"The Monkey's Voyage" Will Take You on a Voyage Through a Biogeographic Revolution

Posted 6 January 2014 by Nick Matzke

Note: this is an off-the-cuff review that I wrote while experiencing jet-lag induced insomnia (I am in Canberra, Australia, to give a workshop on BioGeoBEARS at the 2014 meeting of the International Biogeography Society at Australia National University). I have a more formal review in preparation for the Reports of the National Center for Science Education. Review of: de Queiroz, Alan (2014). The Monkey's Voyage: How Improbable Journeys Shaped the History of Life. Basic Books: New York, pp. 1-348. http://themonkeysvoyage.com/ - Amazon Link Today, a book is coming out that is destined to become a classic of science writing. Normally, popular science books popularize well-established science. The research being popularized may be decades or centuries old. Certainly popularization of such material is important, but I found that for me, the appeal of such works dropped off as I matured as a scientist. There are only so many times you can read about Darwin and the Beagle, or Laplace and the hypothesis he had no need of, or the sequence from Mendel to Watson and Crick, before you feel like you've heard it all before and it ceases to become interesting. Alan de Queiroz is doing something different. He is popularizing an active scientific controversy in biogeography. Biogeography is the science of where species live and how they got there. The biogeographical controversy is termed "dispersal versus vicariance," and it runs long and deep. Understanding what the controversy is about, and why anyone would care, takes a little bit of background. Background: The History of Historical Biogeography Basically, the issue is this: Darwin and Wallace's discovery of evolution clarified a great many puzzles in biogeography. They pointed out that, if it is true that new species came about by descent with modification of older species, then we can understand many biogeographical phenomena that were quite puzzling under the paradigm that God specially created the species. For example, volcanic islands far from continents are (natively) devoid of amphibians, terrestrial mammals, earthworms, and many other organisms common on continents. If the deity were poofing species into existence in appropriate habitats, there seems to be no particular reason for Him to have excluded volcanic islands. However, on the theory of evolution, we have a ready explanation -- anything that lives on remote volcanic islands had to get itself there by some physical means, some time after the volcano erupted out of the ocean. Organisms that can float in saltwater for long periods of time (tortoises, coconuts) are commonly found on such islands, as are birds and organisms that hitch rides on them. But organisms with poor abilities to disperse over salt water -- such as as worms and amphibians -- are not on those islands, because they could never get there. Descent with modification also explains why species in the same genus tend to cluster on the globe, rather than being evenly distributed everywhere. Quite often, this geographical clustering occurs irrespective of quite different environments -- many of the desert flowers in California look like modified versions of nearby flowers of grasslands and chaparral. Deserts on different continents tend to be populated by succulents related to other plants on the same continents -- cacti are ubiquitous in the deserts of North and South America, but there are no native cactus in Africa or Asia (there is one peculiar bird-dispersed form in Madagascar). This is all well and good, but in solving many puzzles, descent with modification created some new ones. In particular, there are organisms on the globe that are obviously related, and living on continents, but are on opposite sides of oceans. Some of the famous ones are the ratite birds of the Southern Hemisphere (ostriches, rheas, kiwis, the extinct moas of New Zealand and Elephant Birds of Madagascar, etc.), and the Southern Beeches of the genus Nothofagus, distributed in temperate forests in South America, New Zealand, Australia, New Caledonia, and New Guinea. The debate over the biogeography of these clades extends back to Darwin and his contemporaries. Darwin was an advocate of dispersalism, arguing that on rare occasions, oceans could be crossed by poor dispersers -- perhaps, for example, if some dirt and seeds fell on a glacier, and the glacier calved off an iceberg, and the iceberg crossed the ocean and ended up melting on a foreign beach...can it be said that such a thing is impossible? Hooker, on the other hand, favored "land bridges" as an explanation for close cross-ocean similarities, especially when the similarities extended to whole floras. The idea here is that two regions with similar floras used to be contiguous, and then were broken up by environmental change forming a barrier -- for example, the sinking of a land bridge. Contiguous ranges followed by breakup constitute a "vicariance" explanation. Which is correct? Darwin thought land bridges were invoked in far too carefree a fashion, and the geological support for them was often dubious. Hooker and others thought similarly of near-miraculous dispersal mechanisms. The debate has continued since then. Until the 1950s, the dispersalist school was probably dominant, in part because most geologists believed in the fixity of continents, and the evidence for land bridges was usually weak. However, with the acceptance of continental drift, the tide turned. Biogeographers finally had their overland connections, albeit in a different form than originally conceived. The advance of plate tectonics happened to coincide with the advent of cladistic methods for inferring phylogenetic relationship, starting with the work of Hennig. Cladistic methods relied on atomizing organismal morphology and traits into discrete character states, and then searching for trees that minimized the number of character state changes in homologous characters (parsimony). Vicariance Biogeography: Advance or "cul-de-sac"? Similar methods were soon applied to historical biogeography. Geographic range was discretized into a series of presences and absences for each species. These could be used to attempt to reconstruct the geographic history of an individual clade, but the more interesting application was to use biogeographic distributions to reconstruct the history of connections between areas. Here, the geographical areas become the lineages, and the presence or absence of particular clades constitute the character states. This approach favors vicariance, as clades sitting still are the "homologies", and dispersal events become homoplasies. The best tree of areas is the one that maximizes vicariance explanations, and minimizes dispersal; it was then assumes that this represents the history of breakup of areas. This extension of cladistic methods and vicariance assumptions to biogeography -- vicariance biogeography -- was conceptually appealing: researchers could calculate support statistics like they did for cladograms; the general area cladograms that resulted told an interesting synthetic story, and, for once, it seemed like the biogeographers might be able to help the geologists reconstruct plate histories. However, there were always some major open questions. The first concerns homology. A parsimony analysis of organismal characters relies on the assumption that shared character states for a particular character are, on average, more likely to be shared because of common ancestry (shared history) than because of convergence (independent acquisition). This assumption does not have to be true for all characters analyzed, but it should hopefully be true for the majority of them, or, at the very least, the signal of shared history should be more common in the characters than any other directional signal. These assumptions are eminently reasonable for a diverse set of distinct organismal characters. However, in the biogeographical case, when all of the characters are clade presences in regions, these assumptions require that vicariance be a more probable explanation than independent dispersal. This could be true, but it is an assumption. Another assumption that is made in this operation is that the age of clades doesn't matter. The inputs to vicariance biogeography methods are simple cladograms, which do not come with time scales unless they are added. This was perhaps unavoidable in the 1970s and 1980s when cladograms were the typical result of phylogenetic analyses, but nowadays, time-scaling, ideally using the fossil record, is a standard procedure. Two clades might have the same geographic distribution, say, ABC (living in areas A, B, and C), but if one clade is 5 million years old, and the other is 100 million years old, it is hard to argue that they are evidence of a common geological history of those three regions. Whatever the validity of the assumptions, for many years, vicariance biogeography methods were the only phylogenetically explicit methods available. This is still largely the impression you will get if you visit the biogeography shelf of a university library. And, for reasons that remain somewhat obscure to me, the above assumptions were applied not just to reconstructing the history of areas, but often, to reconstructing the history of single clades. I can see why the assumptions might be useful if the goal is reconstructing the history of geographical areas using cladistic methods, because some assumptions about "homology" and shared history need to be made to even get started; but when the same assumptions are applied to reconstructing the history of individual clades, what results is a method that assumes "maximum vicariance" -- vicariance is employed as the preferred explanation of distributions wherever possible. Some biogeographers never bought this assumption -- especially biogeographers who worked on island taxa where dispersal seems overwhelmingly likely to be the major explanation of distributions. But, probably because of the power of the twin revolutions of plate tectonics and cladistics -- and the fact that both revolutions, at least according to common legends, took over in the face of hardened opposition from hidebound proponents of orthodoxy in the academic establishment -- there are still many biogeographers who repeat the line that dispersal is an unscientific explanation that can be used willy-nilly to explain any distributional data, and that historical biogeography should be focused on detecting the signal of vicariance. The last 15 years have seen the explosion of phylogenetic dating methods, as well as many new computational methods for analyzing biogeographical data on phylogenies. This has diluted the classic old dispersal-versus-vicariance debate somewhat, such that when the issue is raised, many will say something like: "Oh, that old chestnut. I'm tired of that debate, clearly the answer is that both happen and both are important. It's a false dichotomy." Actually, I am convinced this is a wrong and frankly somewhat lazy answer, for reasons I will explain at the end of this review. At any rate, even if the dispersal versus vicariance debate seems old-fashioned, it is definitely not dead. One piece of evidence for this was the book Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics by Michael Heads (2012). This large tome, published by by the respected University of California Press, analyzes the biogeography of hundreds of clades from around the world, but does so with a rigid application of the assumptions of vicariance biogeography -- Heads mostly ignores molecular dating results, even though many of the phylogenies he makes use of come from papers that apply dating methods, and furthermore, he states clearly that one of his starting assumptions is that long-distance dispersal (or "jump dispersal") will not be used in his reconstructions of the history of clades. de Queiroz Enters the Fray The other piece of evidence is Alan de Queiroz's new book, The Monkey's Voyage: How Improbable Journeys Shaped the History of Life, published on January 7, 2014. de Queiroz takes aim at the vicariance school in biogeography and argues that its proponents "ended up arguing themselves into a strange intellectual corner where they envisioned an idealized history of life that never was." He says that vicariance biogeography was "a turn down an intellectual cul-de-sac" for biogeography, and that this group's systematic skepticism about phylogenetic dating indicates "an acute disconnection from reality related to this skepticism about the estimated ages of groups." de Queiroz begins his defense of these statements with a thorough introduction to phylogenetic dating methods -- definitely the best introduction to the methods that I have seen written for the general public. By telling the story of his own work and many other modern researchers, he brings to life how the dusty old vicariance biogeography debate played out in the work of individual researchers trained in that tradition. In short, as DNA sequencing became ubiquitous, high-quality phylogenies could be constructed for any living group of interest. Dating methods, some relying on the molecular clock, but many others relying on less restrictive assumptions and fossil calibrations, kept giving results that indicated that many divergence events were just too young to be explained by classic vicariance hypotheses. Worse, the biogeographic congruence of different groups that researchers sometimes thought they saw through the blurry lens of Linnaean taxonomy or undated cladograms often fell apart once dates were available. Despite all of the caveats of dating methods -- high uncertainties, difficulties in finding reliable calibrations, the fact that the oldest fossils in a clade are never the oldest true members of a clade that existed, etc. -- caveats which de Queiroz reviews well -- the overall picture seems robust. Relatively few clades and inferred biogeographic events inferred from the dated phylogenies of living taxa are old enough to be explained by continental breakup. Often, the only way to make an analysis say that clades are sufficiently old is to use the postulated continental breakup to set the date of divergence; but this rather puts the cart before the horse, and often indicates molecular rates far slower than those indicated by much other evidence, and puts the divergence times far, far below those indicated by the fossil record of the group in question. The discussion of dating results is the intellectual core of the book, but de Queiroz successfully combines a scientific review with an engaging journalistic style, complete with humorous asides and witty quotes from the participants. Michael Donoghue's ultra-laid-back, but devastating, assessments of the vicariance school, and his description of his own personal journey from interest in the methods to concern at their rigidity, is not to be missed. de Queiroz supplements the scientific argument with a capable review of the history of historical biogeography, complete with quotes and stories from the main players, many of whom are still alive (and definitely kicking). The tale of how a subfield can manuever itself into what seems like, from the outside, a quite odd intellectual position, is interesting in and of itself, and serves as a caution to all of us in this age of scientific super-specialization. de Queiroz also effectively analyzes just what it was about vicariance biogeography that made it so appealing to so many. The role of plate tectonics and cladistics was described above, but he covers the popular appeal as well. Probably every reader has been to a zoo or museum, seen one of those amazing animations of continental plates moving about the globe, and read some description of the biogeography of some clade (usually ratites or southern beeches) and how it is neatly explained by plate tectonics. The simplicity of the story is gripping -- first a puzzle (cross-ocean distributions), followed by a resolution a fifth-grader could understand, namely, the (admittedly amazing) reconstruction of the history of plate movements. de Queiroz notes that even beyond this, there is probably more than a little regional pride behind the appeal of vicariance explanations. Standing in a primeval forest in New Zealand is all the more appealing if you think that you are basically standing in a forest that has existed in its present form since the Mesozoic. Finally, de Queiroz makes the positive case for dispersal, not just relying on dating results, but also reviewing many known cases of long-distance dispersal, some of them that would be quite stupendous and difficult to believe, had they not been directly observed by humans within the last century or two. He raises the question -- how can long-distance dispersal be said to be an unscientific explanation, when it is something that has been directly observed on many occasions? This puts the shoe decidedly on the other foot. In the concluding chapter, de Queiroz notes that much of the appeal of vicariance was due to the imaginative vision it presented -- flora and fauna riding on the continents, with a history that could be unraveled using plate tectonic reconstructions. de Queiroz quite deliberately puts forward an alternative imaginative vision, namely, that of the long-distance voyage, and the invasion and radiation of the rare heroic species that manage to cross oceans. He argues, effectively I think, that this set of stories is at least as capturing as the vicariance narrative, and that under this vision, we can see many cases where these rare events have played probably crucial roles in evolutionary history. Had one primate lineage never crossed the ancient Tethys sea, for instance, perhaps there never would have been great apes or, eventually, humans. This is Gould's thesis in Wonderful Life retold in biogeographic form, and frankly, the fact that the relevant biogeographic events are much more recent than those of the Cambrian probably means that de Queiroz's case for the role of contingency is stronger that Gould's was. de Queiroz's focus on narrative makes for gripping reading. Under his pen, a topic that seems at first rather dry and academic becomes one that underlies everything you see when you're on a hike or at a zoo, and you can also feel why there seems to be a impressive bit of emotion and rhetoric amongst the scientists involved in the vicariance debate. However, the focus on storytelling and reasoning from anecdote, while a noble tradition going back to Darwin and before, is itself a bit old-fashioned in this day and age. In modern evolutionary biology, we prefer that our conclusions are the result of formal statistical inference, rather than simply a narrative that we construct by gestalt based on accumulated experience. The cladistic methods in vicariance biogeography were actually an early attempt at this, which was part of their appeal. However, these methods had little in the way of uncertainty assessment, and the assumptions were such that the method could basically only give one answer: vicariance. Much of vicariance biogeography was based on essentially repurposing standard cladistic programs for biogeographical uses, but with the construction of biogeography-specific programs, the situation began to change. Programs like DIVA (Dispersal-Vicariance Analysis; Ronquist 1997) and LAGRANGE (Likelihood Analysis of Geographic Range Evolution; Ree and Smith 2008) enabled researchers to input the phylogeny of a group, geographic range data, and obtain an estimate of the group's geographic history as the product of a series of dispersal and vicariance events. DIVA was a parsimony method, but LAGRANGE was a probablistic method that explicitly took time into account, and it allowed researchers to have different geographies at different periods of time. A Grain of Salt These methods have enjoyed wide success. However, when I studied these methods for my Ph.D., one crucial thing I discovered was that each of these programs implemented the assumptions of the programmers, and that in the case of biogeography, the assumptions really matter. The core assumption made by both programs was that ranges could expand and contract along the branches of a phylogeny, but at speciation events on a phylogeny, all that could happen to a widespread range is that it break up (or, in the case of LAGRANGE, an additional option was subset sympatry, where a new species starts inside the range of the ancestor). One key event that these methods leave out is the possibility that dispersal and speciation are simultaneous events, i.e., founder-event speciation or jump dispersal . In founder-event speciation, a small subpopulation crosses a large barrier and instantly becomes genetically isolated, becoming a new lineage. While every proponent of vicariance biogeography accepts "dispersal" in the form of range expansion must happen at some point (this is, of course, required, since a species must become widespread before it can break up), jump dispersal was much more controversial. Michael Heads, mentioned above, explicitly accepts range expansion but denies founder-event speciation through jump dispersal. Interestingly, Heads thinks that the DIVA and LAGRANGE programs are dispersalist programs that allow jump dispersal, but actually they do not. I believe he thinks this, because these programs are widely used by biogeographers who think of themselves as dispersalists or pluralists, but the actual assumptions about dispersal made by DIVA and LAGRANGE are actually quite similar to those made by Heads (Matzke 2013). In short, while many biogeographers would not trust Heads's book any further than Alan de Queiroz could throw it, they are in effect adopting similar assumptions when they make use of programs that hard-code assumptions about biogeographical process that trace straight back to the vicariance biogeography school! In an attempt to remedy this situation, I wrote my own program, the R package "BioGeoBEARS", that allows users to turn on, or turn off, the different biogeographical processes, and see what the effect is on the statistical likelihood of the data. In cases where researchers don't feel that they know ahead of time the relative probability of different processes, the weight of each process can be set as a free parameter. The program then varies the values of these parameters, and picks the set of parameter values that confers the maximum likelihood on the data. The likelihoods of the geographical data under different models can then be compared using standard methods in statistical model choice, such as the likelihood ratio test and Akaike Information Criterion.

