17 replies to this topic

[usafjay1976]

The Coelacanth fish was thought to be extinct 65 million years ago. Yet this fish was discovered in South Africa alive in 1938.

Here is a picture of its fossil

http://www.dinofish.com/image16.htm

There are many more examples of living fossils. Click through the slide show below:

http://www.popsci.co...fossils?image=0

Or

http://news.discover...ils-110830.html

A bunch of examples below:

http://www.living-fo...s.com/index.php

Can anyone please explain why certain species would evolve and others would not? According to the last link I posted, there are millions of living fossils. There are plenty of actual photographs and proof of these animals and their fossils.

Can an evolutionist please provide me with a link (or links) of fully formed transitional fossil? I did some searching on Google and I found recreations, drawings, sculptures, or bones.

When I did a simple ‘transitional fossils’ search on Google and chose to display images, the first several hundred images were probably 97% drawings. There were some bones here and there and a few perhaps complete animals, but nothing that screams 'here is the proof of evolution!’.

Shouldn’t there be millions of these transitional fossils? Where are they?

[jason777]

Here's a new one.

http://crev.info/201...-million-years/

[Richw9090]

"The Coelacanth" is not a single organism. It refers to a whole family of fishes. The present day coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) has never been found as a fossil. It was thought that the family had become extinct during the Cretaceous, since the youngest species was found in rocks dating to the Upper Cretaceous. With the discovery by Marjorie Courtney-Latimer of the living species, we now know that the family survived throughout the time since the Cretaceous.

Rich

[Richw9090]

And for the Moderator Team who posted above:

Interesting that you quote Dr. Louis T. More, but you failed to provide the publication date for the passage. It was published in 1925. More was a physicist, and Dean, at the University of Cincinnati. He had no expertise in biology at all, and had not studied paleontology at all. He was critical of attempts to extend the concept of evolution via natural selection into philosophy. He did consider that biological evolution was a working hypothesis. More also accepted Lamark's ideas of the inheritence of acquired characteristics, which had been, even at the time More wrote, soundly rejected. More not only accepted Lamark's ideas, but felt that they would replace Darwinian evolution in the future.

Surely, Mr. Moderator, you can come up with a quotation from an actual biologist, written in the last decade, to support your contention, and don't have to rely on a non-biologist writing almost a century ago?

Rich

[Richw9090]

Again to the moderator who posted above: I am unable to find anything on another of your supposed authorities, Jason Bishop. In fact, the only hits registered through a Google search come back to this Forum, where you have quoted him several times. But you have failed in every case to provide the title of the work you have quoted, or the date of publication. Since your quotations can't be verified, I am forced to reject them out of hand. If you can provide the source of the quotations, I'd be glad to read what Jason has written.

Rich

[Richw9090]

Finally, Mr. Moderator, looking at your first quotation took a bit of noodling around. Although you have presented it as quoting Mendel himself in 1866, it actually quotes a rather poorly written essay, "JOHANN GREGOR MENDEL: WHY HIS DISCOVERIES WERE IGNORED FOR 35 (72) YEARS" apparently written in German and translated and posted on the internet. What that quotation, or even the whole essay had to do with the topic at hand is unclear. Simply throwing a list of random quotations at us, without any analysis or synthesis, doesn't constitute much of a logical argument. Rich

[Richw9090]

Moderator: The link which is actually the point of your post above (the list of quotations seems to be just an annoying camouflage) comes from a Creationist site, and so, not unexpectedly, makes a number of egregious errors of misunderstanding, intentional or not, and misrepresentation.

Evolutionary theory does not require that evolution produce drastically changed animals or plants over any appreciable length of time. Therefore, the survival of the long-legged lobopodians from the Cambrian for another 200 million years into the Carboniferous does not in any way cause a problem for Darwinian evolution. And, in fact, it is not really news at all, for the other groub of lobopodians, the short-legged ones, was already known to survive to the Carboniferous period - and beyond, into the present. And of course, early unicellular life forms, both plant and animal, have survived equally as long or longer, without significant modification of the morphological body plan. However, evolution in multicellular life forms generally has produced more change, since those organisms are more complex and therefore provide more opportunity for change.

Rich

[jason777]

And for the Moderator Team who posted above:

Interesting that you quote Dr. Louis T. More, but you failed to provide the publication date for the passage. It was published in 1925. More was a physicist, and Dean, at the University of Cincinnati. He had no expertise in biology at all, and had not studied paleontology at all. He was critical of attempts to extend the concept of evolution via natural selection into philosophy. He did consider that biological evolution was a working hypothesis. More also accepted Lamark's ideas of the inheritence of acquired characteristics, which had been, even at the time More wrote, soundly rejected. More not only accepted Lamark's ideas, but felt that they would replace Darwinian evolution in the future.

