The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 10

As I sit down in my chair to write the final destruction of AiG's idiocy, the first thing that comes to my mind is how something like AiG could have arisen. In such an enlightened age, why is it that science, which has already shown such tangible benefits to humanity, become an enemy? To be like AiG, and take the bible literally, you have to reject nearly every branch of science SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Scientists do not make this stuff up. It's observable, testable, verifiable, makes predictions, and most importantly, is falsifiable. It is an accurate documentation of reality and how it functions. It is not a conspiracy against any religion, and it is not an attempt to subjugate the parents; it is an attempt to understand the nature of our universe. To have any group of people simply deny the observable facts of nature is absolutely outrageous, and potentially dangerous.

The number of people in America that share this mindset is growing at an unnerving rate. It wouldn't be such a big deal if they weren't trying to get into politics and mix their religion with government. Think about it for a second: we are electing people to offices, including the god damn presidency, who believe the universe is less than 10,000 years old! They make laws for us, they decide some of our curriculum, and they ban stem cell research and want to make abortions illegal. Why do we let it happen!

This is why I feel it is my personal duty to point out the bullshit. The term "Atheist" is such a broad grouping, because it isn't a doctrine; it only makes one claim, that god, in any form, does note exist. We hold so many different religious and political beliefs, ranging from Buddhism to communism, that we have a very hard time uniting. This is why you don't see very many big atheist or agnostic lobbies, because you can't get us to agree on anything but God. I feel that if I don't point this shit out, even to the one person who reads this, then it is allowed to self-replicate and gain even more power.

So, we have come to the final myth of Evolution. The myth: that all scientists agree on evolution. This, according to us "evolutionists", proves our "worldview" correct.

This definitely deserves the top spot, because it is CLEARLY the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard.

First thing's first, it needs to be said that the belief of the majority does not PROVE anything. Having a lot of scientists who accept evolution does not prove evolution, and I don't believe anyone has ever made that claim (except maybe creationists).

It must also be said that the Theory of Evolution is not a matter of belief, just like any other science. It is a matter of acceptance, that is, you see the evidence that is proposed and accept the theory as an explanation for that phenomena. We do not BELIEVE that evolution is fact. We ACCEPT evolution as fact.

And where did this idea that only scientists who accept evolution are "real scientists" start? Probably with creationists, but that's besides the point.

No one that I am aware of regards only those who accept evolution as "real" scientists. This is ridiculous, because there are scientists at universities and in labs who don't accept evolution. There might even be some who aren't religious, but who knows. What needs to be understood is that most of the evidence for any theory comes from people who try to prove it wrong, and this is precisely what happend to evolution in the early stages of its development. There are some who still think it is wrong, that's okay. More power to them actually, because it takes some gall to reject a claim that is so heavily supported with evidence.

I would also, once again, like to revisit the idea that there is no such thing as an evolutionist. So, when AiG claims that, "The argument, then, essentially boils down to this: evolutionists agree that evolution happened. This, of course, is an absurd argument, and we could just as easily say that creationists agree that creation happened", you need to know that it is null and void from the start, because there is no such thing as an evolutionist. But if you want to play that game, then that quote is EXACTLY RIGHT. "Evolutionists" do agree that evolution happens, just as much as creationists agree that creation happened. Neither of those statements don't prove anything, but . . . oh what the hell, you get it.

For the rest of the article, AiG points out the same shit that I just pointed out: that a majority opinion does not act as proof of something. They also write that the history of science is filled with minority views being incorrect. I don't know what that second one meant because evolution is accepted by the majority, but whatever. This is better, at least they're thinking semi-rationally for once.

"Secondly, many scientists accept evolution because the only alternative is design, which is against their naturalistic beliefs."

Fuck.

Okay, really? The ONLY alternative is design? Are you god damn kidding me? No it isn't, this isn't some battle between naturalism and design. It's a battle between the natural and the supernatural (or rather, fucking reality versus something someone made up 3000 years ago). Scientists do not accept evolution because they don't want to believe in design, it's because evolution is WHAT THE EVIDENCE POINTS TO! There is no "prior committment to keeping any miraculous interaction out of their worldviews". God, I was getting my hopes up for no reason.

