Monday, August 23, 2010

Why the Senter study is important

Why is the Senter (2010) study important?
For a few reasons.
1. The Senter study title and abstract are available online. (As is some of the supporting information). You have to pay to see the article itself. So most people will get their impression of the study only from what is available free online. This means that if the title and the abstract are misleading that is the only impression most people will get. As we have seen, the title and the abstract imply the opposite of what the study itself shows, so this is significant.
2. The Senter study uses CMDS which is not new in the baraminology literature but is not common in the mainstream evolution literature. Since this statistical technique is one more helpful tool, it is good that it has been referred to in the mainstream evolution literature.
3. Moving to the results of the study itself, we see that the Birdlike cluster and the Tyrannosaur cluster are separate, they are not related. This puts one more nail in the coffin of the dino to bird hypothesis.
4. Looking beyond just the subject of birds, Senter points out that:
"Using ANOPA and CMDS, baraminologists have conducted several searches for morphological gaps in extant and fossil taxa. Such studies have identified significant morphological gaps between major groups of extant and extinct cetaceans"
and
"Two such studies that included dozens of extant plant and animal taxa have verified that, in general, morphological gaps separate extant families from each other, but morphological continuity exists within families (Wood, 2005b, 2008a)."
So other currently assumed evolution lineages (not just birds) need to be re-considered.

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