Poll: Evolution and the other side

[monfang]

First off, I find it hard to listen to a man who lies under oath. But that's nether here or there. Oh wait. It is here and there. That video is apparently about his trial, the trial where he lied under oath.

Speaking of lying, you are. Miller justly challenged the claim that evolution is 'undirected', because it's the circumstances surrounding a species that direct it's evolution. You should slander someone's name just because he defends something that proves your faith as being impossible. Your faith being impossible to prove is your problem, and nobody else's.

Also, everyone take note of how Monfang doesn't answer the question posed, but instead tries to Ken Miller's person.

I can't answer the question because I don't know if he is lieing or not. I can't trust him anymore if he lies under oath.

 

[Thaliur]

First off, I find it hard to listen to a man who lies under oath. But that's nether here or there. Oh wait. It is here and there. That video is apparently about his trial, the trial where he lied under oath.

On the second day of the Kitzmiller trial, Miller was confronted about theologically charged statements about evolution in one of his biology textbooks, which stated that "[e]volution is random and undirected." Miller defended himself by claiming that the theological language about evolution in his textbook was a "mistake," and was added by his co-author, and that the statement "[e]volution is random and undirected" appears only in the 3rd edition of his "elephant textbook," Biology. Miller said, "that statement was not in the first edition the book, it was not in the second edition, it was not in the fourth edition." Yet contrary to Miller's testimony, Miller has produced numerous textbooks which apparently contain anti-theistic language describing evolution. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/07/ken_millers_random_and_undirec002331.html

Of course ID advocates couldn't go against what he said. What he said goes against evolution. there is nothing more to be said.

Good thing Hovint wasn't under oath during his "lecture", then, eh?
If someone offers you the convenience of a video, please at least watch it. It is less than five minutes long and the guy doesn't talk like someone who wants to sell an absurd idea and is afraid that if he slows down, people might start thinking about what he said, contrary to Hovint.
Had you watched the video, you would know that what he says does not in the least bit disprove evolution.
Since you apparently are unable to take precious five minutes of your time to watch the video, let me summarise it for you:
Humans have two less chromosomes than other primates. He brought up the theory that two of each haploid set got fused at some point after the heritage of humans and other primates split, and unless evidence for such a fusion is found, this will be a fundamental flaw in evolution theory. It was found that human chromosome #2 has telomere sequences in the middle of its strands. This is a certain sign that it consists of two chromosomes which were fused at some point during their replication and remained that way in the following generations. This proves that two chromosomes of each haploid set were fused. This fusion explains why humans have two chromosomes less than other primates. So evolution theory is still valid.

 

[Dinwatr]

To add to what BrassButtons said, Creationism deserves no serious consideration. Not because it presumes Christianity is true (seriously, the overwhelming majority of Creationists are Christians and the movement is intimately tied to Christianity), but because Creationists fail to provide any testable ideas. They can't provide them: they don't propose a mechanism. Creationism, boiled down, argues that someone, somewhere, somehow, made life. Until you can provide the who, the where, and the how, you do not, in any real sense, have a valid theory. All you have is mere speculation, and at best a lot of datapoints.

The argument that we need to examine Creationism is nothing more than a demand for special treatment. There are ample examples in Earth Science of an idea being discarded, properly, for not having sufficient supporting evidence or for failing to provide an adequate mechanism. In many cases, the discarded idea was later proven to be correct--but only AFTER the mechanism and evidence were provided. Until then, scientists CANNOT, in good conscience, accept the idea as true--there's not enough support.

There are rules to this game we call science. Creationism violates more or less all of them. They DO NOT present their ideas in peer-reviewed journals, they DO NOT present them in academic conferences, they DO NOT present them to people who actually understand the issues involved. Instead, they attempt to force their ideas onto children too young to understand the data presented to them, under the guise of fairness. They attempt to use the courts to force us to accept their ideas. They hijack religion (every theist who's not a Creationist should be deeply offended by what these people are doing in the name of their gods). In short, Creationism behaves like a social movement, not a scientific theory. And it should be treated as such: by keeping it out of science classrooms.

 

[evilneko]

Am I missing anything so far?

Yes. Quite a bit, actually.

 

[Raso719]

Huh?

No option that reads "No because the notion that matter and life can be instantly created from nothing is, in and of itself, a fallacy that anyone with a basic high school understanding of physics or biology should understand"

Biases much?

