Missing Transitional Intermediates

[mike the wiz 1,210]

 

The above list is organisms that appear in the fossil record with no evolutionary history and remain unchanged. The purpose in showing the list is to show that you can select an organism from the list such as, for example "Tuatara Lizard, 200 million years", and because it first appeared approximately 200 million years ago, we can plot where it first would have appeared in the fossils, meaning it would have appeared in approx Triassic/Jurassic.

 

Now you may say; "so what?"

 

Well the point is, we know that lizards must have evolved AFTER amphibians had evolved from fish, according to evolution, which means we can deduce that between say, the Permian and the Jurassic, logically lizards MUST have evolved. Because obviously lizards can only evolve AFTER amphibians evolve into reptiles.

 

So that means between the Permian and Triassic we should see the transitionals for lizards. We don't, BUT, we do see other fossils preserved in rocks of that age. 

 

Now before you say, "well that's just one lineage, maybe the record just didn't happen to record the intermediates," yes I thought you might say that, but the problem is, when you plot all of the organisms on the above list, the story is the same.

 

For example the pre-bat transitionals had to have evolved after mammals had evolved from reptiles, so between the Triassic and the Tertiary we expect to see how bats became bats, through transitionals leading to bats, we don't BUT we do see many fossils preserved in the Triassic and Tertiary.

 

Think about it. How many could I list, and say the same about? This logically proves there aren't any gaps in the fossil record otherwise the fossils wouldn't have organisms in those periods where the transitionals are missing.

 

It would be like this argument by analogy; "I couldn't come to work on Monday as I was at the doctors." Now imagine if your boss said; "I rang your doctors and you didn't go there, which shows me a pattern of truancy." To which you said, "there is a gap in the doctor's records, his computer doesn't record any of my appointments", now imagine if your boss said, "okay that's fine, I can accept that argument because all of the other employees also have said the same thing about that doctors office, and I rang the doctor and there was no record of any appointments from all those other employees that gave me the same reason, so I guess I was wrong."

 

But imagine if the doctors office did have a record of all of the people that attended appointments on the same days as all of the employees, but weren't employed by that firm.

 

What do you conclude - that computers are only faulty when it comes to recording appointments for employees at this particular firm, or do you conclude that they simply never had appointments?

 

In the same way, I regard it is an irrational belief that the fossil record only hides transitional intermediates of evolution but shows us all the other creatures. For example, it shows us bats, turtles, platypus, dragon flies, but never shows intermediates even though it does show plenty of organisms that would have lived while they were allegedly transitioning.

[mike the wiz 1,210]

You literally just pick an organism. 

 

I'll randomly pick two. Jellyfish and Ichthyosaurs.

 

Now what? Find the earliest jellyfish and Ichthyosaur in the fossil record, then find the earliest they could have evolved, then between the earliest point and their first appearance, do you find any intermediates? For example Ichthyosaurs could only have evolved after amphibians evolved into reptiles because they say they evolved from a land reptile, so between then and the first Ichthyosaur fossil, that period should contain the intermediates.

 

You never find them, no matter what the organism is you have picked, but you do find an abundance of fossils for that time-period they allegedly were, "transitioning" in.

 

Example of circular reasoning. (orange balls aren't actually part of a snooker set.)

 

Darwin; "this snooker set is not complete, the orange ball is missing."

Pope Baba; "how do you know it is missing?"

Darwin; "Because there is no orange ball, nitwit."

Pope Baba; "How do you know the orange ball is part of the set?"

Darwin; "Because the set is incomplete, nitwit."

Pope Baba; "How do you know it is incomplete?"

Darwin;" Because the orange ball is missing."

[popoi 1,078]

The above list is organisms that appear in the fossil record with no evolutionary history and remain unchanged.

Why is the list not "every organism ever"?

 

So that means between the Permian and Triassic we should see the transitionals for lizards. We don't, BUT, we do see other fossils preserved in rocks of that age. 

Whether we "should" find fossils there is a complicated question. It depends on how likely it is for a particular organism to fossilize, and how many such organisms existed to be fossilized. As I've argued before, I don't think you have any particular basis on which to make a claim about what should be found.

 

It would be like this argument by analogy; "I couldn't come to work on Monday as I was at the doctors." Now imagine if your boss said; "I rang your doctors and you didn't go there, which shows me a pattern of truancy." To which you said, "there is a gap in the doctor's records, his computer doesn't record any of my appointments", now imagine if your boss said, "okay that's fine, I can accept that argument because all of the other employees also have said the same thing about that doctors office, and I rang the doctor and there was no record of any appointments from all those other employees that gave me the same reason, so I guess I was wrong."

 

But imagine if the doctors office did have a record of all of the people that attended appointments on the same days as all of the employees, but weren't employed by that firm.

 

What do you conclude - that computers are only faulty when it comes to recording appointments for employees at this particular firm, or do you conclude that they simply never had appointments?

You're helping yourself to the idea that fossilization is as reliable as a computer record, which it plainly isn't.

 

That aside, it is entirely possible that a bug in a computer system would particularly effect some people over others. To give an example, quotation marks are notoriously tricky to handle, since they are typically used as reserved characters in programming languages. If a system was not designed properly, a last name like O'Reilly might cause issues where a name like Johnson wouldn't. It depends on the particulars of the process used to record the data. In the case of fossilization, some organisms might be less likely to fossilize given their habitat, and some populations might be small enough that it's unlikely that we'd find a representative in the fossil record.

[Blitzking 1,998]

Why is the list not "every organism ever"? Whether we "should" find fossils there is a complicated question. It depends on how likely it is for a particular organism to fossilize, and how many such organisms existed to be fossilized. As I've argued before, I don't think you have any particular basis on which to make a claim about what should be found.You're helping yourself to the idea that fossilization is as reliable as a computer record, which it plainly isn't.That aside, it is entirely possible that a bug in a computer system would particularly effect some people over others. To give an example, quotation marks are notoriously tricky to handle, since they are typically used as reserved characters in programming languages. If a system was not designed properly, a last name like O'Reilly might cause issues where a name like Johnson wouldn't. It depends on the particulars of the process used to record the data. In the case of fossilization, some organisms might be less likely to fossilize given their habitat, and some populations might be small enough that it's unlikely that we'd find a representative in the fossil record.

 

 

Whether we "should" find fossils there is a complicated question. It depends on how likely it is for a particular organism to fossilize, and how many such organisms existed to be fossilized..

 

Wouldnt it "Depend" on which explanation best fits the Darwinian narrative? After all, the whole shebang is one big science fiction novel about "long ago and far away" where the facts get shoehorned into somehow fitting the Mindless MYO Mud to Man paradigm..

 

 

Be honest about it.. Your hypothetical hypothesis is able to retroactively cover any possibility no matter what.. Even 100 "MYO" dinosaur DNA lasting because of "high iron content" If the stakes werent so high (Having to account for a creator) Such rubbish would be deservedly ridiculed and laughed at for centuries.. But again we are talking about allowing Atheists to be "Intellectually Fulfilled" so all the normal scientific rigueur goes right out the window..

