You don't need to know any more about platypi than to have read the
correct SciAm article, and be able to detect contradictions in your
opponent's logic.  Here's the irony I promised: they begin by wanting
to see "transitional" forms among living animals.  Then, they bring on
the platypus - lessee: it lays eggs like a reptile, has reptilian
skeletal characteristics, reptilian uro-genital arrangements, BUT -
it's warm-blooded, furry, suckles it's young (though not - if memory
serves from the last time we discussed DBP - through fully-developed
nipples).

Doggone, that sounds like a transitional form to me.  Ditto
Archaeopteryx.  It's utterly incomprehensible to me how anyone can
turn logic so completely on it's head: can they really fail to see
that they've just shot their own argument in the foot?  Trying to follow
Creationist logic is full of such I-feel-like-the-floor-just-dropped-out
experiences.

(Note: of course I'm not claimning that modern mammals descended from the
platypus.  The modern monotremes are presumably survivors of a transitional
group some mega-years back.)

>     I'll steer clear of Australian biology too, but I will add that
>Australia offers quite a bit of proof in favor of evolution. Australia has
>been separated from the rest of the world since the Eocene. No land bridges,
>etc... Since the Eocene still relatively early in the radiation and
>specialization of mammals, it should be no surprise that the creatures
>there are quite different from other areas of the world where there is
>evidence for "Biologic mixing" between continents.

Also good evidence against global flood.  After being let off the Ark,
why did those marsupials all head for Oz?  And why did the placentals
avoid it like the plague? (I know, it was the beer) Can't be anything
much to do with the climate: placentals introduced by Europeans have
done quite well, thank you; some have even become serious pests.  And
native Aussie plants (e.g. Eucalyptus) seem to do fine when
transplanted elsewhere.  Hmm... could it have anything to do with that
plate spreading-centre running through the middle of Indonesia?  Nahh,
everyone knows that Continental Drift is a lie promulgated by the
SatanoEvilutioCommunoIlluminatoMasonic Conspiracy.
--
= Steve Watson a.k.a. watson@sce.carleton.ca === Carleton University, Ontario =
this->opinion = My.opinion;  assert (this->opinion != CarletonU.opinion);
  "Sic transit gloria Mulroni"  - Carleton Classics professor A. Trevor Hodge,
                                     commenting on Canadian election results.