Caption for Figure 1, Matzke 2013, Frontiers of Biogeography: The processes assumed by different historical biogeography methods. Each of these processes is controlled by the specified parameter(s) in the BioGeoBEARS supermodel, allowing them to be turned on or off, or estimated from the data. Note that whether or not the data support a particular free parameter is an empirical question that should be tested with model choice procedures. Note also that this graphic deals only with the range-changing processes assumed by the different methods. BioGeoBEARS does not attempt to replicate e.g. the parsimony aspect of DIVA, just the processes allowed by DIVA (the BioGeoBEARS "DIVA" model can be called "DIVALIKE" to emphasize that it is a likelihood implementation of the processes assumed by DIVA). Similarly, BioGeoBEARS does not yet implement the "SSE" (state-based speciation and extinction rates) features of the GeoSSE model (Goldberg et al. 2011) of diversity. The ClaSSE model (Goldberg & Igić, 2012) can in theory use a parameter to represent the probability of each possible combination of ancestor range, left descendant range, and right descendant range. In that sense ClaSSE is the ultimate supermodel, although users would have to develop their own parameterizations to produce a reasonable biogeographic model, and the number of parameters inflates dramatically with number of areas -- on defaults, 9 areas means 2^9-1=511 possible ranges, and this means 511x511x511 = 133,432,831 possible combinations of ancestor/left descendant/right descendant. The cladoRcpp R package, a dependency of BioGeoBEARS, is designed to efficiently calculate probabilities for these combinations, under the implemented biogeography models.

de Queiroz would be pleased to know that, in 25 example clades that I selected to test the different models, models that included founder-event speciation as a process outperformed the traditional models in almost every case. The results were often dramatic: in many cases, models including founder-event speciation had model weights hundreds of thousands or millions of times higher than the traditional models. Furthermore, simulations show that accuracy and precision of estimated ancestral ranges increases dramatically when better-performing models are used. I have a found a few cases where the traditional models "won" -- Taygetis clade butterflies in South America are one, probably because they are a continental clade where many species have widespread, overlapping ranges. But the overall picture is clear: founder-event speciation is a crucial process in many clades, and we ignore it at our peril. This is why I said above that the dispersal-versus-vicariance debate should not be shrugged off with answers like "the right answer is both." First, there are different sorts of dispersal, and accounting for one does not mean that you have accounted for all of them. Second, what we really want is not just a list of valid and invalid processes. What we really want to do in science is to measure the relative importance of each process. BioGeoBEARS is the first attempt to do this, although of course it is quite likely that even more sophisticated improved models will be invented in the future. I am, of course, tooting my own horn here, but who can blame me? A popular book on my favorite topic, historical biogeography, confirms the statistical conclusions I reached in my Ph.D. research, although on totally separate grounds. I suspect this is rare amongst Ph.D. theses. So, take my assessment of The Monkey's Voyage with that grain of salt. However, I believe that my conclusions about de Queiroz's readability, grasp of the history and personalities involved, and his expertise on the relevant science are accurate, whatever the detailed fate of my own research. Certainly, reading de Queiroz's book is a far more enjoyable way to find out what is going on in historical biogeography than reading a recent Ph.D. on statistical model choice! References de Queiroz, Alan (2014). The Monkey's Voyage: How Improbable Journeys Shaped the History of Life. Basic Books: New York, pp. 1-348. http://themonkeysvoyage.com/ -- Amazon Link Heads, Michael J. (2012) Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics. University of California Press, Berkeley. Matzke, Nicholas J. (2013). BioGeoBEARS: BioGeography with Bayesian (and Likelihood) Evolutionary Analysis in R Scripts. R package, version 0.2.1, published July 27, 2013 at: http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=BioGeoBEARS. PhyloWiki page: http://phylo.wikidot.com/biogeobears Matzke, Nicholas J. (2013). Thesis abstract: Probabilistic historical biogeography: new models for founder-event speciation, imperfect detection, and fossils allow improved accuracy and model-testing. Frontiers of Biogeography, 5(4), 242-248. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/44j7n141 Matzke, Nicholas J. (2013). "Formal Model Testing of the Dispersal-Extinction-Cladogenesis (DEC) Model Reveals that Founder-event Speciation is a Dominant Process Structuring the Biogeography of Island Clades." Systematic Biology, in review. Matzke, Nicholas Joseph (2013). Probabilistic Historical Biogeography: New Models for Founder-Event Speciation, Imperfect Detection, and Fossils Allow Improved Accuracy and Model-Testing. Ph.D. thesis, Department Integrative Biology and Designated Emphasis in Computational and Genomic Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Pages 1-240. August 2013. Available at: http://phylo.wikidot.com/local--files/biogeobears/Matzke_PhD_FINAL_v5_w_refs.pdf Ree, R.H. & Smith, S.A. (2008) Maximum likelihood inference of geographic range evolution by dispersal, local extinction, and cladogenesis. Systematic Biology, 57, 4-14. Ronquist, F. (1997) Dispersal‐Vicariance Analysis: A new approach to the quantification of historical biogeography. Systematic Biology, 46, 195-203.

171 Comments

Paul Burnett · 6 January 2014

Awesome article - thanks!

Typo - last paragraph under "Background" - "The advanced of plate tectonics" should probably be "advancement".

Henry J · 6 January 2014

Fascinating (as Spock would say).

Sort of the hitchhiker's guide to biogeography?

robert van bakel · 6 January 2014

Thank you for letting me be lazy, and uncovering my next book purchase.

Nick Matzke · 7 January 2014

Fixed the typo, thanks!!

John Harshman · 7 January 2014

The weirdest thing, at least in my biased view, is that ratites were so long used as a vicariance poster child, when their distribution fits no model of continental separation. In each attempt to make them match, one or more bizarre events of special pleading had to be postulated, and the presence of ratites and other paleognaths in the northern hemisphere had to be ignored. Ratite polyphyly made the whole idea only a little bit sillier.

Nick Matzke · 7 January 2014

John Harshman said: The weirdest thing, at least in my biased view, is that ratites were so long used as a vicariance poster child, when their distribution fits no model of continental separation. In each attempt to make them match, one or more bizarre events of special pleading had to be postulated, and the presence of ratites and other paleognaths in the northern hemisphere had to be ignored. Ratite polyphyly made the whole idea only a little bit sillier.

Yep! BTW were the fossil "terror birds" of North America ratites?

Nick Matzke · 7 January 2014

Ah - South American, transferred north in the GABI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae

John Harshman · 7 January 2014

Nick Matzke said: Yep! BTW were the fossil "terror birds" of North America ratites?

Nope. I'm not sure we know what they are, though they're conventionally considered to be gruiforms. Gruiformes, however, doesn't exist in its traditional form, and does not contain the "gruiforms" most often linked to phorusrhacids: seriemas. That aside, phorusrhacids are clearly neognaths, and so are no closer to ratites than are mihirungs, gastornithids, or moa nalos.

Nick Matzke · 7 January 2014

Hey, just came across a blog by Alan de Queiroz's wife!
http://tinynaturalworld.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/the-monkey-has-landed.html

beatgroover · 7 January 2014

Great review, you've convinced me to get the book and check it out! I took an undergrad class on plant biogeography and our teacher always wanted us to understand the different dispersal capabilities of plants - understanding LDD was a big part of our course and you've made me appreciate his focus on it. Seed structure is naturally the most important thing to consider, hence why coconut trees (whose seeds can withstand almost any long voyage) are so ubiquitous on tropical beaches.

And I think I saw a doubled particle someone in your review, don't remember where though!

Robert Byers · 7 January 2014

I am TEC but always had a special interest in biogeography. It made the YEC case as I saw it.
The author of the thread starts out with a long statement about how DEFEATING the God theory makes the case for the evolution theory.
It doesn't make any case at all. Yet more important is that the idea of God poofing creatures into their placxes is contrary to historic biblical christianity. Darwin and modern writers make this error.
We , YEC, insist there was a flood, preservation of ground creatures on the ark, and only from there was there dispersal. !
We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific. TO say God placed creatures on earth where we later found them is a rejection of Genesis.
Why is this not understood? In Darwins day Genesis was rejected by the upper class Anglicans. he was fighting a special idea of God created speciation . Indeed in debunking it he too much thought he made his own case.
There is no problem with biogeopgraphy and the ark landing zone.

We also have no problem with minor variation of something as separated by islands/ranges etc. Just like with people.
We have no problem with the beech in the southern lands. it just floated about in those areas. no need to invoke slow continental drift carrying the seeds.
There probably is loads of problems with biogeography when the assumption is that evolution created the types of living things.

Nick Matzke · 7 January 2014

So, on the Noah's Ark theory, why did the monotremes and marsupials end up in such specific places? Did the echidna and platypus hold hands as traveled from the ark?

Helena Constantine · 7 January 2014

Robert Byers said: I am TEC but always had a special interest in biogeography. It made the YEC case as I saw it. The author of the thread starts out with a long statement about how DEFEATING the God theory makes the case for the evolution theory. It doesn't make any case at all. Yet more important is that the idea of God poofing creatures into their placxes is contrary to historic biblical christianity. Darwin and modern writers make this error. We , YEC, insist there was a flood, preservation of ground creatures on the ark, and only from there was there dispersal. ! We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific. TO say God placed creatures on earth where we later found them is a rejection of Genesis. Why is this not understood? In Darwins day Genesis was rejected by the upper class Anglicans. he was fighting a special idea of God created speciation . Indeed in debunking it he too much thought he made his own case. There is no problem with biogeopgraphy and the ark landing zone. We also have no problem with minor variation of something as separated by islands/ranges etc. Just like with people. We have no problem with the beech in the southern lands. it just floated about in those areas. no need to invoke slow continental drift carrying the seeds. There probably is loads of problems with biogeography when the assumption is that evolution created the types of living things.

After you answer Dr. Matzke's question, please tell us what the carnivores (or for that matter the herbivores) ate while dispersing and why no genetic bottleneck is evident at 5000 years ago for all animal species.

DS · 8 January 2014

Plate tectonics and biogeography falsify YEC (and TEC). bobby loses again. Just another example of evolution explaining the natural world and creationism utterly failing to provide any explanation at all.

MaskedQuoll · 8 January 2014

Why are there still monkeys?

Scott F · 8 January 2014

Robert Byers said: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific. TO say God placed creatures on earth where we later found them is a rejection of Genesis.

Okay. Why do YEC's say that Genesis and the flood predict that there are no elephants on the isles of the Pacific? That prediction should also be able to explain why we find elephants on the island of Ceylon, and many of the Indonesian islands. That prediction should also be able to explain why there were mammoths and any the other large animals in North America. Remember: The Ark landed in Asia. Any animals and plants had to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

eric · 8 January 2014

Robert Byers said: We , YEC, insist there was a flood, preservation of ground creatures on the ark, and only from there was there dispersal. !

Well, now you have a tool that you can use to test that hypothesis! Nick's program allows you to compare how well different explanations of distribution fit a current biogeographical distribution. So, pick a data set. Any data set - people, echidna, whatever. Compare the fit of "dispersal from Arrarat 6,000 years ago" with other dispersal and vicariance hypotheses. If the fit for your preferred hypothesis is the best, congratulations! You have just shown evidnece that the flood-and-distribution hypothesis explains what we see today (at least, better than the other tested hypotheses). Of course if the fit for your preferred hypothesis is orders of magnitude worse than some other distribution hypothese, then you would have to accept the conclusion that YECism is a terrible explanation which doesn't fit observed biogeographical distribution at all. Right? Heck, if you ask nicely, maybe Nick will do it for you for one of the data sets he's already loaded into the program. I for one would find a comparison of such fits to be very interesting. Or, at least, amusing.

MaskedQuoll · 8 January 2014

Robert Byers: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.

Pygmy mammoth

The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of dwarf elephant descended from the Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) ... Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel...

Prediction refuted.

beatgroover · 8 January 2014

eric said: I for one would find a comparison of such fits to be very interesting. Or, at least, amusing.

Seconded, you rarely see YEC (and TEC) make *any* kind of testable predictions. This could be a fun one to analyze. Points to Bob on account of him using more scientific language instead of his usual manner of commenting - seen here and on the other science blogs he regularly comments on (Sandwalk, NCSE, etc). Just gotta watch those pesky punctuation marks, I know they like to make a break for freedom but I know you can do it.

diogeneslamp0 · 8 January 2014

Here is Byers' great biogeographical theory.

His explanation for how kangaroos and many other marsupials got to Australia is that they didn't. When they ran from Mt. Ararat over the Himalaya and swam to Australia, they were placentals. Then some unspecified thing (marsupial rays?) in the environment of Australia turned them into marsupials by giving them a pouch.

Strangely, Byers' "marsupial rays" did not have the same effect of Ken Ham, or Crocodile Dundee, or 40,000 years of aboriginal inhabitants, or echidnas, or platypuses, or saltwater crocodiles, or the goanna.

Byers, being a genius, thinks that the marsupial lion and the marsupial wolf are two different species, and the first was a placental lion that "marsupial rays" gave a pouch and turned into the thylacine, and the second was a placental wolf that "marsupial rays" gave a pouch and uh, also turned into the thylacine.

Darwin is finished!

diogeneslamp0 · 8 January 2014

MaskedQuoll said:
Robert Byers: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.
Pygmy mammoth
The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of dwarf elephant descended from the Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) ... Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel...
Prediction refuted.

Oh snap!

diogeneslamp0 · 8 January 2014

Robert Byers said: We , YEC, insist there was a flood, preservation of ground creatures on the ark, and only from there was there dispersal. ! We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.

Robert, you must now concede that YEC has been thoroughly FALSIFIED! Concede.

Wikipedia on Indonesia Indonesia's size, tropical climate, and archipelagic geography, support the world's second highest level of biodiversity (after Brazil),[99] and its flora and fauna is a mixture of Asian and Australasian species.[100] The islands of the Sunda Shelf (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Bali) were once linked to the Asian mainland, and have a wealth of Asian fauna. Large species such as the tiger, rhinoceros, orangutan, elephant, and leopard, were once abundant as far east as Bali, but numbers and distribution have dwindled drastically.

I know you are an honest man-- er, as honest as any YEC ever is-- so I know you will now concede that YEC has been falsified.

DS · 8 January 2014

MaskedQuoll said: Why are there still monkeys?

Why are there still YECs?

Tenncrain · 8 January 2014

Byers, you have repeatedly ignored this post (click here to see) - and countless reminders of it to you - since October 2012. This post would address many of the points you still mindlessly parrot out.

Are you ever going to address this Christian link about Christian scientists that accept and routinely use radiometric dating? You repeatedly look away and run from this (Byers, click here to see).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - Not to mention the many other questions you have retreated from:

What about finally giving us a full review of an evo-devo book like Sean B Carroll’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful (click here)? Remember, it's a popular level book for the public, a point you routinely stress that is important. You could use this book to show how evo-devo and other evidence depends on fossils as you routinely parrot.......unless evo-devo really doesn't depend on fossils.

Also,

When are you going to get around to fully discussing SINE insertions? You could use SINEs to tie in with your wild claim that "genetic researchers today are like alchemists of yesterday" and oh here's a link to the post about SINEs that you have ignored: http://pandasthumb.org/bw/index.html#comment-300136

Since you have repeatedly run away from these questions, perhaps we should give you a little wiggle room by giving you the option of addressing another matter you have not answered:

Are you ever going to make a full critique of this particular link?

Standard Disclaimer: As parts of this post are rather offtopic for this thread, it's understandable if this post along with any reply by Byers are posted/moved to the BW.

Scott F · 8 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific. TO say God placed creatures on earth where we later found them is a rejection of Genesis.
Okay. Why do YEC's say that Genesis and the flood predict that there are no elephants on the isles of the Pacific? That prediction should also be able to explain why we find elephants on the island of Ceylon, and many of the Indonesian islands. That prediction should also be able to explain why there were mammoths and any the other large animals in North America. Remember: The Ark landed in Asia. Any animals and plants had to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

Dear Robert, Let me explain. There are predictions, and then there are predictions. [ As an aside, in the following discussion when I use the term "why", I'm talking about a physical causal agency. I'm not talking about a "goal", or a "plan", or a "desire". ] 1) "I predict that Elvis and Big Foot will be married this year in a secret wedding in the wilds of Idaho." This is a laughable prediction. It it not based in any kind of reality. First, there is no reason to predict this. We know nothing about Elvis or Big Foot that would lead us to believe that they even like each other. Second, there will be no way to test this prediction. It is a prediction about two fictitious creatures doing something which no one will ever see, even if it were to happen. Yet people make similar predictions all the time. The only reason to make such predictions is to gain either money, notoriety, or both. 2) "Based on the shape of my bunions, I predict that Antarctica is colder that any other continent." This is a trivial prediction. First, everyone already knows that Antarctica is colder than any other continent. It is an established fact. Second, "my bunions" is not an explanation for how or why Antarctica is colder than any other continent. Even if the prediction is true, it has nothing to do with "my bunions". This is an example of your "prediction" that elephants are not found on Pacific islands. Your "prediction" doesn't actually explain anything about why elephants aren't found on Pacific islands. 3) "Based on our 15 different simulations of the Earth's oceans and atmosphere, and the current measurements for the last month, we predict that North America will continue to experience a drought in the coming year." Here we have a "prediction" with some power to explain things. Based on evidence that we have gathered in the past, and based on reasoning and understanding of how climate behaves and how weather works, we can not only explain what we think will happen, we can also explain why we believe it will happen and how it will happen. More importantly, at the end of the year if our prediction turns out to be wrong, we will also be able to explain both why and how how our prediction went wrong. Even more importantly, at the end of the year if our prediction turns out to be right, we can still explain both how and why it was right. "Because God made them that way" does not explain either how or why.

Richard B. Hoppe · 8 January 2014

I just finished the book, and immediately thought about founder effects.

A question: why do we not see genetic evidence of the extreme population bottlenecks implied by ubiquitous dispersal? Or do we?

Nick Matzke · 8 January 2014

I think we do, sometimes, although for any really ancient events this would be hard to detect. I don't think anyone has done a comprehensive study inferring founder-events on the tree and then looking for the popgen data, as I just invented the founder-event inference, and then you would need lots of popgen data. It would certainly be feasible to do the test...

Robert Byers · 9 January 2014

Nick Matzke said: So, on the Noah's Ark theory, why did the monotremes and marsupials end up in such specific places? Did the echidna and platypus hold hands as traveled from the ark?

Your right and make a good point. A point evolutionists could make more to YEC. They struggle with a answer. I don't. the answer is that all creatures on earth are the same from a dispersal place. Therefore marsupials etc are the same as the others but with minor changes upon entering certain areas. For good reasons. This is also found to have happened with now extinct creatures (fossils) that are wrongly segregated into groups. A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch. Convergent evolution did not do the deed. Everyone just google the last marsupial wolf and watch moving/still pictures of it.

