Irreducible complexity and Evolution

a reply to: 5StarOracle

Why would it not? Or why does it need any? All are questions to ask. You can not prove that only one was involved. So I say there are many Gods. Others say there are none. Prove us wrong.

a reply to: Akragon

So everything all energy and mass occupied the same space a finite point and existed under absolutely different scientific laws for they did so with no reaction...

Sounds to me like something suddenly changed the laws of science to what we know now then...

That's ok if that's what you want to believe...
The thing that changes the laws would be?
Go ahead take a guess...

a reply to: Noinden

No you can say many that's ok if you want to believe that...
Still a creator or creators...

a reply to: 5StarOracle

So everything all energy and mass occupied the same space a finite point and existed under absolutely different scientific laws for they did so with no reaction...

no.......

under scientific laws... which is how we figured it out in the first place

Sounds to me like something suddenly changed the laws of science to what we know now then...

nah..

you're just adding "god did it" to science

That's ok if that's what you want to believe...

I can't seem to prove otherwise... because science...

ye know?

The thing that changes the laws would be?

originally posted by: 5StarOracle
a reply to: Akragon

The singularity would show all was introduced into existence from nothing because everything was in one place all of a sudden...
Or from somewhere else to here...
When the Universe starts contracting I could be wrong...

I want a copy of that book where you get all this "information". Don't you ever read real science? Didn't you ever take a class at least at the high school level? You have to be a victim of American public education - that's the only excuse I can come up with.

Fortunately, there is a fix for lack of education. You can start here:

originally posted by: TerryDon79
a reply to: cooperton

Not biased. I just refuse to read anything from religious sites who take things out of context.

See peter vlar? Just start with the 'you're just quote mining' accusation (don't even have to spell it out like that), don't argue that someone isn't using citations when they clearly are (ending up sounding like a chatbot whose programming fails to recognize citations and the references to the exact locations where these citations can be found), even if the false accusation, ad hominem attack and red herring of quote mining were true, quote mining is still technically citing. It's not very cunning to start with "no citations" just after 4 of 5 comments of mine chock-full of citations (regardless of the red herring debate one might want to have about quote mining); from Isaac Newton's Principia included, which has been described as "the greatest book of science ever written, bar none" and "the most magnificent work, it is the most all-encompassing work, it is the most daring book of any scientific treatise ever written", quoting former Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History of Indiana State University, Gale E. Christianson in the documentary below after 1:23 (a man quite qualified to speak about this subject given his area of expertise):

Isaac Newton's science/scientia/knowledge about reality (link to this video is on page 48).

To then move on from "no citations" to "quote mining isn't a citation" is just adding another lie/falsehood to the conversation. I doubt there is any mention whatsoever in dictionary definitions that quote mining isn't still technically citing (like a caveat to the definition I gave earlier on page 48, something like "quote mining usually isn't regarded as citing"). Technically, according to that definition I referred to there, it doesn't even have to be a citation from a scholarly work, because of their use of the word "especially". Of course, my citations were from scholarly works and they were not taken out of context. They were all relevant to your claim about the fossil record and in particular the part that says "...and all the steps in between" (evidence for gradual, not "jerky", citing evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup; but perhaps you want to pretend now that you weren't arguing for the existence of evidence for "gradual" there).

Peter Vlar: "Looking at the fossil record shows clear transitions from cytoplankton up through todays organisms and all those steps in between...."

I'm sorry, but that's arguing for "gradual", if you wanted to argue for "jerky" you would have had to say "Looking at the fossil record shows [a decent number of] transitions from cytoplankton up through todays organisms and [some of] those [few] steps in between....[cause there aren't that many steps if it's jerky as evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup proposes with his "jerky" attempt to hold on to the assumption: 'nature found a way, it evolved no matter what the evidence is pointing towards']". Here, I'll give the full citation in the right context as to what to think about again:

Many scientists point to the fossil record as support for the idea that life emerged from a common origin. They argue, for example, that the fossil record documents the notion that fish became amphibians and reptiles became mammals. What, though, does the fossil evidence really show?

“Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life,” says evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup, “what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record.” (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” by David M. Raup, January 1979, p. 23).

In reality, the vast majority of fossils show stability among types of creatures over extensive amounts of time. The evidence does not show them evolving from one type into another. Unique body plans appear suddenly. New features appear suddenly. For example, bats with sonar and echolocation systems appear with no obvious link to a more primitive ancestor.

