On Wed, 15 Nov 1995 20:22:34 -0700 (MST) you wrote:
DL>Greetings from the cold end of the planet!
Good to hear from you again, Denis! I thought you had dropped out of
the Reflector? Sorry for this late reply. I'm too busy swimming in my
pool and enjoying the summer sun! :-)
DL>Your post on the "bird with teeth" caught my attention, especially
>since I was in Berlin at the Humbolt Naturual History Museum in
>September and I had the rare privilege of seeing the fossil of
>Archaeopteryx that was discovered in 1886.
Trust a dentist to be interested in posts about teeth! What do you do,
scan for the keywords "teeth", "gums", "fangs"? :-)
I hope to visit Berlin to see the Archaeopteryx on my 3 month
overseas holiday (cum Darwinian museum crawl) in April-June 1996.
>On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, Stephen Jones wrote:
SJ>Much is made of the fact that Archaeopteryx has teeth, rather than
>a beak. The problem is that birds with beaks have now been
>discovered that may have been near-contemporaneous with
>Archaeopteryx:
SJ>If birds with beaks existed "just a few million years after
>Archaeopteryx made its debut", then if evolutionists wish to maintain
>that Archaeopteryx is a transitional form between reptiles and birds,
>it seems they must postulate either: a) a very rapid transformation
>of teeth into a beak; or b) assume that Archaeopteryx dates from
>further back in the fossil record.
SJ>The problem for evolution with a) is finding a naturalistic
>evolutionary mechanism that can transform a full set of teeth into a
>beak in "just a few million years".
DL>Respectfully, this is where I would quite disagree with you. No
>one familiar with developmental biology would ever say teeth are
>transformed into a beak--that makes absolutely no embryological
>sense. These are entirely different developmental processes and
>mechanisms. The transition postulated is very simple and could occur
>very quickly.
Sorry. I was using "teeth" as a shorthand for jaws with teeth. I
meant "transform a jaw with a full set of teeth into a beak with no
teeth...".
DL>First, we would need the lost of tooth forming ability in the oral
>epithelium. For example, the lost of the epithelial initiatory mechanism
>expressed early in development of the 1st branchial arch would be rather
>easy (An aside, this is an area I am dealing with in my current PhD as
>X. laevis [the South African Claw frog] does not have teeth in the
>mandible and I am in the process of doing some "cut and paste" embryology
>to determine why that is so).
I don't have a problem with the loss of teeth. As a PC I don't even
have a problem with God developing a bird from a reptilian archetype.
My problem is understanding how and why this would happen according to
a *100% naturalistic Darwinian* scenario. Why should a bird losing
its teeth have a selective advantage over those birds which did have
teeth?
DL>Second, the evolution of a keratinous
>type reaction in the oral epithelium and its selection would again not be
>all that problematic since that molecular program would be in place and
>all that would be needed would be its initiation.
I presume this is the development of a beak?
Again, I have no problem with its "initiation" by an Intelligent
Designer". But I would like more details how this "initiation" would
be made by the Blind Watchmaker. And what selective advantage would
0.001% of a beak have? I think a bird that had lost its teeth and then
had to develop a beak from scratch, would have died out before the
process was complete.
And where is the fossil evidence for a bird losing its teeth and then
developing a beak? Lecomte du Nouy states concering Archaeopteryx:
"Unfortunately, the greater part of the fundamental types in the
animal realm are disconnected from a paleontological point of view.
In spite of the fact that it is undeniably related to the two classes
of reptiles and birds (a relation which the anatomy and physiology of
actually living specimens demonstrates), we are not even authorized to
consider the exceptional case of the Archaeopteryx as a true link. By
link, we mean a necessary stage of transition between classes such as
reptiles and birds, or between smaller groups. An animal displaying
characters belonging to two different groups cannot be treated as a
true link as long as the intermediary stages have not been found, and
as long as the mechanisms of transition remain unknown." (du Nouy L.,
Human Destiny, The New American Library: New York, 1947, p58, in Gish
D.T., "Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record", Master Book
Publishers: El Cajon CA, 1986, p115-116)
DL>In light of my response for your first question, there is then no
need to >deal with your second question.
Well, you haven't really dealt with "a very rapid transformation of
teeth into a beak" by a "100% naturalistic Darwinian" mechanism.
DL>One last comment with regard to the Archeopteryx fossil I observed
>in Berlin. For me it was quite a REVELATION (and as a theologian I
>quite use this word in its proper sense as "natural revelation")
>because I have spent the last 3 years looking at polyphyodont/
>homodont teeth (specifically, amphibians and reptiles). I was
>utterly stunned as I peered upon this creature's dentition--IT IS
>UTTERLY REPTILIAN. It has long been noted in comparative odontology
>that reptiles have a Zahnreihen spacing just a little under 2.0, and
>as a result they have back-to-front wave replacement at alternate
>tooth positions. This feature was clearly evident in this
>specimen--it just blew me away. To the best of my tooth knowledge,
>THAT IS A REPTILIAN MOUTH AND THAT HAS REPTILIAN TEETH
>in a creature with definitive feathers.
Thanks for the above, but there is nothing new in it. It has long
been acknowledged that Archaeopteryx has reptilian features,
including reptilian teeth:
"Known as the Berlin specimen, it is better preserved than the one in
London. The articulated skeleton is in a natural position, which
means that at the time of the animal's entombment at the bottom of the
Solnhofen lagoon, decomposition had not yet begun. The skull has
teeth like those of a reptile." (Wellnhofer P., "Archaeopteryx",
Scientific American, May 1990, p44).
I have no problem with the above Denis. Progressive Creationism would
also hold that God could have created birds from a reptilian
archetype. The real question is how and why this particular reptile
would first develop wings with flight feathers, lose its reptilian
teeth, and then develop a beak, hollow bones, warm bloodedness, an
avian brain and lungs, all by 100% naturalistic Darwinian mechanisms.
IMHO the shortening of time frames supports PC better than Darwinist
macro-evolution. Remember that according to Dawkins, the blind
watchmaker can work only if there is sufficient time:
"To 'tame' chance means to break down the very improbable into less
improbable small components arranged in series. No matter how
improbable it is that an X could have arisen from a Y in a single
step, it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally
graded intermediates between them. However improbable a large-scale
change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we
postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded
intermediates, we shall be able to derive anything from anything else,
without invoking astronomical improbabilities. We are allowed to do
this ONLY IF THERE HAS BEEN SUFFICENT TIME TO FIT ALL THE
INTERMEDIATES IN." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", Penguin:
London, 1991, p317 emphasis mine).
While some (eg. Jim Foley) will say that 10 million years is
sufficient, I am confident that these time-frames will continue
to narrow down right across the whole spectrum of all so-called
transitional fossils, until it becomes quite clear that God is sending
us a biotic message that it was *not* naturalistic evolution that
created life's complex designs.
In the latest Time magazine there is an article on the Cambrian
Explosion, with a heading "Evolving at Supersonic Speed". In it MIT's
Samuel Bowring asks "...what I like to ask my biologist friends is,
how fast can evolution get before they start feeling uncomfortable?"
(J. Madeleine Nash, "When Life Exploded", TIME, December 4,1995,
p74). I would say that evolutionists are already feeling
"uncomfortable" and progressive creationists like me are feeling
better all the time! :-)
DL>As always Stephen, Praising the Blood of the Lamb,
Amen, brother! :-)
God bless.
Stephen
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