Robert Byers · 9 January 2014

Helena Constantine said:
Robert Byers said: I am TEC but always had a special interest in biogeography. It made the YEC case as I saw it. The author of the thread starts out with a long statement about how DEFEATING the God theory makes the case for the evolution theory. It doesn't make any case at all. Yet more important is that the idea of God poofing creatures into their placxes is contrary to historic biblical christianity. Darwin and modern writers make this error. We , YEC, insist there was a flood, preservation of ground creatures on the ark, and only from there was there dispersal. ! We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific. TO say God placed creatures on earth where we later found them is a rejection of Genesis. Why is this not understood? In Darwins day Genesis was rejected by the upper class Anglicans. he was fighting a special idea of God created speciation . Indeed in debunking it he too much thought he made his own case. There is no problem with biogeopgraphy and the ark landing zone. We also have no problem with minor variation of something as separated by islands/ranges etc. Just like with people. We have no problem with the beech in the southern lands. it just floated about in those areas. no need to invoke slow continental drift carrying the seeds. There probably is loads of problems with biogeography when the assumption is that evolution created the types of living things.
After you answer Dr. Matzke's question, please tell us what the carnivores (or for that matter the herbivores) ate while dispersing and why no genetic bottleneck is evident at 5000 years ago for all animal species.

The carnivores ate what they ate on the ark. A lag time before eating flesh probably took place. Bottlenecks are speculation. genetic health was better back then as indicated bu the long lives of people.

Robert Byers · 9 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific. TO say God placed creatures on earth where we later found them is a rejection of Genesis.
Okay. Why do YEC's say that Genesis and the flood predict that there are no elephants on the isles of the Pacific? That prediction should also be able to explain why we find elephants on the island of Ceylon, and many of the Indonesian islands. That prediction should also be able to explain why there were mammoths and any the other large animals in North America. Remember: The Ark landed in Asia. Any animals and plants had to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

If elephants are hound it means there was first land connections or people brought them. Ceylon(?) was connected to India. the Indo isles were first one land mass before a rise in water. north america likewise was connected by lower water levels.

Robert Byers · 9 January 2014

MaskedQuoll said:
Robert Byers: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.
Pygmy mammoth
The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of dwarf elephant descended from the Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) ... Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel...
Prediction refuted.

this is from later events. a lowering from the ice age on water levels. then a rise and the trap forced creatures to get smaller to survive. This is a very common thing everywhere. Dwarfs of many creatures took place.

Robert Byers · 9 January 2014

diogeneslamp0 said:
Robert Byers said: We , YEC, insist there was a flood, preservation of ground creatures on the ark, and only from there was there dispersal. ! We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.
Robert, you must now concede that YEC has been thoroughly FALSIFIED! Concede.
Wikipedia on Indonesia Indonesia's size, tropical climate, and archipelagic geography, support the world's second highest level of biodiversity (after Brazil),[99] and its flora and fauna is a mixture of Asian and Australasian species.[100] The islands of the Sunda Shelf (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Bali) were once linked to the Asian mainland, and have a wealth of Asian fauna. Large species such as the tiger, rhinoceros, orangutan, elephant, and leopard, were once abundant as far east as Bali, but numbers and distribution have dwindled drastically.
I know you are an honest man-- er, as honest as any YEC ever is-- so I know you will now concede that YEC has been falsified.

No problem and welcome. tHese areas first were one mass of land. Later a rise in water. WE need this also for australia and the wallace line. After the flood the earh was and had to be more easily accessed and thus lower levels of water.

didymos1120 · 9 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Everyone just google the last marsupial wolf and watch moving/still pictures of it.

Well, I'd say any idiot doing that would see it's clearly a quite different animal from a placental wolf, but that's apparently not true.

Keelyn · 9 January 2014

didymos1120 said:
Robert Byers said: Everyone just google the last marsupial wolf and watch moving/still pictures of it.
Well, I'd say any idiot doing that would see it's clearly a quite different animal from a placental wolf, but that's apparently not true.

Hmmm ...are you saying that Booby Byers is not just any idiot, but is a particularly profoundly clueless idiot? If so ...well, :)

DS · 9 January 2014

So that would be a no. Robert has no intention whatsoever of ever testing his "ideas". And that should tell you all you need to know about him and his ideas.

Scott F · 9 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
MaskedQuoll said:
Robert Byers: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.
Pygmy mammoth
The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of dwarf elephant descended from the Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) ... Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel...
Prediction refuted.
this is from later events. a lowering from the ice age on water levels. then a rise and the trap forced creatures to get smaller to survive. This is a very common thing everywhere. Dwarfs of many creatures took place.

Robert, when would say that your "ice age" actually happen? Did it happen before, or after The Flood™? Since you say it was from "later events", that must mean that your YEC "ice age" happened after The Flood™, within the last 2,000 years, within the time of recorded history. In which year did the ice age occur? More importantly, on what do you base this conclusion? What, in the Bible, tells you that an "ice age" ever even happened? Science says that multiple ice ages started about 110,000 years ago, and lasted until about 12,000 years ago. That's between 2 and 100 times the age of your Young Earth. Of course, since written historical records never mention a global flood, they probably never bothered to record something as minor as global glaciation, either.

DS · 9 January 2014

So in the last six thousand years, AFTER a global flood that nobody seemed to notice and which did NOT produce any genetic bottleneck in any species, an ice age occurred that lowered sea levels allowing for animals to migrate to every part of the earth (in patterns that precisely mimic those expected from continental drift). Then the ice melted and sea levels rose, so island species were reduced in size drastically due to selection pressures. And all of this happened without anyone noticing either.

And all of this must be true because evolution could not have happened!

diogeneslamp0 · 9 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Nick Matzke said: So, on the Noah's Ark theory, why did the monotremes and marsupials end up in such specific places? Did the echidna and platypus hold hands as traveled from the ark?
Therefore marsupials etc are the same as the others but with minor changes upon entering certain areas. For good reasons. ...A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch.

Byers has not answered the question I asked him. In his biogeographical theory, he said that placental wolves ran from Mt. Ararat over the Himalayas and swam to Australia, where something unknown in the environment (marsupial rays?) turned them and many other macropods, diprotodonts etc. in marsupials. I asked Byers why creationist "marsupial rays" didn't give a pouch to Ken Ham, or to dingoes, or to Crocodile Dundee or aborigines, or to the saltwater crocodile. He refuses to answer. But now he dazzles us with this bit of genius:

Robert Byers said: ...A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch.

You're bullshitting, Byers. Your side tried bullshitting about the thylacine at the Dover vs. Kitzmiller trial and you lost-- remember that? Kevin Padian's testimony, with slides and diagrams, is here. This source shows images of a placental wolf skull alongside a marsupial "wolf" skull. How many differences can you count, Byers? Gimme a count. Answer the fucking question, Byers: in these images of a placental wolf skull alongside a marsupial "wolf" skull, how many skeletal differences can you count? Give me a number. I'm kiddding-- I know Byers can't count. We can start by pointing out the two holes in the palate of the thylacine, NOT in the palate of the wolf. The thylacine has 4 molars, 3 premolars and 4 incisors, while the placental wolf has 3 molars, 4 premolars and 3 incisors, the placental wolf has a carnassial tooth and the thylacine doesn't, the thylacine has a wide nasal bone and the the placental wolf has a pinched nasal bone, blah blah blah, there's a long list of differences: cheek bone and jaw joint, paraoccipatal process, ear bulla, lacrimal bone, reflected lamina in the jaw, EVERYTHING is goddamn DIFFERENT! But

Robert Byers will continue to say: ...A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch.

This has been proven wrong. Over and over and over and over. Once again Byers and his bullshit is wasting our goddamn time. Arguing with lying creationists is like punching a bathtub of water. Look at the pictures yourself. Creationists are either lying or stupid.

apokryltaros · 9 January 2014

diogeneslamp0 said: Creationists are either lying or stupid.

Or both, as in the case of Robert Byers.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q · 9 January 2014

Richard B. Hoppe said: I just finished the book, and immediately thought about founder effects. A question: why do we not see genetic evidence of the extreme population bottlenecks implied by ubiquitous dispersal? Or do we?

I tried to do this 20 years ago using species distributions and isozyme data for speciation in fairy shrimp. For a variety of reasons, this never got published except in my dissertation. I would be happy to send a copy if anyone were interested.

apokryltaros · 9 January 2014

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said:
Richard B. Hoppe said: I just finished the book, and immediately thought about founder effects. A question: why do we not see genetic evidence of the extreme population bottlenecks implied by ubiquitous dispersal? Or do we?
I tried to do this 20 years ago using species distributions and isozyme data for speciation in fairy shrimp. For a variety of reasons, this never got published except in my dissertation. I would be happy to send a copy if anyone were interested.

What species of fairy shrimp did you use?

Mike Elzinga · 9 January 2014

diogeneslamp0 said: Creationists are either lying or stupid.

They don’t even understand basic high school level science. It is quite easy for a high school science physics student to show that the global flood would have raised the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere to something like 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmospheric pressure from all that steam suspended in the atmosphere would have been nearly 900 atmospheres. A little more advanced calculation would show that this temperature and pressure would have been achieved within a week. All other weaseling scenarios to save the story of Noah's ark would have involved even more energy. Nothing would have disbursed because nothing would have survived.

Scott F · 9 January 2014

diogeneslamp0 said: This has been proven wrong. Over and over and over and over. Once again Byers and his bullshit is wasting our goddamn time. Arguing with lying creationists is like punching a bathtub of water. Look at the pictures yourself. Creationists are either lying or stupid.

At your link, I went looking for the pictures of dogs, wolves, and the other creatures. I'm no biologist, let alone a taxonomist. I'll take your word for it that the bone differences are significant. But to be fair, and not to defend the creationists, I sure can't tell the significant differences just by looking at those pictures. For example, I can't tell the difference between 3 pre-molars and 4 molars, versus 4 pre-molars and 3 molars. It just looks like a row of 7 teeth to me. The small holes in the center of the upper jaw don't mean anything to me either. Looking at only a few specimens of only 3 different species, I can't tell what are significant differences, and what aren't. I don't have the background to be able to judge what is significant, and what isn't, what falls into the range of normal variation, and what doesn't. What would have been more instructive to me would have been the soft-tissue and reproductive differences. The reproductive biology of (for example) a kangaroo is dramatically different than a dog or a true wolf. Unfortunately, we no longer have live Tasmanian Wolves to show their soft tissues, so that evidence isn't readily available. What I'm saying is these differences may be obvious to an expert, but they aren't necessarily "obvious" to a lay person. I don't consider myself to be either lying, or stupid. But I'll readily admit to being ignorant of this subject, and willing to accept the observations of experts in the field. Just be careful what you toss around as being "obvious". I feel that you somewhat undermine your argument by making over generalizations about what people are expected know.

Just Bob · 9 January 2014

Mike Elzinga said:
diogeneslamp0 said: Creationists are either lying or stupid.
They don’t even understand basic high school level science. It is quite easy for a high school science physics student to show that the global flood would have raised the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere to something like 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmospheric pressure from all that steam suspended in the atmosphere would have been nearly 900 atmospheres. A little more advanced calculation would show that this temperature and pressure would have been achieved within a week. All other weaseling scenarios to save the story of Noah's ark would have involved even more energy. Nothing would have disbursed because nothing would have survived.

Unless it's all just created magically, maintained magically, and disappeared magically. But then all the contortions creationists go through to 'prove' that the flood was possible, did happen, and the ark was real are for naught. The impossible is possible with magic, but they seem to depend on its being physically possible, with zero or minimal magical tampering with reality. [Oh, and I think you mean 'dispersed'.]

Mike Elzinga · 9 January 2014

Just Bob said: Unless it's all just created magically, maintained magically, and disappeared magically. But then all the contortions creationists go through to 'prove' that the flood was possible, did happen, and the ark was real are for naught. The impossible is possible with magic, but they seem to depend on its being physically possible, with zero or minimal magical tampering with reality.

If it was magic, then the way it was done was bizarre to the max. Why kill off an entire planet that way while leaving just Noah’s immediate family and “representative” chosen creatures? Why not just poof the “bad” humans out of existence and leave the rest of the planet alone? There is no way to escape the absurdity of Noah’s flood as a story to be taken literally. YECs are stalled in early childhood.

[Oh, and I think you mean ‘dispersed’.]

Heh; fat fingered that one, I did; really fat. On the other hand, given an energy deposition rate of 40 kilotons of TNT going off every second over every square meter of the Earth’s surface, I suspect the passengers on the ark would be “disbursing” quite freely and loosely. The deity must have been having a good laugh.

TomS · 9 January 2014

IANAS, but here is my take on things:

There is a complex pattern of relationships which exists between various forms of life, known as the "nested hierarchy". It includes, for example, the obvious relationship between the human body and that of chimps and other apes. *No one* has proposed an explanation for this which does *not* involve common descent with modification. Therefore, it is a reasonable hypothesis to consider. The consequences of this hypothesis have been investigated for 150 years from every conceivable angle, and the hypothesis remains unchallenged.

The only "alternative" proposed goes something like this: somehow, somewhere, some time, something happened which just by coincidence turns out to be this "nested hierarchy".

Robert Byers · 9 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
MaskedQuoll said:
Robert Byers: We predict also no elephants on the isles of the pacific.
Pygmy mammoth
The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of dwarf elephant descended from the Columbian mammoth (M. columbi) ... Remains of M. exilis have been discovered on three of the northern Channel Islands of California since 1856: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel...
Prediction refuted.
this is from later events. a lowering from the ice age on water levels. then a rise and the trap forced creatures to get smaller to survive. This is a very common thing everywhere. Dwarfs of many creatures took place.
Robert, when would say that your "ice age" actually happen? Did it happen before, or after The Flood™? Since you say it was from "later events", that must mean that your YEC "ice age" happened after The Flood™, within the last 2,000 years, within the time of recorded history. In which year did the ice age occur? More importantly, on what do you base this conclusion? What, in the Bible, tells you that an "ice age" ever even happened? Science says that multiple ice ages started about 110,000 years ago, and lasted until about 12,000 years ago. That's between 2 and 100 times the age of your Young Earth. Of course, since written historical records never mention a global flood, they probably never bothered to record something as minor as global glaciation, either.

All works in biblical boundaries of timelines. The Ice age (I prefer freezing rain age) happened suddenly two-four centuries after the flood. Last a century or two and ended in a few decades afterwards. So all over by 1700BC or so. Your right on another post. The point about marsupials and placentals IS that they look so alike that to explain it CONVERGENT evolution must be invoked. A speciality evolution in other words. Both wolves, as a example, are so alike in thousands of points of morphology that its impossible for a coincidence . So they must say both evolved under like selection upon original different small rodent like ancestors. Very unlikely especially as it must include so many types of creatures. There were marsupial lions, tapirs, mice, moles etc etc. The correct conclusion is that they are simply the same creatures and the minor bits of difference, including reproductive traits, is what actually adapted upon migration of these creatures to certain areas on earth.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q · 9 January 2014

apokryltaros said:
https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said:
Richard B. Hoppe said: I just finished the book, and immediately thought about founder effects. A question: why do we not see genetic evidence of the extreme population bottlenecks implied by ubiquitous dispersal? Or do we?
I tried to do this 20 years ago using species distributions and isozyme data for speciation in fairy shrimp. For a variety of reasons, this never got published except in my dissertation. I would be happy to send a copy if anyone were interested.
What species of fairy shrimp did you use?

I worked on the genus Branchinecta mainly in the western US.

Dave Luckett · 9 January 2014

What Byers does not know is that there are perfectly reliable written records from the ancient near east that detail crop yields, storage levels, irrigation, astronomical observation and king lists from about 3000 BCE onwards - and there was no ice age at any time in that time period.

That is because knowledge would be fatal to Byers. He therefore carefully preserves his ignorance.

Dave Luckett · 9 January 2014

But wait: the second paragraph of Byers's last post actually consists of reasonably competent grammatical prose, barring an apostrophe or two.

Who are you, and what have you done with Byers?

Scott F · 9 January 2014

Indeed. Byers claims that over a 200-400 year period, right at the height of the Minoan civilization, the world's sea level fell and rose many hundreds of feet, several times, in order to allow elephants and other land animals to wander from Noah's Ark to the various islands around the globe. Yet, none of these sea faring, trading, literate civilizations (Minoans, Egyptians, Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc) took any notice of these massive disruptions of their surroundings, or bothered to write down when the ocean retreated several hundred miles from it's previous banks.

The Ice age (I prefer freezing rain age) ...

Regardless of what you "prefer", it wasn't just a few cold winters with a little bit of "freezing rain". The Ice Age included massive glaciers several miles thick, covering much of the northern continents. What Byers also doesn't realize is that we have living trees that are older than 4,000 years, living right where those glaciers would have been. This isn't some "magical" radiometric carbon dating, either. All you have to do is count the tree rings. Not only are these trees standing where 2-mile-thick ice would have been, no other tree rings in the world show such devastating climate change. But at least Byers has the faith of his convictions; enough faith to make ludicrous claims that are patently false, and falsified by all the data and all of the written history available. Even the Bible makes no mention of sea level rise and fall of such magnitude.

All works in biblical boundaries of timelines.

Byers, as you are wont to say, this is only a line of reasoning, based on nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking. And poorly reasoned at that.

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Christine Janis · 10 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch.

Interesting ---- you think that the only difference between a marsupial and a placental is the presence of a pouch? Here are a few other things about the thylacine that are like other marsupials 1. Teeth. No carnassial teeth, the marsupial dental formula of 3 premolars and 4 molars (versus 4 premolars and 3 molars in placentals [only 2 molars in the wolf]), incisor formula of 5 upper and 4 lower on each side (versus 3 and 3 in the placentals, inc. the wolf). 2. Many characteristic features of marsupials including palatal foramina, jugal contributing to jaw articular area in skull, inturned angle of dentary in lower jaw. Skull much less robustly "designed" than a wolf http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/thylacines-weak-jaws-linked-its-extinction 3. In the ankle, a configuration of the ankle bones (including an astragalus with a very short neck) that is typically marsupial. 4. An elbow joint that is quite unlike that of a specialized runner like a wolf, but rather has retained the ability for a degree of supination, like that of a cat http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/03/thylacine-was-more-tasmanian-tiger-than-marsupial-wolf/#.UtAKVPZrLsU Oh yes, and the fact that its DNA shows it to be related to other marsupials, not to the placental wolf. If we had a live specimen to dissect, given the fact that everything else says it is a marsupial, we would see females with a duplex vagina and pseudovaginal canal, males with the vas deferens that does not loop over the ureter, a different construction of the mammary glands (including absence of nipples in the males), a brain without a corpus callosum, the retention of the left anterior vena cava bring blood back to the heart, and a host of other small details And, another question. Why does the array of endemic rodents in Australia lack pouches?

ksplawn · 10 January 2014

Scott F said:
All works in biblical boundaries of timelines.
Byers, as you are wont to say, this is only a line of reasoning, based on nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking. And poorly reasoned at that.