Now don't just ignore the example at the end there, that would be something nice to see some evidence for that actually holds up to scrutiny, real 'peer review'. Anyone wiling to present citations from articles with detailed discussions and presentations of fossils (at least a 100) of animals one would like to propose along the "lineage" of "ancestry and decent" for bats with sonar and echolocation systems? You know, actual evidence for what has been called "macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type." citing evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman and a couple of others mentioned on page 47. Not just the storyline if someone has bothered to come up with one, also the fossils that are proposed, not replicas, not pictures, fossils (it can be a picture of the fossils found). After all, peter vlar said, it's "clear", all the steps in between, "clear transitions from cytoplankton up through todays organisms" in the fossil record, that sounds like at least a 100 fossils for the origin of bats alone, depending on how far back you want to go (more than a 1000 at least if you want to go back to cytoplankton in the storyline, not that they actually are related by ancestry, but trying to follow along the storyline and cherry-picking your evidence, what are the best fossils to use for marketing the storyline and convincing people that you're on to something?). I'd like to see a large chunk of fossils that represent the lines in evolutionary trees, not the tips or trunks where some animal family or kingdom, etc. name has been filled in, the lines themselves, especially those that lead from one specifically defined type of "cytoplankton" (or a bit further along the line, but a specific organism, not a group name like "unicellular bacteria"; I got all sorts of weird results via google for "cytoplankton", did peter vlar just mean "plankton", the diverse collection of organisms that live in large bodies of water of which there are many different subtypes? Can you identify for me which one gave rise...) to bats (note that animals at the tips of the sidelines are irrelevant in this if there is no direct line between them as is the case now for one of the fossils that was proposed as an intermediate between the hyena-like animal and whales discussed in the earlier shared video about it, where the terminology "sideline" is used by the scientist who did most of the work on this fossil, he thinks now it's on a sideline, meaning nothing to evaluate anymore in terms of evolution to whales, it's no longer in the "lineage"). See an example of an evolutionary tree below with names that assigns 1 name to an entire group of different organisms and connects these names to eachother with the trunk and the branches, so the trunk and the branches must somehow be supported by numerous fossils as in the whale example where we were presented with 3 in that old debate I linked earlier (perhaps more fossils have been proposed in the meantime, not talking about more fossils for the same organism:

a reply to: whereislogic

You haven’t used citations. Citations are a link to the source. The thing you didn’t put.

Also, it’s been shown your cult was lying and taking things out of context. Much like they always do. Your cult can’t be trusted.

Check out just how "great" your cult really is

Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that you and your cult lie. It’s actually encouraged and called “theocratic warfare” and, according to your cult, lying is scripturally approved.

a reply to: whereislogic
google dictionary for "citation" (not a complicated word, but remember the phrase "capitalizing on the ambiguity of language" from the article in my signature?):

1. a quotation from or reference to a book, paper, or author, especially in a scholarly work.

No mention of requiring links, no mention of quote mining not being allowed or indication that one should start a debate about whether that is taking place to determin if someone was wrong when they said "no citations", or to acknowledge that one was wrong about something. And no logical requirement that it even has to be from a "scholarly work" because it says "especially", meaning, in other cases, it's still a citation, it's just more appropiate to say "citation" if it's from a "scholarly work" than using the synonym "quotation", which is more general, still any quotation, whether mined or not, is technically a citation according to that definition (as long as it is a written document and has an author at the very least, which you would have a hard time finding anything that was written in the language that I'm citing that doesn't have an author, one of those logical requirements for the process of "writing", or more likely, typing nowadays, my citations were mostly from books produced en masse, no handwriting involved; I was just contrasting 'written' with 'verbal' and including typed works under 'written' before on page 48 or 49 or so). And no, that is not an invitation to start debating whether the caveat regarding quote mining should be included in that definition for citation, still a red herring, it wasn't quote mining, they were relevant citations that weren't taken out of context from scholarly works, nothing misleading by leaving something out, it was even specified that "It should be noted that neither the New Scientist article nor Bapteste nor Rose mean to suggest that the theory of evolution is wrong. Their point, rather, is that Darwin’s proposed tree of life, a mainstay of his theory, is not supported by the evidence. Such scientists still seek other explanations involving evolution." and "Henry Gee does not suggest that the theory of evolution is wrong. His comments are made to show the limits of what can be learned from the fossil record."

Lies/falsehoods ("quote mining isn't a citation") compounded on and in order to justify or excuse for other lies/falsehoods ("no citations"), hey it can happen to everyone. No reason to avoid admitting to mistakes, that's a sign of another spirit (mental attitude). One well discussed by me under the topic of propaganda and what Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss are doing in that video I keep linking about the subject of the word "nothing".
Something that may seem unrelated:

a reply to: whereislogic

Seriously guy? You don't know how citations work so you're having a little crying fit about it?

