at Juhds argument, he is saying that they did not EVOLVE. Yet he cannot show this, since there is no genetic material to inspect.

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Horse is a good example of evolutionary change from the small Eohippus to what it is now.....sure there are organisms and animals that have not changed in millions of years the crocdile and shark are two of them only their size has changed not as big as their ancestors. All this is really moot points evolutionary changes have occurred to what extent who knows. Are they in line with Biblical teachings? Who knows?

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There is change. Earth is not the same as it was climatic changes and stuff. Not sure what you mean by by discernible change. Discernible change in what? Man, animals, weather? You can present all the evidence you want as far as this evolution junk goes people are blind when it comes to things not written in scripture that simple. Maybe G-d had a reason who knows. But the fact remains that time changes everything. Dinosaurs existed fossil proof now some extremist will disagree because its not in the Bible but that said its hard too see the forest for the trees. My opinion here is split all I can say at this point. There are some good points but its hard to dispute hard cold evidence......

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

No, I have been saying, and no one has refuted, that there is no evidence of evolution. If the fossil record of morpohological differences can be held up as evidence of evolution,

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then certainly the lack of morphological change is evidence for lack of evolution.

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There you are. There is evidence of evolution. You've refuted yourself. Okay, you said 'if', but still... we all know that the fossil record is (correctly) held up as the primary physical evidence of evolution.

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These evidences of lack don't annihilate the positive evidence. The wealth of positive evidence remains.

I don't know enough about the subject to comment really; I can see that scientists consider stasis as a 'challenge' for evolution, but hardly as a stake through the heart. As for me, I don't think the existence of dud firecrackers is evidence for lack of combustion. Sure, that firecracker didn't combust, but that doesn't somehow disprove the general 'theory of combustion'.

I don't see why there should be any requirement that species must radically change in ways that leave a record in their fossils. If a species happens to sit on top a nice pointy hill in the fitness landscape, there is no pressure to evolve away from it (and a strong disincentive to do so). Does the modern theory of evolution predict that such pointy parts of the fitness landscape can't exist? I don't see why it should.

Although the basic rate of mutation is roughly constant across species, that doesn't necessarily translate into a constant rate of morphological change. Out of the millions of evolving species... some, it would seem, must evolve 'less' than others.

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

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ORIGINAL: BVZ

Of course there are fossils of these creatures. How else would we know of their existence?

We're talking about currently living species. We don't need fossils to know of their existence.

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You should be more specific. The parts that CAN FOSSILIZE did not change. We have no access to the genetic material of these ancient creatures, so we have no way of knowing if genomes changed or not.

Yes. It is very interesting. But if you look at Juhds argument, he is saying that they did not EVOLVE. Yet he cannot show this, since there is no genetic material to inspect.

I combined the last two because they're the same argument. I don't think that we need the necessarily know the genotype because we can reasonably conclude that since the phenotypes have stayed the same, the genotypes stayed the same.

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We have whole fish that are fossilized, it's no secret that fish are not models for evolution because of the stasis of the several species. Not surprisingly, it's the stuff that does fossilize that seems to be remaining static. Sponge spicules have remain unchanged, so we're forced to assume that it was only the choanocytes and amoebocytes within them that evolved.

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The shell of the chambered nautilus remained unchanged (and highly complex in its own right) so we are forced to assume that the great leap from nautilus to cuttle fish, to squid just happened without leaving any evidence.

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And yet we still have the nautilus here with us today, and the parts that did remain from its ancestors are still identical to what we have today.

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Before this argument can continue, you have to show that these creatures actually remained static. Remember, creatures are selected for or against based on their phenotype. As long as the genes results in a phenotype that is well adapted, the phenotype will not change. But the biological processes that CREATES the shape might change. The molecular workings of these creatures might become more efficient and streamlined, but the phenotype will remain the same, since there is no reason for it to change.

Right, and I alluded to this above. The evidence points to stasis, but their is room within the evidence for a lack of stasis. What we see is a phenotype that remains unchanged relative to what is expected by genetic drift.

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500 million years of evolution did not change the shell of the nautilus unless we assume that it became the cuttle-bone of the cuttle fish and the pen of the squid. Even more evolution didn't change the spicules and spongin of the sponge. What we observe is stasis; we must assume that there was genetic drift.

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Questions:
1) Why do you say genetic drift is a crock, if you don't have access to the genetic material?
2) What makes you think that these creatures did not mutate?
3) What makes you think that a static phenotype is a problem for evolution?

Answers:
1)genotypic variation is manifested in phenotypic changes

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2)Why must we assume that they did?

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3)It's not. Its defenders will doubtless rise to the occasion of waving their hands in the face of the evidence and continue teaching it unquestioningly to their students as the #1 unifying theory in all of science to which all other sciences must bow the knee in penitent obedience.

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But to answer your question. It's a problem for evolution because it's not just "a static phenotype" it's the prevalence of static organisms. Throughout all the major phyla we have species that have remained (from the material that we observe) completely or at least greatly unchanged throughout the supposed millions or hundreds of millions of years that they are supposed to have existed. The examples that Jhud has given is merely a sample.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Yes. It is very interesting. But if you look at Juhds argument, he is saying that they did not EVOLVE. Yet he cannot show this, since there is no genetic material to inspect.

No, I have been saying, and no one has refuted, that there is no evidence of evolution. If the fossil record of morpohological differences can be held up as evidence of evolution, then certainly the lack of morphological change is evidence for lack of evolution.