Originally Posted By: thorNiether you, nor anybody, has shown an example of, per my example, a fish growing legs. No fossils have ever been found of any in-between stages for any creature. Everything was always fully functional! One day there were no legs...the next day they were there and working. No in-between steps where new genetic material was introduced...now half-grown legs, for example. There are several good transitional fossils of fish evolving into tetrapods: 1. Most fish have anterior and posterior external nostrils. In tetrapods, the posterior nostril is replaced by the choana, an internal nostril opening into the roof of the mouth. Kenichthys, a 395-million-year-old fossil from China, is exactly intermediate between the two, having nostrils at the margin of the upper jaw (Zhu and Ahlberg 2004). 2. A fossil shows eight bony fingers in the front fin of a lobed fish, offering evidence that fingers developed before land-going tetrapods (Daeschler and Shubin 1998). 3. A Devonian humerus has features showing that it belonged to an aquatic tetrapod that could push itself up with its forelimbs but could not move it limbs back and forth to walk (Shubin et al. 2004). 4. Acanthostega, a Devonian fossil, about 60 cm long, probably lived in rivers (Coates 1996). It had polydactyl limbs with no wrists or ankles (Coates and Clack 1990). It was predominantly, if not exclusively, aquatic: It had fishlike internal gills (Coates and Clack 1991), and its limbs and spine could not support much weight. It also had a stapes and a lateral sensory system like a fish. 5. Ichthyostega, a tetrapod from Devonian streams, was about 1.5 m long and probably amphibious. It had seven digits on its rear legs (its hands are unknown). Its limbs and spine were more robust than those of Acanthostega, and its rib cage was massive. It had fishlike spines on its tail, but these were fewer and smaller than Acanthostega's. Its skull had several primitive fishlike features, but it probably did not have internal gills (Murphy 2002). 6. Tulerpeton, from estuarine deposits roughly the same age as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, had six digits on its front limbs and seven on its rear limbs. Its shoulders were more robust than Acanthostega, suggesting it was somewhat less aquatic, and its skull appears to be closer to later Carboniferous amphibians than to Acanthostega or Ichthyostega.The transitional sequence from a land mammal to whales: 1. Pakicetus inachus: latest Early Eocene (Gingerich et al. 1983; Thewissen and Hussain 1993). 2. Ambulocetus natans: Early to Middle Eocene, above Pakicetus. It had short front limbs and hind legs adapted for swimming; undulating its spine up and down helped its swimming. It apparently could walk on land as well as swim (Thewissen et al. 1994). 3. Indocetus ramani: earliest Middle Eocene (Gingerich et al. 1993). 4. Dorudon: the dominant cetacean of the late Eocene. Their tiny hind limbs were not involved in locomotion. 5. Basilosaurus: middle Eocene and younger. A fully aquatic whale with structurally complete legs (Gingerich et al. 1990). 6. an early baleen whale with its blowhole far forward and some structural features found in land animals but not later whales (Stricherz 1998). The whale's closest living relative is the hippopotamus. A fossil group known as anthracotheres links hippos with whales (Boisserie et al. 2005). The common ancestor of whales and hippos likely was a primitive artiodactyl (cloven-hoofed mammal); ankle bones from the primitive whales Artiocetus and Rodhocetus show distinctive artiodactyl traits (Gingerich et al. 2001). Originally Posted By: thorAnd to see for yourself how rediculous, start delving into exactly what must happen for genetic drifting to account for the creation of new species on the scale of, say, a bird becoming a duck (or the other way around). Go ahead. Try it. You will begin to see that it is not something that could possibly happen overnight. There would be in-between stages where the evolution was not complete, if things are as you say they are. But no evidence of any such thing is ever found. EVER!!!Meet Gansus, the oldest fossil found of a modern bird. It lived about 110 million years ago and was an aquatic bird. It had webbed feet and flight feathers but lacked clawed wingtips or hollow bones. It is believed to be the ancestor of all bird species today, if not a close relative. Originally Posted By: thorFigure the odds of that happening...you'd more likely turn over a rock and find that a wrist-watch had assembled itself due to random events. Preposterous. Now factor into those odds the necessity of this happening for every single species ever discovered. Ludicrous.In 1972, Henry M. Morris wrote in his work The mathematical Impossibility of Evolution: Originally Posted By: Henry M. MorrisSuccessful production of a 200-component functioning organism requires at least 200 beneficial mutations. The odds of getting that many successive beneficial mutations is r200, where r is the rate of beneficial mutations. Even if r is 0.5 (and it is really much smaller), that makes the odds worse than 1 in 1060, which is impossibly small. Morris's calculation assumes that all the beneficial mutations must occur consecutively with no other mutations occurring in the meantime. When one allows harmful mutations that get selected out along the way, 200 beneficial mutations would accumulate fairly quickly -- in 200/r generations using the assumptions of Morris's model. (The real world is quite a bit more complicated yet. In particular, large populations and genetic recombination via sex can allow beneficial mutations to accumulate at a greater rate.)