The rules here clearly state...

15c.) Intellectual Property: You will not Post any copyrighted material owned by others, material belonging to another person, material previously Posted by you on another website, or link to any copyrighted material without providing proper attribution*, as defined by TAN, to its original source. You will not Post any material that infringes, misappropriates, or violates any patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary rights of TAN or any third party. You will not use your Postings on the Websites to promote your own personal website or any other website with which you may be associated without first receiving permission from TAN.

But you and your cult aren't ones for following rules. You and your cult just like, as you said, Lies/falsehoods compounded on other lies/falsehoods.

And as for your cults pathetic attempt at out of context quoting and outright lying? It was already addressed here.

originally posted by: TerryDon79
a reply to: whereislogic

Seriously guy? You don't know how citations work so you're having a little crying fit about it?

He posted citations and explained to you what a citation is in a polite manner. Instead of falsely accusing him of citing incorrectly, you should argue the content he is presenting.

a reply to: cooperton

Instead of falsely accusing him of citing incorrectly,

He’s the one moaning about it. And no, he didn’t cite probably as there are no sources (as required by the T&Cs of this forum)

you should argue the content he is presenting.

Already been done. It’s out of context and outright lies.

So when are you going to address the article that was linked for you? You wouldn’t want to be shown as a hypocrite, would you?

originally posted by: whereislogic

Careful, according to the bible there are beings that have thousands of years of experience in manipulating and deceiving human minds.

Worst is the spirit of snobby egotism. You can identify spirits (meaning "breathe") by people's voices. The common snobby egotism voice is easily heard in many scientists, they are not speaking as they would lovingly to another, but rather, condescendingly with a snark tone in their voice. Some times this voice gets so extreme as to sound very, very nerdy. You can also identify this tone from the cadence of their written words.

I have yet to present any evidence without a knee jerk reaction from this spirit working in all of the proponents of evolution. Any logical assertions or scientific empirical evidence that we present is responded to with this same spirit. You did a nice job at quoting all of their insult-bot.exe activity. Identifying the rotten fruit of these spirits can show you their true intent - enmity, anger, pride, etc.

Matter-of-fact assertions and empirical evidence do not get considered by this spirit, because this spirit instills the idea that the host cannot be wrong. I suppose identifying it may help at least one person realize it. By exposing the root of a tree you kill it. For this spirit causes an inability to healthily interact with others, and to remove it would resolve such conflict.

originally posted by: TerryDon79

So when are you going to address the article that was linked for you? You wouldn’t want to be shown as a hypocrite, would you?

Here is another perfect example^. I already did address the article and gave a full posts worth of content to be discussed. It was blindly refuted without any sort of empirical evidence to counter my claims. I would love to engage in scientific discourse without you all resorting to the insult-bot.exe when I make a claim that counters the evolutionary proposition.

originally posted by: peter vlar
...using appropriate citations ...

"I have a dream" (said Martin Luther), but my dream would be that one day those who think like peter vlar would realize that the only citations they would deem "appropiate" are those that 'tickle their ears'.

For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the beneficial teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* [Or “to tell them what they want to hear.”] 4 They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.

And that time has come upon us.

“To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”—Henry Gee, paleontologist, senior editor of Nature magazine

Ah well, apparently I'm just quote mining so we don't have to think about the term "bedtime story" in relation to the term "false stories" (myths). And this time I didn't include the caveat nor the mention of what Henry Gee believes in regarding the topic of alternate evolutionary philosopies or paths of reasoning and doing things, or not acknowledging that that's all you've got, bedtime stories (also in the other fields than paleontology). The greatest show on earth according to Dawkins. "To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage", is that not exactly what Miller is doing in the old debate I shared earlier about whale evolution? How about we acknowledge that at least? Regardless if that means it's a "bedtime story" that he's presenting as evidence there. Or whether that last reality means that he's using propaganda.

I think I also gave sufficient clues as to why I didn't use the "ex", "/ex" commands with an accompanying link below the comment at the top of page 47. Wasn't sure everyone would see it. And I could've left the link:

The Origin of Life​—Five Questions Worth Asking: QUESTION 4 Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor? but I was out of space (I think) and time (definitely). On top of that, your routine is way too predictable and described under:

Btw, you can see the exact same routine in my thread that I linked in my previous comment (plus a couple of others, like straw man arguments, red herrings, doing the thing that cooperton already talked about regarding the source of whatever facts or evidence that is presented, or where the citations are nicely ordered in terms of relevance to a particular point, in this case the fossil record and genetics, etc.).