Apparently, according to AiG logic, there is also a growing number of scientists who reject evolution. Wow, if your bullshit meter didn't just go off, you need to see a specialist. In fact, the trend is exactly the OPPOSITE: more and more scientists and people are accepting evolution, because the evidence is so plentiful.

The proof of evolution comes not from majority opinion. It comes from the 150 years of solid evidence that supports it. In that 150 years, there has not been a single piece of reliable evidence (meaning, non-creationist) that has contradicted the theory of evolution. As Theodosius Dobzhansky said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of Evolution".

We do not wish creationists to go away. Well, for the most part. We just want you to learn a bit about reality and get the fuck out of politics.

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 9

"Natural selection is the driving force behind evolution. This mantra has been repeated so often that people often conflate the two ideas. But are evolution and natural selection the same thing?"

The answer is no, and it brings us to the 9th of Answers in Genesis' list of the ten myths of evolution: that natural selection is not evolution in action.

To put it simply, natural selection is only ONE of the driving forces behind evolution. There are also allele frequencies, genetic mutations, genetic drift, genetic variation, migration, descent, and coevolution, just to name a few.

Natural selection and evolution, though related, are not the same thing. Natural selection, as discussed before, is a mechanism of evolution. Evolution, on the other hand, is defined as the change in the allele frequency of a population over time (about 800 generations for most species). Natural selection is one of the mechanisms that governs the change in allele frequency. Heritable traits that help ensure the survival and reproduction of a population will be passed on, while those traits that don't help are killed with the organism. If people conflate the two ideas, and combine them into one, then they are simply being ignorant.

AiG doesn't like to associate anything with evolution (but, what did I expect), or Darwin for that matter. For example, they say that natural selection is an observable process that wasn't discovered by Darwin, and this somehow validates their argument.

Correct. Natural selection was not discovered by Charles Darwin, but rather proposed by him as a scientific theory in his book. Before Darwin, the idea that nature selects organisms for survival was simply philosophy, and had existed since antiquity. Darwin just connected descent with it.

AiG makes the point, later in the article, that "natural selection is nondirectional and does not lead anywhere. That is, if the environment changes, members of a species that were previously better adapted may no longer be. "

Once again, this is a correct statement. Nature is not sentient; it does not consciously determine who it wants to live or die. We often discuss nature as if it were actually doing so, but in reality it can't. The fact that natural selection is blind (much like Adam Smith's "invisible hand", referring to market economics) is one of the reasons why nature produces so many variations of species. It doesn't choose a specific species and allow only it to survive, it allows any organism that "meets the requirements" of survival in that environment to be favored. If an environment changes (an extremely long and drawn out process. At least, it was before humans), then the animals that have the traits which allow it to survive in that new environment will do so. This is not a conscious decision that is made by nature, it simply happens. Creationists don't like the idea of things just happening.

This is where the draw a distinction between natural selection and evolution: "Evolution, on the other hand, is an unobservable process that requires direction (dinosaurs to birds, e.g.)."

No, evolution (as defined above) is the result of random chance (mutations, etc) and non-random selection. It does not have a guide, only mechanisms that drive it forward. These mechanisms that drive evolution don't do so in any particular direction, therefore evolution as a whole does not have a direction. This is why it is such a slow process (it can take thousands of years for a speciation event to occur): because there is no goal, or no objective. Evolution did not start with the predisposition that dinosaurs changed to birds, that is just what was determined through study.

So, natural selection can only work on information that is already there, right? And when characteristics are selected for, doesn't that result in a loss of genetic information?

Yes and no. Once again, AiG is correct by saying that natural selection can only act on information that is already there. This is an obvious statement, because if there was nothing to select, then there would be no selection. But, to say that when characteristics are selected, the overall genetic information decreases, is just plain ignorant.

Let's take a population of, let's say, bears. For the sake of this argument, the bears have only 4 pieces of genetic information. Their DNA looks something like this, perhaps:

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These bears are living in an arctic environment, so they are completely covered in hair. Over time, the arctic environment begins to change to a more temparate environment, so the hair isn't needed. One of the 4 pieces of genetic information governs body hair:

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What would happen if a mutation occured, and that gene that governed body hair became modified, causing some bears to lose most of their hair.