I think we need a new term to cover what Byers is doing. "Rationalization" gives him too much credit. I propose the neologism "irrationalization."

DS · 10 January 2014

ksplawn said:
Scott F said:
All works in biblical boundaries of timelines.
Byers, as you are wont to say, this is only a line of reasoning, based on nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking. And poorly reasoned at that.
I think we need a new term to cover what Byers is doing. "Rationalization" gives him too much credit. I propose the neologism "irrationalization."

Seconded.

apokryltaros · 10 January 2014

ksplawn said:
Scott F said:
All works in biblical boundaries of timelines.
Byers, as you are wont to say, this is only a line of reasoning, based on nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking. And poorly reasoned at that.
I think we need a new term to cover what Byers is doing. "Rationalization" gives him too much credit. I propose the neologism "irrationalization."

No neologism is necessary: Robert Byers is merely engaging in really, really, really stupid ad hoc fallacies which also lay bare his immense innate-ignorance-turned-deliberate-stupidity.

ksplawn · 10 January 2014

Irrationalization is much easier to type.

apokryltaros · 10 January 2014

ksplawn said: Irrationalization is much easier to type.

So is typing "engaging in an ongoing stupidtastrophe"

Robert Byers · 11 January 2014

Christine Janis said:
Robert Byers said:
A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch.
Interesting ---- you think that the only difference between a marsupial and a placental is the presence of a pouch? Here are a few other things about the thylacine that are like other marsupials 1. Teeth. No carnassial teeth, the marsupial dental formula of 3 premolars and 4 molars (versus 4 premolars and 3 molars in placentals [only 2 molars in the wolf]), incisor formula of 5 upper and 4 lower on each side (versus 3 and 3 in the placentals, inc. the wolf). 2. Many characteristic features of marsupials including palatal foramina, jugal contributing to jaw articular area in skull, inturned angle of dentary in lower jaw. Skull much less robustly "designed" than a wolf http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/thylacines-weak-jaws-linked-its-extinction 3. In the ankle, a configuration of the ankle bones (including an astragalus with a very short neck) that is typically marsupial. 4. An elbow joint that is quite unlike that of a specialized runner like a wolf, but rather has retained the ability for a degree of supination, like that of a cat http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/05/03/thylacine-was-more-tasmanian-tiger-than-marsupial-wolf/#.UtAKVPZrLsU Oh yes, and the fact that its DNA shows it to be related to other marsupials, not to the placental wolf. If we had a live specimen to dissect, given the fact that everything else says it is a marsupial, we would see females with a duplex vagina and pseudovaginal canal, males with the vas deferens that does not loop over the ureter, a different construction of the mammary glands (including absence of nipples in the males), a brain without a corpus callosum, the retention of the left anterior vena cava bring blood back to the heart, and a host of other small details And, another question. Why does the array of endemic rodents in Australia lack pouches?

I;m very aware of the few details of differences between placental wolves, for example, and marsupial wolves. its all about what traits one lumps together to define relationships between creatures. The few details you point out are real but still very minor or rather easily explained as local adaptions by all the migrating creatures to some area AFTER a original plan. The original plan need not be our wolf but that those also changed based upon the areas they moved too. An equation here. Yet the biggest point is that its THOUSANDS of points of morphology twists and turns that are needed to make both wolves look identical. Its a big deal to have a wolf head. Count the anatomy curve list! You stress elbows, jaws, anckles, while not stressing a whole upper body , head, legs, and snout. Further this is so common in marsupials, cat-like, tapir-like, mole-like, rodent0like, etc etc. THAT it all the more is improbable and unneeded to stress ankles and jaws. Yes there is a need for mechanisms to explain biological results but everyone needs it. Evolution says Convergent evolution. A special species of evolution that does remarkable acts of sameness. i need also mechanism to explain the reproductive likeness of marsupials. Yet snakes breed, live/egg, and are still snakes. Not different groups like Mar/Plac. Its no big deal about birthing . One can insist there is ways for these changes from a common original style. Again however its about scoring traits. The marsupial wolf is surely just a wolf and the marsupial lion was just a lion. Why stress the stickyness of marsupial details staying around while convergent evolution has its way? Its easily more probable the traits were just from like local adaptations. Then finally it makes better sense from biblical truth of a original locality for all creatures to fill the earth. Namely the ark. I think i'm right. by the way this is common in the fossil record for other groups. i say this in my essay. not all marsupials have pouches. its not a big deal to them.

DS · 11 January 2014

Irrationalization indeed.

Or in the words of Sheldon Cooper, "ununravelable".

TomS · 11 January 2014

Robert Byers said: rather easily explained

Indeed. Something, somehow, happened somewhere somewhen rather easily explains lots of things, doesn't it?

Just Bob · 11 January 2014

Robert Byers,

I rather hesitate to ask this, but here goes: The knowledge and principles that we can lump under "evolution" or "evolutionary science" (or methodological naturalism) have helped us achieve many wonderful things and made human life immeasurably better in many ways. But I will grant that that alone does not 'prove' that evolution is true. It could be just a useful mental tool for figuring out things. I believe there are many things in math that work that way.

Now, let's switch it around, as you apparently want to do. Let's suppose that we all quit using the scientific model of an ancient and evolving universe and life, and discoverable natural causes (methodological naturalism). Instead, let's use the YEC model of the universe and life. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, because, just as with evolution (above), it could just be a useful mental tool for figuring out things. If it WORKS and helps us, we should use it, whether we believe it to be true or not.

So... if science all switched to YEC, how would we be better off? (Let's leave out spiritual things like getting to heaven.) What problems could we solve with a YEC framework that have stumped us with evolution? Would we cure more diseases? Would human lifespans increase? Infant mortality decrease? Would the world population become happier, healthier, wealthier, and no longer in danger of overpopulation and depletion of resources? If YEC would solve, or even slightly improve, those things, how would it do it? Why would it work better than the evolution/old universe model?

ksplawn · 11 January 2014

You're asking him for original thinking instead of a chance to irrationalize some select, existing facts with his Crazy Glue(tm) of YEC.

I wouldn't expect a direct answer, if he answers at all.

ksplawn · 11 January 2014

Oh what the heck, I'll try again anyway.

Robert Byers said: I;m very aware of the few details of differences between placental wolves, for example, and marsupial wolves. its all about what traits one lumps together to define relationships between creatures.

The thing is, many of those anatomical differences between marsupial "wolves" and placental wolves are also shared among ALL marsupials, but among no placentals. Not even the endemic placentals of Australia. We're talking about animals as different from thylacines as kangaroos, sugar gliders and the New World opossums. They can't be explained by lifestyle. They can't be explained by these animals exhibiting identical stresses on their joints. It can't be explained as a quirky adaptation to local geography and ecology, because A) there are native placental mammals in Australia, sometimes competing in the same niche, and B) there are marsupials outside of Australia with the same features, competing with other local placental mammals. And in all cases there are differences in habitat and lifestyle in the mix.

Yet the biggest point is that its THOUSANDS of points of morphology twists and turns that are needed to make both wolves look identical. Its a big deal to have a wolf head. Count the anatomy curve list!

Thylacines and wolves DO NOT have the same head. They are NOT identical. Heck, the red fox has an even better match to the marsupial wolf than a wolf does, and it's still not the same! Even discounting the marsupial-specific anatomical features (which have nothing to do with having a pouch), the differences are clear to any anatomist. That's why they were never classified as wolves to begin with. In fact, most early accounts confused them for cats (especially tigers). Some compared it to the hyena. But it was first formally classified along with the American opossums! Nobody makes the mistake you're making now. Not then, not since.

Further this is so common in marsupials, cat-like, tapir-like, mole-like, rodent0like, etc etc. THAT it all the more is improbable and unneeded to stress ankles and jaws.

It's only common among Europeans who need to describe animals they've never seen before. They can only draw analogies with things they already know about. Native Australians never needed to make these comparisons to Eurasian placentals.

The marsupial wolf is surely just a wolf and the marsupial lion was just a lion.

In that case, what was the "marsupial tiger?" Because that's a thylacine; the same animal you're calling a wolf. Which one is it, clearly?

Its easily more probable the traits were just from like local adaptations.

Except that those adaptations don't fit the pattern of a local one. They do fit the pattern of ancestral divergence from placental mammals at the base of the placental/marsupial split, which is how animals with completely different lifestyles and living on completely different (like the koala, the New World opossums, sugar gliders, etc.) can share those specific features while no placental mammals from the same places or filling the same niche can.

DS · 11 January 2014

It's easy to make up stories when you ignore most of the evidence. Tell us bobby boy, are whales fish? Are bats birds? How do you know? If you apply the same principles to the wolf problem, what answer do you get? Now do you want to admit you were once again wrong?

Just Bob · 11 January 2014

Just Bob said: Robert Byers, I rather hesitate to ask this, but here goes: The knowledge and principles that we can lump under "evolution" or "evolutionary science" (or methodological naturalism) have helped us achieve many wonderful things and made human life immeasurably better in many ways. But I will grant that that alone does not 'prove' that evolution is true. It could be just a useful mental tool for figuring out things. I believe there are many things in math that work that way. Now, let's switch it around, as you apparently want to do. Let's suppose that we all quit using the scientific model of an ancient and evolving universe and life, and discoverable natural causes (methodological naturalism). Instead, let's use the YEC model of the universe and life. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, because, just as with evolution (above), it could just be a useful mental tool for figuring out things. If it WORKS and helps us, we should use it, whether we believe it to be true or not. So... if science all switched to YEC, how would we be better off? (Let's leave out spiritual things like getting to heaven.) What problems could we solve with a YEC framework that have stumped us with evolution? Would we cure more diseases? Would human lifespans increase? Infant mortality decrease? Would the world population become happier, healthier, wealthier, and no longer in danger of overpopulation and depletion of resources? If YEC would solve, or even slightly improve, those things, how would it do it? Why would it work better than the evolution/old universe model?

If you can conceive of no realistic way in which we would be materially better off using YEC (whether we believe in it or not), then why on Earth would we want to give up on what HAS worked so well for so long?

Rolf · 11 January 2014

The problem with YEC is that sooner than later even the most ardent of proponents will have to surrender to the overwhelming evidence that their belief can no longer be upheld without committing what I call intellectual harakiri. That applies to Robert as well.

Dendrochronology and C-14 dating alone will be more than enough. There is more than enough evidence showing that these methods are very reliable within the past 10 - 20 thousand years - long enough to send YEC to the garbage heap of history.

TomS · 11 January 2014

By 1950, YEC was indeed dead. The anti-evolutionists - except for a handful of extremists - had long conceded that there had been more than 10,000 years of life on Earth. It didn't take dendrochronology or radioisotope dating to kill off YEC. The developments of the next couple of decades revived YEC somehow, but, except for Omphalism, the only "respectable" alternative for anti-evolutionism was to shut up about YEC (it had become too politically powerful to reject openly), and thus we got ID.

Christine Janis · 11 January 2014

Robert Byers said: The few details you point out are real but still very minor or rather easily explained as local adaptions by all the migrating creatures to some area AFTER a original plan.
Then you need to explain why this is not the case for the three endemic families of Australian rodents.

Christine Janis · 11 January 2014

Robert Byers said:the marsupial "wolf" is surely just a wolf and the marsupial "lion"" was just a lion.
While the thylacine (aka the "marsupial wolf") does look rather dog-like to the uneducated eye, the marsupial lion (Thylacoleo) is nothing whatsoever like a lion. It has plantigrade hind feet, an opposable thumb with a huge claw on its hand, no canines (but incisors that are rather canine like), and a completely differently-shaped skull. The "marsupial tapir", Palorchestes, is nothing like a tapir. It has plantigrade feet, no hooves, and while its skull suggests a short trunk it has other features (including huge claws) that indicate that it was a type of anteater. I advise that your obtain your "science" from the literature rather than from children's books.

ksplawn · 12 January 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thylacoleo_carnifex_1.JPG

Yep, just a lion!

John Harshman · 12 January 2014

Where else but at Panda's Thumb can you find Robert Byers lecturing Christine Janis on comparative mammal anatomy? Priceless.

Owlmirror · 12 January 2014

@Robert Byers (via Christine Janis):

I advise that your obtain your “science” from the literature rather than from children’s books.

I'm curious: Byers, did you actually read anything about marsupial wolves, ever, in any book at all? Or did you just make up that "A marsupial wolf is just our wolf with a pouch" on the fly, from your own imagination?

Scott F · 12 January 2014

Robert, how did the wolf become a marsupial wolf?

You are saying that the wolf traveled to Australia (leaving no traces behind along the way), crossed a land bridge to Australia (a land bridge provided by the 300 foot lowering of the oceans due to the timely Freezing Rain Age™), and then this wolf picked up a pouch in Australia and put it on, because pouches were all the fashion in Austrailia, and you really didn't want to be seen in public in the 1700's without a pouch.

How did the wolf do this?

Did God change his perfect design plan and decide to give pouches to wolves (and all the other Australian critters) after they got to Australia?

Let's not forget all those fossils. Flood Geology tells us that all the fossils we see today were buried in carefully ordered layers during the year of the flood. If the marsupial wolf (and lion and tiger and bear, oh my!) got to Australia hundreds of years after the flood, how is it that we have fossils of these creatures in the same carefully ordered layers that Evolution predicts?

As an aside, how exactly does 100-200 years of Freezing Rain lower the level of the oceans by 300 feet?

Scott F · 12 January 2014

BTW, Robert, aside from some misplaced punctuation, your grammar has improved greatly in your last few posts. While your ideas are still strange, they are at least easier to read. Have you been taking classes? Practicing somehow?

DS · 12 January 2014

Now you're just bring facts into the discussion. bobby avoids those like the plague because they are always so inconvenient for his preconceptions. Unfortunately for him, others are not as ignorant as he is, that's why he can never convince anyone of anything. Too bad he can't figure that out. But then again, he can't figure out that "i" should be capitalized.

TomS · 12 January 2014

Scott F said: Did God change his perfect design plan and decide to give pouches to wolves (and all the other Australian critters) after they got to Australia?

That question suggests several others, such as whether the intelligent designers decided to give flagella to previously flagellum-less bacteria (despite the flagellum-less bacteria surviving for who-knows-how-long), standard vertebrate-style eyes to previously eyeless vertebrates (were the eyeless vertebrates, however, designed?), feathers and such ... well, you get the point. The point being that if one attempts to construct an alternative history to life, it becomes quickly absurd, so absurd that the smarter of the anti-evolutionists realized that they had better shut up about that.

ksplawn · 12 January 2014

John Harshman said: Where else but at Panda's Thumb can you find Robert Byers lecturing Christine Janis on comparative mammal anatomy? Priceless.

Shhhhh, I'm enjoying it too much. This is some of the most delicious ironing I've ever seen.

TomS · 12 January 2014

ksplawn said:
John Harshman said: Where else but at Panda's Thumb can you find Robert Byers lecturing Christine Janis on comparative mammal anatomy? Priceless.
Shhhhh, I'm enjoying it too much. This is some of the most delicious ironing I've ever seen.

Moments like these are our reward for slogging through the same old stuff the umpteen bazillionth time.

Robert Byers · 13 January 2014

Just Bob said: Robert Byers, I rather hesitate to ask this, but here goes: The knowledge and principles that we can lump under "evolution" or "evolutionary science" (or methodological naturalism) have helped us achieve many wonderful things and made human life immeasurably better in many ways. But I will grant that that alone does not 'prove' that evolution is true. It could be just a useful mental tool for figuring out things. I believe there are many things in math that work that way. Now, let's switch it around, as you apparently want to do. Let's suppose that we all quit using the scientific model of an ancient and evolving universe and life, and discoverable natural causes (methodological naturalism). Instead, let's use the YEC model of the universe and life. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, because, just as with evolution (above), it could just be a useful mental tool for figuring out things. If it WORKS and helps us, we should use it, whether we believe it to be true or not. So... if science all switched to YEC, how would we be better off? (Let's leave out spiritual things like getting to heaven.) What problems could we solve with a YEC framework that have stumped us with evolution? Would we cure more diseases? Would human lifespans increase? Infant mortality decrease? Would the world population become happier, healthier, wealthier, and no longer in danger of overpopulation and depletion of resources? If YEC would solve, or even slightly improve, those things, how would it do it? Why would it work better than the evolution/old universe model?

Off thread but things would be better in the small number if subjects that touch on origin issues. Evolution has never contributed anything to progress.

Robert Byers · 13 January 2014

Christine Janis said:
Robert Byers said:the marsupial "wolf" is surely just a wolf and the marsupial "lion"" was just a lion.
While the thylacine (aka the "marsupial wolf") does look rather dog-like to the uneducated eye, the marsupial lion (Thylacoleo) is nothing whatsoever like a lion. It has plantigrade hind feet, an opposable thumb with a huge claw on its hand, no canines (but incisors that are rather canine like), and a completely differently-shaped skull. The "marsupial tapir", Palorchestes, is nothing like a tapir. It has plantigrade feet, no hooves, and while its skull suggests a short trunk it has other features (including huge claws) that indicate that it was a type of anteater. I advise that your obtain your "science" from the literature rather than from children's books.

You make my case. You itemize a few details. Teeth and claws etc. these are within spectrums of some kind of creature. Teeth are easily adapted to a new world upon migration. Feet also would all adapt as needed for like needs. iN fact convergent evolution is based on this. its not accurate but uts reasoning has a point. lIke needs do shape creatures body types. However its only minor relatively speaking. Its major to say a marsupial lion or wolf is from niche influence upon some original rodent like creature. The marsupial lion had a lion head and was so alike to other lions, within even our present spectrum of cats, that it demands the concept of convergent evolution. As I said its about thousands of points of anatomy's twists and turns that create the look of a creature THAT should define relationships. Not the fewer points that was wrongly done in the past. In fact its demanding to say marsupials are surely the same creatures as everywhere else found on earth today/ or in fossils and its a minor issue of early migration impact that brought needed changes. I think i'm right here.