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

V. Cholera is deadly because it causes Cholera which just reasserts my point that D-type Amino Acids are toxic. When V. Cholera enters the body, it infects the cell with it's D-type and that causes negative reactions in the body.

I was going to be kinder than this, but...

Absolute. Bullshit.

Cholera is deadly because it secretes a toxin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera_toxin] that messes with your electrolytes, basically dehydrating you to death. Amino acid chirality doesn't enter into it.

Also:

Also there are problems with the 'Evolutionary Tree' such as plant eating Panda Bears being put in the Carnivora (Carnivore ie meat eater) Order

Oh, hey, look at this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda#Classification]:

Pandas in the wild will occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents or carrion. In captivity they may receive honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, or bananas along with specially prepared feed.



Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivoran, the giant panda's diet is primarily herbivorous, consisting almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo.

(And before you start complaining about Wikipedia, that's sourced from an article in Nature called "The sequence and de novo assembly of the giant panda genome.")

Seriously, I'm not even a biochemist or zoologist, and this stuff took me about five minutes to find. Research these things, would you?

 

[Dinwatr]

Am I missing anything so far?

Just the entire point.

The ONLY reason you view a difference between micro and macroevolution is temporal chovanism. You view everything through the lens of modern biology. What you lack--what humans in general lack--is an understanding of what a few tens of millions of years can do, and an understanding of what IS a major or a minor change. Something that's a minor change when it first starts out--say, the number of radial bones coming off of a fin--can become a major component of organisms down the road--say, tetrapod limbs. For fish, the variation is very, very minor. I doubt, had you been alive at the time, that you'd have considered it a macroevolutionary novelty. It's just a re-arangement of a very plastic trait. It also happens to be the entire bases of vertebrate terrestrial life. Small concentrations of photosensitive nerves would be a minor adaptation--they're more or less randomly placed in some phyla anyway, and there's no reason to pick one random configuration as macro and the rest as microevolution. Yet over a few million years, that concentration near the anterior end became cephalization, one of the most significant anatomical changes in animal life.

Once you develop an understanding of deep geologic time (and remember, deep time is a GEOLOGIC concept, which came about well before the concept of evolution and which is demonstrated by quite different evidence), it's easy to see how minor changes can accumulate over time to gain the appearance of major anatomical differences--despite the fact that when the changes first arose, they were nothing special, merely one among a host of variations.

 

[LordLundar]

my friendly evolutionist would you mind telling me if you have ever once seriously looked at the other side. I'm talking about at least a week or two of long research into creationism.

I've tried, but I always wind up either breaking out in a fit of laughter or hitting my head on something hard to find an excuse for the pain.

Seriously though, the concept of scientific study is to question why something works and to prove that the current understanding is wrong and to find a new understanding. If someone can produce empirical evidence disproving evolution it's progress.

Creationism on the other hand is the opposite. The "science" behind it is reliant on what boils down to "trust me" and anyone that questions the standing theories of it is persecuted. This is not scientific study, it's theology disguised with numbers.

 

[BrassButtons]

Most signs of this type of evolution come from broken, scattered bones from long gone animals.

Way to dismiss an entire field of science. "Oh, this is just supported by paleontology--there's no real evidence."

 

[Thaliur]

I believe that Evolution is true. Up to the point where it gets into going from one species to another, as in going from a reptile to a bird or a mammal. Reptile breasts don't seem very believable to me.

Also there are problems with the 'Evolutionary Tree' such as plant eating Panda Bears being put in the Carnivora (Carnivore ie meat eater) Order and how those same pandas have a bone growth on their wrist that they use to split Bamboo and how moles have that same growth. Doesn't evolution state that similar creatures have the closest common ancestor? If so, why don't they put the Panda with the plant eating animals near the moles with the wrist growth? Wouldn't they have a closer ancestor than a creature that eats meat only and doesn't have the bone growth?

Now we get to the crux of the matter: you don't understand evolution.

However, based on your conduct in the thread so far, I believe it would be a waste of my time to attempt to fix your misconceptions about evolution. You have presented plenty of evidence that you will not accept the facts given to you (especially in your repeated, unfounded assertions of a distinction between "macro" and "micro" evolution). Oh well.

Microevolution: Noun: Evolutionary change over a short period.
Macroevolution: Noun: Major evolutionary change.
Evolution: Noun: The process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

The Theory of Evolution states that as animals reproduce, there are chances for the DNA sequences as they split and reform to randomly develop a mutation. That mutation can be darkened skin from birth, fur on the skin, scales, gills, milk giving breasts, ect.

