Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Re: Orphaned Response Message-ID: <702@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 11:32:08 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.702 Posted: Mon Aug 26 11:32:08 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 20:10:04 EDT References: <14600027@hpfcrs.UUCP> <14600039@hpfcrs.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 108 Summary: In article <14600039@hpfcrs.UUCP> lief@hpfcla.UUCP writes: > [MIKE HUYBENSZ] > >Whales have abundant organs that you would classify as "progressive". Such > >as the flukes of the tail, the insulating layer of blubber, the melon (oil > >filled chamber in the head for the directional reception of sonar), baleen > >(the filters of mysticete whales), and others. Most of these don't make > >any sense for land-living animals, just as legs don't make sense for whales. [Note here that I am referring to someone Lief's ideas of regression and progression. Evolution doesn't much concern itself with those ideas: instead it considers everything adaptations.] > [LIEF SORENSEN] > > As a creationist, I believe that "vestigal" organs demonstrate "regression" > > of species over time, and serve no evidence for evolution. I may be all > > wet, but I really fail too see how "vestigal" organs serve as good evidence > > of evolution. > > > [MIKE HUYBENSZ] > >They serve as evidence of the history of the ancestral line. Presumably > >the organs were once functional in a homologous way to homologous organs > >in other animals. > > > >There are a number of practical problems with theories of regression or > >degeneration (as well as theological problems.) The major one is that we > >should be able to find evidence of regression if it occurred in as short a > >span as the past 10000 years (assuming a young-earth creationism.) But > >we don't find recent bones of "non-regressed" animals. > > First Mike, I would like to challange your first assertation that whales > show many "progressive" organs. How do you know they are "progressive"? They are progressive by the standards of the note I was responding to. Which, unfortunately, I no longer have. In evolution, progression is seldom used except in the chronological sense. > I think that in order to make this claim you need to firmly establish that: > > 1) Fossils of whales which prelived today's whales did not have said > organs (at least not in the currently developed mode). > > 2) Present whales could not survive or at least would be severely > hampered without said organs. > > The second requirement should be easy to establish, but the first one > may be a little difficult since soft tissue organs don't exist in fossil > form. It's interesting that you said that "I would classify these organs > as progressive." Does that mean you would? I think I would if I could meet > these two criteria. Soft tissue organs do occaisionally fossilize, though I don't know of any for whales. However, organs such as the melon of whales are clearly reflected in the anatomy of the skulls of whales. I don't know offhand whether fossil whale skulls which have been found show this organ. > A case in point. I would classify the black pigment skin of the negro > as progressive. As a creationist, I don't believe Noah had son's of three > different races. I believe that a mutation which caused dark skin pigment > to occur in the human race was what some might classify as a good mutation, > though I too would have to agree that what we define as good and not good > is subjective. Presumably, white skinned people could not survive the > extreme ultra-violet radiation of equatorial regions of the world (died off > of skin cancer, etc.) while the dark skinned people could survive just fine. > Thus, white skinned folks tried to avoid living in such climates. This > meets both criteria above. What makes you think that dark skin came from light skin? Why couldn't Adam and Eve (or Noah and family) have been black? :-) From the evolutionary point of view, both colors of skin are adaptive for the environments in which they evolved, regardless of order (probably white from black.) The idea of white-skinned folks trying to avoid living in the tropics BC is ludicrous: migration across those distances was quite difficult, assuming that white skinned people knew enough to avoid skin cancer by migrating north. > To say that "there are a number of theological problems with degeneration > or regression" is just plain wrong. Don't you agree that the creation model, > which theology asserts, claims that life was created in a perfect form, and > that sin has been causing a general degeneration of life since its inception? > I'm not asking if you agree with the creation model, but whether you agree > that theology teaches that life forms are degenerating? If you disagree, > could you show me where I'm wrong? You have got to admit that Genesis teaches > that before Noah's flood, man's life span was almost 1000 years. Certainly > we don't live that long now. How can this mean anything other than > degeneration? Ok, theological problem number 1: why did the life span decrease to todays in one step after the flood? Creationists sometimes posit a physical explanation (elimination of the hypothetical "vapor barrier") but this doesn't explain why their god decided to saddle humans with yet another disability. It sounds to me as if the "covenant" had a hidden clause. After all, an omnipotent god didn't have to use a flood to kill off all those people. > Your last point is well taken -- we have not found any fossils which > can be attributed to non-regressed animals. Wouldn't I love it if we would > find an anti-diluvian man (since the Bible teaches that these men were > giants). On the otherhand I would like to submit to you that Bison never > roamed the plains of the United States, because we have never found a fossil > of one. I'm glad to see you've conceeded one point. But you are wrong about bison fossils. There are abundant deposits of bison bones in varying states of fossilization. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh