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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/26/2008 : 14:17:15
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I can't wait to see the AsininityAnswers in Genesis' take on this! It should be highly imaginitive, and perhaps they'll find a new way to twist Scripture to fit their never-evolving, Bronze Age goatherd's fantasy. Should be most entertaining....
"Flounder, turbot, sole, halibut and plaice (pictured above) are more than just a tasty slab of flesh on your plate. They are flatfishes that spend their adult life lying with one side flat on the seabed, while the other side faces up and is camoflaged, so the fish can lie motionless for hours, waiting for a tasty morsel to swim by. When this happens, the flatfish lunges upwards and suddenly opens its mouth to vacuum the hapless fish inside. Since flatfish spend all their adult lives with one side up and the other side facing the seafloor, they have evolved several morphological adaptations, such as having both eyes located on one side of their head, giving them a sighted (up) side and a blind (down) side. But flatfish are not born with both eyes on one side of their heads, so how do they end up that way? How did this asymmetrical character first evolve? Even Charles Darwin, one of the co-discoverers of the theory of evolution by natural selection, was baffled by what he referred to as this "remarkable peculiarity" of flatfish morphology.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2008 : 15:20:00 [Permalink]
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That is so cool. Fossil intermediates.
Like shooting fish in a barrel...
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"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
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Collateralmurder. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 07/26/2008 : 19:22:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Like shooting fish in a barrel... |
Somebody, in relation to that story, tells one of a couple fishermen who land a giant halibut who thrashes around in their boat so much that they decide they have to shoot it, and not knowing that the thing isn't laid out like a skate or a ray, shoot nothing but soft tissue, miss all the important organs, and sink their own boat. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2008 : 03:44:44 [Permalink]
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Here's the fascinating part, one of them anyway: How did Amphistium and Heteronectes see? As modern flatfishes so often do today, these transitional forms probably lifted their bodies partially off the seafloor with their elongated dorsal and pectoral fins, which would provide a greater range of vision for their lower eye.
Curious to learn whether this misplaced eye was a freak accident in a few specimens or was a common feature of these groups, Friedman traveled to many of the great natural history museums of the world to carefully examine the fossilized remains of Heteronectes and Amphistium. In every situation, he noticed the halfway misplaced eye in all the fossils he sudied. Additionally, these asymmetrically placed eyes were present in fossils of adult and larval specimens
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These fossils were sitting in museum storage bins for decades before an inquisitive grad student began poking around in them, looking for support of an hypothisis. This is not at all uncommon and it's one of the main functions of museums: to store information until such time as it's needed. Especally previously overlooked information.
The 'museums' of AiG, ICR, and other creationist comedy clubs do not do this and thus are worthless from any scholarly point of view. Further, they have no labs capable of fossil cleaning and study, and have yet to send an exploritory team into the field for anything relating to natural history. But they feel perfectly qualified to croak out profound-sounding statements and write tedious apologetic articles on the subject, and every word of them is a deliberate falsehood.
I rather vaguely (I wasn't paying a lot of attention) recall one of the creationist outfits, probably AiG or perhaps DI, using flatfish as an example of support for creatio ex nihilo, and in the case of Intelligent Design; irreductable complexity. Young Mr. Friedman, soon, no doubt, to become Dr. Friedman, has very nicely kicked this'n in the nether regons so hard that impact likely has Ham & Dembski's noses bleeding.
I figger that long about this coming Thursday -- it'll take a little time for them to come up with something -- a great & mendacious codswallop will be issued toward debunking the whole thing. I'm eagerly looking forward to it; it should be good for lots o' laffs!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/27/2008 03:52:09 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/27/2008 : 06:56:16 [Permalink]
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And here it is, a lot earlier than I'd thought it would be but pretty much as predicted. | "We have no problem with the variation within flatfish. What we're asking is, Show me how a fish came from a nonfish ancestor," Sherwin said. |
Draggin' them goalposts as far and as fast as possible, ain't that right? This creato-propagandist knows perfectly well that the direct ancestors of fish were soft-bodied and as such were unlikely to fossilize. However, all fishes are vertibrates and as such posses a notochord. So if we look for ancient animals with notochords from, say, the Lower Cambrian, we might discover something very interesting; something that ICR would rather we didn't know about. Like Yunnanozoon lividum, for example. | Yunnanozoon is similar to the form Haikouella, which is almost certainly a vertebrate. Still, there are anatomical differences from Haikouella, including a smaller stomach and much larger (1 mm) pharyngeal teeth. Yunannozoon is not known for sure to possess many features like heart, gills, etc. that are known from well preserved specimens of Haikouella. Yunnanozoon somewhat resembles the Middle Cambrian Pikaia from the Burgess shale of British Columbia in Canada. Thirteen pairs of symmetrically arranged gonads have been identified as have possible gill slits. However, some authors think that Yunnanozoon is closely related to the chordate Haikouella and that Yunnanozoon is probably a chordate rather than a hemichordate. A close relationship between Yunnanozoon and the phylum Vetulicolia has also been proposed. |
Much work & research to be done yet -- something ICR wouldn't know anything about -- before a definitive fish ancestor can be identified. But the Burgess Shales are a treasure trove of very primitive creatures and it would startle me not at all if that ancestor(s) were soon forthcoming.
Oh, and lest we forget it, Sherwin, the flatfish's wandering eye is not species variation, you lying sack of shit, it's evolution!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/27/2008 07:24:36 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2008 : 12:32:14 [Permalink]
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Not to mention that flatfish larvae are pretty similar to that of other fish. They undergo a slow and painful metamorphosis (with plenty of rejects) to get to their final morphology.
It make sense from the evolution point of view. The mutation is blind after all and the later metamorphosis we observe was still an evolutionary advantage.
But from a cretin-tionist point of view, it seems difficult to explain such a waste. Sloppy design indeed, as Desproges once wrote: sometime, once has to wonder if God does not drink. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2008 : 13:05:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Sloppy design indeed, as Desproges once wrote: sometime, once has to wonder if God does not drink.
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 02:35:21 [Permalink]
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God is such a playa... Well, at least this time he is not picking up an under-age virgin.
He got a public record for that you now... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Another question answered