Owlmirror · 13 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Off thread but things would be better in the small number if subjects that touch on origin issues.

Lovely non-answer. Better how?

Evolution has never contributed anything to progress.

What do you define as "progress"?

Robert Byers · 13 January 2014

Scott F said: Robert, how did the wolf become a marsupial wolf? You are saying that the wolf traveled to Australia (leaving no traces behind along the way), crossed a land bridge to Australia (a land bridge provided by the 300 foot lowering of the oceans due to the timely Freezing Rain Age™), and then this wolf picked up a pouch in Australia and put it on, because pouches were all the fashion in Austrailia, and you really didn't want to be seen in public in the 1700's without a pouch. How did the wolf do this? Did God change his perfect design plan and decide to give pouches to wolves (and all the other Australian critters) after they got to Australia? Let's not forget all those fossils. Flood Geology tells us that all the fossils we see today were buried in carefully ordered layers during the year of the flood. If the marsupial wolf (and lion and tiger and bear, oh my!) got to Australia hundreds of years after the flood, how is it that we have fossils of these creatures in the same carefully ordered layers that Evolution predicts? As an aside, how exactly does 100-200 years of Freezing Rain lower the level of the oceans by 300 feet?

I see marsupialism as a simple reaction to increase production. tHe marsupials had timelines to fulfill to settle their part of the world before the water rose closing them off from new creatures migrating in. The whole point to being a marsupial is about moving the fetus out so another can start to be nurtured in the body. It requires mechanism discovery as to how this change is triggered but its there. snakes birth live/eggs and still are just snakes. No reason to define them as unrelated to each other because of breeding traits. other creatures also have different ways but the same creatures. Other traits also affected the creatures from a original, probably now none existent, kind from whence the placental and marsupial varieties come from . Its all about lumping or splitting of traits to make relationships.

Owlmirror · 13 January 2014

Robert Byers said: You make my case. You itemize a few details. Teeth and claws etc. these are within spectrums of some kind of creature.

Oh. So in that case, Humans are indeed "within the spectrum of" the great apes, which are "within the spectrum of" monkeys. (The differences between the wolves and marsupial wolves are far greater than that between humans and other great apes.)

Teeth are easily adapted to a new world upon migration.

Which explains why human jaws are more shorter and more rounded than chimpanzee jaws, for example. It's an easy adaptation!

Feet also would all adapt as needed for like needs.

Ah! So you agree that human feet adapted from handlike ape feet!

its a minor issue of early migration impact that brought needed changes.

And that's why humans have bigger brains than other apes, too. Easy adaptation!

I think i'm right here.

Thank you for accepting the basic evolutionary fact that humans are apes.

Just Bob · 13 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Off thread but things would be better in the small number if subjects that touch on origin issues. Evolution has never contributed anything to progress.

I'm sorry, but I can't make heads or tails of that first sentence--and I read essays by semi-literate 9th graders for many years. Would you try again, please? As for the second, is finding oil deposits not progress? Do you contend that petroleum exploration geologists use YEC and 'flood geology' to locate likely locations for drilling? Have you asked any? And that's just a minor example. The method of science is methodological naturalism--pretty much the exact opposite of YEC and miraculous creation. Do you really want to tell us that the methods of science don't work--that they haven't worked? The methods that led us to the inescapable conclusion of an old and evolving universe and life? And could you give us some specifics as to what YEC has contributed to progress?

Christine Janis · 13 January 2014

Robert Byers said: The marsupial lion had a lion head and was so alike to other lions,
Christine Janis said: Right. Different teeth (no canines for a start), different feet, different in all aspects of the skeleton (and the skull) --- but someone once called it a "lion", so a placental lion it must be. Incidently, for your notion that marsupial type of reproduction is more rapid than the placental mode, that is demonstratably untrue: marsupials have a slower growth rate and a lower reproductive turnover than placentals --- that's why the placentals brought to Australia by Europeans have decimated the native marsupials.

Tenncrain · 14 January 2014

Just Bob said:
Robert Byers said: Off thread but things would be better in the small number if subjects that touch on origin issues. Evolution has never contributed anything to progress.
I'm sorry, but I can't make heads or tails of that first sentence--and I read essays by semi-literate 9th graders for many years. Would you try again, please? As for the second, is finding oil deposits not progress? Do you contend that petroleum exploration geologists use YEC and 'flood geology' to locate likely locations for drilling? Have you asked any? And that's just a minor example. The method of science is methodological naturalism--pretty much the exact opposite of YEC and miraculous creation. Do you really want to tell us that the methods of science don't work--that they haven't worked? The methods that led us to the inescapable conclusion of an old and evolving universe and life? And could you give us some specifics as to what YEC has contributed to progress?

Unfortunately, you are likely wasting your time. IIRC, Byers has completely ignored this particular Christian-oriented link that demonstrates how YECism is rather useless in private industry (including the oil business) and in academia. The link even mentions geophysicist Glenn Morton who at the time was a devoted YEC that published in YEC journals and attended YEC conferences alongside the likes of Henry Morris. But Morton experienced a rude awakening after he was hired by a petroleum company to search for oil within Earth's strata. Morton discovered that YECism is a useless tool in looking for oil. Indeed, about the only use YECism may have is perhaps selling feel-good YEC books to laypeople fundamentalists. As a result, Morton eventually abandoned his YEC beliefs, if painfully so. Not only this, Morton personally hired many YECs to assist him in the oil industry; all of these YECs also became ex-YECs as they discovered to their dismay - and in some cases even horror - that YECism is scientifically impotent. BTW, Gordon Glover (producer of the video) is also an ex-YEC that now accepts biological evolution. For that matter, I'm also a former YEC. - - - - - - - But of course Byers has to run away from the link. It contains hard-won scientific reality that runs counter to Byers's bigoted a priori beliefs. Seems the "Morton's Demon" inside Byers's mind would be completely helpless in the outside world, so this demon has to stay desperately attached inside the brain of Byers. A rather sad story actually, despite Byers's incoherent drivel being to science advocates the gift that keeps on giving.

Robert Byers · 15 January 2014

Owlmirror said:
Robert Byers said: You make my case. You itemize a few details. Teeth and claws etc. these are within spectrums of some kind of creature.
Oh. So in that case, Humans are indeed "within the spectrum of" the great apes, which are "within the spectrum of" monkeys. (The differences between the wolves and marsupial wolves are far greater than that between humans and other great apes.)
Teeth are easily adapted to a new world upon migration.
Which explains why human jaws are more shorter and more rounded than chimpanzee jaws, for example. It's an easy adaptation!
Feet also would all adapt as needed for like needs.
Ah! So you agree that human feet adapted from handlike ape feet!
its a minor issue of early migration impact that brought needed changes.
And that's why humans have bigger brains than other apes, too. Easy adaptation!
I think i'm right here.
Thank you for accepting the basic evolutionary fact that humans are apes.

Are you making my case? Primates looking like us is a special case. We must look like some animal and the ape was the best one. We do have a primate body but not from descent. Indeed however such comparisons easily work to unite marsupial and placental wolves. They are the ones struggling with classification.

Robert Byers · 15 January 2014

Christine Janis said:
Robert Byers said: The marsupial lion had a lion head and was so alike to other lions,
Christine Janis said: Right. Different teeth (no canines for a start), different feet, different in all aspects of the skeleton (and the skull) --- but someone once called it a "lion", so a placental lion it must be. Incidently, for your notion that marsupial type of reproduction is more rapid than the placental mode, that is demonstratably untrue: marsupials have a slower growth rate and a lower reproductive turnover than placentals --- that's why the placentals brought to Australia by Europeans have decimated the native marsupials.

Your quite wrong here. The whole concept of convergent evolution is to EXPLAIN why unrelated(?) creatures look so much the same. The marsupial lion, good nova episode once done on it, is wonderfully like our cats. The head is within the spectrum of our cats and the body. Otherwise it would no be a great example of convergent evolution. Feet are minor details just as legs in a cheetah or tiger should not hide their relationship. Teeth mean nothing. The living pictures of the marsupial wolf are what would show the marsupial lion looking and acting like. its not a mere name at all. i do think marsupialism was just a quicken reproductive system. Possiblt back in the day it was more apparent. Possums have great numbers of kids. I read once some kangaroo can have a fetus growing, a fetus in the pouch, and a joey at its feet at the same time. Something like that. Maybe the first was a fertilized egg waiting for the fetus to move on. however the point was quick production. I think it marsupialism is simply a issue of reproduction adaptation upon migration. This is also happening in South America for the same triggers . Marsupials are just one of groups of creatures that have wolves, cats, horses, etc in their group that look exactly like their namesakes elsewhere. yet because of minor details of grouping creatures by teeth they are wrongly classified. it takes thousands of points of anatomy to make a marsupial wolf look like our dogs. Twists and turns of bone etc. only a few dozrn points connect marsupials together. All easily dismissed as minor adaptations upon migration to a mutual area. In fact one could say if convergent evolution had so much power to turn some original rodent like creature into a marsupial wolf etc etc then why so sticky keeping the teeth?? Everything else was changed by niche evolution they try to say! Naw. they were too quick to stress the pouch. plus they didn't see the original greater diversity in marsupials as they had gone extinct.

Owlmirror · 15 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Are you making my case?

Your case is that humans are apes.

Primates looking like us is a special case.

Yes; we look like primates because we are easily adapted from primates. We are the special case of human apes.

We must look like some animal and the ape was the best one.

Since humans are in the image of God, and are easily adapted from apes, I guess God looks like an ape, too, right?

We do have a primate body but not from descent.

Easy adaptation means that it must be from descent. Do you know how reproduction works?

Indeed however such comparisons easily work to unite marsupial and placental wolves. They are the ones struggling with classification.

Yes, and humans are easily united with monkeys. No struggle needed.

Owlmirror · 15 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Marsupials are just one of groups of creatures that have wolves, cats, horses, etc in their group that look exactly like their namesakes elsewhere.

Please, tell us all about the marsupial horse that looks exactly like their namesakes elsewhere. Do you mean the kangaroo? (Everything that Byers writes is FSTDT fodder, but I just thought I'd pull this one out).

DS · 15 January 2014

And there you have it folks, Byers in a nutshell.. Humans have to look like some animal! Why? Because Byers says so. Humans look like apes. Why? Because that's the best animal. Why? Because Byers says so. And where does all of this amazing knowledge come from? Why a Nova special of course. That means he can ignore all of the experts and make up his own crap about anything he wants!

Keep it up bobby boy. we is a aquiverin with anticipation to hear you next pronouncement

DS · 15 January 2014

Oh, I almost forgot. bobby still has not taken up the challenge to actually test his "hypothesis". Don't forget this fact. It really tells you everything you need to know.

Scott F · 15 January 2014

Owlmirror said:
Robert Byers said: Are you making my case?
Your case is that humans are apes.
Primates looking like us is a special case.
Yes; we look like primates because we are easily adapted from primates. We are the special case of human apes.
We must look like some animal and the ape was the best one.
Since humans are in the image of God, and are easily adapted from apes, I guess God looks like an ape, too, right?
We do have a primate body but not from descent.
Easy adaptation means that it must be from descent. Do you know how reproduction works?
Indeed however such comparisons easily work to unite marsupial and placental wolves. They are the ones struggling with classification.
Yes, and humans are easily united with monkeys. No struggle needed.

I believe that what Robert is saying is that dolphins and whales are fish. Are fish. Because they look like fish. Minor trivial details, like the difference between fish laying eggs and dolphins giving live birth, are immaterial. What is important and critical is that someone might have once called a dolphin a fish. Just like the Mahi-mahi, which is really just a dolphin fish. Because the dolphin looks just like a fish. Let me repeat that, to add more evidence and support to that argument: the dolphin looks like a fish. Duh. (By the way, that is the technical YEC term, "Duh". "Duh" is the ultimate YEC term intended to conclude any technical discussion.) Did I mention the other "fact" that some other peoples in ancient times thought that the dolphin looks like a fish?

eric · 15 January 2014

Robert Byers said: I think it marsupialism is simply a issue of reproduction adaptation upon migration. This is also happening in South America for the same triggers.

It is? Please tell us what 'regular' South American placental mammal is currently undergoing adaptation to become a marsupial. *** One thing you seemed to miss is that we can look at the genetic differences between species. The genetic differences between marsupial and regular placentals is bigger than the genetic difference between human and pans. So, if marsupialism is just an adaptation, human evolution from earlier apes can be too, beacuse its a smaller difference than the one you're calling an adaptation. OTOH if you claim that the genetic difference between humans and (other) apes is so great that no series of adaptations could ever have bridged it, then you must assert special creation for individual marsupials too - because now you're claiming a very small genetic difference can't be bridged, so you must accept that much larger differences can't be bridged either. That's the whole problem with biblical kinds. There is no possible genetic grouping which would place marsupial wolves in with wolves but not people in with other apes. The difference between the two "wolves" you want to place in the same kind is much larger than the difference between the two apes you don't want to place in the same kind.

Scott F · 15 January 2014

By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).

DS · 15 January 2014

Scott F said: I believe that what Robert is saying is that dolphins and whales are fish. Are fish. Because they look like fish. Minor trivial details, like the difference between fish laying eggs and dolphins giving live birth, are immaterial. What is important and critical is that someone might have once called a dolphin a fish. Just like the Mahi-mahi, which is really just a dolphin fish. Because the dolphin looks just like a fish. Let me repeat that, to add more evidence and support to that argument: the dolphin looks like a fish. Duh. (By the way, that is the technical YEC term, "Duh". "Duh" is the ultimate YEC term intended to conclude any technical discussion.) Did I mention the other "fact" that some other peoples in ancient times thought that the dolphin looks like a fish?

Precisely. I have pointed this out to him on many occasions, even recently. But of course he is exceeding resistant to any facts or logic. He only sees what he wants to see and only reads what he wants to read. He is only willing to accept his own "reasoning" and rejects everything that disagrees with him.

DS · 15 January 2014

eric said:
Robert Byers said: I think it marsupialism is simply a issue of reproduction adaptation upon migration. This is also happening in South America for the same triggers.
It is? Please tell us what 'regular' South American placental mammal is currently undergoing adaptation to become a marsupial. *** One thing you seemed to miss is that we can look at the genetic differences between species. The genetic differences between marsupial and regular placentals is bigger than the genetic difference between human and pans. So, if marsupialism is just an adaptation, human evolution from earlier apes can be too, beacuse its a smaller difference than the one you're calling an adaptation. OTOH if you claim that the genetic difference between humans and (other) apes is so great that no series of adaptations could ever have bridged it, then you must assert special creation for individual marsupials too - because now you're claiming a very small genetic difference can't be bridged, so you must accept that much larger differences can't be bridged either. That's the whole problem with biblical kinds. There is no possible genetic grouping which would place marsupial wolves in with wolves but not people in with other apes. The difference between the two "wolves" you want to place in the same kind is much larger than the difference between the two apes you don't want to place in the same kind.

Genetics is atomic and unproven, remember? Anyway it's just a line of reasoning and only his line of reasoning counts. bobby is literally willing to ignore any fact, disregard any inconsistency, rationalize any contradiction in order to cling to his misconceptions. Arguing with him is like arguing with water, except water eventually goes away.

Henry J · 15 January 2014

except water eventually goes away.

Yeah, it either freezes or evaporates, after which it isn't water anymore. ;)

Robert Byers · 15 January 2014

eric said:
Robert Byers said: I think it marsupialism is simply a issue of reproduction adaptation upon migration. This is also happening in South America for the same triggers.
It is? Please tell us what 'regular' South American placental mammal is currently undergoing adaptation to become a marsupial. *** One thing you seemed to miss is that we can look at the genetic differences between species. The genetic differences between marsupial and regular placentals is bigger than the genetic difference between human and pans. So, if marsupialism is just an adaptation, human evolution from earlier apes can be too, beacuse its a smaller difference than the one you're calling an adaptation. OTOH if you claim that the genetic difference between humans and (other) apes is so great that no series of adaptations could ever have bridged it, then you must assert special creation for individual marsupials too - because now you're claiming a very small genetic difference can't be bridged, so you must accept that much larger differences can't be bridged either. That's the whole problem with biblical kinds. There is no possible genetic grouping which would place marsupial wolves in with wolves but not people in with other apes. The difference between the two "wolves" you want to place in the same kind is much larger than the difference between the two apes you don't want to place in the same kind.

I meant that the fossil record shows that south America had many types of "marsupials". i mean they either adapted to that mode of reproduction from placental migrants or were from a adapted marsupial type before entering S america. The ape comparison is not applicable here. If your saying marsupial/placental are not the same things then yOU should not be making the ape/man comparison. If i'm saying the m/p are the same then indeed I need another reason for the ape/man likeness on these same principals of anatomy defining classification of creatures. I say the ape is a special case because we are. We were made in gOds image but must live in a reality of biology where everything is off the same blueprint. WE can't have a body to represent our identity unlike creatures. So we could only be given a existing model and the best one. The ape! You are the ones saying ape/man equals common descent. By your rule the m/p are from common descent based on their types. by the way. Genetics is not evidence of descent. Only evidence of what it is. like changes in unlike creatures , I say, would make like genetic points. DNA follows morphological change. Its in the dna that marsupialism could and did develop. Finally the bible has boundaries of timelines etc. its demanding to see the marsupials of australia as not having migrated like a big family while the placentals did not. This is the first clue. Then investigation and reflection shows the truth and it can stand all criticisms.

Robert Byers · 15 January 2014

Scott F said: By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).

Huh? The marsupial wolves and lions looked like their namesakes placentals elsewhere on the planet within the spectrum of these types body plans. Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones. You will be watching a dog and not a flexible wombat.

DS · 15 January 2014

So robert, are whales and dolphins fish or not. If you refuse to answer you are screwed. If you answer you are screwed anyway, but at least you will have tried. Don't bother trying to post any more responses until you answer the question. You aren't fooling anyone.

