I have started to post this on a number of occasions and felt that it was just too stupid to persue. But, I hate to see the board so slow... so I'll go out on the limb ...

We all have noticed the head thrust / bob that chickens do when they walk. I'm not really sure what the purpose of the head bob / thrust is... at first glance one might think it helps them walk... but, all birds don't to it. Pigeons do it, Chickens do it.... but sea gulls don't (Yes ... I made a point to notice this the last time I was in San Francisco this past spring) and many wild birds don't do it either. Ducks don't do it. And chickens don't do it either when they run... rather they put their heads way forward and beat feet. The chicken head thrust/bob is very pronounced... but the pigeon head thrust/bob is even more pronounced than the chicken one.

OK, so why does this have anything to do with Dinosaurs? Well, Dino is popular right now and there are a lot of "Jurassic Park" type movies and programs on Discovery Channel and so on.

Scientists who study dinosaurs often speculate about how the animal moved and they use skeletal details to deduce these things.... So... the head bob/thrust that chickens and pigeons do must leave some kind of modification on the vertebra or some other skeletal clue...

I wonder if there were dinosaurs that did the head bob thing ... one should be able to make an intelligent speculation from the skeletal evidence...

There are two major lineages of dinosaurs and both evolved from bipedal ancestors, but they split into to different lineages. The bird hip dinosaurs that walked on two legs and the lizard hip dinsosaurs like triceratops.

I don't know if the bird hipped dinos like T-Rex bobbed their heads when they walked. Part of the head movement is an adaption to flight in birds, and the dinos had a long muscular tail as a counter balance.

When a chicken walks, like other birds they like to keep their eye steady and make rapid movements from one step to the other. Pick up a chicken and hold it as if it were standing up and move it forward and backward and up and down. The head stays in one place for as long as the bird can manage to keep it there. I don't know if dinos did this. All extant birds even the flightless penguins and ratites evolved from birds with full flight capability and they keep many of those adaptations.

It is thought that birds evolved from the dinos and were from the same lineage as T-Rex and the smaller raptors. Some raptor fossils have been found covered with what look like feathers. All dinos are extinct, so we can't test their DNA to see if they are the closest relatives to birds. Birds do not have scales, but their scales are called scutes. Turtles, alligators and from skin impressions dinos have or had scutes. Feathers are modified scutes. The chicken leg still has scutes. When we test the DNA it turns out that alligators and turtles are the closest living relatives to birds. From fossils like the ancient bird Archaeopteryx it is thought that birds did evolve from dinosaurs. The two Archaeopteryx fossils without feathers were first misclassified as small dinosaurs because of their long bony tail, long claws on their forelimbs and teeth.

I wish we had a living dino representative, but they are all extinct. I don't know how they walked. We are bipedal and we don't bob our heads when we walk and a chicken doesn't bob its head when it is running flat out, so I don't know if dinos bobbed their heads. Dinos apparently did not stand as upright as chickens and they traveled pretty much horizontal to the ground with their head and tail extended, so if they did bob their heads it may have not been as pronounced.

Um....I guess you all believe in evolution, right? No offense, but my personal opinion is that evolution is an unfounded "theory" that fits into the realm of fantasy and should be erased from textbooks and labeled as man's greatest failure.

Josh, I won't argue the issue and I'm sure Rokimoto won't respond at all. We all got here somehow. The evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming. The evidence in favor of "Biblical Creation" is zero. An objective observer would conclude that it is "Biblical Creation" that is the fairy tale, since there is no objective evidence in favor of it. People who discount evolution are simply denying the facts. Belief in God and Jesus does not exclude evolution.

Rokimoto, it seems to me that the head bob motion must leave some skeletal evidence via the muscle attachments to the vertebra and skull. For example, one should be able to find a difference between duck and chicken skulls that is due to the head bobbing (chickens bob, ducks don't). If a difference could be found, and if it exists also in dinosaurs, that would be evidence of a neurological link.

I'll watch the chickens tomorrow to see if the head bobbing is a mechanism through which the hen keeps her head stationary with respect to the ground until she's forced to move her head forward. I can see an advantage to that... it seems to me that such a strategy might allow a better vision or a better ability to see things that move relative to the ground (like bugs or snakes or predators).

Also there was an article in Scientific American some time ago about duck brains while they sleep. The ducks in the study slept in a row and the ducks on the end of the row slept with 1/2 of their brains at a time (right or left half) while the ducks in the middle slept full-brain. The speculation was that the end ducks were 'lookout' ducks and were predator-sensitive since 1/2 their brains were awake while the other half was asleep.

I don't believe chickens do that because they all get dumb at night. Is there much known about the "night-state" of chickens?

