On jawbones again, because I want to clarify something from earlier, feel free to ignore unless you are bored and interested in learning why I think the 'design' argument is a crock. I'll just reference it as needed later, think of it as being stored here but not put up for debate yet as my complaints weren't addressed initially anyway..
While the original poster isn't going to defend these statements (with good reason), I'd like to go over something about the 'design' argument that never really made any good sense again, and give more of an explanation to my adverse reaction to the argument as 'evidence'.
Now, as a creationists, I see a jawbone as an example of a very efficent, well made design. If something works so well, why "re-invent the wheel"? My predisposition leads me to see that a Creator made an ideal design for a jawbone, and incorporated that basic design into multiple animals.
To which I implied the following argument with its hidden trap (as always)
And you'd be wrong based on the evidence and depending on what jaw you are talking about. Go on and establish 'well made design' however, and expect me to argue that insect jaws are infinitely better than animal jaws. Both hinged apparatus used to cut things, but the insect jaw just does it so much more efficiently. Why don't animals have insect jaws and instead have a different kind of hinged jaw? Surely one design must be good so why don't all *animals* use the same jaw?
Explain why insects jaws are unlike animal jaws and are a completely different mechanical design.
Next, explain why the hyenas jaws are different from the jaws of other Dogs.
Secondly, explain why if the jaw doesn't need to be reinvented, there are an incredible variations of the jaw with only certain aspects shared.
To which, I didn't get my reply of course instead focusing on the jaws of insects as 'an absurd comparison'
Insect "jaws" (again for simplicity) - again, you're trying to twist words. I never said that just because it was a good design that it was applicable to all. A good design can be found in certain organisms, but not all. Where would the creativity (yeah, I know, cheap play on words) be if everything was the same? Not all designs are best for all circumstances...Your argument of comparing insects' mouths to those of other species is obsurd, taking something completely out of context and finding something that has absolutely nothing to do with the other. A very poor point.
Of course, if Renegade wasn't more interested in dodging the arguments put against him and had tried to define the 'good jaw design' , I could have pointed out the following.
Firstly, several species of insects, actually have jaws with a hinge system that is remarkably similar to animals, in fact directly similar in that they have both an upper and lower jaw that is open and closed by a hinge mechanism. This is, the basic idea of a jaw of the higher vertebrates.
Yet the so called open minded 'creationist' who spent his entire argument trying to discredit my position as close minded and unwilling to accept 'his' evidence, failed to even try noting that the hinged jaw system of animals does have paralellels in insects. Yet, according to him saying that some insects share a similar jaw 'design' is an absurd argument, when such insects actually exist.
Doesn't that seem odd? I certainly do think so, but lets talk about design and insect jaws anyway for sheer arguments sake, and because I want to clarify this point before it comes up again.
Insects, unlike animals, have an exoskeleton, that is they have their skeletal bits on the outside and their inside is like a large soup of liquid with organs suspended inside it. The exoskeleton, like many other things, both expands and limits what kind of appendages they can develop. On one hand, they are more malleable than vertebrates, capable of moulding the exoskeleton into a much bigger variety of shapes and sizes. On the other hand, an exoskeleton isn't very good for being large on land so no 50ft killer mantises unfortunately.
In terms of mouthparts, insects truely confound the 'design' argument on several levels. Firstly, they have the biggest diversity of mouthparts known, including things that look similar to vertebrate 'jaws' using a similar kind of base 'design'. At the same time, insects fire large rods out of a long snout to suck out blood, they have mandibles customised for a huge amount of purposes from the mantises mouth, the bettles jagged weapons, ant lions locked together jaws (for throwing sand), the damsel flies larvae that has a lower jaw that fires out and grasps prey to be scraped to death by its upper jaw and many many more. The huge diversity in the amount, variation and
function of the kinds of mouthparts (jaws if you will) that insects employ is stunning.
As it turns out, most of this amazing diversity is actually encoded by very few genes, these genes, called Hox for hot box development genes, are capable of rapidly morphing and changing the basic shape, structure and even function of various insect parts. For example, with only a few mutations in these genes, drosophila mutants were observed that had wings instead of eyes, more legs (a sixteen legged beetle was also produced), different mandibles and more oddities. The dramatic changes in only a few genes altered a wide array of properties and dramatically.
Noting this, it isn't too hard to imagine where such diversity, if even so few genes have such a large effect, arose from. This can succinctly, and fairly simply explain insect diversity and why there is such a wide variety of immensely different mouthparts for all sorts of insects. Unlike with higher animals, there are a wide array of insects that just don't fit the 'design' argument at all, probably why RR doesn't want to consider them.
However, lets look at higher vertebrates. RR makes the excuse that animals have certain features because of common 'design' and then scoffs at the idea that such a design would fit an insect (yet fails to prove why), even though such an example exists! Aside from this fact however, can we really say that because certain animals have certain 'features' of design this inherently indicates a designer? Firstly, we have to define the particular aspect we are talking about is designed, in this case the jaw.