No need to assist that routine any further by taking the time (that I didn't have) to add that link. Let's see if I can find something Cooperton said about this routine:

Not sure how its fair to constantly refuse any evidence from creationist sites when you are constantly presenting evidence from evolution-believing sources. Address the empirical evidence for what it is, not for who is presenting it. For this reason you can get stuck in a feedback loop where you are only hearing reinforcement from others who believe the same as you

He also said something else about it, of course, the site (brochure) whose words I was using for the majority of that comment on the top of page 47 is not a "creationist" site. But debating about that would be as much a distraction and red herring from the facts discussed at the top of page 47 as debating whether or not I violated ATS T&C or am "intellectually dishonest" in the manner described by peter vlar when he says: " It's a violation of ATS T&C to use that much material from another author and not cite them and it's intellectually dishonest to continue to quote mine without citations to provide the full context of the quoted material."

All of which is a distraction from the content of that comment. Big deal, I didn't link or use "ex" and "/ex" in the appropiate places one time, one measly time (in order to make for a more fluid read as well with my own commentary on both sides, especially the ending connection to peter vlar's claim). Burn me at the stake of ATS T&C when I would have just used almost the same words to point to the same citations that are referenced in the sources for that brochure. Completely irrelevant to the facts discussed there and a nice distraction to start a debate about.

And for once, I wanted someone to respond to what's in between the "ex" "/ex" without the immediate bias described by cooperton (check link; label "creationist"; dismiss, ignore, find something in it that might look like a hole in the logic, or something that is attackable in that sense, twisting logic when needed, doing a little quote mining of your own and taking things out of context to follow that up with fighting straw man versions of what it's really talking about). I also often notice people prefer to focus on the many elaborations and sidepoints I can't stop myself from making. That aren't the main points. Not interested what's in between the "ex" and "/ex", but my words to look for something to launch an assault on (well, now you can do that to the whole comment at the top of page 47, not just cherry-picking my commentary about it). Cause brochures like that are very well phrased and more difficult to sift through for something to:

originally posted by: whereislogic

"I have a dream" (said Martin Luther), but my dream would be that one day those who think like peter vlar would realize that the only citations they would deem "appropiate" are those that 'tickle their ears'.

For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the beneficial teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* [Or “to tell them what they want to hear.”] 4 They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.

And that time has come upon us.

It is interesting to note that science journals were dogma until you quoted them to demonstrate the discord in the believers of evolutionary theory. Then "you're just quote mining". It's like you can't win, but that's only because the spirit working in them thinks it cannot lose. This pride is a dead end. Very dead.

originally posted by: peter vlar
It almost immediately trots out the nonexistent distinction between micro and macro evolution. In evolutionary biology, those concepts don't exist. There is only evolution. The only people who use micro vs. macro as a basis for their argument are people who believe that everything is less than 10Ka.

How convenient how you pretend I didn't already address those lies/falsehoods before you decided to repeat them again (because it's 40 pages ago now and you could have easily chosen to respond to what I said about it so I don't need to repeat and/or rephrase it in another attempt to get you to acknowledge the historical facts regarding the word "macroevolution" rather than continued attempts to disconnect the term from "evolutionary biology" and connect it to "young earth creationism" and the brochure you were talking about). Just keep pretending it doesn't matter that the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" was and still is being used by those teaching and promoting evolutionary philosophies. They are the ones that invented both terms, packaged it in a box with the label "science" and sold it like hot buns. I already talked about the microgravity and macrogravity ridicule attempts as well.

I'll just keep citing:

The relatively sudden appearance of these diverse life forms is causing some evolutionary researchers to question the traditional version of Darwin’s theory. For example, in an interview in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms​—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.” (Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,” by Suzan Mazur, October 11, 2008, www.archaeology.org/​online/ interviews/​newman.html, accessed 2/23/2009.)

Source: already given above, Archaeology, “The Origin of Form Was Abrupt Not Gradual,”, or for the rest Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor?

