Originally Posted by Russell2
Hi CTD

The picture is an artistic reconstruction of what the fossil may look like with muscle and skin.
= Imagination.
Is it ‘imagination’ to measure the muscle and ligament coneecting points and so to work out how big they were. From that to wrap the skeleton in muscles of the right dimentions and with bones articulated in the correct way based on the location of those connections?
It's extrapolation, and it's based on assumptions and guesswork. That's imagination.

And most reconstructions, the vast majority in fact, are made from far less than a full skeleton.

Quote
Yes it’s imagination that gave it a colour but little else is. On the rare occasions when skin fossilizes it’s colour does not so that is artistic licence but dimensions, stance, form etc are quite tightly constrained by the evidence. To suggest that the picture ‘=imagination’ is a sign of ignorance, nothing more unless you are aware of how such reconstructions are accomplished!
On the rare occasions when skin, or any other soft tissue is discovered, they get excited because they learn new things the bone(s) didn't tell them.

Reconstruction arts seem to have improved. But to pretend they're perfect, or that the bone(s) contain(s) all the information about an animal... I guess you'd have me become ignorant. 100 years ago, everyone was assured all the drawings were done by experts, and perfect, and all that junk. Is even one of them still considered accurate?
Quote
Some of their bones are longer, some shorter, a few have disappeared...
Disappeared? You have evidence? I know you have the capacity to tell a story, but I said 'evidence'.
Evidence? Sure! Take birds as an example, they have fewer bones in their arms/wings than we do but the bone structures are otherwise virtually identical except for the dimensions. Same bones connect to the same bones in the same order. Of the bones that have ‘disappeared’ a couple are literally missing completely while some others appear to have merged. Now for the really cool part, all of that was worked out by anatomists long ago but they had no proof but like most things in science this hypotheses can be tested and it has been. After they worked what had apparently happened they also realize that you can watch it happening under a microscope. In the early embryo’s of birds they have the full set of bones that humans have for their arms but during their development some do indeed join together to form a smaller number of longer bones and a couple simply fade away so that, while the embryo has them the adult bird does not.
I couldn't verify any of this. I read where a lot of mistakes have been made about identifying bone in developing chicks. This is because bones don't start off as bones, but as tissue that resembles other kinds of tissue. Calcium arrives later and hardens them up.

Found a few interesting links.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/10/971027064254.htm
Explains how the dino-to-bird story isn't supported by modern-day recap.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0822_ostrich_dino.asp
More of the same, plus frogs & humans recap doesn't match.

http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Notes/skmus9.htm
Talks a little about the bone stuff. I lost my better link & really ain't inclined to dig it back up. Just not worth the trouble when nobody cares anyhow.

http://www.carm.org/evolution_archive/human_embryo_gillslits.htm
Good recap discussion. Better at the end than the beginning. May have to post this in the appropriate thread.

http://www.upc-online.org/winter2002/cloning.html
Some sick, disgusting stuff they're doing these days. Kinda bumsville researching anything to do with 'embryos' out there. A lot of crap one doesn't want to know about is going on as "research". This one's just about disfiguring chickens, but there's much more, and it's pretty ugly.

Quote
The same is true to a large extent in bats and horses and dogs and cats and many other organisms. Recapitulation is indeed false but our embryos do go through some very very tellingly similar stages in their development. Why would a creator god produce creatures which form bones that simply disappear? Why create embryo’s with virtually identical sets of bones when the adults have different configurations of bones?
Why would a man think he knows better how to make life than the One who already has? And how much do I care about claims from a dubious source which I cannot verify?

Quote
Perfectly I understand this. When things are similar, and they suit the evostory, they're called "homologous". When they don't suit the story, they're called "convergent evolution". When this happens I call it intellectual dishonesty.

I guess I’ll leave it to others to judge how ‘perfectly’ you understand this. Homology is detected physically by a rigorous method which involves measuring many traits of a given structure and it’s relationships to the structures around it.
Ha! The term 'homology' was invented by an evolutionist, and it's never been rigourously applied at all. Look at how much they used to think was one way turned out to be altogether different. 'Homology' has always been about superficial appearance. Now that DNA's being investigated, they're finding that entirely different code is involved in many things they'd have us believe are 'homologous'.

Quote
Convergent evolution is detected by the same sorts of methods applied to the history of the organism. If it possesses wings but no feathers and produces live young and not egg’s is probably not of the same group so it’s wings are clearly an example of convergent evolution or are you suggesting falsely, as the bible does in fact, that bat’s and birds are of the same group?
If it doesn't fit the story, they call it "convergent evolution". Things don't get much simpler than that.

It's another ruse to escape falsification - nothing more. Most evostories claim similarity indicates ancestral relationships. When it doesn't pan out, rather than admitting they were wrong, they label it "convergent evolution". There's nothing more to it than that. Pure antiscience, and no way to hide it.

Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

"We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution." - Judge Jones Kitzmiller case
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Falsify.cfm

"To Compel A Man To Furnish Funds For The Propagation Of Ideas He Disbelieves And Abhors Is Sinful And Tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson