There’s an obvious problem with this approach.
If you’re (intentionally) ignorant of something, you can never be sure it’s irrelevant.
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Echoing Puck, they are not experts in phylogenetics.
Fazale Rana would appear to be the closest RTB comes. But his background is in Chemistry, leading to “a PhD in chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry” and “postdoctoral studies in the biophysics of cell membranes” – nothing remotely relevant to Phylogenetics.
Likewise, Winston Ewert is a Computer Scientist, not a Phylogeneticist. The fact that he applies CompSci methods to phylogenetic data, in a single paper (published in a vanity journal edited by his own boss), does not make him an expert in the latter field.
You should think how ridiculous you look citing these amateurs as authorities to an audience that contains at least one phylogeneticist (@John_Harshman).
(That is not to suggest that an individual cannot change their area of expertise – I worked with a physiologist and an astrophysicist who had become expert economists. However that process requires focus, takes years (typically a decade or more) and leaves a paper trail in terms of employment and/or peer-reviewed scientific publication. None of which have been demonstrated by the “experts” you cite.)
This is, I would suggest, a major part of your problem here.
Likewise, Hugh Ross is an Astrophysicist not an expert in Biblical exegesis.
In fact, most apologists are not experts in the fields they draw their evidence from. If they are experts in anything, it is in the rhetoric of massaging the facts to fit their theological preconceptions. This renders them doubly imperfect as a source of neutral scientific information.
You will not receive a thorough, neutral and expert explanation of a scientific field from them. You will receive a cherry-picked, slanted and imperfect understanding. This ill-prepares you for presenting model based upon that understanding to an audience that includes actual experts in the fields covered.
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Absolutely. The data is only as good as the experimental design.
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I’m not sure I have suggested anything. I have simply observed, in accord with mountains of evidence, that all metazoans share common ancestry and, within that, that all mammals share common ancestry. Note, since you are prone to confusion, that this has no bearing at all on the question of universal common ancestry, which I have never raised in any way in this thread except to point out that you keep running off to it.
Regarding ancient texts: any claim in any text of any age, ancient or not, that any metazoan lineage does not share common ancestry with the others, is false.
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Right, and you can’t even give me one example of this. It’s just proof by assertion from you here.
So are you saying we won’t find any in the future? If so, explain why
Which biblical claims have been falsified and how?
From wikipedia:
"Evidence for common descent comes from the existence of vestigial structures.[72] These rudimentary structures are often homologous to structures that correspond in related or ancestral species. A wide range of structures exist such as mutated and non-functioning genes, parts of a flower, muscles, organs, and even behaviors.
This variety can be found across many different groups of species. In many cases they are degenerated or underdeveloped. The existence of vestigial organs can be explained in terms of changes in the environment or modes of life of the species. Those organs are typically functional in the ancestral species but are now either semi-functional, nonfunctional, or re-purposed."
Right, this means that you can’t say the bible conflicts with the data, which was my point.
Yes, they flow out of Eden in the text but I am not sure what your point is.
Again, "Rose goes on to point out that the existence of the Gulf Oasis is consistent with the biblical account of Noah’s flood. The combination of 1) a lengthy torrential rain storm, 2) a tectonic event to burst open subterranean aquifers*, 3) a surge of Indian Ocean water through the Strait of Hormuz, and 4) a heat wave to generate a sudden snowmelt in the surrounding mountains certainly would have caused a devastating flood. "
We’re talking about mammals, right? Large hairy vertebrates?
I suppose it’s theoretically possible that we will find some new species (pl) of mammals that have been hitherto overlooked, but we’ve explored the earth sufficiently thoroughly now that the new species we’ve found in the last decade or so are almost all cases of animals we knew about (and hence already in the mammalian hierarchy) but thought were all one species being actually two similar species (of which both are clearly already in the mammalian hierarchy).
For example, this: “The results suggest that the two populations of dwarf galago in the Taita Hills may belong to different species.”
There are a few exceptions (e.g. this), but the probability that there is an entire hierarchy of mammals yet to be discovered that roots independently of the known one is effectively zero.