Surely, Mr. Moderator, you can come up with a quotation from an actual biologist, written in the last decade, to support your contention, and don't have to rely on a non-biologist writing almost a century ago?

Rich

Double standard? Do you? Common sense and education are not interchangeable, they are separate issues. Did the fact that faith based assessments of transitions evolve over time? Of course not. It's still just as much a faith based position today as it was then.

[jason777]

"The Coelacanth" is not a single organism. It refers to a whole family of fishes. The present day coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) has never been found as a fossil. It was thought that the family had become extinct during the Cretaceous, since the youngest species was found in rocks dating to the Upper Cretaceous. With the discovery by Marjorie Courtney-Latimer of the living species, we now know that the family survived throughout the time since the Cretaceous.

Rich

Evidence of this? Not a single shred. Can you show us the genome of each fossil and sustain your contention that it's not just morphological variation? Of course you can't. Assumptions aren't evidence.

[jason777]

Finally, Mr. Moderator, looking at your first quotation took a bit of noodling around. Although you have presented it as quoting Mendel himself in 1866, it actually quotes a rather poorly written essay, "JOHANN GREGOR MENDEL: WHY HIS DISCOVERIES WERE IGNORED FOR 35 (72) YEARS" apparently written in German and translated and posted on the internet. What that quotation, or even the whole essay had to do with the topic at hand is unclear. Simply throwing a list of random quotations at us, without any analysis or synthesis, doesn't constitute much of a logical argument. Rich

Yet, it sure got your attention. Did it ever cross your mind that your confusing a sig. with a post.

For future reference, anything below the gray line are signature quotes and not replies to a post.

[Richw9090]

Obviously you are unable to answer a single of my points. But that speaks as loudly as any answer you might offer. And the fact that the so-called "quotations" are a part of your signature line (which I already noted, but you apparently missed in your haste to defend your Creationist position) is relevant how? Does that fact excuse the quotations being non-existent, or excuse your poor scholarship in offering quotations with out proper sourcing?

Really if you are going to pretend that you actually have a place for a "civil discourse" on evolution and Creationism, at least you could go throough the motions of providing proper sources for your supposed quotations. Is that really so hard to do?

By the way, merely waving your hand and asserting that there is no evidence won't do. But then again, Creationists start from a position of having no evidence, so why would I expect them to be able to offer any for subsequent claims?

You really don't do very well at this, do you?

Rich

[jason777]

Rich,

If you want to debate signatures, then why don't you start a thread for it?

As far as stasis not being a problem for evolution, everyone is well aware that a post hoc rationalism isn't a theory. I could just as easily claim that the non existence of God isn't a problem for creation.

[Richw9090]

Jason, you are making no sense at all - do you really understand so little, or are you being intentionally dense?

Please show me where in modern evolutionary theory there is any mention of obligatory evolutionary change through time? It simply isn't a part of evolutionary theory, and you claiming that it is will never make it so.

Produce the evidence that your claim is true - quotations from actual evolutionary biologists written in the last decade, or even two decades.

Stasis has always been a part of evolution. Simpson described it in the 1940's when he wrote of bradyteley and tachyteley, anticipating Eldridge and Gould by 30 years, in their 1972 description of Punctuated Equilibrium. The fossil record is filled with examples of slow, gradual evolution. It is filled with examples of fast, dramatic evolution. And it is filled with examples of successful adaptations surviving for long periods of time, particularly in marine organisms where the environment did not change. All of these forms of evolution are quite comfortably accomodated within modern evolutionary theory.

The fact that you have relied on non-biologists writing nearly a century ago shows how intellectually impoverished your position actually is.

And there is no need to start a new thread to debate signatures, which no one here has done. YOU brought the signature to the discussion, so it is fair game here, since it speaks to your theoretical position and demonstrates the sloppy scholarship that all too often characterizes the proponents of ID Creationism. I have questioned the relevance of your quotations to any discussion of biological evolution.

If you can't handle the discussion on an evidenciary basis, just say so, and we can move on to discussing things with which you are comfortable.

Rich

[usafjay1976]

So.... Can anyone show me a site that has completely formed transitional fossils?

[gilbo12345]

1. Please show me where in modern evolutionary theory there is any mention of obligatory evolutionary change through time? It simply isn't a part of evolutionary theory, and you claiming that it is will never make it so.