 

How can someone possibly debate against a hypothesis that sets up parameters that cover each and every possible contingency imaginable and proceed to taut the "Predictive power of Evolution"..LOL..

 

You see, us sceptics just dont "understand evolution" like Intellectually fulfilled Atheists do.. Because if we did, we would know that "Evolution" can happen by way of..

 

Instantly (Hopeful Monsters or Saltation)

Rapidly. (Spontaneous Generation)

Slowly.. (miniscule decent with modification over MOYs)

Never.... (400 Million Year Old Living Fossils)

 

Yup.... How very impressive is the "Predictive Power of Evolution" Indeed..

 

https://ncse.com/library-resource/predictive-power-evolutionary-biology-discovery-eusociality

[piasan 1,402]

But imagine if the doctors office did have a record of all of the people that attended appointments on the same days as all of the employees, but weren't employed by that firm.

 

What do you conclude - that computers are only faulty when it comes to recording appointments for employees at this particular firm, or do you conclude that they simply never had appointments?

.... it is entirely possible that a bug in a computer system would particularly effect some people over others. To give an example, quotation marks are notoriously tricky to handle, since they are typically used as reserved characters in programming languages. If a system was not designed properly, a last name like O'Reilly might cause issues where a name like Johnson wouldn't. It depends on the particulars of the process used to record the data. ...

In the one's complement system of representing numbers in a computer, there is a positive zero and negative zero.  There was a news story about a taxpayer getting a letter from the IRS (our federal tax collection agency) that he owed: "zero dollars and zero cents" and he should immediately send in a check for that amount.  He laughed it off and tossed the letter.  Every few weeks after that, he would get another letter demanding a check in the amount of "zero dollars an zero cents" with threats of increasingly dire consequences.  Finally, he sent in a check in the amount of "zero dollars and zero cents."  When he got the letter from the IRS thanking him his check "in the amount of zero dollars and zero cents," he went to the news media.  They had a lot of fun with that one.....

 

in the '70's, I was taking a lot of computer programming classes.  In advanced languages, the computer "compiles" your program.  Basically, it translates the written instructions to the 1's and 0's the computer uses to do its work.  This places the programmer at quite some distance from the actual machine code that executes the program.

 

The compiler used by the university I was attending had three levels of error:

1)  Fatal error.   This means you have a mistake in your program and the compiler can't figure out.  At that point, the computer would cancel your program and begin loading the next user's run. (Just so I don't get accused of a logical fallacy by anthropomorphizing computers or computer programs .... Yes, I know a computer compiler isn't a person, so it can't "figure out" anything.)

2)  Error.  Meaning the program will not execute, but compiling can continue.

3)  Diagnostic.  Meaning there is a problem here, but the computer can still run the program.

 

I had written a league secretary program for bowling leagues.  It would take the individual scores, make win/loss decisions for the teams, update individual averages, and print a new standing sheet and next week's schedule.  It would take the score of bowler 2 on team 2 in game 2 and add it to the game total for team 2 twice.  Except for that one glitch, the program ran perfectly. 

 

There was a "diagnostic" message that "control can never reach the next statement."  I checked the code and saw that I had written around that statement, so it should be no problem.  Everyone, including a couple professors agreed that instruction should have no effect on the running of the program.  A few suggested I delete the statement causing the diagnostic message... even though they agreed it should have no impact on the output of the program.  I tried a half dozen other things then, in desperation, I deleted the offending statement.

 

The program ran flawlessly.

 

The point being that YES, it is possible for a computer program to "selectively discriminate" against an individual or group.

[mike the wiz 1,210]

Piasan your post is pointless, for there is no point EVER in pointing out some moot point about an analogy.

 

Think about it, I only have to change the analogy to reflect the point I am making, because an analogy is only something that reflects the point I am making.

 

I find it amusing when people therefore attack analogies. Attacking the analogy won't mean there is a computer-reason for why rocks hide evolution unless you believe rocks to have sentience.

 

Example: I use an analogy of apples and oranges being different by saying, "snooker balls and tennis balls are different." Now do you think if you complain that tennis balls are soft and made to bounce, that this means apples aren't different from oranges?

 

 

Think about it, to make my point clear all I have to say is, "the employees all claimed to be long term members of this doctors and none of the doctors recognised any of them when the boss shown the doctors photos of the employees".

 

The only point of the analogy is to show that there is no reason for fossils to hide evolutionary transitionals, so are you saying that a computer glitch in the fossil record, occurred, meaning that is why there aren't any transitionals? Obviously it's a double standard fallacy, to reason that you might expect fossils preserved in those eras, just not ever any evolutionary ones. And nobody has given me a good reason why we should basically say that all of the evidence for evolution, though missing, should be considered as not relevant logically, for logically it is the most relevant evidence by it's very overtly conspicuous absence. 

 

It was only an analogy, you were meant to think this; "oh that's absurd those employees are obviously lying, and they didn't go the doctors, further research would obviously show that".

 

If you don't like the analogy, that won't change the fact there is simply no reason to believe the fossils would hide every lineage. So are you asking me to simply believe, by faith in evolution, that somehow those transitionals existed and their absence favours evolution?

 

Be reasonable.

 

Perhaps it would be better if I made a diagram showing how many lineages would, "pass through" the rocks that contain MANY fossils. What are the chances, with so very many forms evolving in the same time period, of them never showing up in the rocks, but we would find a good portion of modern forms in those rocks?

 

It just doesn't add up. I think if you're honest with yourself, you can see the logic is iffy. If I were to say to you, "I keep my car by X building every day, it's also broke down and never moves, and so do all of my friends keep their cars there, and here is the registration of their cars," would you expect to find my friends cars there every day but never mine?

 

And that is the point - evolution is saying that those intermediates MUST HAVE evolved during those periods, like I am saying my car is at that place every day. Ichthyosaurs MUST have evolved between two time frames, and hundreds of forms with it, but we only find organisms that aren't intermediates of any of them, we might find a turtle or a pine or a fish or a millipede, things that have already evolved apparently.

 

So then the record shows things that have already evolved but nothing ever evolving in the direct place they had to evolve. Think about it properly, had evolution predicted what would be in the fossils had we never seen what was in the fossils yet, it would not predict, "every modern organism and no transitionals", no - it would say, "we will see life on earth evolve, and how all the modern forms got here, we will see how bats, turtles, rabbits, apes and trees came to be what they are" because those are the things that were supposed to exist then, not the things they have become now. You can only say with hindsight that the fossils favour evolution, beforehand as a prediction, it would never have been, "no evolution".

 

"150 claimed to live in that street for 47 years since birth, we find 120 of them to not be illegal immigrants, the others that claimed to live there we found no trace of, but all 30 of them are illegal immigrants. We conclude nothing funny is going on, and that is what we should find."