Mutated bears (~1/8 of the population has this mutation):

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\ (mutates to a slash, causes hair loss)

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Regular bears the (rest of the population remains unchanged):

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In this case, the increase in temperature might cause the majority of the bear population to die out, leaving only the ones that mutated and lost hair (~1/8). That is what natural selection does, but notice: there was no loss of information, the information simply CHANGED. That is the biggest thing to remember about this. Unless the mutation specifically causes a deletion or duplication, there is no loss of genetic information. Now the bears who survived will reproduce, and eventually that population of bears will be completely different from the original ones. That is what we call evolution.

As a corollary to their previous point, AiG also claims that mutations have not been shown to reverse genetic information loss. In reality (which is the dimension that normal, intelligent people live in), some mutations can cause genetic information to increase via duplications. I won't go into the details as to how it happens, but you have to understand that genes can be duplicated during both mitosis and meiosis.

The final claim made by AiG regarding natural selection is that we, the "evolutionists", like to give powers to natural selection that it doesn't have.

To this I say: when did we ever do that?

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 7

Ah, Answers in Genesis. Every time I load the page it just makes my whole day. Not because they are intelligent and engage in rational, reasonable discussion, but because they're just fucking hilarious.

The next myth, according to AiG, is that vestigial organs prove evolution. It just gets weirder and weirder.

This was something that I discussed yesterday in part 6. Vestigial organs are one of the many predictions that are made by evolution. Because the processes that govern evolution cannot simply redesign an organism, they have to make do with modifying (albeit, slowly) what is already there. Vestigial organs are perfect examples of this. They are organs that, due to mutation and selection, have lost their ability to function but still develop. They are examples of the evolutionary processes slowly getting rid of the organ (or sometimes re-purposing it). This is a prediction made by evolutionary theory, and confirmed by nearly every branch of biology. This is why evolution is such a powerful idea: it makes predictions that WORK.

So, AiG claims that the loss of organ function means only that the organ simply no longer functions. Well DUH! Of course, that is exactly the prediction that is being made. We don't base it on presumptions, we base it on objective reality. AiG wouldn't know anything about that, I mean, they literally said that they wonder how much evolutionary thought has retarded science by claiming things are no longer needed.

Your appendix is vestigial (functions have been proposed, but not conclusively proven). It no longer has a function in the human body, because the DNA that allowed it to function has mutated away. We know that from DNA evidence, yes, but we also know that because it has no effect on both the lymphatic system or gastrointestinal tract when it is removed. This is not retarding science, it's advancing it!

I guess there really isn't a legitimate claim here. AiG closes the article by saying that vestigial organs are examples of a world in decay (as the bible claims), but of course, they offer no evidence of any kind. To me, it seems like a contradiction. If the earth is decaying, why are only the organs don't seemingly serve an immediate function the ones doing the decaying. Why isn't my eyesight getting worse, or why isn't my back bending forward, or why isn't my brain function decreasing. The answer is, quite plainly, that the claim is an assumption based on no reasonable evidence.

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 6

Now, Answers in Genesis is prone to making outrageous claims and not backing them by any evidence, and their list of the ten myths of evolution is a good example. However, this next one struck me as a little . . . odd. Myth number five in no way refers to anything about actual evolution, which wouldn't make it a "myth of evolution". The myth is that bad human design proves there is no creator. See, no evolution in there at all, but they refer to people who think this as "evolutionists", so therefore it must have something to do with evolution itself.

No, bad design does not prove there is no creator, but does raise a question about why there is bad design in the first place. On the other hand, less than optimal design (meaning, vestigial organs and flaws) is a prediction that is made and confirmed by evolutionary theory.

There are a lot of serious flaws in the "design" of the human species. I don't know them all off the top of my head, so I did a little research and found this list. I'll discuss vestigial organs in a bit.