Info, you said that "The evidence in favor of "Biblical Creation" is zero." That is an absolute statement.An evolutionist wouldn't believe in absolutes. Please check out this web site.www.creationresearch.org
Japman.

I've seen ducks bob their heads even when they are swimming across a pond. I don't know if this is due to locomotion or just trying to attract attention because they don't do it all the time. The length of the neck may have something to do with it. Some dinos had short necks like chickens and other had long necks like ducks. A morphologist would know more about the physics of locomotion in birds and dinos than I do.

Let's not get into an argument about evolution on this group. You have to realize, though, that when you breed your chickens for specific traits you are performing artificial evolution. This same thing is observed to occur in nature. We use the same genetic concepts to help us develop effective breeding programs as other biologists use to study the evolution of species in nature. You should not have any doubts that some of the variation that you are selecting for in your birds did not come from the wild Red Junglefowl, but are new mutations that have happened since domestication. A Junglefowl male might reach 2.5 lbs. Leghorns are more than twice the size not to mention 12-18 lb broiler males. Some people try to make a distinction between the evolution that we can observe occurring and the evolution that we observe via the fossil record, but biologist do not make that distinction because we have no reliable evidence that the two types of evolution are different.

I'm a Christian and ultimately a creationist, but you have to separate your faith in certain people from your religious faith. The people responsible for the web page that Japman listed above can't be trusted to provide an accurate account of the controversy. You can verify this by going to the site and picking out one piece of their supposed evidence that you think that you understand and try to verify it using real science sources. It seems odd that deceit would be so rampant in Christian organizations, but you will find that you will have trouble with the verification of what they tell you. I do not know why this is the case, but it is something that you should do if you think that you can believe what they tell you.

If this is important to you I'll try to assist your research in anyway that I can, but I have a lot of end of the year dead lines and I have to go to the genome meetings in California next week, so I'll be off the net for a week beginning the 11th.

You have to define your term "Creationist" becuase you must know that life forms evolved rather than being created as they are... for example, homo sapien evolved from other primates rather than springing forth from Eden suddenly with no ancestors.

I also am Christian and believe that all things were "created" ... even John von Neumann (the greatest mathematician) knew that all this couldn't come about by accident.

It would take reems of data to carry on thsi dialog and we would probably end up still holding maintaining our same opinions. Taking one side or the other or standing somewhere in between has no affect on where we will spend eternity. This is an issue that has contributed to the diviision of many churches and it shouldn't go on here. I'm sorry I impulsively posted. I don't retract what I believe, ( in a creator not in the web site I posted) I just am not willing to try to change other people's minds in this format. It won't accomplish anything good.
Sorry,
Japman

Oh man, here goes this whole evolution vs. creation arguement all over again. The belief that evidence for creation is nill is absolutely false. ICR (insitute for creation research) and CRI (creation research insitute) have come up with surprisingly valid evidence supporting the creation theory.

Give me one example of evidence favoring evolution and I am sure you will also find evidence countering that and favoring creation.

Rokimoto, you said "You have to realize, though, that when you breed your chickens for specific traits you are performing artificial evolution". That is depending on your perspective and your deffinition of "evolution". You are not "creating" a completely NEW species, only a genetic variation. Just because a RIR and a Jungle Fowl look different, they are both chicken and are classified as gallus gallus or gallus domesticus.

You also said that ICR can not be counted on for providing accurate evidence. Although I am only fourteen years old, i have reviewed their documentation of the creation vs. evolution and, if you use basic logic and scientific procedures, creation seems more viable than evolution.

All scientific work depends on faith that SOMETHING happened in the past which is impossible to test. That "something" is the basis for one's philosophy, world view. To the scientists of the past who made the great biological discoveries, the faith was in Creation and the fact that the created world is orderly and predictable. To a person who rejects Scripture and the account of Creation, the faith is in materialism, or naturalism.

Interestingly, Darwin the great collector could never find the missing links, the thousands of types of creatures that would have to excist between species of living things. No one since Darwin has found the missing links either, but most evolutionists ASSUME that they must exist because they ASSUME evolution is true. Notice the words ASSUME....that means evolution is a theory....not the "fact" than National Geographic and other societies claim it is.

There is a flood of evidence that refutes evolution.Evolutionists claim that this universe came by chance. They claim further that it all took place in a time span which they estimate to be anywhere from 4.5 billion years to 30 billion years. But is this really possible?

Suppose we have a billion monkeys and we give each monkey a typewriter filled with clean paper and fresh typewritter ribbons. How long would it take before ONE monkey accidentally typed the following short bible verse?

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"

Understand please that this problem would be much, much simpler than the problem of the universe's evolving.