 

 

[popoi 1,078]

It just doesn't add up. I think if you're honest with yourself, you can see the logic is iffy. If I were to say to you, "I keep my car by X building every day, it's also broke down and never moves, and so do all of my friends keep their cars there, and here is the registration of their cars," would you expect to find my friends cars there every day but never mine?

 

And that is the point - evolution is saying that those intermediates MUST HAVE evolved during those periods, like I am saying my car is at that place every day. Ichthyosaurs MUST have evolved between two time frames, and hundreds of forms with it, but we only find organisms that aren't intermediates of any of them, we might find a turtle or a pine or a fish or a millipede, things that have already evolved apparently.

The reason people keep attacking your analogies is that you keep trying to smuggle in concepts that don't apply. We can expect to easily find evidence of your car being at a place if it is actually at that place, because that is how things being at places works. We can usually expect to find computer evidence for certain things because computers are generally reliable, but there are cases where things don't work as expected.

 

The problem is that with fossils we're not finding your car, we're finding evidence that your car left behind as a result of some other process. A photograph someone took of it. A tire track left in fresh asphalt. Some flecks of paint from when you scraped a post in a parking lot. It's harder to say a lack of that kind of evidence is conspicuous because the events that produce it are fairly unlikely. Given the sheer number of cars on the road, those unlikely events are going to happen to some of them somewhere, but the odds of them happening to the specific thing you're looking for aren't that great.

 

Complicating that, the thing we're looking for isn't well defined. If you know a car was in Louisiana in 2006, and it was in Kentucky in 2009, where would you look for evidence of its location in the time between? How much evidence would you expect to find in that time? You know it had to cross the space between in some way at some point in there, but you don't know what path it took, how long it spent along that route, etc. There's not much basis to form an expectation about the evidence you should find.

 

With fossils, you don't have (or haven't presented) any idea how many of a particular species existed during at transition period, or how likely it is that any particular one of them would be fossilized. There just doesn't seem to be any basis to support your claim that they're conspicuously absent.

[mike the wiz 1,210]

 

 

Popoi: The reason people keep attacking your analogies is that you keep trying to smuggle in concepts that don't apply. We can expect to easily find evidence of your car being at a place if it is actually at that place, because that is how things being at places works. We can usually expect to find computer evidence for certain things because computers are generally reliable, but there are cases where things don't work as expected.

 

Codswallop. You don't know the purpose of an analogy. The analogy is to point out something obvious so as to make it easy to understand. The point of the car analogy was only to show that the claim is false because the car would obviously be expected to be there, and there is no excuse because his friends have an equivalent claim and their cars ARE there.. In the same way evolution says many creatures must have evolved between certain time periods, we find many real-life organisms during those periods, but no transitional chains for many evolving forms.

 

Your problem is even worse, for a bat or a pterodactyl to go from being a quadruped to a flier, would create many stages of intermediate evolution, meaning the chances are even better for finding an evolutionary form, than a real life form.

 

For example imagine if I said, "go and find me a bat in the fossil record". That is only one kind of creature, a fully formed bat is what you would have to find, but if I were to say, "go and find me the species that evolved into bats showing how they evolved from a quadrupedal mammal" your chances would be much better, because it would take many distinct forms in order to go from logical thing X to logical thing P. But guess what - we only find fully formed bats, and NONE of the intermediates showing how bats evolved. 

 

So the probability is obvious, it's this; "you have ten shots at guessing a number between 1 and 100", and, "you have one shot at guessing a number between 1 and 100".

 

Which is the more probable? A bat is one kind of animal, but the intermediates would be many, if I am generous lets go for the absurdly low figure of ten basic intermediate forms.

 

 

 

Popoi: With fossils, you don't have (or haven't presented) any idea how many of a particular species existed during at transition period, or how likely it is that any particular one of them would be fossilized. There just doesn't seem to be any basis to support your claim that they're conspicuously absent. 

 

Incorrect. If employees at a certain firm are all long term members of a particular doctors, and none of the doctors recognise them but they recognise all the other patients that aren't a part of the firm, and they aren't on their records, but all the other members are, then the point of the analogy is that there simply is no reason for this evidence to not be there when other evidence is. Whether you like it or not, you must SPECIAL PLEAD for evolution. ("evolution is special, it wouldn't show up in the fossils") Incorrect double-standard fallacy, for those real lifeforms do show up, and there are far less of them than there would be evolutionary forms.

 

In the same way, to say that absent intermediate transitionals could be absent when all of the other factual organisms are present, is simply unjustified, especially since some of these purported evolutionary changes are major overhauls of anatomy.

 

For example to change a quadruped land reptile into a sea-going reptile (Ichthyosaur) would present many unavoidable steps of intermediates for evolution, because to go from land to sea you simply MUST evolve drastic changes. But that can also be said for dolphins, whales, manatees, and dugongs, all of which have no intermediates. (don't site whale-evolution, I have covered that issue, Ambulocetus and Rhodocetus, the two main links in the chain, are codswallopal artistic fiction beyond words, the rest of the so called intemediates are simply extinct sea forms.)

 

I have clearly shown that for the periods these would have had to evolve in if evolution were true, not one of them is there. 

 

I think the problem is your ignorance of just how many intermediates there would have had to be. To take all of the kinds of animals that ever flied and state "we can see them as complete fliers in the fossil record but never as intermediate transitionals" is absurd - the chances of seeing them evolve is provably greater mathematically, because part of those evolutions MUST require many intermediate forms, according to evolution theory, but for the full formed forms we find, they are only one kind of form, yet we find them, always fully formed, without any history.

 

Whether you like it or not, creation would predict animal kinds would be found fully formed, being the forms they always were, and there would be an absence of transitional lineages. The correct logical prediction for evolution is the opposite.

 

Think about what you are saying, you are saying that it is expected as part of your theory, that you would see bats but never how they became bats, you would see pterosaurs but not how they became pterosaurs, you would see pteradactyls but not how they became them, dragonflies but not how they became them, pine trees but not how they became them, and to believe this is, "likely", if evolution is true, I am sorry to say, is just absurd beyond expression. You will simply say anything to get evolution of the hook but deductively there is no escape, I have proven there is no physical or rational reason the rocks would hide evolution because the rocks do show the real lifeforms in abundance, but not even one intermediate for those forms despite the fact those intermediates would DROWN the real life forms.

 

If at every step of a meal you check the chef, where he is up to in cooking your starter, main course and dessert, and you only ever find a fully cooked starter, main and dessert, then obviously that is not possible he cooked it. (because to cook it requires the stages)

 

It's called Reductio-Ad-Absurdum, for if he cooked the meals they would have stages.

 

(before saying, "those could be other peoples meals, THEY AREN'T, I created the analogy, you don't change an analogy so that it doesn't work anymore.)

 

So before saying I don't understand things about analogies with your weak ad hominem attack, perhaps you should entertain the fact that the things I say aren't inventions from my bumhole, but cleverly figured out things. If you are blind to that which is accurately deduced, perhaps it's because you aren't the best deducer, and the fault is with you, so please stop implying I don't understand what I write. 