1. The female pelvis is too small for the baby's head. This can make birth difficult and cause a lot of prenatal damage to the child, as well as potentially hurt or kill the mother.
2. The blood vessels that lie in front of the retina are prone to damage and can lead to blindness.
3. Wisdom teeth that can develop secondary abscesses (a pus filled cavity), which can infiltrate the cranium and cause brain abscesses, meningitis, and epidural empyemas.
4. The high position of the larynx can lead to choking deaths due to the cartilage rings that surround it.
5. The Odontoid process, an extension of the C2 vertebrae can easily fracture, leading to death and paralysis, as well as the inability to breathe without a machine.
6. The semi-soft disc material between vertebrae were great for quadrupeds, but in humans they can easily compress due to upper body weight and cause trauma.
7. Hip joints are not perfectly suited to supporting human weight (they are better suited for quadrupeds). The stress can cause hip degeneration, femoral neck fractures in women and the elderly. This doesn't happen in quadrupeds.
8. Tibial cartilage in the knees is not strong enough for human weight, and can lead to knee problems in life. Once again, this doesn't happen in quadrupeds.
9. Foot and ankle bones are better adapted to walking on the toes, as it causes a more even weight distribution. Human weight can cause the arches between them to collapse as weight is not evenly distributed.
10. The median nerve that runs through the Carpal tunnel is covered by tough ligaments. The wrist is necessary to extend in order to achieve maximum flexion by the fingers. The problem is, repetitive use and minor injuries can cause the nerve to come in and out of the Carpal tunnel, causing problems with hand function.
11. The Ulnar nerve does not go in front of the elbow and rest in the softer tissue, instead it forms on the outside. In older mammals, like horses, this isn't such a big deal since their elbows don't flex, but because ours do it can compress and overextend the nerve.
12. The urethra, vagina, and anus are all located in such a close proximity that infection from the rectum can travel to the uterus, bladder, or kidneys and cause serious conditions.
13. The plantar nerves run from under the ankle and course under the foot to the metatarsals. Uneven weight distribution can cause arches to fall (as discussed earlier), and compress those nerves. This does not happen in older mammals, such as cats or dogs.
14. The appendix is prone to infection which causes it to rupture. This can be life threatening.
15. The large veins in the leg dilate because they are needed for walking, running, standing, etc. But, extended sitting can cause the blood to clot, which the veins usually send to the heart and lungs and causes pulmonary emboli. Many humans, but no older mammals, die from this.
16. The Venous Cavernous sinuses contain veins, arteries, and important nerves (those for eye movement and sensations). When a clot develops due to their close proximity, it can put extreme pressure on the nerves.
17. Infections are also frequently found in the skull sinuses, which cause a lot of deaths in children.
18. Congenital birth defects due to ancestral DNA. Gill slits in the embryonic stage can leave remnants which develop abscesses and cause pain. Another is chordoma, a cancer that forms in the notocord tissue. The notocord is an ancestral feature which gets absorbed by the bony spine. Sometimes, notocord which isn't entirely absorbed can form tumors at the base of the brain.
19. Some babies are born with mutations that cause the baby's blood to contain the wrong Rhesus antigen. This can cause the mothers body to try to destroy the baby.

Evolution is not perfect. If something fails, it can't start over with a new design, it has to work with what it has. This is because it's not a sentient being; it doesn't think and consciously make decisions like whether or not to add a gene there, or take away one here. Design aspects that are not perfect cannot just be removed and the process begun again, they have to be naturally selected for. Unfortunately, because it is not sentient, those design aspects that don't necessarily cause death in all cases are often passed on. Those flaws are hard to get rid of when they don't cause the species to become extinct. Evolution is not perfect in this respect.

Think of our bipedalism. The ability to walk upright was a great mutation. It allowed us to evade predators, find food, move quicker, and even see over longer distances, but the imperfect processes that created it could not have possibly anticipated the problems associated with it (including the uneven weight distribution). Natural selection isn't going to select for it because, on the whole, bipedalism still allows for greater survival.

Evolution also predicts vestigial features (essentially, a feature that is no longer needed but has not disappeared from the genome). Vestigial features do not appear in all humans, but that depends on how old they are. Evolution cannot permanently delete parts of the genome, so these features can exist in creatures a million years later due to their ancestral DNA; these features are just buried and unlikely to come out. Nevertheless, those ancestral features that rarely come out are still vestigial. Some vestigal organs are listed below:

1. Vomeronasal Organ
2. Extrinsic ear muscles
3. Wisdom teeth
4. Neck rib
5. Third eyelid
6. Darwin's point
7. Subclavius muscle
8. Palmaris muscle
9. Male nipples
10. Erector pili
11. Appendix
12. Body hair
13. Thirteenth rib
14. Plantaris muscle
15. Male uterus
16. Fifth toe
17. Female vas deferens
18. Pyramidalis muscle
19. Coccyx
20. Paranasal sinuses

So, now that we have some background, let's go to what AiG specifically claims. They begin by asking the question, "how can humans judge what is optimal design?". This question has a simple answer: because it would be OPTIMAL. If it causes major health issues, including death, chances are it's not the optimal structure. How about those extraneous vestigial features? Those are not needed and don't necessarily perform any particular function, yet we still have them. This is not OPTIMAL, it's inefficient and wasteful. Sure it works, but so does paying for a 20 dollar meal with a 50 dollar bill. It's not the optimal payment (because it requires change), but it works.

