We don’t have evidence demonstrating that an earlier species did not exist. Therefore, you can’t make that claim. Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.
Wouldn’t lungfish be out of place, according to your logic?
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Pretty much all paleontologists? KT and other extinction boundaries observed in fossil record?
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And I’m wondering why a Christian is wondering?
This is a place where Christians discuss how God could use Evolution to effect His creations, right?
Or was the original question intended to be asked of Atheist Scientists only?
When questions are worded like the one in the O.P., it tends to unintentionally (and un-necessarily) reinforce the “presumed polarization” of discussions - - if you endorse Evolution, then you must not believe God designed the Universe… and if you think God designed the Universe, then you must reject Evolution.
I bring this up (and will continue to bring this up) as a reminder to TWO of the three sides of the discussion that GAE is intentionally opening up a “3rd wing” of the discussion: how God can use Evolution to fulfill the Biblical narratives!
I say “You are welcome” in advance to those who understand what I am talking about.
Cautionary Note: It goes without saying that I am talking about God’s design in the most generic sense, and by no means am I endorsing the epistemologically flawed narratives promoted by Intelligent Design proponents.
Because there’s a lot I don’t know!
Part of my “agenda” as a Christian and a scientist is to try to break down what I see as walls of absolutism that have been built up in public discourse on both sides. I can have many questions about evolution without questioning evolution. I can have many questions about Christianity without questioning Christianity.
I looked at the very specific and detailed pattern of the insect and wondered how could that have developed gradually over (perhaps) millions of years. I flat out don’t know a ton of stuff about science and theology, and I come here to get expert knowledge in both.
Yes, I think that’s one of the topics. Right now GAE seems pretty hot, and that doesn’t have a lot about how God could use Evolution per se, it’s mostly just assumed, which is fine. I would like to see more scholarly work done around your question as I’m not sure how it all works (how often does God give a nudge, if he ever does)?
The question, I thought, was open to all.
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I like your response. And I offer the caution (and I think you will agree) that readers should not expect scientists to be writing about God using Evolution. This is a theological and metaphysical discussion - - not one that meets scientific criteria.
My point is reinforced:
Yes, I also believe the question was intended for all. And that is why I posted my “kavetch”!!!
Without any qualifying proviso (namely, that it is NORMAL for God to use natural processes to accomplish his end), the question unintentionally reinforces the very “polarization” that GAE is intended to DISMANTLE!!!
I strongly recommend that you look at the patterns of multiple individuals before characterizing them as “specific.” A Google image search for the species name will do…
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Yes, I did that, and I did see that some of them look more generic than others.
My point was that I think for most people evolution just doesn’t make a lot of sense when you look at the complexity and scales involved. That’s fine, a lot of things that are true don’t make a lot of sense, that’s why we have scientists. So it doesn’t help if biologists downplay how incredible or unintuitive evolutionary science can be, as if it was completely obvious how ATPase or the eye got here, or how this insect could develop such amazing camouflage.
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lets check this. but first i need your definition for out of place or at least i will gave such definition and tell me if you agree. remember that the tetrapod tracks are out of place because they predate the evolution of limb (limb and then transitional fossil between fin and limb instead of the opposite) . so basically any trait that doesnt fit well with the evolutionery hierarchy make the fossil out of place. do you agree so far?
first: its after the fact question. before the finding of the tetrapod tracks you could ask the same question about 370 my layer where we had the first tetrapod like the Ichthyostega. second: there are much more species of fish, so even if all fish and tetrapods were created in the same time, we should not find them at the same layer since fish have more chance to leave fossils (because they are more common). and there are other explanations too.
but you suggested that it will be impossible to evolve a fish fin twice. right? if so can you give me your calculation that show why this is indeed impossible?
so we can say the same about human fossils. who knows, maybe there are human fossils that date to the dinos age.
why?
and the evidence for their claim is?..
So the current state is that evolution has settled on a range of existing variations. Then why would you claim it was specific?
My point is that you grossly exaggerated the specificity of the pattern. Removing your exaggeration removes literally orders of magnitude of complexity.
That seems to be a straw man, as I don’t see any scientists here or anywhere else downplaying in that way. I see scientists who rigorously study such phenomena to understand the underlying complexity.
The thing you seem to be missing is that the NATURE of that complexity virtually screams that it arose from an iterative process. How do you recommend that we induce people to look deeply enough to see that, Jordan?
Because it does seems to be specifically for camoflauge for a green leaf. I’m sure that’s not rare, but it isn’t a stick or a flower, etc.
Perhaps, but that’s what a non-expert often sees. I’m not trying to make a claim per se here just saying that it can look pretty specific and it for sure is incredibly complex, but maybe not as complex as it may seem for experts.
That’s fine, I’m not arguing against that. I’m saying to the untrained eye/mind I can be hard to grasp.
I’ve done it by coming here and listening to experts such as yourself. I’ve also dug into some pop gen simulations, etc. to help understand it as well. I asked my geneticist colleagues a bunch of questions too.
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But the pattern is not specific. There is no specific pattern.
You did make a claim. Thanks for retracting it, no matter how vaguely.
And I’m saying that the complexity is there, but its nature is not what you are assuming it is.
But, hey, you’re a chemistry professor. If I can learn biochemistry in my 50s, what exactly is stopping you from understanding evolutionary mechanisms in greater depth?
So are you retracting your claim that biologists downplay how incredible evolutionary science can be? If not, I’d really like to see 10 or so examples, since you made an explicitly categorical claim about biologists.
