Re: Cambrian Explosion

mortongr@flash.net
Mon, 05 Jul 1999 21:58:38 +0000

At 11:07 AM 7/5/99 -0700, Cliff Lundberg wrote:
>mortongr@flash.net wrote:
>>At 06:44 PM 7/4/99 -0500, Susan B wrote:
>>>
>>>I was challenging the idea of "you never see a partial wing." Which you
>>>seemed to be saying. In fact, you do. The flying squirrel and flying fish
>>>have "partial" wings. Lungfish have "partial" limbs and so on.
>>
>>There is a partially evolved feather on Longisquama. See my web page
>>http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/longisq.htm
>>It apparently acted as a glider wing
>
>The problem with such examples of 'partially evolved structures' is that
>they are completely evolved structures in the organisms we see using
>them. These creatures have gone into gliding; it works for them.

But you know? The big complaint from the anti-evolutionists is that a
feather can't be useful if it is half evolved. Yet when one shows and
example of a half-evolved feather that is very useful, you say that because
it is useful it isn't half evolved. Which way do we want to play this today?

There are also statements like this:

"There are no true transitional forms (that is, in the sense of forms
containing incipient, developing or transitional structures - such as half-
scales/half feathers, or half-legs/ half wings) anywhere among all the
billions of known fossil forms." ~ Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker,
What is Creation Science?, (El Cajon: Master Books, 1987), p. 11

Which is clearly untrue given the elongated, feather-like scales of
longisquama.

>They've taken their own route; there's no justification for claiming that
>they're on some other creature's evolutionary path, only they're just a
>bit behind. Lungfish don't have 'partial limbs;'

You are correct about lungfish but incorrect about Ichthyostega, one of the
transitional animals in the sequence leading to amphibians. His legs were
only good for working like paddles. They could not support the weight of
the animal. Yet they were quite armlike in other aspects of their mophology.

they have fully developed
>lobe-fins, suited to the lives they've been living for a hundred million
>years or more.

Oh, you were referring to things like ichthyostega. You are wrong.

Pinnipeds have lost much of their limb structure; do
>you think that if they were gradually forced to abandon the sea they
>would get that limb structure back?

Dollo's Law seems to preclude this. It is the observation that a structure
once lost is never regained.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm

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