The second thing AiG says is outright stupid. They expect a world cursed with degeneration for 6000 years not to be able to maintain optimal design. Besides the fact that the earth is obviously not 6000 years old and that over time we are not deliberately degenerating, I was under the impression that humans couldn't judge what is optimal? Apparently AiG can.

I'll wrap this up by restating what I mentioned earlier. Evolution can't just restart it's design when something doesn't work in nature. It has to stick with modifying what it has. Sometimes, though, design flaws that don't always cause death (but can still cause problems) can't be selected for and removed from the species. Thus is the nature of the beast.

It doesn't necessarily prove that God doesn't exist, but it does prompt a question: why did God fuck up so badly?

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 5

I'll admit, I had no clue what it was AiG was claiming this time around at first. The 6th myth refers to the claim that the reconstructions of ape to human evolution in the media are all false, based on fiction, and that in reality ape fossils, specifically human ancestors, are hard to come by and suffer a lot of bias when being identified. This, to them, is especially evident by the supposed bipedial characteristics of the fossils which are also found in many currently living creatures that are not bipedal. Oh boy.

The media, when they give us diagrams like the famous one showing the progression of man to ape going from left to right, is just giving us the basic idea and detailing one of the predictions made by the theory of evolution. There is no bias in the diagram, as something that is backed by that much evidence cannot possibly be biased (at least on the scale that creationists claim). The real issue with this myth is the idea that human ancestor fossils are hard to come by and that they share characteristics with animals that are not bipedal (which I guess, for them, proves something).

Here's why recent human ancestor fossils are hard to find: fossilization is rare, and there has simply not been enough time or there haven't been the right conditions for those recent ancestors to fossilize. Despite their rarity, the fossils we have now do show clear transitions between ape and man, especially in the development of the cranium, hands, tail, feet, and pelvic girdle. This is even confirmed by dating the fossils: older fossils don't look as much like us as newer ones do.

As for the idea that the supposed bipedal characteristics of fossils are the same as currently living, non-bipedal apes, the answer to this is quite simple. The REAL characteristics that make us bipedal don't exist in any current, non-bipedal apes (S-shaped spine, feet arches, more upright pelvis). All of the apes have A) their pelvis angled slightly more forward, and B) their spines curve more like a "c", rather than an "s". The "c" shape is better adapted to knuckle walking, and this is what makes it so uncomfortable for them to walk on two legs: the weight is not distributed correctly and they fall over. They can do it, don't get me wrong, but it is awkward and they won't do it for long periods of time.

As the list goes on, the claims get easier to disprove. Apes have similar characteristics, yes, but they aren't put together in such a way that allows them to distribute their weight evenly while standing. Humans, and their very recent ancestors, do.

These creationists are cherry picking. They look for what they think are "gaps" in the theory and then interject their "designer". The problem is it that it simply does not work that way. We do not know everything about how evolution works, at least on the molecular level, but we do know that there is overwhelming evidence for common ancestry between apes and humans. Being able to say "you don't have enough fossils" is not enough evidence to both refute ancestry and then immediately claim that it was "designed". Ah, but such is the logic of a creationist.

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 4

I'm not going to lie, I didn't know what to do about this one. I've heard ridiculous claims before, but never have I seen this level of stupidity. The 7th myth on the Answers in Genesis list of 10 is that human and chimp DNA similarities prove evolution. That's right, they think that the fact that humans and chimp DNA similarities (which is 98%, by the way) does not prove evolution.