After just a year of typing, the monkeys would have filled enough paper with letters, puncuation marks, numbers, and spaces to stretch to the moon and back. But they would not have come close to typing Genesis 1:1. According to mathematicians (the same ones who the evolutionists use the show that their theory is true) using the laws of probability, the billion monkeys would have to pound on their typewriters for 120, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years....and much more than that! We cannot imagine how long that is, but it is certainly longer than 30,000,000,000 (30 billion) years. Even then, there is no garantee that one of the monkeys would actually type the verse.

Evolutionists admit that the mathematical possibility of evolution taking place is indeed slight. As we have seen, according to the laws of probability (the same laws that evolutionists use to support evolution), the probability of evolution occurring is essentially ZERO. Yet, evolutionists BELIEVE sincerely that it did somehow happen. I marvel at their faith.

Now let me jump back to Rokimoto saying that we can't trust christian organizations that support creation, or at least some of them. How do you know that scientists supporting evolution are telling the truth? Many times, if you have read the news, supposedly real "missing links" have been found. Then, in about a year's time, these artifacts are proved as false.

I sincerely believe that the creation theory is more than just a theory....and that evolution is a danger to real science. If any of you find some sort of evidence proving evolution, please post it here!

it is obvious to me we were created, what we looked like originally,i have no idea. it also seems obvious that we are evolving. ducks bob when swimming and seem to swagger when walking. i think it is due to the placement of their legs and feet.pigeons really get to bobbing, and some of that is sexually motivated.i really think it aids their movement (balance). even 4 legged animals have a head movement from side to side .it is more noticible at a walk or trot. at a run, there seems to be more up and down motion in a horse. when a pigeon flies,i have not noticed any motion,just a neck axtension as a chicken in a hurry/ when a horse lifts a left foot the head goes right. it must be structural. i havent noticed in the chicken.vision could also be a reason.they are searching for small grains and bugs, and must turn heads to see in front and rearwards. a hawk targets its prey and locks on the target, no need for head side ,or up-down moves.?

I agree, Japman... there is no point in this.

Amazing that the Institute for Paranormal Studies finds paranormal stuff.... the Institute for Astrological Studies finds truth in Astrology... the InstituTe for Alternative Medicine finds cancer cures where none exist, the Institute for Cold Fusion Research finds evidence of cold fusion where none exists ... it's no wonder that the Institute for Creationism finds for creationism... It's called "vested interest"! or "if we admit we're wrong, we have to admit that we wasted our careers and lots of money!!!!" so they always find something.

P.S. It would really be refreshing if the Head of The Institute for Crap would just say..."Jeee, this is crap. Let's not spend any more money on this. We should all go find different jobs."

Very interesting thread you've got going here I see. Info, I read about pigeons and other birds (starlings, for examble) that do the head bob, and the theory is it helps with their vision and depth perception. Guess if my eyes were on either side of my head like that I might do weird head movements also.

Josh, I realize your ideas about creationism. I went through the whole predicament in my head at your age (and younger) too. While looking at the evidence in books and museums, everything does evolve if given enough time and/or changes in environment. It's either evolve or die. Man himself is now in the process of loosing his little toe and appendix (these are no longer needed.)

I've come to the conclusion that God (or the "source of all knowledge" force) or whatever name you have for "him/her/angrogenous-it" must have been very lonely and bored at one time in "his" long eternity of existence. Imagine being all omnipotent and yet being alone in an utterly empty universe with only the other atoms and matter scattered about keeping you company. Then imagine "thinking" about what would happen if all these atoms and matter where allowed to come together and converge. Talk about your science project!

We were made in God's image, and I belive we all carry a spark of "him" that's trying to find it's way back home. In order to get home we must learn. And learn and learn. Evolution is a fact, pure and simple. It's been proven time and again that it's happened, is happening, and will continue to happen.

I also believe that God started all of this evolution with the "Big Bang" or whatever it was that got the ball rolling so to speak. Sitting back and watching all this in motion must be very satisfying for the creater. I also believe God has quite the sense of humor, and probably gets great pleasure also from watching us all running around down here. But he does care about everything he's created, down to the last blade of grass up to the most powerful human.

LIFE is the important thing here, from that blade of grass, to the chicken, to that most powerful human, that life force that is so very unique and precious. Man can combine egg and sperm in the test tube, but he can't cause it live. Embyonic "life" in a test tube has the potential for "a life" but it also has stem cells that can potentially save a life that already "lives and breathes", and suffers. This is another "gift" we've been given to understand, to help ease suffering that is already happening. God sees suffering, and I think he greives for and with the sufferer. But that too is another issue.