 

 

 

Popoi: The reason people keep attacking your analogies is that you keep trying to smuggle in concepts that don't apply

 

They FULLY apply. If someone says X is in a certain place, and they reason it doesn't have to be even though if X is in a certain place it follows other things will be in that place, then logically speaking it is an example of equivalent claims.

 

But it's not easy to understand, which is your true problem, so you jump to the conclusion as usual, that the problem is with mike.

 

Use your brain. If I say to you a one pound piece is in a bag and somebody else says a fifty pence coin is in the bag, if the person's fifty piece coin is found but yours isn't, you can't reason an excuse as to why it is not there but his is, as the claims are equivalent.

 

Another example is if two people have all of the authentic things needed to qualify them as a ferrari-owner, you can't choose one person and say, "I believe him but not the other person" because the claims are identical.

 

It's the same with the fossils, you can't say it is okay for evolution to not be seen in the fossils but it is okay for real lifeforms to be seen, for it is called a double standard, where you account a different measure to an equivalent claim.

 

The best example is favouritism, two children and one mum, the mum loves the girl more so says she can stay up late but because she doesn't like the boy as much says he has to go to bed.

 

You didn't see this in the analogies but you were supposed to.

 

THAT is what the analogies meant. If you go through each analogy, you will see an example of a double standrad for two equivalent claims. ERGO, I knew at all times, EXACTLY what I was saying.

[piasan 1,402]

Piasan your post is pointless, for there is no point EVER in pointing out some moot point about an analogy.

 

Think about it, I only have to change the analogy to reflect the point I am making, because an analogy is only something that reflects the point I am making.

 

I find it amusing when people therefore attack analogies. Attacking the analogy won't mean there is a computer-reason for why rocks hide evolution unless you believe rocks to have sentience.

The point I was making is that computer glitches that effect only a specific situation or individual can, in fact, happen.

 

As for the doctor's excuse thing.... If I were the manager of those employees, I wouldn't buy that it was only employees from my company who were subject to a computer glitch because I know such glitches are very, very rare.  

 

By the same token, fossils are also very, very rare.  I recall reading somewhere that all of the fossils of very ancient humans would fit in the bed of a pick-up truck.  IOW, all we have of (probably) billions of people is a few (mostly) small fragments.  For all practical purposes, there are no complete skeletons.

 

 

The only point of the analogy is to show that there is no reason for fossils to hide evolutionary transitionals, so are you saying that a computer glitch in the fossil record, occurred, meaning that is why there aren't any transitionals? 

No, I'm saying fossilization is an extremely rare event.

 

The argument that "there aren't any transitionals" doesn't hold much water.  For one thing, it can be very difficult to tell one species from another even when we have living specimens, let alone a few bone fragments.   Few fossils are formed,  even fewer are found.

 

While creationists claim there are "no" transitionals, the scientists who do this work claim to have found hundreds, if not thousands of them.  It reminds me of a discussion I was having with a YEC and he hit on this point and argued I could get a Nobel Prize if I came up with a "real" transitional fossil.  My answer was that one will not get a Nobel Prize for producing what science says it already has.

 

Do we have fossils of every species that ever lived?   No.  Nor should we expect to.  

 

Do some species show little, if any, evolution since their earliest appearance in the fossil record?  Yes.  If an environment is particularly stable and the creature is really well adapted to it, we probably shouldn't expect that species to change much, so that isn't really surprising.

 

Gould summed it up pretty well  (paraphrasing): "While there are few fossils at the species level, they are abundant at higher levels."

 

If you don't like the analogy, that won't change the fact there is simply no reason to believe the fossils would hide every lineage. So are you asking me to simply believe, by faith in evolution, that somehow those transitionals existed and their absence favours evolution?

 

Be reasonable.

Right back at ya ....

[popoi 1,078]

Which is the more probable? A bat is one kind of animal, but the intermediates would be many, if I am generous lets go for the absurdly low figure of ten basic intermediate forms.

This appears to be a fundamental error in your thinking. Forms don't fossilize, individual organisms do. Counting forms to determine the probability of finding a particular form makes no sense. If you have 1000 pennies, and 19 other coins from various countries and denominations all in a bag, what are your odds of finding a penny if you draw one at random? By your fossil reasoning, you have a better chance of finding a foreign coin than a penny because there's only 1 penny form but there are 19 non-penny forms. In reality, your chances are higher of finding a penny because there are more individual pennies than there are other coins.

 

The difficulty with fossils is that we can't know how many of a particular type we should expect (if any) based only on the fact that there had to be a bunch of types. The naive assumption (which you seem to be taking as given) might be that there would be a roughly equal number of each type, but that assumption doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

 

If evolution happened something like the way punctuated equilibrium had it, with the majority of change taking place in small populations, we wouldn't be surprised at all when most of the fossils we find are from large stable populations, because there were just way more of them around to fossilize.

 

They FULLY apply. If someone says X is in a certain place, and they reason it doesn't have to be even though if X is in a certain place it follows other things will be in that place, then logically speaking it is an example of equivalent claims.

This is another apparent fundamental error. As I explained before, fossils are not a matter of "If X exists, we can find it here". First, we're looking for the remains of X, which would be "If X existed, we can find evidence of it". But it's still not that, because not everything that exists leaves behind remains to find. It's "If X existed, we might find evidence of it". Because it's not something that happens every time, finding a fossil of a species does not imply that you will find another fossil of a different species in the same area. The best you can do is a statistical argument that if there were X individuals present and the probability of them ending up fossilized is Y we can expect to find X*Y fossils, but to do that you need to know X and Y, which as far as I know haven't appeared in your arugments yet.

[mike the wiz 1,210]

 

 

Popoi:  Forms don't fossilize, individual organisms do. Counting forms to determine the probability of finding a particular form makes no sense. If you have 1000 pennies, and 19 other coins from various countries and denominations all in a bag, what are your odds of finding a penny if you draw one at random? By your fossil reasoning, you have a better chance of finding a foreign coin than a penny because there's only 1 penny form but there are 19 non-penny forms. In reality, your chances are higher of finding a penny because there are more individual pennies than there are other coins.

 

Now this is an example of a false analogy. In this analogy I would predict you have more chance of finding a penny, and the 1000 pennies would represent the transitionals but you haven't given a reason why there would be so many pennies. That's your error - there is no SPECIAL reason why we would treat evolutionary forms as different from real lifeforms that show up in the fossils.  

 

You can't say that we would expect a thousand forms of bat, or millions in numver, but only small numbers for the several species that led to them because transitional forms WOULD BE no different from any other forms of life. 

 

Again, the logic fails, because you have to go back to awarding evolutionary forms some type of special permission or some special value real lifeforms don't have. You forget these evolutionary forms were supposed to also be real. So you are committing special pleading, only in a more subtle way. You can never say, "transitional forms have this special value and would be few, all of them, but real lifeforms wouldn always be plentiful in number" because you have to reason that "ALL" evolutionary transitionals would be few.