Mutation: Noun: a sudden departure from the parent type in one or more heritable characteristics, caused by a change in a gene or a chromosome.

Microevolution is a recorded event that is shown in different breeds of dogs, horses, cats, birds, flowers, ect. When done by man, the animals are breed in such a way that they lose undesired features such as weak sense of smells, low intelligence, long tails, short fur, ect. In order to create a better appealing animal. In the wild, the changes are often minor relating towards camouflage and climate change often. Such as seen with the grey wolf and the white wolf. Similar in most aspects besides fur color and thickness.

Macroevolution is a nonrecorded(as in no one breed one species into a new species with reproductive abilities) theory that animals can gather enough mutations and completely change their species. Such as a reptile becoming warm blooded, growing feathers, hollow bones, a taste for seeds and insects and becoming a bird. Most signs of this type of evolution come from broken, scattered bones from long gone animals.

Am I missing anything so far?

Ah, so you finally reached the point where you explicitly state yourself that you have no idea what actually happens during evolutionary processes.
It's not your fault though, humans generally have this weird kind of OCD forcing them to draw lines and define borders where none exist.
About a decade ago in school, we were taught about the "stages" a fetus goes through before being born. It was mostly explained as if we have a bunch of cells, then *BAM* bunch of cells with hollow parts then *BAM* human being.
This way of thinking subconciously forces people to think of evolutuion as a long game of Spore.
Imagine you are an anthropomorphic personification of evolution. You have your standard reptile, then in one generation you add feathers, the next you include a mechanism that keeps the blood warm, turn the mouth into a beak, change the posture and *BAM* chicken.
Then archaeopteryx comes along complaining about you not paying enough attention to him, and you have to introduce another stage between reptile and chicken.
Then some day you get bored of the chicken, flatten the beak, add a flat tail, switch feathers for fur and *BAM* platypus.
That keeps you amused for a while (Considering how a platypus looks, a long while) then you remove the beak, put proper teeth there and *BAM* beaver.
The problem with this is, that's just not how evolution works. It works in gradual changes from generation to generation. Members of one population keep breeding with each other, some day they run out of room, a part of them moves away, and you have two populations that never meet again. Bot of them go through gradual unnoticeable changes they don't even recognise. In one population the females prefer taller males, with impressive hind legs, long hair on their heads and a straight back, in the other population the ideal male has nice red fur , long arms and is an excellent climber. Then one day population one meets population two again, and starts hunting them close to extinction. Population one then realises that this might be a bad idea and instead of hunting them, humans start keeping orang-utans in zoos.
So, as you will refuse to understand, "macroevolution" is actually the same as "microevolution", it only takes longer.

 

[Dinwatr]

Most signs of this type of evolution come from broken, scattered bones from long gone animals.

Typical. You have no understanding of what the fossil record actually shows. In fact, vertebrate paleontology is only a small fraction--a VERY small fraction--of what paleontologists study. Check out the mollusk record sometime--even cephalopods have a rich, diverse record that goes well beyond "broken, scattered bones". In point of fact, most evidence for what you're calling macroevolution comes from INVERTEBRATE paleontology (Gould and Eldredge were mollusk specialists, Jablonski studied snails, Ward studied Paleozoic fauna, etc).

As for the bones of long gone animals, speaking as someone who studies them for a living, I have to say that your dismissal is very premature. Osteology can tell us a great deal about the animals, from feeding behaviors to predator/prey relationships to child rearing. And we have many, many more bones than you give us credit for. I assume, given your disparaging take on the field of paleontology, that you've never been behind the scenes at a museum. Well, let me just say that what you see in the displays at any museum is a minute fraction of a percent of what they have in their records. The back rooms, the shelves and the collections are a treasure trove, filled with wonders that quite frankly I doubt you can imagine. I've held the remains of organisms science still can't identify--we can't even determine if they're an organism, or merely a piece of one! I've been able to touch rocks older than life itself, to hold pieces of other planets, and to see the remains of worlds that lived and died ages before animals took to the land. And I don't spend much time in museum collections--I'm mostly a field guy.

Before you talk about an entire field of science, ask someone who knows about it. You'll usually find that it's very different than you believe.