I believe that all knowledge comes from him, that he gives it to us when we are ready for it, and not before. The technilogical advances made in the last hundred years are unprecidented, and that too is evolution at work. Evolution of the human brain itself. The "creation" of the internet has been unbelievable. The things that man can do today would have seemed like "miracles" a hundred years ago, and I sometimes wonder if that's not exactly what they are now, miracles.

The earth has been here for umpteen millions of years, and so has God. He's waited forever for what's happening now. Yet I think time is our prison, not his. He can "travel" though the fabric of time and space with only a thought. Remember, he (or she/it) is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, at the same "time." And in the beginning was the "Word" which was "truth and light." Look at what man has been able to do just with the gift of language and the written "word." I think we have a long while before these puzzles alone are understood. But we will be given the answers when enough "time" has passed, and we've "evolved" enough to be able to use the miracles that come with the knowledge.

Josh, didn't mean to go on and on here, but I don't think God really cares what religion we are, or color, or race. He cares about us anyway, no matter how horrible we are to each other. So many have died for religious reasons, and I don't think that was how it was supposed to work. Maybe when we've evolved enough, or come far enough, however you want to think of it, he will return, and we will really live in paradise (heaven, whatever) then. Along with our family, friends, pets, and yes our chickens. That really would be paradise, and then we'll all really be "home."

But I don't think this will happen until we have been prepared (learned enough) to be able to live in this glorious paradise that's already been prepared for us by "him"....REMEMBER we have to live in this paradise with all the other folks on this planet, and really, are we ready?

In the meantime, let's enjoy our chickens, and this wonderful forum!!

This may be a good time to give a short lesson on what science is. Science is just a group of methods that we have put together to help us understand nature. These methods can't tell us anything about morals or theology, unless the theology contridicts what science understands about nature. This is not sciences fault. Science cannot tell us if there is a God or not, it is a simple limitation of the methods.

Creationists, the type that are responsible for the ICR, AIG, and CRS type web sites, are the creationist that we can't seem to trust to get the science right.

Josh got his misconceptions from groups like the ICR. If the ICR is responsible for the assertions that he made in his post they are a dishonest organization. Let's take his first statement on the subject "No offense, but my personal opinion is that evolution is an unfounded "theory" that fits into the realm of fantasy and should be erased from textbooks and labeled as man's greatest failure." This is a common creationist ploy of misrepresentation. The statement is essentially a lie. If the ICR uses this argument they are lying to you. Josh isn't lying when he uses the argument because he doesn't know that it is a lie. He only believes an opinion that he has been told and he repeats it. This misrepresentation relies on the ignorance of the audience for it to work. True education would decrease the ignorance of the audience and not feed off of it.

When an idea gets the designation of scientific theory such as for the theory of biological evolution it is about as near a fact as we can come in science. Theory is the highest accolade that we can give an idea in science. We have the atomic theory, the theory of gravity, the spherical earth theory, and the theory of biological evolution. A scientific theory is not a wild guess, it has a specific structure and requires extensive testing before it gains the distinction of being allowed in to this select group of ideas. If any scientist could come up with a new theory on the level of biological evolution they would become world famous. I've seen some lame creationist representations of science that we go from hypothesis to theory to law, but science doesn't work that way. All knowledge is open to change even our scientific laws, and not only that but laws would have been constructed as theories if it had been possible to do so. The original laws were given those designations because they were just laws and we didn't have any good explanation for why they existed. Theories must have those explanations to be considered theories, so laws do not qualify.

Anyone that tries to equate the theory of evolution with a wild guess is lying to you. You can take that to the bank. Most people that use this argument do not know any better, but now you do. You can verify this by looking up what a scientific theory is. The creationist organizations are using your misconception of what a theory is to fool you. This is dishonest. I do not know why they do it, but the argument was wrong the first time it was used and it has been wrong to use it ever since.

Look at the spherical earth theory. It has been refined by lazer mapping by satellite and yet we acknowledge that we could still be wrong about the earth being basically spherical in shape. All theories are open to being wrong. There is a set of equations that are consistent with our measurements, but they invert them. In this model the earth's surface is on the inside of a sphere with the entire universe inside the sphere. The physical laws change as you go farther from the sphere's inner surface so that it would take an infinite amount of time to travel directly across the inside of the sphere, but you can travel around the surface in only a few hours. We can't rule out such models or assertions that there is some diety that is altering our perceptions so that a flat earh looks round to us. We may call them scientific facts, but really they are well founded theories that may still be wrong. Scientific facts are not the same as mathematical facts or geometric proofs. We can never prove something to that degree of certainty in science. It just is not possible. What we can do is figure out the most likely explanation and use it to further our understanding of nature.