Dave Luckett · 15 January 2014

Byers thinks (for certain very charitable values of "thinks") that when the placentals moved to Australia, they changed radically. The bears moved into the trees, shrank, completely reorganised their paws, and developed the marsupium and the two holes. The deer lost the rumen, became bipedal with very heavy tails, and developed the marsupium and the two holes. Dogs shortened their forelimbs and their tails became rigid, and they, too, developed the marsupium and the two holes. Badgers foreshortened their skulls and shortened their hind limbs, and they also developed the marsupium and the two holes. At the same time, they all rearranged their dentition to the same pattern, no matter what they ate. For some reason.

Of course it's a commonplace that only miraculous hyperevolution could produce such gross anatomical changes in the time since the flood - 4500 years or so. But there you go; miracles are the currency of creationism. Why not print up a few more? Inflation, who cares?

This is a more interesting question: Why does Byers think (for certain very charitable values of "think") that given these impossible and miraculous rates of mutation and adaptation, all of the marsupials developed the same skeletal and dental patterns, independently? Why did they all develop the same holes in the palate? Why all the same tooth-row?

The answer, as always, is "God did it that way".

Scott F · 15 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said: By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).
Huh? The marsupial wolves and lions looked like their namesakes placentals elsewhere on the planet within the spectrum of these types body plans. Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones. You will be watching a dog and not a flexible wombat.

Hi Robert, I asked about the marsupial tiger. You responded about the marsupial lion. Please try again. Please explain the difference between a marsupial tiger and a marsupial wolf?

Dave Luckett · 15 January 2014

By "the two holes" I mean the two holes in the marsupial palate. Sorry. Insufficient care in editing.

Scott F · 15 January 2014

Dave Luckett said: Byers thinks (for certain very charitable values of "thinks") that when the placentals moved to Australia, they changed radically. The bears moved into the trees, shrank, completely reorganised their paws, and developed the marsupium and the two holes. The deer lost the rumen, became bipedal with very heavy tails, and developed the marsupium and the two holes. Dogs shortened their forelimbs and their tails became rigid, and they, too, developed the marsupium and the two holes. Badgers foreshortened their skulls and shortened their hind limbs, and they also developed the marsupium and the two holes. At the same time, they all rearranged their dentition to the same pattern, no matter what they ate. For some reason. Of course it's a commonplace that only miraculous hyperevolution could produce such gross anatomical changes in the time since the flood - 4500 years or so. But there you go; miracles are the currency of creationism. Why not print up a few more? Inflation, who cares? This is a more interesting question: Why does Byers think (for certain very charitable values of "think") that given these impossible and miraculous rates of mutation and adaptation, all of the marsupials developed the same skeletal and dental patterns, independently? Why did they all develop the same holes in the palate? Why all the same tooth-row? The answer, as always, is "God did it that way".

"Hyperevolution" indeed. Robert contends that all these changes happened within a period of 100 to 200 years. When required by "biblical time lines", any amount of evolution is possible in just 200 years. Yet, it is impossible for one species to change into another species over a span of millions of years. Because of "convergent evolution", don't you know. It's all just a line of reasoning. (For some charitable values of "reasoning".) So, Robert, another question for you. When the "wolf" changed into the "marsupial wolf", did it become a new species? A new "kind", perhaps? If not, was the "marsupial wolf" capable of producing viable cubs when mated with "northern wolf"? Was the "marsupial tiger" able to mate with the "Asian tiger"? Can dolphins interbreed with fish, producing viable fingerlings?

Owlmirror · 15 January 2014

Robert Byers said: I meant that the fossil record shows that south America had many types of "marsupials".

Sorry, but you're very confused. You see, those fossils of which you speak are classified as "marsupial" because of their skeletal characters. This classification is correct only if evolution is correct. But your claim is that marsupials are all just magically easily adapted from placentals. So you have no basis for saying that the fossils are, in fact, marsupial -- unless you accept that evolution is true and the fossils are classified correctly.

i mean they either adapted to that mode of reproduction from placental migrants or were from a adapted marsupial type before entering S america.

This will shock you, I know, but pouches -- and other soft tissue biological characters of reproduction -- don't fossilize. So you have no way of knowing whether the animals that were fossilized were actually using that mode of reproduction, and were therefore marsupials..

The ape comparison is not applicable here.

It most certainly is.

If your saying marsupial/placental are not the same things then yOU should not be making the ape/man comparison.

But it logically and biologically follows from the same logic! If you believe in magic rapid easy adaptations, you can't say that they only happen to marsupials.

If i'm saying the m/p are the same then indeed I need another reason for the ape/man likeness on these same principals of anatomy defining classification of creatures. I say the ape is a special case because we are.

Yes, we are a special case of ape.

We were made in gOds image

. . . which is the image of an ape, of course . . .

but must live in a reality of biology where everything is off the same blueprint.

Which blueprint?

WE can't have a body to represent our identity unlike creatures. So we could only be given a existing model and the best one. The ape!

Yes! God is an ape, and so are we, because apes are the best! Ape solidarity!

You are the ones saying ape/man equals common descent.

And so are you!

By your rule the m/p are from common descent based on their types. by the way. Genetics is not evidence of descent.

Oh. So babies don't have half of their parents genes (plus some minor individual changes)?

Only evidence of what it is. like changes in unlike creatures , I say, would make like genetic points. DNA follows morphological change.

What? So bodies form by magic, develop by magic, and grow by magic, and then their DNA changes by magic to follow the morphological change?

Its in the dna that marsupialism could and did develop.

But you just said that it's the opposite!

Finally the bible has boundaries of timelines etc.

Yes; rapid magical easy adaptations. Because you say so.

its demanding to see the marsupials of australia as not having migrated like a big family while the placentals did not.

Marsupials are magic, because you say that the bible says so. Got it.

Then investigation and reflection shows the truth and it can stand all criticisms.

Or rather, you decide that you've found truthiness, and ignore all criticisms.

Owlmirror · 15 January 2014

Incidentally, if you ignore DNA, and go by anatomy and morphology, humans are still (modified) monkeys, according to at least one Creationist (or at least, non-evolutionist) biologist/anatomist. ( Carl Linnaeus to Johann Georg Gmelin; Uppsala, Sweden, 25 February 1747 n.s.):

Non placet, quod Hominem inter ant[h]ropomorpha collocaverim, sed homo noscit se ipsum. Removeamus vocabula. Mihi perinde erit, quo nomine utamur. Sed quaero a Te et Toto orbe differentiam genericam inter hominem et Simiam, quae ex principiis Historiae naturalis. Ego certissime nullam novi. Utinam aliquis mihi unicam diceret! Si vocassem hominem simiam vel vice versa omnes in me conjecissem theologos. Debuissem forte ex lege artis.

(Translation by David Marjanović):

“It doesn’t please [you?] that I collated Homo among the Anthropomorpha [a name he later changed to Primates], but man is coming to know himself. Let’s set the words aside. It will be the same to me which name we use. But I ask you and the whole world for a genus-level difference between man and Simia [the other apes + monkeys] that [follows] from the principles of natural history. I most certainly do not know any. If only somebody told me a single one! If I had called man a monkey or the other way around, I would have brought up all theologists against me. I perhaps ought to have because of the law of the art [natural history].”

Owlmirror · 15 January 2014

Owlmirror said:
By your rule the m/p are from common descent based on their types. by the way. Genetics is not evidence of descent.
Oh. So babies don't have half of each of their parents genes (plus some minor individual changes)?

(Edit for clarity)

AltairIV · 16 January 2014

Byers' thinking is really very simple (in more ways than one). To him, every living thing is obviously classified as "doggy" type, "kitty" type, "birdy" type, and so on, based on what he thinks it most resembles.

Humans are special, naturally. They're in a class of their own.

Any and all evidence must then necessarily support this conclusion (or "make his point" as he's wont to say), or else it doesn't exist.

ksplawn · 16 January 2014

Perhaps he thinks that this is because Adam got to name all the animals first, and prior to The Fall there was no way Adam was going to get them wrong (since he hadn't yet been corrupted by disobedience).

So of course, Adam was sitting around in the garden of Eden calling wolves "wolves" and marsupial wolves "marsupial wolves," calling tigers "tigers" and marsupial tigers ... um..

j. biggs · 16 January 2014

ksplawn said: Perhaps he thinks that this is because Adam got to name all the animals first, and prior to The Fall there was no way Adam was going to get them wrong (since he hadn't yet been corrupted by disobedience). So of course, Adam was sitting around in the garden of Eden calling wolves "wolves" and marsupial wolves "marsupial wolves," calling tigers "tigers" and marsupial tigers ... um..

I am still waiting for Byers to explain to us exactly how marsupial "wolves" (which are apparently hyper-evolved placental wolves) are different than marsupial "tigers" (which are apparently hyper-evolved placental tigers). The fact that he continues to evade that particular question almost makes me wonder.

Robert Byers · 16 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
Scott F said: By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).
Huh? The marsupial wolves and lions looked like their namesakes placentals elsewhere on the planet within the spectrum of these types body plans. Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones. You will be watching a dog and not a flexible wombat.
Hi Robert, I asked about the marsupial tiger. You responded about the marsupial lion. Please try again. Please explain the difference between a marsupial tiger and a marsupial wolf?

I forget the marsupial tiger. I think it was a name thing. nOt a real thing of morphology or convergent evolution claims.

apokryltaros · 16 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
Scott F said: By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).
Huh? The marsupial wolves and lions looked like their namesakes placentals elsewhere on the planet within the spectrum of these types body plans. Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones. You will be watching a dog and not a flexible wombat.
Hi Robert, I asked about the marsupial tiger. You responded about the marsupial lion. Please try again. Please explain the difference between a marsupial tiger and a marsupial wolf?
I forget the marsupial tiger. I think it was a name thing. nOt a real thing of morphology or convergent evolution claims.

Tell us again why we should believe whatever you say about marsupial mammals and placental mammals, when you clearly know nothing about anything?

Robert Byers · 16 January 2014

Owlmirror said:
Robert Byers said: I meant that the fossil record shows that south America had many types of "marsupials".
Sorry, but you're very confused. You see, those fossils of which you speak are classified as "marsupial" because of their skeletal characters. This classification is correct only if evolution is correct. But your claim is that marsupials are all just magically easily adapted from placentals. So you have no basis for saying that the fossils are, in fact, marsupial -- unless you accept that evolution is true and the fossils are classified correctly.
i mean they either adapted to that mode of reproduction from placental migrants or were from a adapted marsupial type before entering S america.
This will shock you, I know, but pouches -- and other soft tissue biological characters of reproduction -- don't fossilize. So you have no way of knowing whether the animals that were fossilized were actually using that mode of reproduction, and were therefore marsupials..
The ape comparison is not applicable here.
It most certainly is.
If your saying marsupial/placental are not the same things then yOU should not be making the ape/man comparison.
But it logically and biologically follows from the same logic! If you believe in magic rapid easy adaptations, you can't say that they only happen to marsupials.
If i'm saying the m/p are the same then indeed I need another reason for the ape/man likeness on these same principals of anatomy defining classification of creatures. I say the ape is a special case because we are.
Yes, we are a special case of ape.
We were made in gOds image
. . . which is the image of an ape, of course . . .
but must live in a reality of biology where everything is off the same blueprint.
Which blueprint?
WE can't have a body to represent our identity unlike creatures. So we could only be given a existing model and the best one. The ape!
Yes! God is an ape, and so are we, because apes are the best! Ape solidarity!
You are the ones saying ape/man equals common descent.
And so are you!
By your rule the m/p are from common descent based on their types. by the way. Genetics is not evidence of descent.
Oh. So babies don't have half of their parents genes (plus some minor individual changes)?
Only evidence of what it is. like changes in unlike creatures , I say, would make like genetic points. DNA follows morphological change.
What? So bodies form by magic, develop by magic, and grow by magic, and then their DNA changes by magic to follow the morphological change?
Its in the dna that marsupialism could and did develop.
But you just said that it's the opposite!
Finally the bible has boundaries of timelines etc.
Yes; rapid magical easy adaptations. Because you say so.
its demanding to see the marsupials of australia as not having migrated like a big family while the placentals did not.
Marsupials are magic, because you say that the bible says so. Got it.
Then investigation and reflection shows the truth and it can stand all criticisms.
Or rather, you decide that you've found truthiness, and ignore all criticisms.

its simple here. Creatures are classified by their body plans. So i say the classification has been wrong and wronger. Same shaped critters are the same creatures as their dominating morphology. Evolutionism instead, and others, score it on a few points of body plans. THEN to explain the fantastic sameness they invoke CONVERGENT evolution, not just regular evolution, but niche driving morphological conclusions. SO they have dog, cat, mouse,horse, etc creatures segregated into different family groups because of traits alike with other creatures in the area. THEREFORE marsupial, placental, and other divisions all have dogs, cats etc looking creatures. HOGWASH says the bible and me. ITs the minor traits that were adapted in local areas by all the creatures in the area . Marsupialism is just a few traits non related creatures picked up. So a marsupial wolf is just a plain old wolf. Ape/man is a special case but anyways makes my case as far as evolutionists are concerned. Its just been a funny error to deny the obvious. Score creatures by anatomy sums and not by minor details relative to the major details.

Robert Byers · 16 January 2014

AltairIV said: Byers' thinking is really very simple (in more ways than one). To him, every living thing is obviously classified as "doggy" type, "kitty" type, "birdy" type, and so on, based on what he thinks it most resembles. Humans are special, naturally. They're in a class of their own. Any and all evidence must then necessarily support this conclusion (or "make his point" as he's wont to say), or else it doesn't exist.

Many simple ideas replaced wrong ideas in the history of 'science" I am in fact just doing the old game of lumping/splitting in determining classification

Keelyn · 16 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Owlmirror said:
Robert Byers said: I meant that the fossil record shows that south America had many types of "marsupials".
Sorry, but you're very confused. You see, those fossils of which you speak are classified as "marsupial" because of their skeletal characters. This classification is correct only if evolution is correct. But your claim is that marsupials are all just magically easily adapted from placentals. So you have no basis for saying that the fossils are, in fact, marsupial -- unless you accept that evolution is true and the fossils are classified correctly.
i mean they either adapted to that mode of reproduction from placental migrants or were from a adapted marsupial type before entering S america.
This will shock you, I know, but pouches -- and other soft tissue biological characters of reproduction -- don't fossilize. So you have no way of knowing whether the animals that were fossilized were actually using that mode of reproduction, and were therefore marsupials..
The ape comparison is not applicable here.
It most certainly is.
If your saying marsupial/placental are not the same things then yOU should not be making the ape/man comparison.
But it logically and biologically follows from the same logic! If you believe in magic rapid easy adaptations, you can't say that they only happen to marsupials.
If i'm saying the m/p are the same then indeed I need another reason for the ape/man likeness on these same principals of anatomy defining classification of creatures. I say the ape is a special case because we are.
Yes, we are a special case of ape.
We were made in gOds image
. . . which is the image of an ape, of course . . .
but must live in a reality of biology where everything is off the same blueprint.
Which blueprint?
WE can't have a body to represent our identity unlike creatures. So we could only be given a existing model and the best one. The ape!
Yes! God is an ape, and so are we, because apes are the best! Ape solidarity!
You are the ones saying ape/man equals common descent.
And so are you!
By your rule the m/p are from common descent based on their types. by the way. Genetics is not evidence of descent.
Oh. So babies don't have half of their parents genes (plus some minor individual changes)?
Only evidence of what it is. like changes in unlike creatures , I say, would make like genetic points. DNA follows morphological change.
What? So bodies form by magic, develop by magic, and grow by magic, and then their DNA changes by magic to follow the morphological change?
Its in the dna that marsupialism could and did develop.
But you just said that it's the opposite!
Finally the bible has boundaries of timelines etc.
Yes; rapid magical easy adaptations. Because you say so.
its demanding to see the marsupials of australia as not having migrated like a big family while the placentals did not.
Marsupials are magic, because you say that the bible says so. Got it.
Then investigation and reflection shows the truth and it can stand all criticisms.
Or rather, you decide that you've found truthiness, and ignore all criticisms.
its simple here. Creatures are classified by their body plans. So i say the classification has been wrong and wronger. Same shaped critters are the same creatures as their dominating morphology. Evolutionism instead, and others, score it on a few points of body plans. THEN to explain the fantastic sameness they invoke CONVERGENT evolution, not just regular evolution, but niche driving morphological conclusions. SO they have dog, cat, mouse,horse, etc creatures segregated into different family groups because of traits alike with other creatures in the area. THEREFORE marsupial, placental, and other divisions all have dogs, cats etc looking creatures. HOGWASH says the bible and me. ITs the minor traits that were adapted in local areas by all the creatures in the area . Marsupialism is just a few traits non related creatures picked up. So a marsupial wolf is just a plain old wolf. Ape/man is a special case but anyways makes my case as far as evolutionists are concerned. Its just been a funny error to deny the obvious. Score creatures by anatomy sums and not by minor details relative to the major details.

Sigh. Dumber than a pound of cement.

DS · 16 January 2014

Byers is doing the old game of being an ignorant, arrogant jerk and disrespecting every real expert in the world. No one is fooled by his ludicrous nonsense. He won't even try to test his silly ideas. The jerk won't even tell us if dolphins are whales or not. He's just here to yank chains and play the fool. Ban him to the bathroom wall or this is the crap you get.

ksplawn · 16 January 2014

Hey Robert, I posted the skull of a "marsupial lion" back there. Can you tell me how it looks like the skull of a placental lion?

Scott F · 16 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
Scott F said: By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).
Huh? The marsupial wolves and lions looked like their namesakes placentals elsewhere on the planet within the spectrum of these types body plans. Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones. You will be watching a dog and not a flexible wombat.
Hi Robert, I asked about the marsupial tiger. You responded about the marsupial lion. Please try again. Please explain the difference between a marsupial tiger and a marsupial wolf?
I forget the marsupial tiger. I think it was a name thing. nOt a real thing of morphology or convergent evolution claims.