 

[monfang]

First off, I find it hard to listen to a man who lies under oath. But that's nether here or there. Oh wait. It is here and there. That video is apparently about his trial, the trial where he lied under oath.

On the second day of the Kitzmiller trial, Miller was confronted about theologically charged statements about evolution in one of his biology textbooks, which stated that "[e]volution is random and undirected." Miller defended himself by claiming that the theological language about evolution in his textbook was a "mistake," and was added by his co-author, and that the statement "[e]volution is random and undirected" appears only in the 3rd edition of his "elephant textbook," Biology. Miller said, "that statement was not in the first edition the book, it was not in the second edition, it was not in the fourth edition." Yet contrary to Miller's testimony, Miller has produced numerous textbooks which apparently contain anti-theistic language describing evolution. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/07/ken_millers_random_and_undirec002331.html

Of course ID advocates couldn't go against what he said. What he said goes against evolution. there is nothing more to be said.

Good thing Hovint wasn't under oath during his "lecture", then, eh?
If someone offers you the convenience of a video, please at least watch it. It is less than five minutes long and the guy doesn't talk like someone who wants to sell an absurd idea and is afraid that if he slows down, people might start thinking about what he said, contrary to Hovint.
Had you watched the video, you would know that what he says does not in the least bit disprove evolution.
Since you apparently are unable to take precious five minutes of your time to watch the video, let me summarise it for you:
Humans have two less chromosomes than other primates. He brought up the theory that two of each haploid set got fused at some point after the heritage of humans and other primates split, and unless evidence for such a fusion is found, this will be a fundamental flaw in evolution theory. It was found that human chromosome #2 has telomere sequences in the middle of its strands. This is a certain sign that it consists of two chromosomes which were fused at some point during their replication and remained that way in the following generations. This proves that two chromosomes of each haploid set were fused. This fusion explains why humans have two chromosomes less than other primates. So evolution theory is still valid.

I watched it. And I'm not convinced. Fusion of the chromosomes is not proof of common ancestry. If anything, it just means that humans and apes are already even more different. It was already known that Apes and Humans share 98% of their DNA (That might change after finding Arti) so finding that this 'fused' chromosome is similar to two pairs of the ape's doesn't surprise me. It just means that humans are different from apes.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

I believe that Evolution is true. Up to the point where it gets into going from one species to another, as in going from a reptile to a bird or a mammal. Reptile breasts don't seem very believable to me.

Also there are problems with the 'Evolutionary Tree' such as plant eating Panda Bears being put in the Carnivora (Carnivore ie meat eater) Order and how those same pandas have a bone growth on their wrist that they use to split Bamboo and how moles have that same growth. Doesn't evolution state that similar creatures have the closest common ancestor? If so, why don't they put the Panda with the plant eating animals near the moles with the wrist growth? Wouldn't they have a closer ancestor than a creature that eats meat only and doesn't have the bone growth?

You know that some kinds of "Fish" are more closely related to Humans than those fish are to other kinds of "Fish".

Its ALL to do with genetics.

Also you say you believe Evolution is true up until any evolution takes place. Why not just say "I don't believe evolution takes place".

Microevolution and Macroevolution. I believe the former is true but the latter is not.

By such logic, centimeters (micro) exist, but meters (macro) do not. Meter sticks are clearly just Evolutionists lie put forward to advocate Macro Evolution, amirite?

As has been repeated ad verbitum, Micro Evolution and Macro Evolution are the exact same process, just two different portions of it. Modern Homo sapiens (us) as we know them today, no less, are a living representation of the Micro-to-Macro Evolutionary scale, after all. Many small steps lead to something different from the original organism over a course of many thousands/millions of years in the everlasting process to survive and propagate in new environments.

A child must take many steps (micro) before they can learn to walk (macro).

 

[evilneko]

Clearly, this is the only kind of "evidence" monfang will accept.

We dun' been trolled, y'all.

 

[monfang]

I believe that Evolution is true. Up to the point where it gets into going from one species to another, as in going from a reptile to a bird or a mammal. Reptile breasts don't seem very believable to me.

Also there are problems with the 'Evolutionary Tree' such as plant eating Panda Bears being put in the Carnivora (Carnivore ie meat eater) Order and how those same pandas have a bone growth on their wrist that they use to split Bamboo and how moles have that same growth. Doesn't evolution state that similar creatures have the closest common ancestor? If so, why don't they put the Panda with the plant eating animals near the moles with the wrist growth? Wouldn't they have a closer ancestor than a creature that eats meat only and doesn't have the bone growth?