Happy now? Who's the one using "macroevolution" in 2008 in contradiction to your opinion about whether or not that term should be allowed? And who do you attribute the term to in the comment I'm responding to now? Stuart Newman is just confused about the correct usage of that terminology right? He needs to get his lingo updated according to the latest twisting routine that changes the storyline conveniently and leaves out that tricky subject of common descent and the logical requirement of "the evolution of major transitions in body type" and evidence in the fossil record for that, the latest lingo being "modern evolutionary synthesis" (which just talks about specific things changing, wow, things change, hold the presses, big discovery, we don't need to look at exactly what kind of change we're observing in genetics: genetic entropy, cause we don't need to talk about "common descent" and "macroevolution" anymore; we'll leave that for another occasion, such as in class where we can control the discussion better and nobody nags us about evidence for what 'we' termed macroevolution specifically). The 'we' is referring to evolutionary philosophers that like to invent new words such as "microevolution", "macroevolution", "punctuated equilibrium", "convergent evolution", "divergent evolution", etc.

Quick, quick, let's resort to the 'evolution has no direction' argument to distract from the logical requirements of going from plankton to humans, prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic cells, unicellular to multicellular. Sure, no direction...that fits that storyline....not. I only watched the video till 3:46 which is when I heard the relevant points being made around 2:20:

But I know the way he phrases it opens up the door to capitalizing on the ambiguity of language regarding the word "species" and starting a debate about speciation, which isn't the point.

Oh btw, quoting a larger section of the quotation that includes the promotion of evolutionary philosophies that do tickle your ears as opposed to the part that doesn't, doesn't prove that quote mining is taking place. Especially when that belief and promotion of evolutionary philosophies is already specified apart from the quotation or when it's irrelevant to the facts that have been observed (for which sometimes new evolutionary philosophies and terminologies are invented, in a very biased manner). They do nothing to negate the 'acknowledgment' that is being focussed on in the quotation in the brochure we're talking about now. Just like this is not quote mining, it's zooming in on the relevant acknowledgement that won't be tickling the ears of those adhering to the philosophy:

...Why is the Trinity so difficult to understand?

The Illustrated Bible Dictionary gives one reason. Speaking of the Trinity, this publication admits: “It is not a biblical doctrine in the sense that any formulation of it can be found in the Bible.” Because the Trinity is “not a biblical doctrine,” Trinitarians have been desperately looking for Bible texts​—even twisting them—​to find support for their teaching.

Keywords that need to be left out of the 2nd quotation as to not get distracted by the bias of those who wrote The Illustrated Bible Dictionary: "in the sense" (as in, we'll explain after this in what sense you can find it if you really want to, even though it's still "not a biblical doctrine", in any sense, but that's the part they are more reluctant to acknowledge, it's one of those half-hearted acknowledgments I was talking about, still, pretty well spelled out there, just like Henry Gee's "bedtime story"). You can debate "punctuated equilibrium" by responding to something I said about it instead of trying to prove quote mining with it when I brought it up myself showing I'm well aware of the rest of the quotation.

He is making a case for Punctuated Equilibrium whereas you're attempting to make it look like a renowned Paleontologist supports your position.

No I did not, I specified in the comment at the top of page 47 and many times since then cause I know you were just going to talk past it and make the accusation anyway (just as it is done in my thread on this subforum where I responded to the same routine; where actually something funny happens regarding people's understanding of what a "Darwin Prize Visiting Professor" is):
"...evolutionary paleontologist..."
So no, does not 'support my position', and no indication on my part that he does. Just like the others:
"It should be noted that neither the New Scientist article nor Bapteste nor Rose mean to suggest that the theory of evolution is wrong. ... Such scientists still seek other explanations involving evolution."
And I specified one "other explanation" as "punctuated equilibrium" already on page 47. Responded to it as well. So I indicated there were those promoting punctuated equilibrium in spite of the 'acknowledgments' regarding the relevant observations made. There's no need to quote that promotion.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: Barcs

As soon as you give an example of something that has been PROVED to be irreducibly complex.

An eye can't work without a retina, a lens, etc. The hypothalamus is useless without effector organs. Testes are meaningless without seminal vesicles. arteries are worthless without veins. Bones are worthless without ligaments to hold them together. Muscles are worthless without tendons to hold them to bone. The musculoskeletal system does not work without functioning muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments.

And that's just on the organ level. When you reduce in size to the molecular level there is continual irreducible complexity. Actin is useless without myosin in muscle fiber. A gene is useless unless there is a polymerase protein; polymerase proteins need to be coded for by a gene - this is a perfect straight-forward example of irreducible complexity. endogenous dopamine production is erroneous without dopamine receptors. Complex I, complex II, complex III and complex IV are all necessary for ATP production - if you are missing one the process cannot work and the organism can't create energy.

mostly all processes in humans from the molecular to the organ level are irreducibly complex and will not function properly unless the whole is intact.