So, according to AiG, we "evolutionists" often forget that the 2% difference between chimps and humans equates to millions of differences in the arrangements of their nucleotides (they call them letters, retards). You're right, there are millions of differences in our base pairs (two opposite nucleotides), but where exactly does that disprove evolution? That 2% difference in our genomes make up all of the anatomical, physiological, and social differences that humans and chimps have, but, remember that there is still a 98% similarity! The number of similarities outnumbers the differences by a ration of 48:1! This alone does not prove evolution or ancestry, but it is one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of pieces of evidence for it.

Now this is the second thing they said, and it gets me every time. For some reason they like to think that we evolved from chimps. Let me tell you right now: WE ARE NOT chimps. We did not evolve from chimps. or any other LIVING primate species on the planet for that matter. We simply share ancestry, and that ancestry is solidified by the fact that 98% of our genome is identical. The further you go back on the tree, to reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, non-chordates, etc., the percentage of the genome that is identical lessens. You can see that decreasing trend not only in genetics, but in comparative anatomy, physiology, social behaviors, embryology, paleontology, zoology, botany, and beyond. The older you get, the less similar the organisms are.

Now, let's toss some interesting evidence out there.

A retrovirus is an RNA virus that gets replicated in the host cell through use of an enzyme called reverse transcriptase, which produces DNA from its own RNA genome. The virus then produces DNA and integrates it with the host cell by the enzyme integrase. This means that the virus can replicate itself as a part of the host cell's DNA. The simple way to say this is that retroviruses take their own RNA, produce DNA, and then synthesize the proteins necessary for duplication. Normal viruses operate by taking DNA from the host, producing RNA, and then synthesizing the necessary proteins. Retroviruses work backwards.

So, whats the significance? If a retrovirus (HIV is a good example) infects a body cell, then that change to the host's DNA is lost when the organism dies. If, on the other hand, it infects a gamete cell, then we have a whole 'nother story. When this happens, the retroviral DNA (which was inserted in to the host via the integrase enzyme) can be passed on to the organisms progeny. This is very important to know: those DNA changes that result from a retroviral infection can be passed on, and the offspring of the organism can bear those changes.

So, what happens when we decode the human genome? We can find where retroviruses have inserted their DNA by looking for specific patterns. We can even find what point they inserted them at. What about when we decode the chimp genome? We find that those same pieces of retroviral DNA exist in the SAME EXACT places in the chimp genome as they do in the human genome. The genome is billions of base pairs long, and the chances of the same retrovirus infecting two different species in the same exact places at different points of time are astronomical.

That is just one of the pieces of evidence for common ancestry. The human-chimp ancestor (or possibly, an ancestor from even further out) had these pieces of retroviral DNA in their genome, which were then passed to their ancestors.

Did the "designer" intentionally infect us with retroviral DNA (in multiple species, and in the same places I might add)? Seems kind of like a dick move to me.

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 3

The 8th myth, brought to us by Answers in Genesis, is that there are clear transitional fossils. They claim that paleontology has been unable to find any true transitional forms, and that gaps in the fossil record refute the idea that evolution could occur since there is no visible, gradual continuum between species.

The first thing we have to understand about fossils is that they are rare. The conditions necessary for fossilization have to be so exact that the chances of an organism ever actually becoming fossilized are extremely small. This explains why there are gaps in the record: not every organism fossilizes.

The other thing we have to know about fossils is that all fossils are transitional fossils (in some way). All of the fossils ever discovered show some kind of transition between their ancestors and their descendants. Now, this is an extreme generalization, but it necessary to understand that transitional fossils exist everywhere in the fossil record.

So, what is a transitional fossil NOT. Many creationists define a transitional fossil as a fossil that shows a combination of traits from one species and another. This is why they think we don't have any at all: they're looking for a crocoduck.

Now, what we are really talking about when we say "transitional fossils" are specific links between organisms, such as the link between water dwelling organisms and land dwelling organisms, or the link between ape and man. But, you have to understand that transitional fossils are not hybrids of specific organisms, but rather just a fossil that shows a mixture of features between older organisms and newer organisms.