 

Think about it - no matter what argument you come up with, you still have to argue that ALL evolutionary forms would have value X, but real lifeforms would not, because ALL of the intermediates are missing. 

 

So what circumstance can you imagine where only evolutionary forms would happen to be missing? Even if we accept some astronomically silly argument that "all evolutionary transitions should be missing but not real lifeforms" then what would that make your argument? It would make your argument the weakest conjecture on earth that could be described adequately as, "utterly plastic, unfalsifiable gibberish that gets evolution off the hook".

 

Until you see why whatever reason you come up with you have to apply it to all transitions alone but not real life, you won't see why it will always be a double standard.

 

Individual organisms are forms, when I say, "form" I simply mean an organism you find in the fossil, of a form that tells you the anatomy. You just don't get what I mean, that's all that's happening here Popoi.

 

Let me explain something very simple - if life on earth evolved, then to get something with legs, you need something else to become wings through transitionals, to get something that flies, of all the types of fliers, if they propose they evolved from something non-flying with limbs, they have to go through intermediate transitionals. So for every such comment we can add the question; "by chance would we only ever expect to see the final product of bat, butterfly, pterodactyl, dragon-fly, pterosaur, winged beetle but never any intermediates?"

 

Now logically you MUST ask that question of every such transition. So from four-legged reptile to sea reptile or four-legged mammal to sea-mammal, you ask the question again; "by chance would we expect to NEVER see the intermediates showing how evolution achieved this but always the final product?"

 

Now go through the list of things that MUST have went through intermediate stages. You end up asking that question again and again and again, and if your argument is that it is realistic we would only ever see the final product then you're being ridiculous, for there can be no special reason that would allow all such evolutionary forms to always be hidden, but the final product revealed.

 

If life on earth evolved, it follows that most of life on earth has been transitionals, for everything we now have, platypus, bunnies, snakes, turtles, bats, pterosaurs, dolphins, jellyfish, seahorses, whatever it is, it had to evolve from something else, and that route of evolution from A to Z means they had to go through B, C, D, E, etc....so for example a bat evolved they say, from a quadruped mammal, meaning it had to lose it's design of all four legs on the ground, so to get to a bat-wing, that's many more "forms" in order to evolve bats. It is the same with all the dinosaur kinds, none of them have ancestors and there are hundreds of them.

 

Your problem is, these intermediates would just be lifeforms the same as any other, meaning if we put all of life in the mix, and all of the evolutionary forms in the mix, if you count those thousand pennies again as the transitionals of evolution, imagine if to represent the fossils record, you chose only a portion, say 16 coins, and all of them were NOT pennies.

 

That would never happen. I'm sorry but that is what  you must argue for evolution, because those intermediates are simply not there, and the problem is, there is simply no reason why the fossils would only hide evolution.

 

 

 

Popoi: The difficulty with fossils is that we can't know how many of a particular type we should expect (if any) based only on the fact that there had to be a bunch of types

 

But does that allow us to infer that, "therefore we would only expect non-transitional fossils, and only real lifeforms"? You see, you can reason all you want, but you're in a cul-de-sac, and there isn't any way out for evolution.

 

 

 

Popoi: This is another apparent fundamental error.

 

No, this is a second question-begging-epithet from you. "another" implies there was a mistake to begin with, which thus far you have not shown, let alone a second error.

 

 

 

Popoi: As I explained before, fossils are not a matter of "If X exists, we can find it here".

 

Well, this is an error from you, because it isn't my argument. Strawman fallacy. My argument is, with a WHOLE fossil record which must reflect the life that has existed on earth, there is no reason why that record would hide all of the transitionals of evolution. 

 

 

 

 Popoi: But it's still not that, because not everything that exists leaves behind remains to find. It's "If X existed, we might find evidence of it". Because it's not something that happens every time, finding a fossil of a species does not imply that you will find another fossil of a different species in the same area. The best you can do is a statistical argument that if there were X individuals present and the probability of them ending up fossilized is Y we can expect to find X*Y fossils, but to do that you need to know X and Y, which as far as I know haven't appeared in your arugments yet. 

 

You didn't address the double-standard fallacy, which is the most important part of my argument. Even if you don't expect to find X fossils, it would never, ever, ever follow that you could say; "we would not expect to find any transitional intermediates at all, for bats, pterosaurs, butterflies, ichthyosaurs, dugongs, dolphins, seahorses, jellyfish, bunnies, platypus, trees of all sorts, turtles, apes, and every kind of dinosaur".

 

Popoi the point is, no matter what excuses you come up with, evolutionary transitionals are just species like all others, and if we evolved, transitionals would outnumber the real lifeforms I have just listed, by 10 to 1. Think about it, if there are 500 basic dinosaur kinds and they MUST have each evolved from an ancestor, even if we only say each needs say 5 transitions, which is immensely generous of me logically, then that would mean 2500 transitionals for dinosaurs had to evolve between the permian or thereabouts, and the jurassic, and there are 500 dinosaur basic kinds.

 

So 2500 transitionals, 500 basic dino kinds. We find the dinos, we find ZERO intermediates. Or are you saying dinosaurs didn't evolve? If pterosaurs/pterodactyls and bats had to evolve from quadrupeds that walk on all fours, are you saying there wouldn't be any intermediate stages between walking on all fours and flying? How many stages would have to occur? I'm generous, let's say 5 major stages, and the same for things going from being terrestrial to sea-dwelling or vice-versa. Add them up, the maths is very easy, very soon you end up with many more transitionals that would have had to exist but have never been found. 

 

Is that a realistic prediction of evolution?

 

You're determined to find a way out for evolution but there just isn't one, to only ever find the completed and real lifeforms they CLAIM evolved leaves a person of logical understanding with supreme confidence that evolution simply did not happen. That is the best explanation.

[popoi 1,078]

Now this is an example of a false analogy. In this analogy I would predict you have more chance of finding a penny, and the 1000 pennies would represent the transitionals but you haven't given a reason why there would be so many pennies. That's your error - there is no SPECIAL reason why we would treat evolutionary forms as different from real lifeforms that show up in the fossils.  

They aren’t being treated differently. We should expect to find them with a probability that depends on the individual’s likelihood to be fossilized and the number of individuals in that species. You have no basis to assume those factors will be the same for two different species, and so no reason to expect we should find as many of one as the other.

 

 

Think about it - no matter what argument you come up with, you still have to argue that ALL evolutionary forms would have value X, but real lifeforms would not, because ALL of the intermediates are missing. 

I should point out that I don’t buy the argument that there are no transitional at all, for some of the reasons piasan mentioned above. I’m not that interested in arguing that point since I don’t expect it to be productive.

 

  

So what circumstance can you imagine where only evolutionary forms would happen to be missing?

As I said above, if punctuated equilibrium is right and most evolutionary change occurs in small populations where changes can propagate more quickly, we would expect most of our fossils to come from the large genetically stable populations rather than small the small unstable ones where most of the changes are happening.