It might have been seriously entertained a century or so ago, but aviation and satellites have made scenarios such as The Lost World or The Land that Time Forgot no longer feasible.
But I forget, I’m responding to someone who doesn’t even know what a species is…
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I’m not interested, since it’s been shown to be futile.
If you’re appealing to unknown future results, all you’re doing is ignoring current results. We have to judge hypotheses based on data we have, not data we hope might turn up some day. In particular, the data we have are conclusive. And we are very, very unlikely to find a new mammal species that doesn’t fit into the nested hierarchy we already have. We know about almost all mammal species that exist.
A great many, but let’s stick with the ones you have made: that aquatic mammals and land mammals must belong to different kinds. The data are conclusive on this. We know what whales are: they’re artiodactyls most closely related to hippos. We know what manatees are: they’re afrotherians most closely related to elephants. We know what seals are: they’re carnivorans most closely related to bears and musteloids. We know what sea otters are: they’re (duh) otters. I can provide references if you really want, or you could google it yourself.
We’ve established you don’t read the papers you cite. Now it appears that you don’t even read the stuff you cut and paste. What part of “Those organs are typically functional in the ancestral species but are now either semi-functional, nonfunctional, or re-purposed” is unclear?
The bible, and Hugh Ross, conflict with the claims you had previously made and with the claims that you just used Ross to support. This is getting tiresome.
My point is that you’ve been saying they flow into Eden. Do you not see the difference? And have you even read Rose? You seem to be quoting from a secondary source. None of the four simultaneous events your unnamed secondary source mentions are in evidence, and #2 is nonsensical.
It’s frustrating to discuss anything with you since you ignore most points and seem not to remember from moment to moment what your original claims were.
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Just want to jump in to comment that Genesis makes no claims about the class Mammalia. The authors of Genesis had no thought of attempting a scientific classification of organisms. The division of creatures in the sky (heavens), land (earth) and seas is part of the literary design of Genesis which contributes to the story being told and the theology being presented.
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Which is to say that @John_Harshman is correct, common descent does not predict that vestigial features must be nonfunctional. By definition, vestigial features no longer fulfill their earlier purpose.
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Darwin even stated that vestigial structures could still have rudimentary function.
What the theory of evolution predicts is the distribution of vestigial structures in species. For example, you might find vestigial teeth in whales. However, you shouldn’t find vestigial feathers in a mammal.
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Not unscientific, but the Bible wasn’t written for this sort of thing either. The people who wrote down the original words didn’t have the knowledge or concept to understand the kind of specificity needed for scientific hypotheses. You might end up with a prediction that is scientific but un-Biblical.
What exactly is it that functional convergence is supposed to falsify?
I’m not just being pedantic here, this is important. Functional convergence is a prediction of evolution (I think, somebody call me out if I’m wrong), and it would be a strike against evolution theory if we didn’t see this occurring. What does ID predict that would be a “strike against” if it were not observed - or vice versa - what does ID predict we should not see (example from evolution: crocodiles should not evolve into ducks).
*** If you are not aware, a certain YEC evangelist mockingly claims that evolution predicts hybrid species like a “crocoduck”. In fact evolution predicts such hybrids should not exist, and it would be a huge strike against evolution if they did. ***
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I would call functional convergence an unsurprising outcome of evolution, but not necessarily a prediction. One popular example is the bullet shape bodies of fish and aquatic mammals which is driven primarily by basic fluid dynamics. In the majority of cases the evidence clearly shows two lineages taking different evolutionary routes to a similar solution. Using the previous example, the front fin of a dolphin and shark look very similar from the outside, but the underlying skeletal structures are very different.
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I can be happy with “unsurprising outcome”. 
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After reading this, I just noticed that we have been talking passed each other for some time and we are not on the same page. So I am going to respond to some past comments you made instead…
Yes to your question. This is essentially what the bible suggests as well even though it is not a very good method for determining such a thing.