You can't expect to know everything at 14. No one is born knowing everything. I was doing my first genetic crosses when I was 13 and cross checking the results from the expectations of the books on parakeet breeding, so I encourage Josh to continue in his explorations. We are all ignorant about something. I learn somethings on this forum all the time. The problem is that the creationism presented by groups like the ICR rely on perpetuating your ignorance to keep you believing what they want you to believe. Science relies on learning new things and expanding our knowledge base.

Just take your next point about new species, I won't bother with the rest, but I could go right down the line and tell you why each argument is basically worthless. When is something different enough to be called something different? It is obviously a sliding scale. Would a tea cup poodle be considered the same species as a wolf if you saw them in a zoo? What about a Dachshund?

Let's take different species like pheasants and chickens can interbreed are they different enough to be called something different? What about chickens and turkeys? The problem is that we see a gradation in nature and not a clear cut distinction between species. When we look at the genetic material we see that all life seems to be related from some common ancestor. Look at the difference between humans and chimps. We are less than 2% different (98% the same) genetically as a chimp. Horses and donkeys are around 3% different (97% the same) from each other. We have the same tissues and organs as a chimp, if you count the hair folicles on your arm you would have the same number as a chimp within population variation. We walk upright and have a hip deformation compared to chimps, and we have bigger brains, but most everything else is about the same. Many of the proteins that make up your body are identical with chimp proteins, you might have the same blood type as some chimps. It might be safer to give you a chimp blood transfusion than a transfusion from one of your sibs if they inherited a different blood type from your parents. We have this problem of not being able to determine what constitutes enough change to be considered something different. We are so closely related to chimps that we may be able to make hybrids, like mules. Science has to deal with these similarities, but creationist have to keep ignoring them or tell you that they don't matter.

The guys at the ICR worship their interpretation of a book. Real scientists do not study the book we study the actual creation. You have to be reasonable, the Bible may have very significant moral and religious significance, but it was written by people one step above nomadic goat herders. If you want to learn something about the creation would you go look at the creation itself or go look it up in a book whos authors had a very limited knowledge of nature?

oops, wrong address. i was looking for the coop. must have typed chapel.

Rokimoto, you are right on the money. Seems like everywhere I go anymore folks are quoting the Bible to me, and I keep reminding them the Bible was written by men, inspired by God, but nevertheless written by men. And rewritten and revised for the last fifteen hundred years, you get my drift. Thanks for your very informative post.

I've never even heard of these groups you spoke of, so I'm gonna see just what they're preaching. I've found some of the most narrow minded people I've ever come across thought of themselves as truly religous. And of course their way is the only true way, yadda yadda yadda.

You find this in all the worlds religions, at the fringes. Some are called extreemists, or fanatics. Even terrorists. If you can't tolerate anothers point of view, then the shoe may fit. Tolerance is the key here. Funny how that word keeps cropping up lately. Maybe "someone" is trying to tell us something.

Robbpa, I really don't wanna be offensive here, but being sarcastic doesn't bother me, and sure doesn't show Josh much maturity either. Don't like where the threads going, click your mouse!

Some observations:
Japman: there are plenty of evolutionists who believe in absolutes, but not because they are evolutionists.
Dr. Okimoto: I would very much like to sit in on a few of your intro classes.
Josh: It is a blessing to see that there are at least some 14 year-olds who can think and write and express themselves. Pass along a thank you to mom and dad for all of us. Keep seeking the truth, and keep confirming it by your own observations. The path is long, and the scenery memorable.
All: maybe we can exchange ideas on the origin and purpose of the head bob without reference to jihad?
Thanks for everyone's contributions to our board.

Jeeepers!!!! I was just speculating about the head bob of some birds.... since not all bird to it... and some, like pigeons and chickens, do it enthusiastically... it seems to be an odd behavior ... and I don't know any explanatian for it....

To the people here who are part of the movement we refer to as the "flight from rational thought" ... I refer you to the Flat Earth Society..... yes... that's what I said.... a society that maintains that the earth is flat .... and it has 5 sides... and they have their "evidence" just like the "creationists" do .... here is their website URL: http://www.flat-earth.org/society/about.mhtml

Back in the olden days when I was Professor of Mathematics... I enrolled my Dept. Head in the Flat Earth Society and paid a lifetime membership for him. He should still be getting their literature!