 

 

Individual organisms are forms, when I say, "form" I simply mean an organism you find in the fossil, of a form that tells you the anatomy. You just don't get what I mean, that's all that's happening here Popoi.

You say this, but you seem to make the same mistake below when you talk about “2500 transitionalsâ€. You can make up some numbers about how many species would have to exist, but you don’t seem to have any basis to determine how many members of those species were around to be fossilized.

  

 

No, this is a second question-begging-epithet from you. "another" implies there was a mistake to begin with, which thus far you have not shown, let alone a second error.

You’ve got a lot of nerve complaining about question begging epithets when you’ve spent this entire discussion talking about “real speciesâ€. Are you familiar with the psychological concept of projection?

 

 

Popoi the point is, no matter what excuses you come up with, evolutionary transitionals are just species like all others, and if we evolved, transitionals would outnumber the real lifeforms I have just listed, by 10 to 1. Think about it, if there are 500 basic dinosaur kinds and they MUST have each evolved from an ancestor, even if we only say each needs say 5 transitions, which is immensely generous of me logically, then that would mean 2500 transitionals for dinosaurs had to evolve between the permian or thereabouts, and the jurassic, and there are 500 dinosaur basic kinds.

 

So 2500 transitionals, 500 basic dino kinds. We find the dinos, we find ZERO intermediates. Or are you saying dinosaurs didn't evolve? If pterosaurs/pterodactyls and bats had to evolve from quadrupeds that walk on all fours, are you saying there wouldn't be any intermediate stages between walking on all fours and flying? How many stages would have to occur? I'm generous, let's say 5 major stages, and the same for things going from being terrestrial to sea-dwelling or vice-versa. Add them up, the maths is very easy, very soon you end up with many more transitionals that would have had to exist but have never been found.

Let’s see some maths then. How many individual organisms would have to exist in that transition period? How likely are they to fossilize? How many fossils should we find? Be sure to support your figures with evidence.

[Dave 25]

Let’s see some maths then. How many individual organisms would have to exist in that transition period? How likely are they to fossilize? How many fossils should we find? Be sure to support your figures with evidence.

 

I recommend "Not by Chance" by Lee Spetner. A good summary of the book can be viewed at http://www.windowview.org/sci/pgs/06chance.html. There is plenty of maths there.

 

The basic answer to your questions is: No chance of there being enough fossilized evidence to support something that is an impossibility to begin with.

[mike the wiz 1,210]

I guess at the end of the day anyone is able to say, "somehow X could have happened." We could continue to argue in circles. I think the evidence is the lack of it, like if someone says at the time of the crime they were some place else P and place P had CCTV and they said they were in an area where the CCTV is active, and they were not on the CCTV but everyone else that claims to be at place P was on the CCTV, it's a double standard and contradiction if the police were to say; "well, although everyone else who says they were in location P, were on the CCTV recording and you were not, we are going to say that somehow you were there, and somehow took a path out of the CCTV's shot, an expert has shown that if you had somersaulted into the shopping centre at a specific angle then done the splits, coughed three times and whistled dixie, that you wouldn't show up on the CCTV, so you are free to go and are no longer a suspect."

 

 

Popoi, I don't see a point in going in circles. You are entitled to believe that happened if you want to, and ultimately it's a personal decision. My job is to provide an argument to the best of my ability, and those who have an ear to hear may hear, and those who do not, do not. You don't hear nor will acknowledge that anything I say has validity so I am not going to try to convince you of that which you are so determined to not be convinced of. I've tried to show that what I have said is accurate deduction. I think I have. You will say I haven't obviously.....and, "cest la vie", is my answer. (Captain Kirk, - The Search For Spock)

 

I also have an abscess in my tooth and have been in a lot of pain and misery the last few days so I am out of debate for now. The guru can laugh at me now, and the Piousaint too. But it's no sale, for Popoi the seller-man because you can't circumvent logical rules to suit your belief in evo.

[popoi 1,078]

I guess at the end of the day anyone is able to say, "somehow X could have happened." We could continue to argue in circles. I think the evidence is the lack of it, like if someone says at the time of the crime they were some place else P and place P had CCTV and they said they were in an area where the CCTV is active, and they were not on the CCTV but everyone else that claims to be at place P was on the CCTV, it's a double standard and contradiction if the police were to say; "well, although everyone else who says they were in location P, were on the CCTV recording and you were not, we are going to say that somehow you were there, and somehow took a path out of the CCTV's shot, an expert has shown that if you had somersaulted into the shopping centre at a specific angle then done the splits, coughed three times and whistled dixie, that you wouldn't show up on the CCTV, so you are free to go and are no longer a suspect."[/font]

We’re going around in circles because you keep making the same analogy that’s flawed for the same reasons. We know for a fact that the fossil record doesn’t form anything close to a complete record of things that have lived. There aren’t even enough individual fossils of some species to form a stable breeding population, much less an entire evolutionary history. The CCTV doesn’t show everyone. It’s full of static, it cuts out completely a lot of the time, and there are a bunch of tapes missing. It shouldn’t surprise you that we have plenty of evidence of Walt the security guard, but that a lot of people who only visited the place once or twice don’t show up.

 

Popoi, I don't see a point in going in circles.

There isn’t if your only responses to “Here’s why you’re wrong†are “You don’t understand, let me restate†and “Well I guess you’re entitled to your wrong opinion, I’m leavingâ€.

[mike the wiz 1,210]

 

 

Popoi: The CCTV doesn’t show everyone. It’s full of static, it cuts out completely a lot of the time, and there are a bunch of tapes missing. It shouldn’t surprise you that we have plenty of evidence of Walt the security guard, but that a lot of people who only visited the place once or twice don’t show up.

 

It just doesn't stack up. You can't get the picture in your head. Life on earth would include everything that had evolved into the things we do have. The history of the fossil record would be a history of evolution, by and large.

 

Think about it, more evolution had to happen, than the lifeforms we do have.

 

So your thinking is demonstrably wrong, because there had been more evolution than completed forms, as everything that had to evolve to fly, had to go through a transitional lineage, everything that walked, or went from swimming to walking or walking to swimming, whatever the case, even if the fossil record is so incomplete that it is only 5% of the history of life, because the transitionals would be so great in number, what are the chances of the 5% containing none of them but only containing the completed forms?

 

My answer is; LOL!

 

If we have 250 blue balls in a bag, and 50 red, and the 250 blue are the transitionals and the 50 red are the real lifeforms we have, be it horses, humans, jellyfish, whatever, then if you shake the bag and pick out 5% (12.5 balls but we shall pick 12 out), what are the chances they would all be red? If we instead take a portion of the balls and put them into separate bags, and you have 12 bags, what are the chances the 12 balls you pick will all be red? Because if everything on earth evolved, then that means the evolutionary transitionals would DROWN the real life forms.

 

So your argument just isn't valid, you're saying an incomplete record would only show us, "not evolutionary intermediates", but there is no reason why a percentage of the record would only yield the completed forms.