Heres some examples:

• Titanotheres, who went extinct in the Cenzoic era. We have fossils which show the progressive increase in the size of their horns from small to large. We've also seen the development of certain head and neck features which are similar to those used by rams.
• The species Globigernoides trilobus and Orbulina universa have a wide variety of fossils showing the development of certain morphological traits.
• We have fossils showing the developments between certain species of Phacops.
• There is a 2 million year old record of development of the diatom Rhizosolenia.
• Lake Turkana molluscs
• Cenzoic era marine ostracodes
• The primate genus Cantius
• A 13 million year old record of the gradual changes of the Scallop genus Chesapecten.
• Gryphaea, which become broader and thinner during the Jurassic.
• Australopithecus shows the changes in the pelvic girdle and other features that show the transition between knuckle walking and walking upright.
• Fossils showing the transitions between dinosaurs and birds.
• Haasiophis terrasanctus, a marine snake that has limbs. Shows the transition between limbed to limbless snakes.
• Jaws of mososaurs show the transition between snakes and lizards.
• Fossils that show the transition between mesonychids and whales.
• Fossils that show the transition between fish and tetrapods.
• Fossils that show Condylarth to manatee transitions.
• Runcaria, the precursor to seed plants, which has some of the features of modern seed plants missing.
• Melittosphex burmensis, which shows the transition between some kinds of wasps and bees.

This is just breaking the surface. Despite their rarity, we have a lot of fossils which have transitional features.

Some other smaller claims made by the Answers in Genesis with regards to this myth are that fossils don't tell us who it's ancestors or descendants are, or even how it used the body parts it had. In reality, of course they do. By grouping together fossils with similar structures, dating them, and studying what modern species with those structures do with them, we can build an accurate picture of the ancient world. Fossils don't tell us directly, but the science of Paleontology does.

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 2

The 9th myth in the Answers in Genesis list of 10 is a particularly stupid one. They claim that homologies do not prove evolution, and therefore it is a myth.

The idea behind their claim is that homologies provide just as much evidence for a common "designer" as they do for evolution. This is silly.

This ties to another claim that is often made by creationists (falsely, I might add). They like to point out that homology is defined as similarity due to common ancestry, and so the claim that it is also evidence for common ancestry is a circular argument.

The evidence for common ancestry does not come from homologies, but rather the patterns of similar traits we see in nature. These similarities group themselves naturally, and form what appears to be a tree-like structure with the many branches representing the different groups (the tree of life).

So, let's take what I just said and make it visual. This image will help greatly.

The evidence for common ancestry comes from the groupings of organisms into different domains, phyla, classes, genus', et cetera. To make it easy, we'll just look at deuterostomes, chordates, and vertebrates.

A deuterostome is an organism whose embryonic blastopore forms the anus, and not the mouth. On the other hand, a protostome is an organism whose blastopore forms the mouth and not the anus. If you trace the tree down those two paths (you can't see the protostome path in that image, but it's there), you will notice that the two paths do not converge. No protostome or descendants of a protostome will have the blastopore form the anus, and no deuterostome or their descendants will have the blastopore form the mouth. You absolutely will not find that anywhere in nature.

The same applies for the chordates, who are characterized mostly by the jelly-like notocord that the embryos develop in the early spine (the spinal column eventually replaces this). No chordate or non-chordate will ever have the blastopore form the mouth, ever, because they do not share ancestry with the protostomes. You will also never find a descendant of a non-chordate that has a notocord, nor will you find a chordate that doesn't have a notocord. You see where I'm going with this? The same goes for vertebrates. No vertebrate will ever be a non-vertebrate, protostome, or non-chordate, and no non-vertebrate will ever be a vertebrate, protostome, or non-chordate. The reason being they do not share ancestry with these organisms, plain and simple.

A homology is what we use to describe the similarities between organisms in a particular group that come about due to common ancestry. That term is not applied to a feature until the evidence for common ancestry is presented.

To put it this way, homologies are not evidence for common ancestry, but rather common ancestry is evidence for homologies.

The Ten Myths of Evolution Refuted, Part 1

Answers In Genesis has an interesting list of the Top Ten Myths about Evolution. When I first saw it, I immediately smelled an interesting combination of bullshit and swamp ass. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I got when I read them (but, honestly, what did I expect).

So here is the number ten myth of evolution, refuted. The myth is that computer simulations prove evolution.

The claim is that computer simulations do not prove evolution because they reflect the biases and assumptions of the programmer, and because they are used to meet predetermined goals and way points.

The funny thing is that the answer to this crap is, yes, computer models do not prove evolution. Scientists don't think so either, though.