Irrelevant BS. The idea that you can't remove a part from something and expect it to still function, has absolutely no bearing on how it evolved to that state. Evolution doesn't work via assembling parts, it's slow gradual change over time so no surprise here, you are dead wrong again. Again, you need to PROVE that the eye or flagella could NOT arise via slow incremental changes or you have no argument. Removing an entire part and thinking you disproved evolution is some of the silliest nonsense ever claimed about evolution. IC = yet another fallacy of ID. Just stop.

originally posted by: 5StarOracle
a reply to: Barcs

The proof is simple and don't pretend you don't understand the irreducable complexity of the flagellum...its just that... irreducable...
The belief you have that it could be is not demonstrated anywhere...
Attempts and assumptions have been made claiming it so...
But the fact remains it is a system untouched by evolution and to say previous parts existed before hand is also a fallacy for there is no evidence to support it and evolution through random selection is impossible because previous parts would have had no function or purpose alone...
Instead it is a system free from outside influence as it constructs itself to serve an exact purpose...
The same ability it provides for movement is also the same as it is now as it would have been from the very beginning...
Explain to me how there once was no need for movement?
How did any of these other bits and pieces you assume existed before hand that had no means of propulsion ever even bump into each other?

So where is your proof? Saying something 20 times doesn't make it true. Scientifically illiterate people should not be discussing science. Why are you even here?

a reply to: whereislogic
And the quotation that I used is conveniently not in your quotation, so that's inaccurately described as "the full quote in proper context", where did the original quote go, how does it fit in, before, after, you didn't show? Whatever isn't tickling your ears isn't even quoted by you, and let that coincidentally be the part where he discusses the observations in paleontology, and not his marketing attempts to dismiss them as being no issue for evolutionary philosophies because there are always plenty of people that can come up with a new term for "jerky" evolution so the evidence supposedly fits the storyline again. Along with his other arguments regarding scientific progression that I also addressed earlier. More marketing attempts and bias shining through. Why don't we focus on the observations for a moment and instead of calling it "jerky" (which implies ancestry, a lineage, common descent anyway in spite of there being no evidence for gradual evolution in the fossil record, so introduce "punctuated equilibrium" storyline nr.1-50), we call it what it is...

In reality, the vast majority of fossils show stability among types of creatures over extensive amounts of time. The evidence does not show them evolving from one type into another. Unique body plans appear suddenly. New features appear suddenly. For example, bats with sonar and echolocation systems appear with no obvious link to a more primitive ancestor.

And that's what he 'acknowledged' without spelling it out so he can do his spin that you preferred to quote. He only talked about the observations that I didn't bold above and described it in his preferred marketing and propagandistic manner, without giving the bolded logical rational conclusion regarding this particular piece of evidence. No evidence for gradual evolution, no evidence for "evolving from one type into another". If the supposed changes or transitions are "jerky", in leaps and bounds, that's not evidence for the theory of evolution as Darwin tried to market it as gradual because that was his main argument that it wasn't creation, that there was an ancestral relation in the first place. You now wanna switch to magic and go poof, new body type and plan within several million years, don't talk about intermediates in those millions of years, because the evidence doesn't fit "gradual" (which is still what peter vlar was arguing for with "clear transitions....every step in between")? That's even more ridiculous than what Darwin proposed and it's a total cop-out regarding this massive failure of 'prediction' (see quotation from Darwin below as to what "we ought to find"). Evidence doesn't fit? Oh just change the storyline to be the same as what you would expect to observe in the case of multiple creationary events, then when the evidence shows that, still claim, nature did it, just "jerky" now. Let's not even acknowledge that "gradual" is definitely not the case. And certainly not that that refutes evolutionary philosophies and switching to "jerky" isn't helping in the marketing department unless someone's mind has been sufficiently influenced not to think through what this means. What the evidence is really pointing towards. Like I mentioned before, Darwin's philosophies would have probably never gotten off the ground without the "gradual" aspect of the storyline, that was supposed to make it more plausible, make it sound more convincing. Darwin:

No complex instinct can possibly be produced through natural selection, except by the slow and gradual accumulation of numerous, slight, yet profitable, variations. Hence, as in the case of corporeal structures, we ought to find in nature, not the actual transitional gradations by which each complex instinct has been acquired— for these could be found only in the lineal ancestors of each species— but we ought to find in the collateral lines of descent some evidence of such gradations;