 

Even though the fossil record is an incomplete record, to whatever extent, the point is, each layer of rock is a portion of the history of earth according to evolution theory. So X rocks are from the permian, showing permian history, (a portion of it), and P rocks are from the cambrian, showing a portion of it. And Z rocks are from the quarternary, showing a portion of it. So even if they are incomplete, that would change the CCTV analogy to portions of time. So for example, the CCTV recording would only show 5 tenths of a second of a ten minute portion of video then blank for 3 seconds, then show another eight tenths, then blank for 6 seconds. Are you saying that if ten people that all claim to have been in that shopping area at that time, all claimed to be there in that ten minutes and there is no escaping the CCTV, that it is reasonable that we should expect to see portions of video with all nine people on it when we pause the recording to see what was captured, but it is not reasonable to expect to see the suspect?

 

Are you saying that the rocks that contain portions of life's history, each and every era, should be expected to only show the things evolution claims evolved but none of the evolution itself? 

 

So when I say let's drop it as we're going in circles, what I really mean is, you just don't get why there is no rational reason nor any physical reason why evolution would be hidden because even if the fossil record is incomplete that would not get evolution off the hook, we would expect to see more evolution than we would the things it supposedly evolved, as with the balls-in-bags analogy.

 

It's the percentage that counts. The portion the rocks record are a portion of history according to long age bunkem, remember, so no matter what your argument is, your argument will always be tantamount to saying that rocks would hide evolution completely, but not the forms we claim evolved.

 

It just doesn't follow and you are the one arguing argumentum ad nauseam because you haven't refuted my argument, you are just repeating the incompleteness theory.

 

The incompleteness theory is basically circular reasoning, because the only reason evolutionists argue the fossils are incomplete is because the transitionals are missing. So then you get a circle, like this;

"but how do you know the transitionals are missing?"

Answer; "because the fossils are incomplete"

"But how do you know the fossils are incomplete?"

Answer; "Because the transitionals are missing." 

"but how do you know the transitionals are missing?"

Answer; "because the fossils are incomplete"

"But how do you know the fossils are incomplete?"

Answer; "Because the transitionals are missing." 

 

Percentage-wise, even though the fossil record is incomplete in some sense in that it can't contain all history, this is logically inconsequential, because the rocks are supposed to be a portion of the history of life on earth. So then it is like saying, "I only find the remains of meat on plates in this restaurant, even though I take a small portion of each course. I take a small portion of the starter, main, pudding, and extra-pudding, and it is all meat."

 

Think about it with intelligence, Popoi, if you take even 1% of each course, you would still expect to get more than meat.

 

In the same way, no matter how small you try to shrink the fossil record, it doesn't work. The only relevance of the fossil record being incomplete is that it might hide individual kinds of animal and so arguing from silence has been proven wrong time and time again. But one thing is for sure, where they have previously assumed grass and mammals were not yet on the scene, grass and mammals have shown up. Where they assumed pine trees were not on the scene pine trees showed up. (Wollemi pine)

 

What is my point? My point is, because of the incomplete fossil record, it is true certain individual species may not be found but science had proven that hundreds of species have later been found, now guess what those species turn out to be? Not intermediates, for example a transitional that was evolving into a bat is never found, no but rather the same forms that have always existed turn up. Recently they found a giant platypus but not the thing that evolved into a giant platypus. Prediction; they will continue to find either extinct new forms we never knew about, or known forms, but they will not find any intermediate forms because it's clear they simply never existed.

 

CONCLUSION; Any way you cut the deck you're playing a weak hand.

[popoi 1,078]

he history of the fossil record would be a history of evolution, by and large.

It is, you’re just not happy with the level of detail.

 

Think about it, more evolution had to happen, than the lifeforms we do have.[/font]

That’s not very surprising when the record is unreliable. Way more people come to my house than you would expect if all you were looking at is the people who wrote their name on the wall.

 

So your thinking is demonstrably wrong, because there had been more evolution than completed forms, as everything that had to evolve to fly, had to go through a transitional lineage, everything that walked, or went from swimming to walking or walking to swimming, whatever the case, even if the fossil record is so incomplete that it is only 5% of the history of life, because the transitionals would be so great in number, what are the chances of the 5% containing none of them but only containing the completed forms?

There is no such thing as an incomplete form. Whether we should find something that you would count as transitional depends entirely on how many such individuals existed to be fossilized, and how likely those individuals were to be fossilized. You haven’t presented any basis whatsoever other than your own assumptions for what those numbers would be. You have no idea how many balls are in the bag, but you’re somehow sure we should have found a red one by now.

 

Even though the fossil record is an incomplete record, to whatever extent, the point is, each layer of rock is a portion of the history of earth according to evolution theory. So X rocks are from the permian, showing permian history, (a portion of it), and P rocks are from the cambrian, showing a portion of it. And Z rocks are from the quarternary, showing a portion of it. So even if they are incomplete, that would change the CCTV analogy to portions of time. So for example, the CCTV recording would only show 5 tenths of a second of a ten minute portion of video then blank for 3 seconds, then show another eight tenths, then blank for 6 seconds. Are you saying that if ten people that all claim to have been in that shopping area at that time, all claimed to be there in that ten minutes and there is no escaping the CCTV, that it is reasonable that we should expect to see portions of video with all nine people on it when we pause the recording to see what was captured, but it is not reasonable to expect to see the suspect?

There you go again, assuming the record is reliable. There is escaping fossilization. Most things that have lived have managed to escape it. That one thing was fossilized does not imply that another thing around at the same time should be. It’s a statistical question that’s based entirely on the individual’s likelihood to be fossilized, and the number of individuals around to fossilize.

 

So when I say let's drop it as we're going in circles, what I really mean is, you just don't get why there is no rational reason nor any physical reason why evolution would be hidden because even if the fossil record is incomplete that would not get evolution off the hook, we would expect to see more evolution than we would the things it supposedly evolved, as with the balls-in-bags analogy.

I get why you think that, but the assumptions you’re making are baseless, and you refuse to support them with anything other than back of the napkin math that reiterates those assumptions.

 

 

It just doesn't follow and you are the one arguing argumentum ad nauseam because you haven't refuted my argument, you are just repeating the incompleteness theory.

 

The incompleteness theory is basically circular reasoning, because the only reason evolutionists argue the fossils are incomplete is because the transitionals are missing. So then you get a circle, like this;

"but how do you know the transitionals are missing?"

Answer; "because the fossils are incomplete"

"But how do you know the fossils are incomplete?"

Answer; "Because the transitionals are missing." 

We know that the fossil record is incomplete because we know how fossilization happens, and we know that most things that die don’t die in the proper conditions to be fossilized.

 

We know that some periods of evolutionary history for some lineages are missing because we have parts of the chain but not others.

