You will note that the two cases Bechly advances are the origins of whales and of trilobites. In neither case can new proteins be observed. Nor can new organs or new tissues. Are there even any goalposts at all?
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Careful! Pointing out why Bechly is wrong is “vitriolic,” you know.
I’m sort of amused by this strange redefinition of “body plans” by Bechly. Pakicetus and Basilosaurus have exactly the same “body plan” in the sense in which I usually see that term employed. They’re both tetrapods. Basilosaurus hasn’t even gotten around to actually losing its hind limbs (not that that would really be a proper body plan change, either). Certainly having new proteins, tissues or organs isn’t a “body plan” change. And yes, where DID Bechly get protein, tissue and organ samples from these ancient species, anyhow? Perhaps The Designer sent Bechly some leftovers.
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But there may have been new proteins evolved…right? Just cause we cannot observe them (due to limits of scientific inquiry) doesn’t mean they are not there.
I believe the ID position is that there were many new proteins evolved in these cases.
Echoing my comment from the other thread, if Bechly won’t talk with the critics, then who does he expect to answer his challenge? He even mentioned his notorious critics by name, responds, and he doesn’t want to talk with them??? Methinks he doth protest too much.
I’d like to volunteer for a nice private chat with Dr. Bechly - I won’t have much serious criticism because this is well outside my area, but at least I could ask for clarification on the definitions of the challenge.
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Sure. But it does mean that we can’t say that they are there, and thus can’t use that criterion to define a new “body plan” for fossil taxa. Further, Bechly should know that the current understanding of evo-devo is that body plan evolution generally involves new regulatory sequences more than new proteins. This entire line of argument is vacuous and that shoiuld be pointed out.
There is no ID position. For example, Meyer, in Darwin’s Doubt, argues that there can’t have been, there must have been, and also quotes a source that says that there was no need for them. There is little coherent content in ID.
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Feel free to reach out to him.
I’ve had excellent exchanges with him in private, and then also in moderated public discussions. He is a nice guy, and a true believer. I don’t think he is intentionally doing anything deceptive.
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I am of two minds about this. Part of me says yeah, whatever it takes to interlocute.
But then I get to thinking about how rude and dismissive the DI crew has always been towards students, trainees who are active participants in these discussions. This has always rubbed me the wrong way, and the idea that Bechly wishes to exclude this part of our group here doesn’t sit well. I like these interactions. I don’t believe the students, other faculty and instructors, and informed lay people here bring vitriol to the discussion.
I don’t think Bechly has the standing to merit such special treatment. He certainly hasn’t earned the respect he is demanding.
Not that I have made my mind up, @swamidass. However, please don’t feel badly if I opt to bring my response to the forum.
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I am not basing my response on hypotheticals, but on the actual response that Bechly has given to what Art has already written. Not to mention on every other response ever given by every ID Creationist for the past two decades.
I was wondering the same thing. My guess is this is part of the ongoing obsession ID Creationists have with whales. I think because whales are really really big and live in water it is easy to sell to the sort of person usually impressed by ID arguments that the evolution of whales required really, really, really big changes. Otherwise, I think they would avoid like the plague an evolutionary sequence that is so well documented and which so beautifully illustrates the process.
Yes. We can, if we wish, refuse to remember history, but if we do we surely will repeat it. There is not and will never be any genuine interest in substantive engagement from the ID side. There is, and will continue to be, interest in pretending to engage science substantively and shrieking in pain and shouting “foul” every time someone responds in a relevant way.
Ah, this is the power of tradition. Yes, they should. But it was such an old creationist saw that nobody knows where the heck whales come from, and some people say they come from just west of England, and Darwin saw a bear eating water bugs once, and y’know, those “Darwinists” just have no idea, but it’s all good because we know YHWH, Ineffable Un-pedaler of Quadrupeds, made 'em. Such a good theme! How could they abandon it?
And then all those lovely fossils were found – Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, and the like. Did that change anything? No, the power of tradition is strong. And so they continue to natter about whales. The tradition is also being upheld with regard to birds: I keep seeing people talk about Archaeopteryx as though it’s the only potentially dino-bird form known. If these people would actually amend their positions to fit the evidence, they’d have to just settle on bats: we’re really seriously short of plausible proto-bat fossils.
But, of course, it is absurd. Creationists modifying their views to suit evidence? They’re likelier to have their nostrils migrate to the tops of their heads and adopt an aquatic lifestyle.
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Sure. That’s up to you.
Independent of his request, I’ve been thinking for a while that visibility is greater and impact is stronger with preprints on the main website than on posts in the forum. The forum will still discuss. But there is a focused, concise, and non-convoluted starting point for each stage of the conversation.
That’s the primary reason I’m inviting a blog post.
I agree with @swamidass. Many readers might be interested in this exchange and it would be nice to see you clearly lay out your responses to the objections Bechly made without interjections from other members of the forum.
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Can someone explain to me why the Chimpanzee/Human pair is not valid?
Why thank you.
It’s interesting that Bechly starts his response with the complaint that:
Well, what I do count on is an average reading comprehension.
yet goes on to write:
Commenter Roy suggested that otters and ferrets should meet the challenge because they diverged “just over 10mya.” According to TimeTree.org , otters (genus Lutra ) and ferrets (genus Mustela ) diverged an estimated 17.5 million years ago.