Which we do not find, end of story...(except for those who think they can switch to punctuated equilibrium and ignore the minimum logical requirement for the myth of common descent, gradual steps, bit by bit, cause otherwise the whole storyline falls flat on its face and any evidence will always be forcefit and spinned in favor of evolutionary philosophies). Oh and btw, from my quick glance of the fancy spinning Darwin is attempting, I think we do need to find "the actual transitional gradations by which each complex [piece of machinery*] has been acquired", all the details "and all the steps in between" (quoting peter vlar). For the whole storyline at least to start having some merit in discussions about reality. *: I'm referring to Darwin's "corporeal structures" which are systems of machinery and technology, all of which need to be individually shown that they can develop over multiple generations, and then we need to match fossils with "all the steps in between". So, let's start with clarifying how much steps (different organisms with different body plans) are in between bats and their first proposed ancestor that isn't a bat for which we found a fossil? What time frame over the 140 years that have passed already since the modern re-popularization of this ancient pantheistic philosophy coming from mother nature-worshippers should we expect on finding fossils in between these 2 types of organisms? And why should we think these 2 are related through ancestry when the other organism proposed isn't a bat? Then we can move on to the next in the evolutionary lineage. We can go top-down if you like (I prefer bottem-up, which apparently according to Dawkins I have to start with "not nothing" but "literally nothing"). I don't think I'm going to get very far so I understand why some people prefer top-down.

So let's do this, let's see those "clear transitions...and all the steps in between" in the fossils that haven't been twisted in their replicas to represent a preferred proposed lineage as was done with the 3 examples from Miller in between hyena-like animals and whales. Plankton to bat. Or starting somewhere halfway along the evolutionary lineage.

Bats with sonar and echolocation systems evolved from .... that did not have sonar and echolocation systems and weren't bats, which evolved from ...., and so on. No organism in the lineage should be the same kind of organism as the others mentioned in the lineage. Then let's see this gradual development ("every step in between") from an organism that doesn't have the bat-type sonar and echolocation system but looks like it has something that is partially there, step by step until it's complete and begins being useful to the organism. And please try to explain the how natural selection can select for this half-baked sonar and echolocation system issue, I'm assuming it has some other use as proposed in Miller's storyline regarding the bacterium flagellum and type 3 secretory systems? Why should we think that that's the case (that it's useful in a half-baked state as shown in the proposed fossil; or that it's evolving towards a sonar and echolocation system) other than, 'otherwise natural selection can't select it and we have a broken storyline' (not spelled out).

Since "Onychonycteris finneryi" is claimed to have no sonar and echolocation system, why are they classified as "bats"? Remember I said "that did not have sonar and echolocation systems and weren't bats".

a reply to: whereislogic

Gunnell and Simmons (2005) reported, “The phylogenetic and geographic origins of bats (Chiroptera) remain unknown.” Wiki reports, “Little fossil evidence is available to help map the evolution of bats, since their small, delicate skeletons do not fossilize very well. Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta along with the treeshrews, colugos, and the primates, because of the apparent similarities between Megachiroptera and such mammals. Genetic studies have now placed bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria along with carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and cetaceans.”

That’s a big list. Way too general. Most workers nest bats between Insectivores and Carnivores. Again, way too general. Let’s get specific, shall we?

Well, let's first get our story straight shall we and present it in the definitive manner that peter vlar described it, "clear transitions...all the steps in between". As in, this is the lineage, the evidence is clear/absolute/unambiguous. There's no more room for speculation and storytelling, this is it, it's been confirmed/verified. I mean, 150 years is a long time to verify something as "factual/absolute/certain/conclusive/correct, without error". Or are we going to stick with the preferred agnostic way of reasoning?

Source: The Origin and Evolution of Bats | The Pterosaur Heresies

Figure 1. Hypothetical bat ancestors arising from a sister to Chriacus, which may be a large late survivor of a smaller common ancestor.

Hypothetical? You mean mythological? Not verified? "may be"(-so)? Checkout what is labeled "stem bat 1", "stem bat 2" and "stem bat 3", those are bats?! Like the "whales that had feet and walked on land" spoken of by the evolutionary philosopher in the "whale evolution vs the actual fossil evidence" video from before?

That's not very specific...

Here (Fig. 2) bats nest with Panprimates, specifically: Chriacus, Palaechthon and Ptilocercus in order of increasing distance to bats. Essentially bats were derived from small, tropical arboreal mammals with an omnivorous diet.

Ahh, a name would have been nice there at the end, I guess I just have to figure it out from the picture with oh so many confusing sidelines that it becomes hard to tell what evolves into what. And which of those names are the bats and which are the non-bats? All non-bats? Onychonycteris as mentioned before are here the focus, referred to as "The most primitive known bats include Onychonycteris and Icaronycteris."

Still haven't figured out an answer to:

Since "Onychonycteris finneryi" is claimed to have no sonar and echolocation system, why are they classified as "bats"?