If you do a web search using "Flat Earth Society" you get a lot of references to some rock band, and a new flat earth society seems to have emerged on the web. It looks like they may just be making fun of the situation. they ask you to vote for your favorite historical figure and the choices are pretty stupid like Attila the Hun. The founder of the old fundamentalist Christian flat earth society died a few years ago, and I don't know if his ministry fell apart or if someone is keeping the flame alive. Some descriptions of the old society come up in the search, but you have to weed through the mess. One link is informative to talk.origins FAQs. When I was a student at Berkeley (the late 70's) I found a pamphlet membership application for the Flat Earth society. They had Bible verses and some weird evidence for their beliefs. I was going to join up (it was cheap) because I thought that the group had a sense of humor, but then I was told that they were serious.

There are also Christian geocentric web sites. These guys believe that the Bible tells them that the sun and other planets orbit the earth and not the other way around. You can find something about most of the types of Christian creationist beliefs on the web. Flat Earth, Geocentric, Young Earth, old earth, and theistic evolutionists. The most conservative seem to be the flat earthers, and the most liberal seem to be the theistic evolutionists. I probably fall in with the theistic evolutionists, but I've never checked it out to see if it is what I believe or not. It just doesn't matter to me.

Yeah... this may not be the original Flat Earth Society which maintained, with a straight face, that the earth is really flat...

My real point was that ANY crackpot fringe group is able to assemble pseudo-evidence to support their viewpoint / agenda.

When I first encountered the Flat Earth Society (1979), I thought it was a joke and I could have fun being a member... until I understood that they were actually serious about the earth being flat....It was then apparent that these were just people who refused to look at facts.... Like most creationists.

Uh....gee whiz, this is an interesting thread. Uh.....wow.

Rokimoto, you said "These guys believe that the Bible tells them that the sun and other planets orbit the earth and not the other way around". Actaully, if you've ever read the Bible you will know that, thousands of years before modern science "discovered" it the fact that the earth was round and was not the center of the universe was already written about in the bible.

It seems like most of you are opposed to creationism and think it is some type of hoax. No need to offend anyone about it but....hello!!! First off, i'm not some ignorant chap who has gobbled up creationists' hook, line and sinker. I think it would be the other way around for all those who have accepted evolution. What proof, may i ask, does evolution serve to you that you have taken as fact and makes you believe in this theory so deeply?

I'm sorry, but I've tried to keep an open mind with evolution but my brains keep falling out.

All life, animal and vegetable, is divided into groups called kinds. These groups are composed of individuals having similar or identical characteristics. Evolutionists tell us that these kinds have developed from other kinds having similar characteristics but not similar enough to be confused with each other. For example, we have the lemurs, monkeys, the apes, and man. Evolutionary zoologists include these four kinds in the same order- the primates. Evolutionists place them in a "line of descent" (or ascent, pay your money and take your choice), but even the most rabid evolutionist would not venture to say that they were in a direct line of descent, that is, that the lemurs fathered the monkeys, and that the monkeys brought forth the apes, and that the apes begat man. In fact, if we accept the evolutionists' own timetable, there must have been millions of years and probably that many distinct forms during the unbridged gaps between these four modern kinds. Well, we will accept the amendment all right, but where are those forms? That is the question.

If there be any basis of fact in the evolutionary nightmare, it isn't the missing link we want; its an army of missing links. Remember that these yawning gulfs are between all of the species of all the different forms of life, both animal and vegetable. There should be millions and millions and multiplied trillions of missing links, only they should not be missing. We should be stumbling over them every time we step out into the open. Charles Darwin himself saw this difficulty and writes:

Why, if species descended from other species by fine graduations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitionary forms? As by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?

Brother Darwin is right; missing links are what we should have nothing else but! They should be running about our country as familiar to us as bunny rabbits. The earth should be packed with them. There should be rabbitlike animals of all different forms and descriptions, long haired rabbits, short haired and furry rabbits, big rabbits and little rabbits, one legged, two legged, three legged and four legged rabbits, white rabbits, black rabbits, yellow rabbits and Welsh rabbits. And not just rabbits, but chickens and dogs and horses and pigs and birds and fish and marigolds and guppies and ferns and every other imaginable type of animal and plant. Where are they? And where are the multiplied trillions of gradually changing forms between the other 1, 999, 999 species that clutter up the landscape? Believe it or not, not a trace of a single such form has ever been found. Surely that is your lost brigade! And until a trace of this vast and numberless army has been found or accounted for, I, at least, will have to take my evolutionary rations with large and frequent doses of salt.

If you want to make yourself unpopular in any sphere of society, just announce that you do not believe in evolution. You will get the raised eyebrow treatment instantly. You will see the sly, smirking smile exchanged between your hearers, and you will be politely snubbed and avoided as if you were a leper, no matter what your qualifications, otherwise, may be. You can deny anything else in the book, but never evolution. That is sacred.