Unfortunately for Bechly, I didn’t say otters and ferrets, I said “Sea otters and ferrets”. Sea otters are not of the genus Lutra, but the genus Enhydra. This doesn’t make any difference to the divergence time, but it does show that Bechly has no business commenting on the reading comprehension of others. It also nullifies his comment that “they are not different enough”. He’s comparing the wrong species.
Even more unfortunately for Bechly, timetree.org says that both Lutra and Enhydra diverged from Mustela about 11.0 or 12.3 mya, not the 17.5mya he claimed.
Here’s a screenshot:
Once more Bechly must be counting on no-one checking his references.
Now for his comments on trilobites. He writes:
Of course, Rusophycus traces show evidence of legs! That’s the whole point. Contrary to most trace fossils, which are paleontological problematica and cannot be attributed to a specific organism as trace maker, every undergraduate paleontology student learns that Rusophycus traces are the resting traces of trilobites and trilobite-like arthropods. So, by these traces we have evidence for crown group arthropods like trilobites for 537 million years ago.
But his original claim was for “the origin of trilobites from worm-like ancestors in less than 13 million years”. That’s trilobites, not “crown group arthropods like trilobites”. If Bechly had said something like ‘the origin of trilobite-like arthropods that left trace fossils’, I’d not have objected. But he wrote “trilobites”.
Now Bechly has clarified that he meant 13my from Ediacarian deposits lacking animals (550mya) to the earliest arthropod trace fossils (537mya), and not the 16my from the earliest trace fossils to the earliest trilobite fossils, there is another problem with his argument.[1]
Bechly writes:
… it would mean that the arthropod body plan with exoskeleton, articulated legs, mouth parts, compound eyes, central nervous system, and gut system evolved within 13 million years from such assumed jelly- or worm-like ancestors. The 13 million years represent the time span from the Ediacaran BST-localities 550 million years ago to the oldest Rusophycus traces 537 million years ago.
Rusophycus is a trace fossil. It shows the shape of the creatures underside, and the number and position of its feet.
It does not give any indication of the creature’s eye, mouth, nervous system or gut. It doesn’t even indicate an exoskeleton, since it could be made by a soft-bodied creature (and possibly was, given the lack of trilobite exoskeleton fossils at that time). There is absolutely no indication that trilobites’ compound eyes and mouth parts evolved in that 13my period before the earliest trace fossils. They could have evolved during the 16my period after the first trace fossils, but before the first body fossils. Or gradually across both periods. Or have started evolving even earlier. Bechly is drawing conclusions about eyes and mouths from footprints.
The previous problem remains, since he’s admitted his reference doesn’t say trilobites originated in less that 13my, only that trilobite-like arthropods did - with another 16my before there were trilobites. ↩︎
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Bechly would be the best person to do that. Any idea how we could get him to explain? 
What conceivable difference in body plan exists between them?
This just shows how vacuous the challenge is. “Body plan” is undefined, or in fact defined in contradictory ways depending on individual cases. Humans have no new organs or tissues. Probably a few new proteins, but what species pair can’t that be said for? This challenge just makes no sense.
Further, if it’s true that there are no recent examples, what does that imply? That evolution has ceased post-Miocene? Has all evolution been working toward its culmination in the present moment? How can that be justified?
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Agreed.
The challenge in this case is not to name two extant species that evolved in ~10my to be as different as Pakicetus and Basilosaurus. The challenge is to name two species that Bechly will agree are as different as Pakicetus and Basilosaurus. That’s much harder, especially since there are no objective criteria.
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Someone had the opportunity to do just that, but chose to focus on perceived vitriol rather than deal with this obvious and specific counter example present early in the thread. Given the broad compass of body plan espoused in the challenge, I do no know how the distinct human neural capabilities and speech would not qualify, and in any event the ID community, if anything, promotes these distinctives as unbridgeable. Once again, ID is hoisted on its own petard.
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While on that topic, I’m pretty sure worms had central nervous systems, a gut system for digestion, and could easily have had “mouth parts” (whatever that is supposed to mean) and compound eyes.
And it’s just not clear to me why 13-16 million years isn’t enough time for an exoskeleton or articulated legs to evolve.
On another note, I’m still wondering whether Bechly still thinks there’s “no conceivable reason” why an evolutionary change of some particular large magnitude (however undefined it remains) hasn’t occurred in the last 5 million years, supposing for the sake of argument no such magnitude of change has occurred. He literally can’t think of such a reason? He gets a sound of wind in a hallway in his mind when he tries to think of them?
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Let’s recall that Bechly is a saltationist. He thinks that saltation explains the “sudden” appearance of new “body plans” in the fossil record. But why would he expect saltation to stop abruptly (irony alert) at the end of the Miocene? Does his challenge make sense even in his terms?
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Indeed. So, the ecological opportunity presented, say, by the extinction of mosasaurs at the K-Pg boundary – is that just irrelevant to why a mammalian line wound up in this niche? Is the fact that we’re not headed out of a mass extinction (though we might be in the midst of one, alas) also irrelevant? I’d think a paleontologist would be awfully sensitive to the fact that some things, like the original rise of eumetazoa, or the invasion of previously mammal-free niches after the K-Pg, were dependent not just on generic evolutionary processes, but upon contingency.
But the challenge isn’t sincere, after all, is it? It’s quite silly, and he must know that. If Bechly were sincere, we’d be seeing serious academic work out of him on this subject, and answers to academic critiques thereof, not this kind of “post a vague challenge on EN&V and then complain that everyone’s mean to me” gig.
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