On Wed, 04 Sep 1996 06:32:38, Glenn Morton wrote:
>[...]
GM>It is not wise to say things about facts in the creation/evolution
>area without being familiar with the original sources. You see this
>all the time in some of the YEC literature. Scott Huse says that
>the evolutionists believe platypus is a transitional form between
>birds and mammals. (Huse Collapse of Evolution, p. 109).
I presume Glenn is using the first (1983) edition of Huse's "Collapse
of Evolution"? I have his 1993 second editionand at "p. 109" there
is nothing about the "platypus". However at page 136, there is
something about the platypus:
"Evolutionists insist that the duck-billed platypus is an
evolutionary link between mammals and birds...The evolutionist's
allegation that it is a transitional form is not supported by the
facts. The platypus appears to be a distinct kind of animal that has
been specifically designed to include a mosaic of traits." (Huse
S.M., "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker: Grand Rapids MI, Second
Edition, 1993, p136).
There are two issues here: 1. "the duck-billed platypus is an
evolutionary link between mammals and birds" and 2. "The
evolutionist's allegation that it is a transitional form".
As to 1. Glenn is of course correct. "Evolutionists" do not
now "insist" (present tense) "that the duck-billed platypus is an
evolutionary link between mammals and birds". But they did once
consider it possible, if not probable:
"The platypus sports an unbeatable combination for strangeness:
first, an odd habitat with curiously adapted form to match second,
the real reason for its special place in zoological history-its
enigmatic melange of reptilian (or birdlike), with obvious mammalian,
characters. Ironically, the feature that first suggested
premammalian affinity-the "duckbill" itself-supports no such meaning.
The platypus's muzzle (the main theme of this column) is a purely
mammalian adaptation to feeding in fresh waters, not a throwback to
ancestral form-although the duckbill's formal name embodies this
false interpretation: Ornithorhynchus anatinus (or the ducklike bird
snout)." (Gould S.J., "To Be A Platypus", "Bully for Brontosaurus",
Penguin: London, 1992, pp270-271)
and:
"We have come a long way from the first prominent evolutionary
interpretation ever presented for the platypus bill. In 1844, in the
major pre-Darwinian defense of evolution written in English, Robert
Chambers tried to derive a mammal from a bird in two great leaps, via
the intermediate link of a duckbilled platypus. One step, Chambers
wrote, `would suffice in a goose to give its progeny the body of a
rat, and produce the ornithorhynchus, or might give the progeny of an
ornithorhynchus the mouth and feet of a true rodent, and thus
complete at two stages the passage from the aves to the mammalia.'
"(Gould S.J., "To Be A Platypus", "Bully for Brontosaurus", Penguin:
London, 1992, p280)
The latter view was taken seriously enough for Darwin to consider it
in both his Origin of Speies and his Descent of Man:
"If the Ornithorhynchus [platypus] had been covered with feathers
instead of hair, this external and triffling character would have
been considered by naturalists as an important aid in determining the
degree of affinity of this strange creature to birds." (Darwin C.R.,
"The Origin of Species", 6th Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M.
Dent & Sons: London, 1967 reprint, p398)
"The Monotremata are plainly allied to the Marsupials, forming a
third and still lower division in the great mammalian series. They
are represented at the present day solely by the Ornithorhynchus
[platypus] and Echidna; and these two forms may be safely considered
as relics of a much larger group, representatives of which have been
preserved in Australia through some favourable concurrence of
circumstances. The Monotremata are eminently interesting, as leading
in several important points of structure towards the class of
reptiles. In attempting to trace the genealogy of the Mammalia, and
therefore of man, lower down in the series, we become involved in
greater and greater obscurity; but as a most capable judge, Mr.
Parker, has remarked, we have good reason to believe, that no true
bird or reptile intervenes in the direct line of descent." (Darwin
C.R., "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex", 1871,
Modern Library (bound with The Origin of Species), Random House: New
York, no date, p522)
A reader unfamiliar with "YEC literature" may gain the impression
from Glenn's assertion that YECs *generally* claim that the
"evolutionists believe platypus is a transitional form between birds
and mammals." In point of fact, the major YEC writers like Gish,
Morris, Parker, Bowden and Wise, where they mention the platypus,
they either point out that it is *not* claimed as a "transitional
form" by "evolutionists" or they present it as a problem for
"evolutionists":
"...Gould and Eldredge specifically exclude Archaeopteryx as a
transitional form, terming it, as is the duck-billed platypus, a
strange mosaic that doesn't count." (Gish D.T., "Evolution: The
Challenge of the Fossil Record", Master Book Publishers: El Cajon
CA, 1986, p115)
"The platypus...was at first considered a hoax by evolutionists,
since its "weird" set of traits made it difficult to even guess what
it was evolving from or into." (Morris H.M. & Parker G.E., "What is
Creation Science?", Master Books: El Cajon CA, 1987, p121)
"THE DUCK BILLED PLATYPUS This unusual animal...presents a major
problem to the theory of evolution. When the first stuffed specimens
were sent to this country from Australia, for several years they were
thought to be a hoax. Such a peculiar combination of features was
hard to accept and it was some time before they were taken
seriously." (Bowden M., "Science vs Evolution", Sovereign
Publications: Bromley, Kent, 1991, p79).