Thank you, Robert, for addressing that question. So, the marsupial lion was just a lion, and the marsupial wolf was just a wolf, because of convergent evolution claims. In contrast, the marsupial tiger was just a name thing. I'm afraid that leads me to another question. Who, exactly, is making the "convergent evolution claims"? I realize that you are making these claims, but who else is making those claims? Do you have a reference? Why is the marsupial tiger just a "name thing", but the marsupial wolf is not just a "name thing"? Why would someone call it a marsupial tiger if it wasn't a real tiger? Thanks again.

Scott F · 16 January 2014

Robert Byers said: its simple here. Creatures are classified by their body plans. So i say the classification has been wrong and wronger. Same shaped critters are the same creatures as their dominating morphology.

Fish and dolphins are the "same shaped critters". The only minor differences are that one lays eggs, while the other births live young. Are fish and dolphins "the same creatures"?

So a marsupial wolf is just a plain old wolf.

If we had a live marsupial wolf today, would it be possible for a marsupial wolf and a "plain old wolf" to mate successfully and bear viable cubs?

Scott F · 16 January 2014

Robert Byers said: snakes birth live/eggs and still are just snakes.

I assume that you have no idea that all snakes lay eggs. It's just that some snakes keep the eggs in their bodies. When the eggs hatch, the mother gives "birth" to them. The process has the fancy name of "Ovoviviparity". They still lay eggs.

Scott F · 16 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
AltairIV said: Byers' thinking is really very simple (in more ways than one). To him, every living thing is obviously classified as "doggy" type, "kitty" type, "birdy" type, and so on, based on what he thinks it most resembles. Humans are special, naturally. They're in a class of their own. Any and all evidence must then necessarily support this conclusion (or "make his point" as he's wont to say), or else it doesn't exist.
Many simple ideas replaced wrong ideas in the history of 'science" I am in fact just doing the old game of lumping/splitting in determining classification

I get it. It's just like Linnaeus, or Pliny the Elder, or Aristotle. Except, without the data, without a methodology, without an actual system, without the testing, without any logic, without any reasoning, without any actual thought, and most importantly, without the Latin. Robert, even Baraminology makes more sense. Have you considered the lumping and splitting of baramins? Of "Kinds"? Do you realize that even the majority of Young Earth Creationists disagree with you? Do you realize that what you are attempting to describe is referred to as "descent with modification." Most YEC's call that, "Evolution", and reject it as "lies, straight from the pit of Hell".

Robert Byers · 17 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: snakes birth live/eggs and still are just snakes.
I assume that you have no idea that all snakes lay eggs. It's just that some snakes keep the eggs in their bodies. When the eggs hatch, the mother gives "birth" to them. The process has the fancy name of "Ovoviviparity". They still lay eggs.

Creatures breeding together is not the final word of relationship. if the creatures changed enough and so also their genetics then they may also of not been able to breed despite coming from the same ancestors. some horse types can't breed or are sterile or something. Donkeys , etc etc. yet they are all horse types from a common ancestor. I know about the snakes but it still makes my point. its no big deal to them to have a difference in reproduction. its trivial adaptation. in like way marsupialism is just firther along in the spectrum. your side must admit to a common deescent of snakes and yet BANG there is the reproductive difference. Its an option things can change. Its unreasonable to define creatures by reproductive styles when they are dead on look alikes with others on the planet yET said to be unrelated because of reproductive etc styles. I insist one can lump same shaped creatures together and it fits in biblical boundaries. I'm pretty sure i'm right. The old ones just were plain wrong about classification .

DS · 17 January 2014

Are dolphins fish? Yes or no?

If yes, you are busted.

If no you are busted.

Piss off.

diogeneslamp0 · 17 January 2014

Above you said the marsupial horse is the same as the placental horse. Please present us with two photos, one of a marsupial horse and one of a placental horse, showing that they are identical. You may use Google images, but prove it.

Above you said the marsupial tapir is the same as the placental tapir. Please present us with two photos, one of a marsupial tapir and one of a placental tapir, showing that they are identical. You may use Google images, but prove it.

diogeneslamp0 · 17 January 2014

Robert Byers said: I insist one can lump same shaped creatures together and it fits in biblical boundaries. I'm pretty sure i'm right.

The sea snake and the eel and the caecilian and the earthworm have the same shape. So you think they are the same thing. The ichthyosaur, dolphin, Dorado tuna and mosasaur have the same shape. So you think they are the same thing. The ankylosaur and the glyptodon have the same shape. So you think they are the same thing. The human and ape have the same shape. So you think they are the same thing?

Christine Janis · 17 January 2014

Robert Byers said: "Your quite wrong here. ---- The marsupial lion, good nova episode once done on it, is wonderfully like our cats. "

Oh, you mean the program where I was a consultant and featured in the video? Good one, Robert. The program that showed that it could stand on its hind legs and use its tail as a tripod?
"
Possums have great numbers of kids. I read once some kangaroo can have a fetus growing, a fetus in the pouch, and a joey at its feet at the same time."

Small placentals also have many young per litter. But it's been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that modern marsupials have a lower reproductive turnover than similarly-sized placentals.

"it takes thousands of points of anatomy to make a marsupial wolf look like our dogs. "

Name just one, besides a longish snout, that makes a thylacine specifically like a dog (to the exclusion of any other mammal).

Christine Janis · 17 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones.
And you will see it stand on its hind legs by the fence, resting entirely on its heels in a plantigrade foot posture, that no dog ever does. Did you realise that thylacines have foot pad that extends up the back of the leg to the ankle (hock --- as can be seen in museum stuffed specimens)? Name a dog where that is the case (or any other member of the family Canidae)

phhht · 17 January 2014

Christine Janis said: Robert Byers said: "Your quite wrong here. ---- The marsupial lion, good nova episode once done on it, is wonderfully like our cats. " Oh, you mean the program where I was a consultant and featured in the video?

Alvy Singer: I mean, aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that? And the funny part of it is, Marshall McLuhan, you don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan! Man in Theatre Line: Oh, really? Well, it just so happens I teach a class at Columbia called "TV, Media and Culture." So I think my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity! Alvy Singer: Oh, do ya? Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here, so, so, yeah, just let me... [pulls McLuhan out from behind a nearby poster] ...

Scott F · 17 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: snakes birth live/eggs and still are just snakes.
I assume that you have no idea that all snakes lay eggs. It's just that some snakes keep the eggs in their bodies. When the eggs hatch, the mother gives "birth" to them. The process has the fancy name of "Ovoviviparity". They still lay eggs.
Creatures breeding together is not the final word of relationship. if the creatures changed enough and so also their genetics then they may also of not been able to breed despite coming from the same ancestors. some horse types can't breed or are sterile or something. Donkeys , etc etc. yet they are all horse types from a common ancestor.

But Robert, you are arguing for common descent from a common ancestor. That's called "Evolution". You are arguing for morphological and genetic change over time, until the descendants can no longer breed together. That's called "Speciation". Robert, welcome to the club. You are an Evolutionist who believes in species descended from a common ancestor, changing over time. That's what we've been saying all along. You do realize that actual Young Earth Creationists would call that heresy. YEC's like FL believe that the Bible requires the immutability of species, which is the exact opposite of what you are arguing that the Bible requires.

diogeneslamp0 · 18 January 2014

phhht said:
Christine Janis said: Robert Byers said: "Your quite wrong here. ---- The marsupial lion, good nova episode once done on it, is wonderfully like our cats. " Oh, you mean the program where I was a consultant and featured in the video?

Alvy Singer: I mean, aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that? And the funny part of it is, Marshall McLuhan, you don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan! Man in Theatre Line: Oh, really? Well, it just so happens I teach a class at Columbia called "TV, Media and Culture." So I think my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity! Alvy Singer: Oh, do ya? Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here, so, so, yeah, just let me... [pulls McLuhan out from behind a nearby poster] ...

D'oh! Byers, you pompous ass, you were citing Christine as your authority all along and you didn't even know it! If you know anything accurate at all about the marsupial wolf, which you didn't know is the same as a marsupial tiger, you learned it from Christine. Byers, since you assert there are "thousands" of points of morphology which make a marsupial wolf the same as a wolf, name three. Don't keep telling us there are thousands, name three. If you're not bullshitting, it should be easy. Hint: "they look the same" is not an answer. List three specific things that make them look the same.

Rolf · 19 January 2014

Robert is absolutely ignorant about genetics. His view is that the Tree of Life is irrelevant, and from that follows that the Eye Color Predictor also is useless, because genetics are scientific nonsense.

That is because to him, facts are irrelevant. His own thinking can explain any subject in the world and that's that. It is so simple, why can't we see it?

Keelyn · 19 January 2014

Rolf said: Robert is absolutely ignorant ...

I believe you could have stopped right there and have been thoroughly accurate.

DS · 19 January 2014

Keelyn said:
Rolf said: Robert is absolutely ignorant ...
I believe you could have stopped right there and have been thoroughly accurate.

I must respectfully disagree. In order to be thoroughly accurate it would have to read: Robert is thoroughly ignorant and that's the way he likes it.

Keelyn · 19 January 2014

DS said:
Keelyn said:
Rolf said: Robert is absolutely ignorant ...
I believe you could have stopped right there and have been thoroughly accurate.
I must respectfully disagree. In order to be thoroughly accurate it would have to read: Robert is thoroughly ignorant and that's the way he likes it.

Quite, DS. I stand corrected, sir!

Scott F · 19 January 2014

Christine Janis said: Robert Byers said: "Your quite wrong here. ---- The marsupial lion, good nova episode once done on it, is wonderfully like our cats. " Oh, you mean the program where I was a consultant and featured in the video? Good one, Robert. The program that showed that it could stand on its hind legs and use its tail as a tripod? " Possums have great numbers of kids. I read once some kangaroo can have a fetus growing, a fetus in the pouch, and a joey at its feet at the same time." Small placentals also have many young per litter. But it's been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that modern marsupials have a lower reproductive turnover than similarly-sized placentals. "it takes thousands of points of anatomy to make a marsupial wolf look like our dogs. " Name just one, besides a longish snout, that makes a thylacine specifically like a dog (to the exclusion of any other mammal).

The full transcript of Dr. Christine Janis' Nova episode can be found here. Sadly, if you google "Christine Janis Nova marsupial", this blog exchange comes to the top of the results, ahead of the actual Nova page.

Robert Byers · 19 January 2014

diogeneslamp0 said: Above you said the marsupial horse is the same as the placental horse. Please present us with two photos, one of a marsupial horse and one of a placental horse, showing that they are identical. You may use Google images, but prove it. Above you said the marsupial tapir is the same as the placental tapir. Please present us with two photos, one of a marsupial tapir and one of a placental tapir, showing that they are identical. You may use Google images, but prove it.

I didn't say marsupial horse. Its a litoptern horse said to be unrelated to our horses. The marsupial tapir was a creature with a short trunk like our tapirs and was said to be convergent with tapirs. I think it was just a tapir. A common creature on both sides of the pacific.

Robert Byers · 19 January 2014

Christine Janis said: Robert Byers said: "Your quite wrong here. ---- The marsupial lion, good nova episode once done on it, is wonderfully like our cats. " Oh, you mean the program where I was a consultant and featured in the video? Good one, Robert. The program that showed that it could stand on its hind legs and use its tail as a tripod? " Possums have great numbers of kids. I read once some kangaroo can have a fetus growing, a fetus in the pouch, and a joey at its feet at the same time." Small placentals also have many young per litter. But it's been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that modern marsupials have a lower reproductive turnover than similarly-sized placentals. "it takes thousands of points of anatomy to make a marsupial wolf look like our dogs. " Name just one, besides a longish snout, that makes a thylacine specifically like a dog (to the exclusion of any other mammal).

Thats cool you were on that Nova episode. i loved it. A few years ago I watched it. I will seek iy out again to see you. Yes I remember about the tripod idea. it was not witnessed. I'm fine with it and would say the marsupial wolf also was like this. It also, I read, could stand upright better using its tail. I think they have photos. yet this is just a minor common adaptation for like need. it doesn't define the creature. The Nova episode very well defined the cat like body of the marsupial lion. Everyone watch the episode. I know they say marsupials breed no better then others. Either back in the day it was happening more or it was a need to breed on the run as it were. they were moving quick to colonize earth with limited timelines. anyways I come back also with the kangaroo. It is said , in its case, it can have three , fertilized egg, fetus, joey, ALL at the sae time. Strongly suggesting the reason for marsupialism. Hurry Hurrry. If one observes the marsupial wolf one sees a like body so much that they MUST invoke a special case of evolution. Convergent evolution. Its not just a snout. its the entire anatomy that gives to the eyes the same body plan. It is thousands of points of twists and turns that MUST occur to do this visual reality. The evidence is in the body of this creature. Its in the need to invoke convergent evolution. The marsupial wolf is just a plain old wolf slightly modified from a original common ancestor. our wolves also modified. It should of been the first conclusion before lumping pouches.

Robert Byers · 19 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: snakes birth live/eggs and still are just snakes.
I assume that you have no idea that all snakes lay eggs. It's just that some snakes keep the eggs in their bodies. When the eggs hatch, the mother gives "birth" to them. The process has the fancy name of "Ovoviviparity". They still lay eggs.
Creatures breeding together is not the final word of relationship. if the creatures changed enough and so also their genetics then they may also of not been able to breed despite coming from the same ancestors. some horse types can't breed or are sterile or something. Donkeys , etc etc. yet they are all horse types from a common ancestor.
But Robert, you are arguing for common descent from a common ancestor. That's called "Evolution". You are arguing for morphological and genetic change over time, until the descendants can no longer breed together. That's called "Speciation". Robert, welcome to the club. You are an Evolutionist who believes in species descended from a common ancestor, changing over time. That's what we've been saying all along. You do realize that actual Young Earth Creationists would call that heresy. YEC's like FL believe that the Bible requires the immutability of species, which is the exact opposite of what you are arguing that the Bible requires.

Its not ToE. We always said mankind came from a common descent. Variation is fine and needed. Its not selection on mutations plus time and so on. Yes mechanisms are there and must be there to explain things. Yet biblical boundaries stay true and firm.

DS · 19 January 2014

So that would be a no. You have no evidence of any kind. No photographs, no morphology, no characters, no genetic data, nothing. Zip, nada, zilch, All you have are your ignorant, unsubstantiated opinions. All you can do is repeat them endlessly, even after real experts prove that you are full of crap. Do yourself a favor bobby, go away. You're not fooling anyone. I suspect you aren't even fooling yourself.

diogeneslamp0 · 19 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
diogeneslamp0 said: Above you said the marsupial horse is the same as the placental horse. Please present us with two photos, one of a marsupial horse and one of a placental horse, showing that they are identical. You may use Google images, but prove it.
I didn't say marsupial horse. Its a litoptern horse

You sure as hell did say marsupial horse. All throughout this thread you have changed your story.

Robert Byers said: Marsupials are just one of groups of creatures that have wolves, cats, horses, etc in their group that look exactly like their namesakes elsewhere.

Robert Byers said: SO they have dog, cat, mouse,horse, etc creatures segregated into different family groups because of traits alike with other creatures in the area. THEREFORE marsupial, placental, and other divisions all have dogs, cats etc looking creatures. HOGWASH

Creationists are so stupid they can't even keep straight the bullshit "facts" they made up. You're trying to take back the bullshit you dump by the truck full on every thread you infest. You said marsupial horse, Byers, and marsupial tapir. Present photos of them proving they look exactly like the placental real and tapir. Present photos or STFO.

j. biggs · 20 January 2014

So Robert, you are probably aware that dingo's also live in Australia. In your opinion are thylacine "marsupial wolves" or dingos more closely related to the gray wolf?

Robert Byers · 20 January 2014

j. biggs said: So Robert, you are probably aware that dingo's also live in Australia. In your opinion are thylacine "marsupial wolves" or dingos more closely related to the gray wolf?

This is unrelated. Marsupialism was a mechanism back in the day of migration from the north. Nothing to do with later migrations of animals anymore then today. Dingos probably came withy the people.

DS · 20 January 2014

Yea man, don't ya know nothin. Marsupialization was only gonna happen instantaneously for a little while. After that, not so much. Why, because bobby made it up that's why. Now stop askin inconvenient questions that put the lie to all his nonsense.

eric · 20 January 2014

Robert Byers said: I meant that the fossil record shows that south America had many types of "marsupials". i mean they either adapted to that mode of reproduction from placental migrants or were from a adapted marsupial type before entering S america.

I know what you're saying. What I'm telling you is that adaptation would take much more change than an adaptation from apes to humans. So if it could happen in a few hundred or thousand years - which is what you're claiming - then apes could evolve into humans in the same time period.

We were made in gOds image but must live in a reality of biology where everything is off the same blueprint. WE can't have a body to represent our identity unlike creatures. So we could only be given a existing model and the best one.

So, God couldn't give us a body to represent our identity. God could only give us an existing model. Is that what you're saying?

eric · 20 January 2014

Robert Byers said: its simple here. Creatures are classified by their body plans.

You're not even doing that. Carl Linnaeus classified all marsupials as a group because of their common body plans in the 1700s. Before Darwin was even born. In other words, knowledgeable naturalists did exactly the procedure you want us to do, they did it with absolutely no possible influence from the theory of evolution, and the classification that best matched the body plan data was that marsupials are a distinct group.

ITs the minor traits that were adapted in local areas by all the creatures in the area . Marsupialism is just a few traits non related creatures picked up. So a marsupial wolf is just a plain old wolf.

No, its a rewiring of the entire reproductive system. What's going on here is that you know absolutely nothing about biology, and based on your ignorance, you are choosing to think that some traits you know nothing about and are inconvenient for your creationism are biologically trivial.

eric · 20 January 2014

Robert Byers said: your side must admit to a common deescent of snakes and yet BANG there is the reproductive difference. Its an option things can change.

The difference is, we think it requires millions of years. You think it required hundreds. This has put you in the unenviable position of asserting a much much faster and more powerful form of evolution than we ever would, in order to defend YECism.

Scott F · 20 January 2014

Robert Byers said: they were moving quick to colonize earth with limited timelines.