Or do they have one but it's just ignored because "its ear bones are not enlarged like those of modern bats, which use them as part of their echolocation system." (quoting from some other site, the guardian)

If you follow the line in figure 2 from Onychonycteris the first name you will come across is "panprimates" but that name is used to refer or connect to all sorts of organisms at the ends of the lines including homo sapiens, none of which are proposed as intermediary organisms that evolved into Onychonycteris. So what organism evolved into Onychonycteris? The picture doesn't show.

Figure 2. Bat origins cladogram. Here Onychonycteris and Pteropus represent bats.

Ahhh, totally not confusing from the earlier mentioned 2: Onychonycteris and Icaronycteris. Fancy names though, quite exotic. And they do look like bats in the pictures, but for some reason I'm not getting to see actual fossils via this website. Presumable at the junction points is where the common ancestors should be in the picture, but oddly no name for this common ancestor is given so we can say both Onychonycteris and Pteropus evolved from ....(mysterious junction point in the picture, which evolved from another mysterious junction point with a whole bunch of intermediates in between that represent the lines). Jumping from panprimates to Onychonycteris is a bit of a leap, no?

The Family Tree of Bats
Here (Figure 2) Chriacus is the closest sister taxon to bats and Ptilcercus (Fig. 2) is a close second.

I get Chriacus cause I can follow the line, but the line to Ptilocercus seems to be a bit longer than towards Zhang..., Erna..., Meta..., Manis (not gonna spell out the whole names; just look at the picture).

Fossil mammals are rarely used in phylogenetic analyses of bat origins. [why?] Most workers prefer molecule analysis [why?]. Others have mixed bat and mice genes to get mice with longer limbs.[why bring this up under the heading "Family Tree of Bats", can't you leave the poor mice alone in your search for evidence for this storyline?]
Colugos are sisters to Ptilocercus, the extant pen-tailed tree shrew. Formerly tree shrews were associated with primates.

Yeah, whatever, just keep on changing the storyline, we'll have others sell the contradictory philosophy that 'science does not deal with absolutes' or a variation on that.

Arboreal Chriacus was considered close to the ancestor of the Artiodactylia (hooved mammals and whales). And that is why the long list of Laurasiatherian mammals (see above) comes into play.

And whales apparently again. I think I'm losing track of the storyline, perhaps because it's not spelled out very clearly with a few too many technical names that make me forget about what is a bat and what isn't a bat?

The Hands of Bats
Baby bats have short fingers, so they more closely resemble little colugos.

Ahh that's nice, but since nowhere was proposed that colugos evolved into bats, seems a bit irrelevant, no? Much like Ptilocercus who are at least listed in figure 2 but not as an intermediate or ancestor. So far, all we've got are "panprimates" to fill that role. Which is indeed a bit "general" (allthough I thought we were going to get to the specifics, how much longer do I have to read?).

Hypotheses for the Development of Wings in Bats.
Post-dusk and pre-dawn Nandinia and Ptilocercus feed by creeping up on resting prey, whether birds, eggs or grasshoppers. With stealth, rather than speed, they grab their prey with their “hands” before shoving their meals into their mouths.

Given these phylogenetic starting points, we should expect a hypothetical pre-bat to do the same, but in a more specialized manner.

Talking about hypothetical (mythological in this case) organisms again? But hold on there, Nandinia and Ptilocercus are not proposed as ancestors to bats in figure 2. How is this relevant? Nandinia is listed somewhere completely else in figure 2. Shouldn't we be talking about fossils for actual "pre-bats" and their characteristics? I'm getting a bit tired from reading and not finding out what bats evolved from other than "panprimates". Where are "all the steps in between"? What are the names for these organisms? I skimmed through the rest of the article but could not find it. Man what a waste of time.

Is figure 2 supposed to represent the specifics I was promised?
It seems this video shares more honest and clear information about the subject including the acknowledgment about Onychonycteris at 2:08 from which I get the sense that it's not an intermediate, it's a bat, or at least defined as such:

a reply to: 5StarOracle

Or no creator. That is also an option. We are dealing with gnoses here, thus it is belief (spiritual knowledge viz that which can not be proven) not eídein (intellectual knowledge, viz that which may be proven). Evolution is eídein, there is evidence. A group or singular mystical being, not so much.

I can't remember if I was talking to you or another creationist here, but my path (which beliefs are echoed through out the Indo-European world) has the universe creating its self. Sorry but the idea of a creator is not a requirement of religion. It seems that the Abrahamic faiths need that safety net however