A computer model has to be made with algorithms and processes that are already known. It's not that we study what happens to a computer simulation and use that as evidence for evolution; quite the opposite. We have to study the way organisms are selected, the way genes mutate, and the way populations and environments change in nature in order to build models of them on computers. The only thing we then use the computer models for is to demonstrate the evidence that has been gathered.

It is silly to think that we use computers to prove evolution. You would have to have the knowledge about how evolution works beforehand in order to even put it into a computer, therefore not proving anything.

Although, some of the more elaborate computer simulations detailing evolution's processes are quite spectacular.

Bible Science: Paleontology

The opening verses of Genesis detail the creation of the universe, the earth, life, and man. Most importantly, the bible gives us some specifics as to the creatures that God created.

Hmmm, let's see. We have some lions, sheep, wolves, bears, cattle, dogs, insects, rodents, and even a few reptiles. Something seems missing . . .

How about the god damn dinosaurs! If they were all created at the same time, then why is there no mention of them at all in the Bible? Oh wait, here's why: there's no way that the Hebrews who wrote the book in the first place could have known about the dinosaurs, seeing as they lived millions of years before the first ape-like creatures had even contemplated existence.

But, surely the apologists have answers for me. Surely there must be some word that "could" have been interpreted as meaning "dinosaur". Well, it just so happens that they gave me a couple.

First off is the behemoth. The behemoth is first described in the Book of Job as being a huge, lumbering creature that "moves his tail like a cedar". It is also described as "first among the works of God" and impossible to capture, a possible reference to its size.

Most creationists believe that the behemoth was a sauropod, something like the Brachiosaurus. The fact that the tail moves like a cedar tree is believed to be a reference to a large tail, which negates the possibility that it was something like a hippopotamus, rhinoceros, or elephant.

In reality, the phrase "moves his tail like a cedar" most likely means one of two things:

1) A guy named Michael Bright, who is a senior producer with the BBC's natural history Unit and author of the book Beasts of the Field: The Revealing Natural History of Animals in the Bible, postulated that the writers of the Bible are not referring to the tail itself, but rather the hair on the tails of creatures like the hippo, rhino, or elephant. Like the leaves on a cedar tree, the hair on these animals is coarse and prickly.

2) The cedar tree simile may have actually been a euphemism for the animals penis. The phrase, with the euphemism substituted, may have read something like "his penis stiffens like a cedar". The cedar tree simile may have just been used to refer to the virility of something like a bull.

The behemoth is also described in Job 40 as having a naval. That would have made it a mammal, not a reptile.

The other is the leviathan, which is described as a water dwelling creature with characteristics similar to that of the "sea serpent" or the "dragon". The Hebrew word tanniyn is also used many times instead of leviathan, and they are assumed to be close to the same creature. Many creationists say that word tanniyn refers to the dinosaurs, as when it is translated into English it becomes "dragon", "serpent", or "sea monster". The Old Testament mentions the tanniyn about thirty times, and it says they lived on both land and sea.

Here's the problem with this one. The leviathan appears in the Ugaritic texts, which are very important for Old Testament scholars and their studies. The Ugaritic texts describe the leviathan as a twisting serpent with . . . seven heads. It's clearly not a dinosaur. It is meant to personify the waters of primeval chaos. Waters, if you've read Genesis, are very important symbols in the story of the creation. The earth was made by the separation of the waters; one went above the heavens, while the other stayed on the ground and became the oceans. You see, it's a metaphor. The rousing of the leviathan in Job 3:8 (remember the leviathan personifies the waters of primeval chaos) is meant to imply an undoing of the creation day.

Fantastic creatures like these, especially the leviathan and the behemoth, exist in the MYTHOLOGIES of most cultures not only in the mediterranean, but in the entire world. Unicorns, satyrs, dragons, cyclopes, harpies, centaurs, and a million other kinds of mythological animals exist in the stories of every other ancient culture. Why wouldn't the Hebrews have done the same?

The simple answer is that they would have. Of course the Hebrews meant it to be myth, seeing as there isn't any extra-biblical evidence for the existence of these creatures. What about the fact that dinosaurs specifically do not appear in any other mythology? It's such an odd thing to overlook, no matter how primitive you are.

We know now, thanks to advanced dating and fossil identification methods, that dinosaurs could not have lived during our short human existence. There is no way the Hebrews could have known about them.

Science 2, Bible 0.