You know that some kinds of "Fish" are more closely related to Humans than those fish are to other kinds of "Fish".

Its ALL to do with genetics.

Also you say you believe Evolution is true up until any evolution takes place. Why not just say "I don't believe evolution takes place".

Microevolution and Macroevolution. I believe the former is true but the latter is not.

By such logic, centimeters (micro) exist, but meters (macro) do not.

Monfang believes in Microevolution but not Macroevolution.
ShadowsofHope asserts that centimeters are micro and meters are macro.
Monfang doesn't believe in Meters.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

I believe that Evolution is true. Up to the point where it gets into going from one species to another, as in going from a reptile to a bird or a mammal. Reptile breasts don't seem very believable to me.

Also there are problems with the 'Evolutionary Tree' such as plant eating Panda Bears being put in the Carnivora (Carnivore ie meat eater) Order and how those same pandas have a bone growth on their wrist that they use to split Bamboo and how moles have that same growth. Doesn't evolution state that similar creatures have the closest common ancestor? If so, why don't they put the Panda with the plant eating animals near the moles with the wrist growth? Wouldn't they have a closer ancestor than a creature that eats meat only and doesn't have the bone growth?

You know that some kinds of "Fish" are more closely related to Humans than those fish are to other kinds of "Fish".

Its ALL to do with genetics.

Also you say you believe Evolution is true up until any evolution takes place. Why not just say "I don't believe evolution takes place".

Microevolution and Macroevolution. I believe the former is true but the latter is not.

By such logic, centimeters (micro) exist, but meters (macro) do not.

Monfang believes in Microevolution but not Macroevolution.
ShadowsofHope asserts that centimeters are micro and meters are macro.
Monfang doesn't believe in Meters.

ShadowsofHope asserts that Monfang should take more Math classes, if he honestly believes meters do not exist.
ShadowsofHope finds this response to show futility in explaining evolutionary concepts to someone whom just seems to want to willfully not get it.
ShadowsofHope leaves the explaining of Evolutionary facts and logic in sake of debate to others now.

 

[Thaliur]

Most signs of this type of evolution come from broken, scattered bones from long gone animals.

Way to dismiss an entire field of science. "Oh, this is just supported by paleontology--there's no real evidence."

Of course it isn't. Real evidence can only be provided by people writing books about something, like the strictly scientific observations about Griffins no one ever found any remains of:

The point I am trying to make is that these creatures are the only ones to be so detailed. Their discriptions match our modern models for the creatures that we only formed though simulations using bones and advanced computers. They did it ether using their own imaginations or perhaps they truely saw it.

Read Flavius Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, translated by F. C. Conybeare, volume I, book III.XLVIII., 1921, p. 333.

As to the gold which the griffins dig up, there are rocks which are spotted with drops of gold as with sparks, which this creature can quarry because of the strength of its beak. ?For these animals do exist in India? he said, ?and are held in veneration as being sacred to the Sun ; and the Indian artists, when they represent the Sun, yoke four of them abreast to draw the images ; and in size and strength they resemble lions, but having this advantage over them that they have wings, they will attack them, and they get the better of elephants and of dragons. But they have no great power of flying, not more than have birds of short flight; for they are not winged as is proper with birds, but the palms of their feet are webbed with red membranes, such that they are able to revolve them, and make a flight and fight in the air; and the tiger alone is beyond their powers of attack, because in swiftness it rivals the winds.

No great power of flying. They are not winged. The man speaks about how it is able to fight dragons, elephants and tigers and win. Mine gold with it's beak. (Or perhap it is carving out a nest in stone like a woodpecker with wood.) I hope you understand that the Griffins that are seen in games like WoW is not the Greek Griffin.

That's all that I can find on the subject. You make your final point which I believe will go back to your prior point and I will wash my hand on the subject.

I watched it. And I'm not convinced. Fusion of the chromosomes is not proof of common ancestry. If anything, it just means that humans and apes are already even more different. It was already known that Apes and Humans share 98% of their DNA (That might change after finding Arti) so finding that this 'fused' chromosome is similar to two pairs of the ape's doesn't surprise me. It just means that humans are different from apes.

The joint of my cars rear-view mirror was broken. I glued the mirror directly on the socket. The bad news is the mirror can't be adjusted to other drivers anymore since the socket and the mirror carrier are now essentially one part. The good news is, I now have a completely different car...