NO, I am not saying this at all. As someone said already, nested hierarchies are an observable fact. I just got mixed up with what you were objecting to. I thought you were talking about the explanation for that observable fact in the form of universal common descent.
The fossil record and finding functional molecular convergence between species would be the method in separating species. But, when it comes to kinds or nested hierarchies, I am backtracking on the notion that we would expect independent nested hierarchies, at least for the moment. I want to hear what you have to say first on my latest response.
Ultimately, my claims are going to be what the bible claims in regards to kinds. So I was expecting you to provide a specific bible verse I mentioned in the bible that contradicts the data. But nevermind now since it seems as though we were just not on the same page at the time I sent that post, apparently.
Sorry for the confusion again. When I said “Genesis 2 claims that the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates Rivers all meet together in Eden”, I did not mean they flow into it. Instead, I meant that if you follow the path of all four rivers, they all lead into Eden like a tree stem where the rivers are a branch and Eden is the stem, which Genesis 2:10 suggests:
" Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it branched into four headwaters:"
What is not a very good method for determining what thing?
Even though I explained that several times? But you did explicitly say that there were kinds within species and created units within kinds. You may not have meant to say that.
How would you do such a thing? And again, what are species?
Why are you backtracking? What would expectation would you put in its place?
That’s a problem, because the bible verses don’t say what you think they say. Genesis 1, as it actually is written, contradicts the data too, but in a different way from Genesis 1 as you try to read it. I was talking there about your reading of the 5th and 6th days of creation in Genesis 1, where you have the aquatic mammals on day 5 and the land mammals on day 6.
That, incidentally, is because you don’t actually read what people write. Try paying attention and this should all work better.
But what you actually said contradicted that. Please pay closer attention to what you said. Also, rivers flowing out of the Persian Gulf oasis is not a viable scenario, so your model makes no physical sense. That’s what I was saying: there are contradictions between Eden in Genesis and Eden as Persian Gulf oasis. Can you see that?
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I do not see how either of those would be of any use, given the definition of “species” used by biologists.
Science isn’t debate, so it isn’t about backtracking or not.
Why don’t you want to look at the evidence instead of what anyone says?
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The bible
Some of it I meant to say but I am retracting it and some of it I did not mean to say, such as specially created kinds,
We would expect specially created species.
Extensive comparative genomics and anatomy, re-visiting claims of Vesitigial features,ERV’s, and suboptimal designs between species and nested hierarchies, etc. and comparing them to different environments
I gave you the definition of species already. The fossil record should give examples of which species are separate and which ones are kinds within a species or nested hierarchies.
Because functional convergence between species and kinds is what we would expect rather than simply convergence because it explains why there are differences. The “why” part is what truly separates common design’s predictions from common descent. The study I gave you on monkeys and humans is an illustration this.
Nope, sorry John. I respect you as an expert phylogeneticist but you are not a biblical scholar. You need to provide references and sources from scholars and the Hebrew text and then explain and show how they contradict each other rather than assert it.
Right, this is what skeptics have said. Present day observations do not show that the rivers flow out of Eden/Persian Gulf. But, the study suggests why.
Do you have any notion of how opaque that reply was? Please remember that other people are not you and do not already know what’s in your head.
Again, clear as mud. So are you entirely abandoning the notion of kinds? If not, what is a kind? And if species are specially created, do you mean every species, or just some species that then diversify into many species? And who would expect specially created species, and why?
That explained nothing. You’re only making things more and more obscure by the constant erasure accompanied by fragmentary repetition.
Uh-oh, you’re back to kinds within species after having abandoned them only a few lines previously. There’s no way to make any sense of what you say here. I give up.
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Hugh Ross isn’t a Bible scholar!
I can’t imagine how you get mammals out of Genesis (I mean, I know there are mammal sky fliers, water swarmers and land roamers, but I didn’t get that from Genesis).
But there are Biblical Hebrew scholars at Peaceful Science. I wonder what @deuteroKJ thinks about using the Hebrew text to glean something about mammals.
I’ve never tried to summon a Hebrew Scholar before. I wonder if it works. 
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Did you draw a hexagram on the floor first?
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