The favorite answer to any objection is: "No scientist would deny the fact of evolution". Yet the actual fact is that NO scientist would AFFIRM evolution as a fact. Many of our most able sceintists afe absolutely opposed to the hypothesis, but they are hushed and crushed and silenced by the same methods used by Stalin and Hitler.

It is a little known fact that Darwin himself repudiated most of his original conclusions before he died. Few people know that Thomas Henry Huxley, although perhaps the greatest defender of evolutionists, particulary of Darwin, never himself accepted his conclusions.

I realize that my own explorations of the science field has been limited. Again I remind you that I am not a scientist. I am a "layman" as far as science is concerned. I do not seek argument; I wan an ANSWER. Until REAL science can provide me with one that will satisfy me as well as the one which I have found not only without its help but actually against its efforts to confuse me - until then I shall stand my ground. There are enough uncertainties in life without making life itself an uncertainty. Thus I stand upon the answer that accounts for everything and explains everything: "in the beginning God created...."

Tonight my eyes ache, although I have a first-rate tft-screen, from reading too much, but...I learned a lot, thanks. Anny

Dr. Okimoto, I wonder if there would be any chance of you meeting my cousin in California - he works with AMGEN.

yes iam sarcastic, and opinionated, and biased, and then some, offensive too. i dont mind a little side comment, off the subject of this site now and then. it adds to the color. but dammit, that is not what this site is about. frankly, there may be more sophisticated minds than mine at work here. should i laaaaaunch into all of the reasons i am proud to have fought in vietnam, and why the mention of jane fonda and clinton turn my stomach. Noton this site. There are other forums for that. i read all of the above comments and believe in everyones right of expressin,. it is just that this site is dedicated to another subject. i come here,to the classroom to learn, and i have, about breeds and breeding of chickens. i take this seriously. i recently sold over 5000 worth of guns to begin a serious breeding project. actually, i could not care less if my ancestors were monkeys, it is not where we came from, but, it does concern me where we are heading. thankyou robbpa

Josh, You have to maintain your spunk, but you have to learn to channel your energies. You have to also learn how to take apart a problem and solve it. The first lesson that you should learn is to not use smear tactics on your opponents. The creationists that you got your information from do this all the time, but it is not a reasonable thing to do. You can take it to the bank that whenever someone bring Hitler into the argument that person is too stupid to know that he has already lost the argument. Just because you see it done doesn't make it the right thing or even the smart thing to do. I realize that you probably didn't even know what you were doing, but you should keep it in mind for the future.

You also blundered in going back to the same sources that had been shown to have lied to you at least once (you didn't seem to understand the species argument) and you used their arguments without checking them out to see if they were more lies. Why did you do such a stupid thing? You should make it a policy to cross check your sources of information, esspecially if you know that, at least, some of that information is false.

Not only that, but I'm about to make you look like a blustering fool, because you didn't check the material before you used it. You shouldn't offend your opponents in a discussion if you are lying to them at the same time. Now, I know that you didn't know that you were lying, but I told you that you couldn't trust your sources, but you didn't listen.

The easiest thing to cross check is the lie that Darwin recanted on his death bed. This is an urban legend kept alive by creationists. Even many creationists know that it is bogus because it has been pointed out that the story is false so many times. I'm about to give you a creationist sources that tells its followers not to use this argument anymore. www.answersingenesis.org/doc/1315.asp. All you have to do is skip down to the end of the essay for this conclusion "It therefore appears that Darwin did not recant, and it is a pity that to this day the Lady Hope story occasionally appears in tracts published and given out by well-meaning people."

I'll leave it up to you to try and verify your assertion about Huxley, I'll give you a hint, you will not be able to.

Now, let's go on to your assertion that we should have piles of transitional fossils. What do you think is wrong with this argument? What fraction of the animals that have ever existed do you think ever even fossilized, let alone have not eroded away, or are burried so deep that we can't get at them. What fraction of the total sedimentary rock do you think that paleontologist have looked at? 1 millionth, 1 trillionth even less? My vote is for even less. Sediments are piled miles deep in some places and we have only scratched the surface.

If you live in the eastern United States go out and try and find some passenger pigeon fossils. Billions once lived there until the 19th century. There were so many that the skies would darken when the flocks flew over, but I bet you could search for years and not find a single passenger pigeon fossil. Why do you think that is? You even know where to look. We have historical records of where they lived. In a few million years you will have even less chance of finding passenger pigeon fossils because they will either be burried deep or eroded away and lost forever. Do you begin to see the problem. Paleontologist understand that they are most likely to find the most abundant species that lived in the areas were fossilization was occurring, you have to get really lucky to fossilize, you have to get even luckier to be found.