-----------------------------Now, about this Genetic Drift business, you really don't seem to understand it very well. First I'll give you the best summary of it that I've seen so far: Originally Posted By: An Introduction to Genetic Analysis 4th ed.If a population is finite in size (as all populations are) and if a given pair of parents have only a small number of offspring, then even in the absence of all selective forces, the frequency of a gene will not be exactly reproduced in the next generation because of sampling error. If in a population of 1000 individuals the frequency of "a" is 0.5 in one generation, then it may by chance be 0.493 or 0.0505 in the next generation because of the chance production of a few more or less progeny of each genotype. In the second generation, there is another sampling error based on the new gene frequency, so the frequency of "a" may go from 0.0505 to 0.501 or back to 0.498. This process of random fluctuation continues generation after generation, with no force pushing the frequency back to its initial state because the population has no "genetic memory" of its state many generations ago. Each generation is an independent event. The final result of this random change in allele frequency is that the population eventually drifts to p=1 or p=0. After this point, no further change is possible; the population has become homozygous. A different population, isolated from the first, also undergoes this random genetic drift, but it may become homozygous for allele "A", whereas the first population has become homozygous for allele "a". As time goes on, isolated populations diverge from each other, each losing heterozygosity. The variation originally present within populations now appears as variation between populations. So from that, what can we discern? Originally Posted By: thorYou come up with an example or two concerning natural selection, where we have a little genetic drifting and no new genes being introduced, and you call it evolution. Genetic drifting will never account for a new species requiring new genetic information. It's like throwing a rock into the water on the beach and expecting the resultant ripples to drown the city of Tokyo on the other side of the world. It's rediculous. There is a review article in the journal Nature Reviews Genetics published back in 2004 called The Origin of New Genes, Glimpses From the Young and the Old. Its quite interesting, it summarizes dozens of research projects in laboratories around the world on different mechanisms by which new biological information arises through the process of evolution by natural selection. Originally Posted By: The Origin of New GenesMechanism: Exon shuffling: ectopic recombination of exons and domains from distinct genesExamples: fucosyltransferase, jingwei, Tre2Comments: ~19% of exons in eukaryotic genes have been formed by exon shufflingMechanism: Gene duplication: classic model of duplication with divergenceExamples: CGβ, Cid , RNASE1BComments: Many duplicates have probably evolved new functionsMechanism: Retroposition: new gene duplicates are created in new genomic positions by reverse transcription or other processesExamples: PGAM3, Pgk2, PMCHL1, PMCHL2, SphinxComments: 1% of human DNA is retroposed to new genomic locationsMechanism: Mobile element: a mobile element, also known as a transposable element (TE), sequence is directly recruited by host genesExamples: HLA-DR-1, human DAF, lungerkine mRNA, mNSC1 mRNAComments: Generates 4% of new exons in human protein-coding genesMechanism: Lateral gene transfer: a gene is laterally (horizontally) transmitted among organismsExamples: acytylneuraminate lysase, Escherichia coli mutU and mutSComments: Most often reported in prokaryotes and recently reported in plantsMechanism: Gene fusion/fission: two adjacent genes fuse into a single gene, or a single gene splits into two genesExamples: Fatty-acid synthesis enzymes, Kua-UEV, SdicComments: Involved in the formation of ~0.5% of prokaryotic genesMechanism: De novo origination: a coding region originates from a previously non-coding genomic regionExamples: AFGPs, BC1RNA, BC200RNAComments: Rare for whole gene origination; might not be rare for partial gene origination Originally Posted By: thorIn addition to that, how would this extremely complex drifting propagate itself? It would have to simultaneously happen in both male and female of the species in order to propagate itself.This shows quite a lack of understanding of genetic drift. The fluctuations in frequency occur in both females and males. It is not a rare occurrence, it ALWAYS happens. What makes the difference is if the fluctuation is propagated or if it is balanced out by the local population. Originally Posted By: thorOpen up your eyes and mind, for they are both closed.Is that open enough for you, big boy? I have countered every argument you have made in that post logically with scientific evidence. And what will your response be? Same as usual probably, you'll ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, or if you muster up all of your intellectual prowess, you may shake your head and say "Nuh uh!"