After wading through the crap and speculations on AIG, i desided to read a "real" book which was critical of evolution. I desided on Darwin On Trial by Phillip E.Johnson because i have seen it recommended here and it was positively recommended on amazon.
If anything, reading it confirm two things: Creationism does not get better in book-form, and more importantly, creationist claims does NOT age well. Having been interested in bird evolution before, i desided to take it as an example. From the book:
The wing, which exists in quite distinct forms in insects, birds, and bats, is the other most frequently cited puzzle. Would the first "infinitesimally small inherited modification" in the direction of wing construction confer a selective advantage? Dawkins thinks that it would, because even a small flap or web might help a small creature to jump farther, or save it from breaking its neck in a fall.
Eventually such a proto-wing might develop to a point where the creature would begin gliding, and by further gradual improvements it would become capable of genuine flight.
Well that is certainly one hypothesis. Lets see how Johnson discuss the anatomical and paleotological evidence and critisize the idea:
What this imaginative scenario neglects ...
Stop the presses, incoming research!
...is that forelimbs evolving into wings would probably become awkward for climbing or grasping long before they became very useful for gliding, thus placing the hypothetical intermediate creature at a serious disadvantage.
Okay, well that is quite probable, but certainly Johnson wont base his critisism on what he, a person with absolutely no training in the subject, consider a probability? Certainly we can expect some kind of science to flesh out this idea. After all, when other scientists believe this can be so, and they are wrong like Johnson think, Johnson should quite easily be able to go through their evidence, and engage in some kind of scientific discussion?
There is a good skeptical discussion of the bird wing problem in chapter 9 of Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
Okay, references, thats good, this problem must be quite substantial, lets hear it!
Denton describes the exquisitely functional avian feather, ...
whooops my bad, it appears we are not going to get the least bit of science to back up the claim from before. If its hard for Johnson to imagine, it "probably" did not happend. On to the feathers, surely there must be some scientific discussion here:
... with its interlocking hooks and other intricate features that make it suitable for flight and quite distinct from any form of feather used only for warmth. Bird feathers must have evolved from reptilian scales if Darwinism is true, ...
Okay a couple of bad things. First off, why does he say they had to evolve from scales, why not feathers used for warmth or some other function? Secondly, saying they evolved from scales are today known to be highly inaccurate, and i think it was inaccurate even in Johnsons time. Today there is a pretty clear picture of how feathers evolved, and feathers in all stages are found in the fossil record, some on dinosauers with scales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather#cite_note-54 . Johnsons claims could at most be considered superficially correct in his days, they are not backed up by evidence, and they are wrong today.
...but once again the intermediates are hard to imagine.
As before, Johnsons imagination, despite him having squat formal training, is set as the limiting factor, and so far no actual evidence has been presented. Not surprisingly, evidence has since proven him wrong.
Still more difficult a problem is presented by the distinctive avian lung, which is quite different in structure than that of any conceivable evolutionary ancestor.
Once more, the limiting factor is Johnsons imagination.
According to Denton, Just how such a different respiratory system could have evolved gradually from the standard vertebrate design is fantastically difficult to envisage,...
Johnson methology seems to be used quite often in these circles...
...especially bearing in mind that the maintenance of respiratory function is absolutely vital to the life of an organism to the extent that the slightest malfunction leads to death within minutes.
The avian lung is indeed a very complex structure, and much more interesting than the mammalian lung. Not surpricingly there has been proposed evolutionary pathway for lung development, but more interesting, it is not really important to discuss avian development: The development of an avian-type lung (which, by the way, is quite similar to that found in snakes and crocodiles) are today known to have evolved earlier, and is thus not really that important to explain if we are looking at the dinosauer/bird transition. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/08/dinosaur_lungs.php
Just as the feather cannot function as an organ of flight until the hooks and barbules are coadapted to fit together perfectly, so the avian lung cannot function as an organ of respiration until the parabronchi system which permeates it and the air sac system which guarantees the parabronchi their air supply are both highly developed and able to function together in a perfectly integrated manner.
Well if that is true evolution would surely fail, i will easily give you that. Unfortunately, Johnson has not cited any evidence in favor of his assertion.
Whether one finds the gradualist scenarios for the development of complex systems plausible involves an element of subjective judgment.
Well so far Johnson has only invoked subjective judgement. Real scientists, on the other hand, look at fossils and other evidence, but apparently Johnson find little value in that approach.
It is a matter of objective fact, however, that these scenarios are speculation.
Because you say so?
Bird and bat wings appear in the fossil record already developed,
Well circular logic or falsehood. Yes, if you assume there is a very sharp bird/dino boundary, then you are clearly right because wings are only found on birds and per definition they are fully formed bird wings; structures on other animals you define not to be birds will then allways be arms. However, if the claim is that wing-like structures in dinosauer/bird fossils show greater and greater adaptation to a modern shape, the claim was false in his days, and an even greater range of wing-like structures have been found today.
It should by now come as no surprice that Johnson dont find it fitting to back up his claims by evidence; he wrote it, thats good enough.
.... and no one has ever confirmed by experiment that the gradual evolution of wings and eyes is possible.
Uhm no captain retard, because such an experiment would take about 160 mio years and would require we actually had dinosauers avaliable to breed on. Only the completely incompetent moron would suggest such an impossible setup, but here we are...
Comparative anatomy and paleotology are the fields you want to investigate to find evidence and there is plenty, Johnson just dont want to discuss it.
This absence of historical or experimental confirmation is presumably what Gould had in mind when he wrote that "These tales, in the 'just-so' tradition of evolutionary natural history, do not prove anything." Are we dealing here with science or with rationalist versions of Kipling's fables?
Again johnson presume, and again he is just flat-out-wrong regarding his claim of historical evidence.
Yes indeed, are we dealing with science? In my book, science is an evidence-driven process. Johnson dont use evidence at all, and pretty much everything he has written that was not plainly false was speculations. Hmmmmmm....
I dont know why Johnsons book has gotten high ratings, it seem like the usual creationists ramblings, the usual fallacies (argument from redicule, argument from ignorance, argument from speculation and plenty of strawmans), and the usual lack of evidence where evidence was clearly avaliable even in his days.
What is more important is to consider how much science has advanced, and how many "gaps" has been filled since the time of Johnsons writing. Most interesting, we now know that feathers in many different stages of refinement are found on animals which clearly could not fly and in primitive flyers; the evidence is so strong it has predictive power, as in the case of the velocioraptor.
We now know the charitaristics of modern-bird lung systems and hollow bones was present in dinosauers which positively could not fly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majungasaurus . Even more importantly, many, many more fossils of gliders and small, feathered, runners are avaliable. The last point is the most important, check out these two creatures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchiornis, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/photogalleries/100204-dinosaur-true-color-full-body-pictures/#/anchiornis-3d-rendering-still-feathered-dinosaurs_12651_600x450.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor
and this review: http://www.yale.edu/eeb/prum/pdf/Prum_n_Brush_2003.pdf
Even if one reject evolution, this completely debunks Johnsons initial point: He does not have to imagine that creatures with varying degree of avian characteristics could live; the fossil record clearly show that everything from small feathered runners to primitive gliders/flyers could survive and fit in their ecological niches. Johnson dont have to resolve to speculation on this point no more, the evidence proved him wrong.
Here is a challenge to anyone who think there is such a thing as a bird-kind which is seperate from other "kinds": What makes a bird, and what makes something not a bird? Which fossils are birds, and which are not?