I’m not an evolutionary biologist.
Do you have the basic understanding that selection acts primarily on existing variation (corollary: without such pools of existing variation populations become extinct), and not the ridiculous creationist straw man that selection only acts on new mutations?
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And so, in fact, if the Global Flood occurred sometime before or after the Pyramids of Giza were complete, you would expect thousands of human skeletons mingled with thousands of dinosaurs all buried and fossilized together in the vast confines of the Nile River Valley.
Buttttttt… we dont! And that’s a massive problem.
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No, not a specific pattern, but it does have a leaf-shaped shield and pretty good color-matching. I’m just saying that it seems very well matched to its environment and it seems remarkable. I’m not making any particular scientific claims.
That’s a big reason why I’m here, as I’ve said repeatedly! I want to know more, I’ve learned a lot, but it’s frustrating when I have questions and people jump down my throat for just expressing them or pushing my own understanding by dialogue.
It’s not a claim so much as an observation and experience. Don’t take it too strongly, I just find that when I have questions (like the original one in this thread about the insect) it’s often met with “why are you questioning evolution” type statements. I find that frustrating because that’s not my intent.
That makes sense, yes.
My questions are usually more along the lines of “where did this protein/DNA sequence/system come from?” I think I get natural selection fairly well, although admittedly most evolutionary biology (especially pop gen and molecular genetics) is relatively new to me. I’m basically trying to relearn a lot of undergraduate biology as it didn’t seem interesting/important to me at the time unfortunately.
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The fossil record is clearly incomplete - all you have to do is compare the number of known fossil species to the number of living species, or look at the rate at which fossil taxa are being discovered. But the fossil record is not so incomplete that it is uninformative. The fossil record clearly demonstrates faunal succession - that rocks of different ages have different faunas. It also shows correlation between successive faunas. Both those observations are evidence for evolution.
For the specific instance of Mesozoic humans, there are no unambiguous crown placentals in the Cretaceous. But your hypothesis requires not only humans, but also australopithecines, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangs, gibbons, old world monkeys, new world monkeys, tarsiers, strepsirrhines, plesiadapids, tree shrews, colugos, Glires, Laurasiatherians, Afrotherians and Xenarthans - and realistically speaking many subgroups of the later elements in that list - to have been present in the Cretaceous.
The observation that you’re trying to account for is not no humans in the Cretaceous, but no mammals of modern aspect at all in the Cretaceous. At some point along the line here absence of evidence becomes evidence of absence - if we should have found evidence and we haven’t then that is indeed evidence of absence.
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No.
That makes no sense. If the fact that fish are more abundant is the explanation, then we should not be finding land vertebrates anywhere, because fish were always more abundant.
Matching? The color varies substantially, does it not?
If you don’t see a specific pattern, why did you you claim that there was a “very specific and detailed pattern”?
Which is it? Those two statements are not compatible.
In this case, you are making two strident claims that you aren’t supporting. That strikes me as an odd way of trying to learn more.
And I am very skeptical of your claim. Would you please relate 10 of such observations and/or experiences? As a biologist, I find it very offensive.
Don’t make it so strongly, then. 
That wasn’t your claim. Your claim was:
The claim was a categorical one about biologists downplaying, not about questioning. Do you even have a single example of a biologist doing what you alleged they do categorically?
That’s a predictably mushy response. This is at the heart of what Darwinian evolution is, not some mere speculation. Misrepresenting this is at the heart of most deliberate and intentional misunderstandings of evolution; the next most frequent is pretending that neutral theory and evolution does not exist. I’ve found ignoring existing variation to be all but universal among evolution skeptics.
To give you a metaphorical idea of its magnitude of this misrepresentation, if the size of the pool of existing variation in a mammalian species is a bathtub full of water, how much new water (mutations) is added per generation? Note that these numbers are real observational data, not conjecture.
Maybe you don’t mean them this way, but your questions (particularly in this case) come off as the mushiest sort of “both sidesism” or calculated fence-sitting, and lack the chemical aspect I would expect from a chemistry professor. That’s why I challenge them, and since you never seem to stand by them, my impression is reinforced. You don’t seem to be trying very hard, particularly in this case, where you’ve made two strong claims from which you are backpedaling.
How about receptor-ligand interactions? The complexity of crosstalk is incredible. That would seem to be something that should interest a chemist.
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You didn’t read closely
And if you took a look at this link : https://images.app.goo.gl/Jj5mJzTYgobGJHsz5 you can see quite clearly they are very different structures. The fish fin did not evolve again in the penguin or the dolphin
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After the fact question? Your comment is meaningless. History took place in the past, and we can only ever ask questions about it in the present. What are you even trying to imply here?
Ad-hoc explanations can be a problem, ad-hoc questions not so much.
before the finding of the tetrapod tracks you could ask the same question about 370 my layer where we had the first tetrapod like the Ichthyostega.
And it’d been a good question then, too, and it still is. Why do we find that fish appear first in the fossil record, before fossil tetrapods? The question would have made sense before the tracks were found(the oldest fossil fish are a lot older than the oldest fossil tetrapods), and they still make sense now(the oldes fossil fish are still a lot older than the oldest tetrapod trackways).
The situation hasn’t changed, the oldest evidence for fish is still a lot older than the oldest evidence for true tetrapods.
second: there are much more species of fish, so even if all fish and tetrapods were created in the same time, we should not find them at the same layer since fish have more chance to leave fossils (because they are more common). and there are other explanations too.
See now that is ad-hoc explanation.