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But you see I'm not talking about wolves turning into huskies over a few thousand years. I'm talking about turtles having their fins turn into legs, and loose their aquatic nature over a geologically short amount of time.

Of course animals migrate, nobody is arguing that they don't. I'm just saying some don't migrate that quickly.

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ORIGINAL: demolay

As drmark says, no YEC is saying fins ever turned to legs that I know of; that's the stuff of evolution. I agree; its IMPOSSIBLE.

You lost me on the "that quickly" position. How far/how quickly are we talking about here?

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So are you're saying that legs can't turn into fins and vice versa?

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Are you also arguing that turtles and tortises don't have a closely nit shared ancestory?

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That they are not, in terms of baraminology, of the same "kind" or "type?"

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That seems absurd to me,

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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So are you're saying that legs can't turn into fins and vice versa?

Nope, they cannot! The twin gods of random mutation and timeless eons have never produced complex, novel structures. Intelligent design is more than capable of such a feat, however.

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Are you also arguing that turtles and tortises don't have a closely nit shared ancestory?

Nope, they don't! Marine animals were created on day 5, land animals on day 6. No shared ancestry is described or implicated in the historical narrative account of origins.

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That they are not, in terms of baraminology, of the same "kind" or "type?"

Nope, they aren't! No one has ever observed any kind of turtle procreate any kind of tortoise or vice versa in all of recorded history. Pretty consistent, this baraminology concept!

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That seems absurd to me,

Then by all means, SJ, please be the first to breed turtles and tortoises and I will nominate you for the Nobel Prize! (Not that it means anything these days... )

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You're actually arguing that these two types of creatures, despite their more than superficial biological similarities, aren't related to each other. In other words biologist, and zoologist have it wrong and these creatures just happen to look alike.

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I can point out that there are some species of turtle that have feet (box turtle) and some that have fins (the green sea turtle.) We classify them under the same order and suborder. You're saying that this isn't valid to you?

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What I am saying is that the animals that scientest called testudines share traits that extend beyond the superficial and point to a direct biological relationship and probably a shared ancestory between them.

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So are you're saying that legs can't turn into fins and vice versa? Are you also arguing that turtles and tortises don't have a closely nit shared ancestory? That they are not, in terms of baraminology, of the same "kind" or "type?" That seems absurd to me, it seems pretty apparent (and most biologist will back this up) that the testudines are closely related and probably arose from some shared archetype.

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What I am saying is that the animals that scientest called testudines share traits that extend beyond the superficial and point to a direct biological relationship and probably a shared ancestory between them. The most obvious trait of course are their specific types of shells which no other animals have. For example snail are diffrent from turtles, so are those of armadillos. Tortises and sea turtles basically have the same build, just one is adapted to land and the other to the water.

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ORIGINAL: demolay

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So are you're saying that legs can't turn into fins and vice versa? Are you also arguing that turtles and tortises don't have a closely nit shared ancestory? That they are not, in terms of baraminology, of the same "kind" or "type?" That seems absurd to me, it seems pretty apparent (and most biologist will back this up) that the testudines are closely related and probably arose from some shared archetype.

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What I am saying is that the animals that scientest called testudines share traits that extend beyond the superficial and point to a direct biological relationship and probably a shared ancestory between them. The most obvious trait of course are their specific types of shells which no other animals have. For example snail are diffrent from turtles, so are those of armadillos. Tortises and sea turtles basically have the same build, just one is adapted to land and the other to the water.

I think most YEC's take the position that common traits often simply reflect a common designer, not a common ancester. Granted, sometimes the commonality IS a sign of common descent within a kind. The fact that mammal and octopus eyes are so similar simply reflects a common designer. In some cases, the distinction is less clear and are areas of continueing YEC investigations and research. However fins to legs is VERY unlikely, as unlikely as mice-to-men evolution.

The distinction for YEC's is that "descent" is ALWAYS degenerative; where a creature with greater genetic diversity descends to one with less diversity via loss of genetic information. Selective breeding could be used to duplicate descent of a progenator to a descendant, but could never take the descendants back to the progenator traits.

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But we can agree that Terrapene carolina and Chelonia mydas are both turtles right?

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I don't understand how the YEC viewpoint can argue that there isn't strong evidence for transitions when you have animals as clearly linked as these except one has legs and one has fins.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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I don't understand how the YEC viewpoint can argue that there isn't strong evidence for transitions when you have animals as clearly linked as these except one has legs and one has fins.

And I don't understand how the evolutionists' viewpoint can argue that there isn't strong evidence for a common designer when you have animals as clearly linked as these. So I guess we are even, SJ - your faith-based assumptions versus my faith-based assumptions! I know exactly Who thinks my assumptions are correct...

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shared anatomy likely points to shared ancestors.

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So are you saying that you, unlike many creationist, reject baraminology?

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Okay so you do recognize that animals change over time, and that many of the animals today have probably transformed from what their original state was right?

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Because from my view recognizing that animals adapt, and change and, speciate like baraminology does eventually leads to something very similar to what Darwin was originally suggesting in his book, if we recognize that the process doesn't stop.

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ORIGINAL: StephenJ

Okay so you do recognize that animals change over time, and that many of the animals today have probably transformed from what their original state was right? Because from my view recognizing that animals adapt, and change and, speciate like baraminology does eventually leads to something very similar to what Darwin was originally suggesting in his book, if we recognize that the process doesn't stop.

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I'm not making a faith based assumption when talking about the evolution of the turtle family. I'm looking at the emperical evidence, and forming my opinions based on that. I don't believe it's a crazy jump in logic to assume tortises arose from turtles.

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Young Earth Creationist apologetics is always asking for evidence of transitions or "missing links" in the fossil record, in crawl (and swim) our still living friends the testudines to easily show how such a thing might have happened and it's still disregarded as not enough.

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ORIGINAL: StephenJ

I'm not making a faith based assumption when talking about the evolution of the turtle family. I'm looking at the emperical evidence, and forming my opinions based on that. I don't believe it's a crazy jump in logic to assume tortises arose from turtles.

Point 1: We have sea turtles with flippers who spend there time in the water except when they need to lay eggs.

Point 2: We have turtles with legs who sometimes spend time in the water and on land.

Point 3: THen we have the tortise, who has the shell and other features of the turtle but is perfectly adapted to living on land, even in some of the most water starved ecosystems.

Young Earth Creationist apologetics is always asking for evidence of transitions or "missing links" in the fossil record, in crawl (and swim) our still living friends the testudines to easily show how such a thing might have happened and it's still disregarded as not enough.

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ORIGINAL: demolay

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ORIGINAL: StephenJ

I'm not making a faith based assumption when talking about the evolution of the turtle family. I'm looking at the emperical evidence, and forming my opinions based on that. I don't believe it's a crazy jump in logic to assume tortises arose from turtles.

Point 1: We have sea turtles with flippers who spend there time in the water except when they need to lay eggs.

Point 2: We have turtles with legs who sometimes spend time in the water and on land.

Point 3: THen we have the tortise, who has the shell and other features of the turtle but is perfectly adapted to living on land, even in some of the most water starved ecosystems.

Young Earth Creationist apologetics is always asking for evidence of transitions or "missing links" in the fossil record, in crawl (and swim) our still living friends the testudines to easily show how such a thing might have happened and it's still disregarded as not enough.

So riddle me this, SJ: if a local population gets isolated from other members of its species, does that lead to rapid evolution, or extinction through the defecits of inbreeding?

Environmentalists are pushing to create "corridors" thoughout the United States as nature preserves that will allow creatures to migrate and interbreed. Will this lead to the preservation of critters, or stagnation of their ability to "evolve"?