As mentioned earlier, jaws are simply (and ultimately) just a hinge with one mobile part and another usually locked in place. Hence, why insects have come up with this 'design' already because it is simple and very functional (and if someone had done their 'research' rather than scoffing first, they might not have discredited their entire argument in one fell swoop). Animals however, are not insects (to state the obvious) and have been constrained by their ancestors far more than insects have been.
Most jaws around today are variants on an ancestral jaw that animals like hagfish and lampreys have. These ancestral jaws, were later diversified into what later became the first true 'jawed' fish. You see, lampreys have a 'jaw' but not in the classical sense, merely being a sucker with teeth with contractile muscle around it. Good enough for hanging onto your favourite food and ripping chunks of flesh off, but not for complex actions like chewing.
The first jawed fish were not very complex from the basic, moveable lower bit with an upper bit. Jaws diversified by leaps and bounds since then however, with many advancements allowing for better methods of employing your lower bit to kill, maim and generall eat other bits and pieces. The jaw of a crocodile for example, is extremely long but actually not very powerful (if you firmly gripped a crocodiles snout, it could not open it's jaw, the power when it bites comes from leverage forces). Compare that to a hyena, with the pinnacle (IMO) of a predatory jaw as it is able to exert almost 3000psi (pounds per square inch) of force. That will crush bone, crush you and pretty much anything else it wants to eat.
The only thing directly similar between that jaw of the Hyena and that of a crocodile is that they have a hinge, a bit that moves and a bit that doesn't (oh and teeth!). Now, sorry for the somewhat long windedness of this, I am getting to a point I promise, but we have to ask is does that similarity indicate an ancestor from common descent or does it indicate intelligent design?
Well, as the design advocates have been failing to do, we clearly cannot make a prediction based on a good design we can test (seeing as they refuse to do so). The argument of design is also unassailable philosophy, not science based off evidence, because ultimate we can be broad at first "Jaws are evidence of design" to, "A crocodiles jaw is good design because that organism is clearly able to survive" essentially explaining nothing. As we make the standard ever more narrow even down to individual animals, we can see why this 'evidence' is just really nothing more than a belief that as I've been explaining, ultimately finds itself answerable to no one.
But lets for the sake of argument say that RR did make a prediction, the moment he insisted that insects could not have a jaw similarly designed to animals. If we look at that prediction, we immediately find it false, there is nothing special about the 'design' of a jaw that warrants it a 'good design' for one set of organisms (vertebrates) and yet not for another (invertebrates). We see that 'design' automatically and straight away fails a simple test to support one of its basic tenants.
So let us test evolution then. According to an evolutionary theory we can make a prediction based on the time it took for different animals and their jaws to evolve. If an animal has a similar kind of jaw, we can assume that the structural genes (remember those hox genes from earlier, they are in animals too!) would be more similar to it's relatives than it would to animals that appeared earlier.
More importantly, to go back to the whole synapsids and the mammalian jaw evolving from a synapsid reptillian ancestor we would expect the following predictions if the evolutionary model is correct (based on the evidence available). We would expect that the jaws of mammals are closest to those of reptiles, than they are to fish. This is because fish moved onto land from an evolutionary view, and as they were the first 'development' of the 'jaw' we should expect that they are the MOST divergent from a mammal, more similar to reptiles than mammals (which evolved later from reptiles) and different from birds, though with some similarity.
So what would genetics say? Essentially we could measure the difference in the nucleotide sequences of the genes involved in 'production' of the jaw components to see how far ago they diverged. Predictably, the mammalian/reptile link bears out and the gene sequences of the jaws of mammals are closest to that of reptiles. The gene sequence of a birds 'jaw' is MORE similar to reptiles than it does to mammals (because they evolved from a different form of dinosaur, which were diapsids not synapsids, but I'm trying to keep this simple to avoid too much science rubbish which will just confuse). Reptiles have a more similar gene sequence to fish than either mammals or birds, and fish are the most divergent from all groups, but most similar to reptiles.
Again, I demonstrate only that:
Statements that design and evolution have 'equal' evidence is utter trollop. When you make predictions and look at those predictions, 'design' doesn't hold up, yet evolution does manage to explain the evidence and it's predictions actually manage to hold up.
Again, if RR or anyone wants to argue design is a credible theory that can 'scientifically' prove anything it needs to make predictions that hold up under scruitiny. As noted earlier, when asked why an insect jaw would not be a good design, or why insects wouldn't have the vertebrate jaw from a design standpoint (or a similar jaw to a mammalian jaw) the only response was'that would be absurd!'. Yes, this 'scientific' theory, that has been based on 'evidence' and clearly indicates a designer because of common design, cannot even give a reason why this design is actually good for 'that animal' beyond 'just because'.
I hope, for those who managed to read all this rambling, you can see the irony in that.
to Aegeri for stating all the comments I wanted to say and saving me the trouble. 
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