If someone wants to use this argument on you again tell him to go find a passenger pigeon fossil, but don't settle for one, tell him that you want him to find millions. You know that billions of them existed just a couple hundred years ago, so it shouldn't be a big problem, right?

Do you expect a smooth continous fossil record? Think of it this way, I live in the Ozarks the fringe of the Appalacian mountains. Any species that evolved and died in the Appalacians mountains when they were really mountains have left no fossils because the moutains have eroded away and the fossils have been lost. Millions of years of evolution wiped out and never to be found. This is happening all over the world.

The greatest biodiversity known is found in the rain forests, the problem is that forest soils dissolve bone, and these species almost never leave fossils, so we have to axe another big percent of the species that have ever existed on this planet. If you think that I am making this up just get a college text on paleontology and look up under what conditions fossils are thought to form. They do not form in forest soils. You can do the experiment yourself to see if the bones dissolve in forest soils, but you also have to bury them somewhere where bacteria, fungi and insects won't destroy the bones even faster.

Besides these fact is the fact that we have transitional fossils, your sources are fibbing if they tell you that we don't. What do you call a fully feather bird that doesn't have a keel (flight breast bone), has grasping claws on it's wings, a long bony tail like a dinosaur and teeth instead of a beak? We are very lucky to have these specimens, birds are very rare in the fossil record, but this bird had teeth. You will encounter a lot of lies about Archaeoptryx in creationist literature. They all try to misdirect you from the fact that a half bird half reptile existed at one time on this planet. Sure God could have created it, but why did he? Why don't we have lots of birds with teeth today? Why does the DNA tell us that the closest living relatives to birds are reptiles? Why are all the fossil bird with teeth only found in the same aged rock as dinosaurs that have been extinct for at least 65 million years?

We've only found a very small number of different types of ancient birds (you can probably count them on your two hands) and probably less than half a dozen of any one type, why do you expect to find your millions of intermediates? You might have a point if we had millions of anyone type, but for birds we often have only one, and we are very lucky to have even found it.

It is good to stand your ground, but you also have to be able to say that you were wrong. You have used what can be considered a couple of outright lies, and several dubious argument to support your position. The obvious conclusion that you should be making is that your position is as faulty as the arguments that it is based on. I will tell you again, that you are listening to the wrong people. I do not know why they think that they have to lie for God, but they do it all the time. My only consolation is that most of them are too ignorant to know that they are lying, but some of them do know that they are lying, and do it anyway. Ignorance is not a bad thing, it just means that you do not know something. It turns into a bad thing if you let other people take advantage of your ignorance.

I'd like to take this out of this forum because it doesn't belong in a friendly atmosphere. I am willing to help you understand this topic a little better, if that is what you want. Try to confirm some of the creationist arguments on your own, or I can try to help you look up the relevant sources. Remember I'll be out of town for a week starting the 11th. My email is rokimoto@mail.uark.edu

The last thing that I want to happen is for you to give up on trying to make sense of nature and the world in which we live. You don't have to worry about your mind being so open that your brains fall out. In your case you have to work very hard to open it enough to let some sense get in. Were you lied to? How can you keep from being taken advantage of again?

Thank you Robbpa, for fighting in Vietnam. My stepdad was a helicopter gunner, and it wasn't till after he died we found out what a hero he was. Two commendation medals for knowingly risking his life to save others. Yet he took 48 lives too. Vietnam was a mess and it's about time you guys got the recognition and gratitude you deserve. My hat would be off to ya if I had one!

Josh, you go guy, and Dr. Bruce is so right about your search for truth. To me, evolution is a constant process that has been happening since you know who said "Let there be light." I happen to think it is all a natural process of creating in the here and now, which began way back when.

I want to sit in on some of Rokimotos classes too.

Maybe the coop could host a topic heading where we could go for these kinds of threads. I so enjoy reading everyones thoughts and beliefs, no matter how opinionated, biased or sarcastic they are!! (;^D to ya Robbpa!)

I like that a lot Rokimoto .... It does in fact seem that being "open minded" to a lot of people means giving up reason and rational thought to say "any opinion you have is fine or valid", which is nonsense (there IS SUCH A THING AS A WRONG NOTION OR THOUGHT OR IDEA)... which is not at all what "being open minded" means. But the current politically correct trend to pander to absolutely everyone (don't dare tell anyone that they are wrong in their thinking) fits right in with the present flight from rational thought that the American public is engaged in.

The earth is NOT flat, truth cannot be decided by polling the ignorant public (although the evening news tries to do that all the time nowadays)... if you are not well-informed PLEASE DON'T VOTE ... and Cromagnon DID evovlve from primate ancestors.

You go Info!