But of course you are not convinced. I have a handy set of wikipedia articles which you might find interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_credential
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglect_of_probability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_perception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentional_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotyping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroup_bias

And last but not least, one that seems to be very widespread among creationists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_cascade

I just can't decide which of these fit you best...

Now I will stop reading this thread for a while, because it's 2:39 according to my computer clock.

Maybe tomorrow monfang will finally realise that by rejecting science he lost the right to use any electronics.

 

[monfang]

So recently the Archaeopteryx was removed as the missing link between birds and dinosaurs.

A DEITY couldn't have planned it better. Just two years after On The Origin of Species was published, a fossil found in Germany gave Charles Darwin's controversial ideas an almighty boost. Archaeopteryx sported a mouthful of teeth and armfuls of feathers - facts that Darwin's supporters immediately leapt on as evidence that birds descended from dinosaurs.

This week, Darwin's "strange bird" has finally lost its perch on the lowermost branch of the bird evolutionary tree (see "Archaeopteryx knocked off its perch as first bird"). New Scientist, 30 July 2011, ?It?s been fun, feathered friend?, page 3, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128233.000-we-shouldnt-mourn-the-demotion-of-archaeopteryx.html

You can read more here: http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v15i11n.htm

I am.

 

[Thaliur]

So recently the Archaeopteryx was removed as the missing link between birds an animals.

A DEITY couldn't have planned it better. Just two years after On The Origin of Species was published, a fossil found in Germany gave Charles Darwin's controversial ideas an almighty boost. Archaeopteryx sported a mouthful of teeth and armfuls of feathers - facts that Darwin's supporters immediately leapt on as evidence that birds descended from dinosaurs.

This week, Darwin's "strange bird" has finally lost its perch on the lowermost branch of the bird evolutionary tree (see "Archaeopteryx knocked off its perch as first bird"). New Scientist, 30 July 2011, ?It?s been fun, feathered friend?, page 3, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128233.000-we-shouldnt-mourn-the-demotion-of-archaeopteryx.html

You can read more here: http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v15i11n.htm

I am.

So archaeopteryx isn't the first bird anymore (or, to be precise, has been determined to never have been a bird).
Hey, a whale is not actually a fish, so evolution was disproven long before that discovery!

Oh wait, I think whales evolved from something that looked like a giant wolf and still have rudimentary bones of hind legs in their bodies, just like snakes.

Isn't it funny that every time the theory of evolution gets readjusted in the light of new discoveries, it automatically counts as evidence against it, yet all the numerous contradictions in creation fantasy are no problem at all?

I liked the text from the first link, especially this part:

But we shouldn't mourn Archaeopteryx; the discovery of feathered dinosaurs in China in the 1990s delivered decisive evidence that birds are descended from dinosaurs. Instead, we should celebrate the fact that science is still doing what it does best: revising cherished ideas in the light of new evidence.

I was beginning to see some hope there, but sadly, the second one was filled with the usual bullshit creationists call reasoning.

I'll pick just one:

When they ran the program without including data about Xiaotingia, the computer program said that Archaeopteryx was a bird. When they added Xiaotingia, the computer changed its mind and said that Archaeopteryx wasn?t a bird.

What this program basically does is create a chain of phenotypes based on similarities. So far, the archaeopteryx was more similar to a bird than to the dinosaur species it was most similar to. Basically the assumed evolutionary pathway was shorter from archeaopteryx to bird than from dinosaurs to archaeopteryx. When Xiaotingia was discovered and added to that analysis, it was put between archaeopteryx and the closes dinosaur, so that the long jump between dinosaur and archaeopteryx turned into two short jumps, causing the reclassification of archaeopteryx as a dinosaur instead of a bird, because now the path to birds was longer than that to Xiaotingia.
See them as numbers. You have 0 as dinosaurs and 10 as birds. archaeopteryx might have been #6, thus more a bird than a dinosaur. Now Xiaotingia shows up, and is wearing shirt #3, so archeaopteryx is much closer to Xiaotingia than to birds, thus gets classified, just like Xiaotingia, as a dinosaur. It's mindboggingly simple and does in no way disprove evolution. It actually confirms it by introducing another step between dinosaurs and archaeopteryx, who was so far believed to be between birds and dinosaurs.
Sadly, DNA testing can not be performed on fossils, it would be much easier if we could directly compare the DNA of those species.