2.Produce the evidence that your claim is true - quotations from actual evolutionary biologists written in the last decade, or even two decades.

3. Stasis has always been a part of evolution. Simpson described it in the 1940's when he wrote of bradyteley and tachyteley, anticipating Eldridge and Gould by 30 years, in their 1972 description of Punctuated Equilibrium. The fossil record is filled with examples of slow, gradual evolution. It is filled with examples of fast, dramatic evolution. And it is filled with examples of successful adaptations surviving for long periods of time, particularly in marine organisms where the environment did not change. All of these forms of evolution are quite comfortably accomodated within modern evolutionary theory.


Rich

1. In its most basic sense evolution is described as change, (though the theory means so much more, including common descent). If this description is to be kept to then if there is no change then there is no evolution.... Pretty simple really.

2. Ummmm, if they are critical of evolution then they wouldn't be "evolutionary biologists"... Its the same as trying to get a quote from a Christian denouncing Jesus. Hence there is no logic to what you are asking here.

3. "Statis has always been a part of evolution" ???? So Darwin wrote about it then? I guess you should be more critical of your posts before you post them. Since you (should) know that Eldridge and Gould came about long after evolution "theory" was formed...

You do realise that PE was an additional ad hoc hypothesis formed from the observation of statis and how it didn't fit with the original evolution model. Now where do we find ad hoc hypothesises? Ah in pseudoscience that is where... So essentially you have posted an instance where evolution equates to pseudoscience.... Perhaps if you did deeper you'll find more hmmm

Additionally doesn't it worry you that there are competing models which contradict each other? How do you know which is actually correct? On that same vein of logic if both are in contestation then how can we claim that either is correct? Ah, because "evolution is a fact" so it must be one... Such reasoning is not scientific, its blind faith in the assumption that "evolution is a fact" even when the model for its mechanisms are in doubt...

[jason777]

Rich,

I never said anything "Had" to evolve. It's as if your trying to convince me that I'm an evolutionist.

But...according to the prevailing ideas about natural selection, they believe that organisms must evolve or go extinct for various reasons and to think that there was some comfortable little paradise through numerous global extinctions, ice ages, etc that allowed Lobopodians to remain selection free for 200 million years doesn't even sound like a credible idea. Do you realize that the other fauna that lived with them during the cambrian are now 20,000 feet above sea level in the Canadian Rockies? Shouldn't that at least be a good reason in itself to evolve something? This total change in environment completely eliminated 20,000 species of trilobites, yet there was no selection pressure and stasis should be expected?

In fact, here's a new find, and yes, the scientists were surprised to see stasis.

"According to the authors, this evidence shows that the ancestors of modern deep-sea animals have lived in these deep waters for much longer than previously thought. That this collection of fossils appears to have survived several drastic changes in oceanic climates also suggests that deep-sea biodiversity may be more resilient than shallow-water life forms, and more resistant to extinction events than previously thought."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news...nimals.html#jCp


Stasis is nothing more than a cop out for not having any transitional fossils, yet you claim the fossil record is full of them? There are over a million living species and up to 90% are preserved as fossils, so shouldn't 90% of the transitionals be there as well? There are 250,000 extinct species in the fossil record with more than 700 species of dinosaurs; Yet, there isn't any dinosaur ancestors?



As far as your claim about "One must be a biologist to understand evolution", your totally off the mark. Gregor Mendel's primary education was in physics when he discovered the law of heredity and Darwin only had an education in theology. Do you still want to make that claim? Michael Behe confessed to being indoctrinated with evolutionary dogma throughout his college years and never being told by his professors that there were was a growing amount of evidence against the theory. So having an education in biology is only proof that a person has been brain washed more than the average person that has a degree in math, physics, etc.

[gilbo12345]

As far as your claim about "One must be a biologist to understand evolution", your totally off the mark. Gregor Mendel's primary education was in physics when he discovered the law of heredity and Darwin only had an education in theology. Do you still want to make that claim? Michael Behe confessed to being indoctrinated with evolutionary dogma throughout his college years and never being told by his professors that there were was a growing amount of evidence against the theory. So having an education in biology is only proof that a person has been brain washed more than the average person that has a degree in math, physics, etc.

Agree 100%. Evolutionary dogma permeates the entire thinking of every discipline in Biology. There can be no other ideas that fall outside of evolution since that is heresy.

[MarkForbes]

So.... Can anyone show me a site that has completely formed transitional fossils?

Usually they come up with archaeopteryx or the "Evolution of Whales". If you question that, they accuse of the "fossil fallacy".