"In fact, there are many such "chimeras" that live today (e.g., the
platypus, which lays eggs like a reptile and has hair and produces
milk like a mammal). Yet these are not considered transitional forms
by evolutionists because they are not found as intermediates in
stratigraphic position." (Wise K.P., "The Origin of Life's Major
Groups", in Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis",
InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove Ill., 1994, p227-228)
Note: I am not a YEC and I do not necessarily agree with everything
in the above - just that YECs do not all claim that "evolutionists
believe platypus is a transitional form", let alone that it is a
"transitional form between birds and mammals."
GM>I know of no evolutionist who has ever suggested such an absurdity
>and Huse gives no reference. I don't think he knows what he is
>talking about there.
Glenn is incorect that "no evolutionist...has EVER suggested such an
absurdity", namely that "platypus is a transitional form between
BIRDS AND MAMMALS" (my emphasis). Indeed, despite the YEC claims
above, Huse's second point is correct, namely "The evolutionist's
allegation that it ["the duck-billed platypus"] is a transitional
form."
Darwin himself considered that the platypus connected widely
separated orders:
"...in fresh water we find some of the most anomalous forms now known
in the world, as the Ornithorhynchus and Lepidosiren, which, like
fossils, connect to a certain extent orders at present widely
sundered in the natural scale. These anomalous forms may be called
living fossils; they have endured to the present day, from having
inhabited a confined area, and from having been exposed to less
varied, and therefore less severe, competition." (Darwin C.R., "The
Origin of Species", 6th Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent
& Sons: London, 1967 reprint, p102-103).
He hinted that the monotremes may have been transitional between
reptiles and mammals:
"The Monotremata are plainly allied to the Marsupials, forming a
third and still lower division in the great mammalian series. They
are represented at the present day solely by the Ornithorhynchus and
Echidna; and these two forms may be safely considered as relics of a
much larger group, representatives of which have been preserved in
Australia through some favourable concurrence of circumstances. The
Monotremata are eminently interesting, as leading in several
important points of structure towards the class of reptiles."
(Darwin C.R., "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex",
1871, Modern Library (bound with The Origin of Species), Random
House: New York, no date, p522).
Even today, John Maynard Smith claimed that the platypus is a
transitional forms:
"Some time after I had met Duane Gish in San Diego, I caught up with
him again in Brighton on the south coast of England, where he was due
to debate with Professor John Maynard Smith of Sussex University, a
doughty neo-Darwinist. It wasn't so much a debate as a statement of
two irreconcilable points of view. The lecture theatre was packed to
overflowing. Maynard Smith made a theatrical entrance, clasping his
hands above his head in salutation like a professional boxer about to
go fifteen championship rounds. His fans or should I say students,
roared their approval. Gish made a confident, knowledgeable speech
about the fossil record and the lack of transitional links. Maynard
Smith was equally trenchant, saying that as far as he was concerned
there were hundreds of transitional forms, the duck-billed platypus
being one of them." (Hitching F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Where
Darwin Went Wrong", 1982, Ticknor & Fields, New York, p125)
Two Time-Life books by different authors suggest that the platypus is
a transitional form between reptiles and mammals:
"But in the course of long and patient study, the platypus was
finally accepted for what it is -a mammal that lays eggs but feeds
its young on milk which oozes from teatless mammary glands. It was
assigned to the special order of Monotremata, a classification that
it shares with only one other creature, namely the spiny ant-eater.
Both of them, like reptiles, have a single ventral opening for
elimination, mating and birth. Moreover, like reptiles, they have
bony shoulder girdles and produce eggs that are leathery and
large-yolked. The reptilian characteristics of the platypus led
scientists to conclude that it is descended from a link between the
reptiles and mammals of 150 million years ago. At any rate, it is a
highly specialized survivor of an ancient line." (Moore R.,
"Evolution", Time/Life Books: Netherlands, 1964, pp60- 61)
"The monotremes, the only order in the first of the three major
mammalian groups, are the most primitive of all mammals. Their
shoulder girdles are curiously reptilian and they have but a single
external opening for the elimination of all body wastes as well as for
reproductive functions. The females lay eggs as birds and reptiles do.
Probably isolated from a very early period when mammals were still in
the process of evolving from reptiles, the monotremes emerged as a
wholly separate line." (Carrington R., "The Mammals", Time/Life
Books: Netherlands, 1965, p14).
Finally, in a book that Glenn claims he ghost-wrote, under the
heading "Are there transitional forms: creature to creature?" it is
implied that evolutionists do claim that the monotremes are
transitional forms:
"The theory of evolution as originally proposed by Darwin postulated
that evolving organisms would gradually change from one type of
creature into another over thousands of generations. This implies that
there should be gradation in form between a parent and daughter
species. A fish would gradually change into a bird. If the species were
fossilized and preserved randomly then many transitional forms would
be preserved. If this is the case, then the fossil record should reflect
this fact...Monotremes (egg-laying mammals): The monotremes are
mysterious because their ancestry has so far yielded no
fossils." (Howells W., "Mankind in The Making", Garden City:
Doubleday & Co., 1967, p53)
(McDowell J. & Stewart D., "Reasons Why We Should Consider
Christianity", Scripture Press: Amersham Bucks. UK, 1992 reprint,
pp164,169)
Perhaps this has been largely a waste of time because all Glenn was
asserting that *one* YEC, namely "Scott Huse" says that
"evolutionists believe platypus is a transitional form between birds
and mammals" *only*. But if that was all that Glenn was asserting,
then "so what"? :-)
God bless.
Steve
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