That's an interesting thought you have there. Why did they have to hurry? Why did the animals think that they had "limited timelines"? What creature do you know besides humans that have a sense of time, or sense of future generations? Here you claim that the lowliest creature was concerned about the future of their species, so they had to hurry, hurry and get on with it. Nonsense. They had all the time in the world. They had eternity stretching out before them. There was no hurry. God was in no hurry. Why were the marsupials in such a hurry? Did they somehow know that the land bridge to Australia would sink under the rising oceans in two or three hundred years? Did they somehow know that Jesus was coming in another 1,500 years, and that all the creatures needed to be in their nice, neat ecological niches before human historians started writing stuff down?

Henry J · 20 January 2014

One thing I don't get, is if a person feels that placentals could evolve into marsupials in a relatively short time frame, why would that person reject the idea of egg layers evolving into both marsupials and placentals? (Not to mention monotremes which are still egg layers.)

(I'm sort of guessing here that both those groups evolved independently from egg layers; i.e., they acquired the ability to "hatch" the eggs inside without bothering to lay them somewhere first.)

Scott F · 20 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: snakes birth live/eggs and still are just snakes.
I assume that you have no idea that all snakes lay eggs. It's just that some snakes keep the eggs in their bodies. When the eggs hatch, the mother gives "birth" to them. The process has the fancy name of "Ovoviviparity". They still lay eggs.
Creatures breeding together is not the final word of relationship. if the creatures changed enough and so also their genetics then they may also of not been able to breed despite coming from the same ancestors. some horse types can't breed or are sterile or something. Donkeys , etc etc. yet they are all horse types from a common ancestor.
But Robert, you are arguing for common descent from a common ancestor. That's called "Evolution". You are arguing for morphological and genetic change over time, until the descendants can no longer breed together. That's called "Speciation". Robert, welcome to the club. You are an Evolutionist who believes in species descended from a common ancestor, changing over time. That's what we've been saying all along. You do realize that actual Young Earth Creationists would call that heresy. YEC's like FL believe that the Bible requires the immutability of species, which is the exact opposite of what you are arguing that the Bible requires.
Its not ToE.

Well, you're right there. It is not the "Theory of Evolution" as science knows it. But it is change in body plans over time in response to external stimulus. That is "evolution" (with a small "e").

We always said mankind came from a common descent.

Who's "we"? A "common descent" from what?

Variation is fine and needed. Its not selection on mutations plus time and so on.

If it's not selection on mutations plus time, then what are you describing?

Yes mechanisms are there and must be there to explain things.

That is correct. But you have not said what those "mechanisms" are. You haven't explained anything. You've simply made bald statements about what you believed happened, and thrown in "bible" now and then when you run out of BS. The Theory of Evolution, otherwise know as "science" provides explanations of how and why things happen, and when they happened in the past.

Yet biblical boundaries stay true and firm.

Why? How? How do the "biblical boundaries stay true and firm"? What magical barrier preserves those true and firm boundaries. And what are those boundaries? Describe them? You have described placental wolfs turning into marsupials, crossing numerous species and family boundaries. The variation in form and design over time that you describe is blasphemy. It is the exact opposite of the "fixity of species" that is the cornerstone of fundamentalist Young Earth Creationism.

DS · 21 January 2014

Well see that's what you get when you are completely ignorant of all of the evidence and wish to remain so. You just make up nonsense and invent scenarios because they sound good to you. Eventually you have to realize that it is all a house of cards, nothing but inconsistencies and contradictions that no one with even a modicum of knowledge would ever be fooled by. If you want to make up stories to explain the facts, first you have to be familiar the facts. robert is unable and unwilling to do this. He thinks that people will feel sorry for him and give him a pass, but that isn't going to happen. Asking him to explain himself is useless. He probably has no idea what he means and he will just make up more nonsense to cover up that fact. The more nonsense he shouts, the clearer it becomes that he has no idea what he is talking about. I suspect that is why they allow him to continue to post here, He's kind of like a poster child I guess.

eric · 21 January 2014

DS said: The more nonsense he shouts, the clearer it becomes that he has no idea what he is talking about. I suspect that is why they allow him to continue to post here, He's kind of like a poster child I guess.

Guilty secret - to me this has been the most entertaining Byers' sequence of posts in a long time. Usually he one-shots us with some barely comprehensible idea. In this case his idea is comprehensible, described over multiple posts, it's just bonkers. I think one reason I find it amusing is because other YECers have floated similar ideas but have avoided being explicit about what they are proposing. Cornelius Hunter, for example, also made a comparison between wolves and thylacines trying to imply that they are biologically similar. So in this case Robert isn't just representing Robert, he's explicitly proposing a sequence of events that I think a lot of YECs would agree with, yet be afraid to admit to in public. Its refreshing to see someone say what probably a lot of YECers think.

DS · 21 January 2014

You're right, they probably do think something like this. But deep down inside they know how dishonest and ridiculous it is. If not, why haven't they tested their "hypothesis"? Why hasn't robert taken up the challenge? Why hasn't any other YEC done the test? If they did and the answer was that their "hypothesis" was orders of magnitude worse at explaining the observed distribution, would they admit it? Would they change their minds? Would they be convinced by the evidence? If not, why should anyone take them seriously? Why should they take themselves seriously? Her is their big chance to gain some modicum of respectability. Step up to the plat or admit that you are not in the game.

diogeneslamp0 · 21 January 2014

Creationists have been around in their current form for 100 years, and in a century the best "weakness" of evolution they have, is that (as Byers says) there's a marsupial horse which looks exactly like a horse because it is a horse, and there's a marsupial tapir which looks exactly like a tapir because it is a tapir; but he won't show us the photos of either. Trust Byers, they really do exist though, just no photos anywhere ever.

Also, there's a marsupial wolf which looks exactly like a wolf because it is a wolf, also called the thylacine; and there's a marsupial tiger which looks exactly like a tiger because it is a tiger, that's the thylacine too; and since a wolf is a thylacine, and a thylacine is a tiger, therefore, a wolf is a tiger.

Darwin is finished.

Also, the thylacine differs from a placental wolf in only one detail, according to Byers. Of course, Christine Janis then listed a couple dozen differences between them, but what would she know, she only does comparative anatomy for a living; and also, she's just the authority that Byers himself was citing when he told us everything he knows about marsupial anatomy he learned from Christine when she was on Nova, but Robert didn't know it was her, his authority, when he grandly told her he knows more about comparative anatomy of marsupials than the person from whom he learned what little he knows about comparative anatomy of marsupials.

When we repeatedly listed a couple dozen anatomical differences between the thylacine and the wolf, which Byers had previously said didn't exist, he next insisted he knew about them all along, but they're all minor differences, which can easily be produced by evolving via super-fast evolution, therefore, there's no evolution. Checkmate, atheists.

Plus, Byers said YEC predicts there would be no elephants on Pacific Islands, when he thought they didn't exist. Then he said no problem for YEC, when we told him several existed.

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.

apokryltaros · 21 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said:
Scott F said: By the way, Robert. You still have not explained the difference between a marsupial tiger (that is a tiger, because it looks like a tiger), and a marsupial wolf (which is a wolf, because it looks like a wolf).
Huh? The marsupial wolves and lions looked like their namesakes placentals elsewhere on the planet within the spectrum of these types body plans. Just google the marsupial wolf for the last moving pictures of the last ones. You will be watching a dog and not a flexible wombat.
Hi Robert, I asked about the marsupial tiger. You responded about the marsupial lion. Please try again. Please explain the difference between a marsupial tiger and a marsupial wolf?
I forget the marsupial tiger. I think it was a name thing. nOt a real thing of morphology or convergent evolution claims.

Tell us again why we should believe whatever you say about marsupial mammals and placental mammals, when you clearly know nothing about anything?

Robert Byers · 21 January 2014

eric said:
Robert Byers said: its simple here. Creatures are classified by their body plans.
You're not even doing that. Carl Linnaeus classified all marsupials as a group because of their common body plans in the 1700s. Before Darwin was even born. In other words, knowledgeable naturalists did exactly the procedure you want us to do, they did it with absolutely no possible influence from the theory of evolution, and the classification that best matched the body plan data was that marsupials are a distinct group.
ITs the minor traits that were adapted in local areas by all the creatures in the area . Marsupialism is just a few traits non related creatures picked up. So a marsupial wolf is just a plain old wolf.
No, its a rewiring of the entire reproductive system. What's going on here is that you know absolutely nothing about biology, and based on your ignorance, you are choosing to think that some traits you know nothing about and are inconvenient for your creationism are biologically trivial.

These oldtimers were not right about everything. They DID just lump critters together based on traits and still do. Yet they were wrong. iN fact if they had seen the true types of marsupials, which largely were extinct by this time, i think they would of said the marsupials were slightly modified placentals.

Robert Byers · 21 January 2014

Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: they were moving quick to colonize earth with limited timelines.
That's an interesting thought you have there. Why did they have to hurry? Why did the animals think that they had "limited timelines"? What creature do you know besides humans that have a sense of time, or sense of future generations? Here you claim that the lowliest creature was concerned about the future of their species, so they had to hurry, hurry and get on with it. Nonsense. They had all the time in the world. They had eternity stretching out before them. There was no hurry. God was in no hurry. Why were the marsupials in such a hurry? Did they somehow know that the land bridge to Australia would sink under the rising oceans in two or three hundred years? Did they somehow know that Jesus was coming in another 1,500 years, and that all the creatures needed to be in their nice, neat ecological niches before human historians started writing stuff down?

Its not their opinions but some mechanism to help them speed things up to fill the earth within a short timeframe. God told creatures to fill it up and this means they had the means including quick adaptation where needed. The famous wallace line was looming. Water levels would be rising that would separate Australia etc from the rest of the lands.

Dave Luckett · 21 January 2014

"Some mechanism" is Byerstalk for "then a miracle happened", and/or "Explanations? We don' need no steenking explanations".

diogeneslamp0 · 21 January 2014

Again I want Byers to acknowledge he did, in fact, believe and say that there's a marsupial horse that looks exactly like a placental horse because it's just a horse.

Robert Byers said:
diogeneslamp0 said: Above you said the marsupial horse is the same as the placental horse. Please present us with two photos, one of a marsupial horse and one of a placental horse, showing that they are identical.
I didn't say marsupial horse. Its a litoptern horse

Byers did say there was a marsupial horse that looks exactly like a horse because it is a horse, not just in this thread, but previously in a more formal piece of writing for a creationist website, nwcreation.net. I already linked to Byers' essay on this topic, "Post-flood Marsupial Migration Explained", but none of you paid attention to it-- too bad, it's hilarious. Byers gives a list of eight "orders" all of which allegedly include horses, bears, dogs and cats and says all the horses are just a horse, all the bears are just a bear, etc. (His list of eight "orders" aren't all orders, and several are misspelled. He lists "Archtocyonia" [sic, Arctocyonidae? which is a FAMILY not an order], and "Marsupialla" [sic, Marsupials, an INFRACLASS not an order]).

Robert Byers wrote: In the present orders and listed eight orders [sic] of animals selected above [his list includes the infraclass "Marsupialla"] one will find constantly bear, dog, cat, horse etc shaped creatures appearing in orders of animals that are said to be completely unrelated... It is the most striking thing about the fossil record and the marsupial situation in Australia today... Every region as in Australia today had creatures exactly like creatures elsewhere... [Robert Byers, "Post-flood Marsupial Migration Explained"]

In this thread he repeated this point two times.

Robert Byers wrote: Marsupials are just one of groups of creatures that have wolves, cats, horses, etc in their group that look exactly like their namesakes elsewhere [Byers comment]

Robert Byers wrote: SO they [taxonomists] have dog, cat, mouse,horse, etc creatures segregated into different family groups because of traits alike with other creatures in the area. THEREFORE marsupial, placental, and other divisions all have dogs, cats etc looking creatures. HOGWASH [Byers comment]

And then he lectures Christine Janis on how she's wrong about everything, and he knows more about comparative anatomy than she does, because he saw an episode of Nova in which he learned about the thylacine from... Chrisine Janis. A normal human being would just say, "Wow, I really did think there was a marsupial horse. I was wrong! Sorry! Boy, is my face red." But Byers can't do that. Since he is creationist, he must lie to preserve his illusion of authority. He has to pretend as if he knows as much as anyone here, so he always responds to us pointing out his blunders by saying, "I knew that" again and again. Damage control, Robert? It's clear he didn't know squat. This goes beyond stupid into outright lying.

diogeneslamp0 · 21 January 2014

Robert Byers said:
Scott F said:
Robert Byers said: they were moving quick to colonize earth with limited timelines.
That's an interesting thought you have there. Why did they have to hurry? Why did the animals think that they had "limited timelines"? What creature do you know besides humans that have a sense of time, or sense of future generations? Here you claim that the lowliest creature was concerned about the future of their species, so they had to hurry, hurry and get on with it. Nonsense. They had all the time in the world. They had eternity stretching out before them. There was no hurry. God was in no hurry. Why were the marsupials in such a hurry? Did they somehow know that the land bridge to Australia would sink under the rising oceans in two or three hundred years? Did they somehow know that Jesus was coming in another 1,500 years, and that all the creatures needed to be in their nice, neat ecological niches before human historians started writing stuff down?
Its not their opinions but some mechanism to help them speed things up to fill the earth within a short timeframe. God told creatures to fill it up and this means they had the means including quick adaptation where needed. The famous wallace line was looming. Water levels would be rising that would separate Australia etc from the rest of the lands.

It's not the Wallace line that's your biggest problem, creationist, it's the Weber line. The Wallace line runs along the Lombok strait between Bali and Lombok. The strait is 250 m [820 ft] deep. At glacial maximum, 18,000 years ago, sea level might have been at most 140 m [459 feet] lower than at present. So the Lombok Strait would always be 110 m [361 feet] deep or deeper. Australia was always separate, ever since it detached from Antarctica. But much worse for you, the Weber line runs through the Timor Trough, which is 10,800 feet deep. The Timor Trough would always be 10,340 deep or deeper. Your hypothetical placental kangaroos and koalas could never swim across either the Lombok Strait nor the Timor Trough, ever-- nor could koalas or wombats or diprotodons or quolls or quaggas or the platypus or the echidna. And worse for you, we have fossil and genetic evidence that marsupials came from S. America via Antarctica. There are fossils of marsupials including Australidelphian marsupials found in Antarctica, but none, not one, between Mt. Ararat and the Timor Trough. Genetic evidence shows that the small S. American marsupial, the monito del monte, is the sister taxon to Australidelphian marsupials. You, on the other hand, got nothing. No fossil trail leading from Mt. Ararat to anywhere. You got nothing but fairy tales about placentals of every type magically acquiring the dozens of features that define marsupials. And yet, strangely, it never happens while we're looking-- never happens to humans, not to apes, not to dingoes, not to rats. However, Byers, bizarrely, imagines that either A. the placental kangaroos know that "The famous wallace line was looming" and thus that they must morph quickly into marsupials while hopping to Australia. Yet, strangely, when a human tribe faces extinction, why don't they suddenly gain pouches? B. God knew he would sink the imaginary creationist "land bridges" connecting all continents together, so God supernaturally zapped the placental kangaroos and gave them pouches, plus two holes in their palates, a flange that bends out at the end of their jawbone, a dental formula of 4:3:4, etc. Yet, strangely, when a human tribe faces extinction, why doesn't God zap them and give them pouches? The first idea is Lamarckism combined with the belief that animals have ESP allowing them to anticipate continent-sized rearrangements that haven't happened yet. The second is pure supernatural creation and re-creation and re-re-re-creation, which can accommodate all observations ever made, as well as all observations ever not made.

AltairIV · 22 January 2014

Robert Byers said: These oldtimers were not right about everything. They DID just lump critters together based on traits and still do. Yet they were wrong.

So you're saying that scientists shouldn't be using traits when categorizing ("lumping together") creatures? Pray tell us what they should be using then.

DS · 22 January 2014

The deeper he gets the dumber he gets. Keep goin robert. You'll make a new route to china at this rate.

eric · 22 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Its not their opinions but some mechanism to help them speed things up to fill the earth within a short timeframe. God told creatures to fill it up and this means they had the means including quick adaptation where needed. The famous wallace line was looming. Water levels would be rising that would separate Australia etc from the rest of the lands.

Sounds like a bad Star Trek Next Generation episode. "Oh no, we have [problem] due to [inconsistent storyboarding]. We'd better solve it with [technobabble of the week]."

DS · 22 January 2014

no man, you got it all wrong. your not readin the bible literal enough. god told the animals to go forth and multiply because they didn't know how to do division or subtraction yet! so it's more like a bad episode of Welcome Back Kotter.

Henry J · 22 January 2014

Well at least they didn't have to do exponents...

Robert Byers · 23 January 2014

AltairIV said:
Robert Byers said: These oldtimers were not right about everything. They DID just lump critters together based on traits and still do. Yet they were wrong.
So you're saying that scientists shouldn't be using traits when categorizing ("lumping together") creatures? Pray tell us what they should be using then.

Traits should be used by researchers. I question and correct what traits should of and should be used in classification

AltairIV · 23 January 2014

Robert Byers said: Traits should be used by researchers. I question and correct what traits should of and should be used in classification

Yep, exactly the answer I predicted. You didn't really mean rejecting all traits, just the ones that you, personally, consider inconvenient. So there we have it. Robert Byers, someone with absolutely no knowledge or understanding of biology or paleontology, who has never done any kind of actual scientific research or study in any way shape or form, believes that he knows better than the actual scientists which traits to use for classification*. Such a humble man. * Looks like a doggy, so it must be a doggy. Looks like a horsey, so it must be a horsey, etc.

Just Bob · 23 January 2014

Robert Byers said: ... should of ...

It's should have! Jesus, I hate that!

Rolf · 24 January 2014

AltairIV said:
Robert Byers said: These oldtimers were not right about everything. They DID just lump critters together based on traits and still do. Yet they were wrong.
So you're saying that scientists shouldn't be using traits when categorizing ("lumping together") creatures? Pray tell us what they should be using then.

He already "told": use Robert Byers, the #1 authority.

ksplawn · 24 January 2014

I don't know how he can be the #1 authority. He's not even Cubic and Wisest Human: that's Gene Ray.