 

Percentage-wise, even though the fossil record is incomplete in some sense in that it can't contain all history, this is logically inconsequential, because the rocks are supposed to be a portion of the history of life on earth. So then it is like saying, "I only find the remains of meat on plates in this restaurant, even though I take a small portion of each course. I take a small portion of the starter, main, pudding, and extra-pudding, and it is all meat."

Meat is more likely to leave behind evidence than pudding because meat has inedible (or undesirable) parts, whereas pudding is entirely the same all the way through. The answer to “Why would the remains hide one thing but not the other†is that the two things are not the same. You can’t just assume that two things should leave behind the same evidence, you have to show it to be so.

 

 

In the same way, no matter how small you try to shrink the fossil record, it doesn't work. The only relevance of the fossil record being incomplete is that it might hide individual kinds of animal and so arguing from silence has been proven wrong time and time again. But one thing is for sure, where they have previously assumed grass and mammals were not yet on the scene, grass and mammals have shown up. Where they assumed pine trees were not on the scene pine trees showed up. (Wollemi pine)

Hang on, what’s this?

 

The only relevance of the fossil record being incomplete is that it might hide individual kinds of animal

Why might the fossil record hide individual kinds of animal, mike?

[Blitzking 1,998]

It is, you’re just not happy with the level of detail.

 

That’s not very surprising when the record is unreliable. Way more people come to my house than you would expect if all you were looking at is the people who wrote their name on the wall.

 

There is no such thing as an incomplete form. Whether we should find something that you would count as transitional depends entirely on how many such individuals existed to be fossilized, and how likely those individuals were to be fossilized. You haven’t presented any basis whatsoever other than your own assumptions for what those numbers would be. You have no idea how many balls are in the bag, but you’re somehow sure we should have found a red one by now.

 

There you go again, assuming the record is reliable. There is escaping fossilization. Most things that have lived have managed to escape it. That one thing was fossilized does not imply that another thing around at the same time should be. It’s a statistical question that’s based entirely on the individual’s likelihood to be fossilized, and the number of individuals around to fossilize.

 

I get why you think that, but the assumptions you’re making are baseless, and you refuse to support them with anything other than back of the napkin math that reiterates those assumptions.

 

 

We know that the fossil record is incomplete because we know how fossilization happens, and we know that most things that die don’t die in the proper conditions to be fossilized.

 

We know that some periods of evolutionary history for some lineages are missing because we have parts of the chain but not others.

 

Meat is more likely to leave behind evidence than pudding because meat has inedible (or undesirable) parts, whereas pudding is entirely the same all the way through. The answer to “Why would the remains hide one thing but not the other†is that the two things are not the same. You can’t just assume that two things should leave behind the same evidence, you have to show it to be so.

 

 

Hang on, what’s this?

 

Why might the fossil record hide individual kinds of animal, mike?

 

"There is no such thing as an incomplete form."

 

Oh that is really convenient, If the Mindless MYO Mud to Man Myth were to be true we should expect Lots of incomplete forms, but since we find ZERO that means that these is "no such thing"..  Making it up as you go along?  That's the great advantage about a science fiction novel about "long ago and far away" lots of artistic license.  After all, without a time machine, who on Earth could ever prove you wrong?

 

"We know that some periods of evolutionary history for some lineages are missing because we have parts of the chain but not others."

 

Which lineages are those?

[mike the wiz 1,210]

I think Popeye has caught anti-analogyitis. 

 

Popoi, if I said to you that snooker balls are different from pool balls, and by analogy I said, "look, apples and oranges are both fruit but they are different", if you complained, "but oranges contain liquid and pool balls don't", then you don't actually know what the purpose of an analogy is.

 

There is no point in refuting analogies as such because they either convey a point or they don't. That's really their only relevance. So then faulting an analogy won't mean you have faulted the argument against evolution.

 

With the courses of meals, the only thing I meant to convey, was that you wouldn't expect to find meat-remains for a dessert dish. It's not the best analogy perhaps, a better one was the example of a chef cooking a meal and at each STAGE of the meal, you check on his progress and only find complete meals.

 

Imagine you checked the starter four seconds after he started making it and it was complete, then you checked it five minutes later and it was complete. Then you checked the main course two minutes into him starting to cook it and it was complete.

 

This comparison is like the fossil record, in that the fossil record is a small portion of history, allegedly, but like the meal we don't see any intermediate stages, we only ever see complete meals.

[popoi 1,078]

Popoi, if I said to you that snooker balls are different from pool balls, and by analogy I said, "look, apples and oranges are both fruit but they are different", if you complained, "but oranges contain liquid and pool balls don't", then you don't actually know what the purpose of an analogy is.

Even your analogy for the analogies you make is bad.

 

The content of your analogies is relevant because you keep trying to smuggle in the idea of present and consistent evidence where it doesn't belong, which is important to your claim of a double standard. "The things in your analogy do not work like the thing you are making an analogy to in a way that is impacts the conclusion you want to draw" seems like a pretty legitimate criticism.

 

There is no point in refuting analogies as such because they either convey a point or they don't. That's really their only relevance. So then faulting an analogy won't mean you have faulted the argument against evolution.

Feel free to respond to any of the parts of that post where I addressed your argument directly.

 

With the courses of meals, the only thing I meant to convey, was that you wouldn't expect to find meat-remains for a dessert dish. It's not the best analogy perhaps, a better one was the example of a chef cooking a meal and at each STAGE of the meal, you check on his progress and only find complete meals.

Still a bad example. Chefs don't always cook meals through a series of gradual changes to meals that are edible at each stage. I'm sure you'd be able to rationalize finding the various stages of a banana split as "Well that's not an intermediate stage between a banana and a banana split, it's a perfectly edible banana with some nuts sprinkled on it. Anyway why didn't I see a banana with nuts and hot fudge but no cherry like I would expect to?"

[wibble 201]

Prediction; they will continue to find either extinct new forms we never knew about, or known forms, but they will not find any intermediate forms because it's clear they simply never existed.

We’ve already found a multitude of intermediate forms so it seems a bit bizarre to make a prediction that doesn’t even get off the starting block.

 

I think your problem is that you are picturing evolution in a very one dimensional way. Your objections that there is a lack of transitionals relative to “complete†forms in the fossil record would only carry any weight if evolution of a particular lineage always proceeded at a consistent rate while at each and every point on that line the representative species were equally abundant and widespread. In other words you are only looking at this from a purely temporal point of view when there is a spatial element as well.

 

Clearly, considering the special conditions required for fossilization coupled with the low liklehood of the specimen surviving erosional processes and actually being found we are more likely to find a particular fossil if the species was abundant and widely distributed.

 

Take your frequently stated example of the bat. Why do we only find fully formed bats you cry and no non flying ‘pre bats’ ? Well once evolution hits upon a highly advantageous formula (as would be the ability to fly, clearly) then it is likely that that first form would subsequently radiate into many bat species taking advantage of different niches, becoming widespread and abundant. However, the ‘pre bat’ may only have been a local population in a geographical limited area and/or adapted to a habitat not conducive to fossilisation like a forest. So logically, the “pre bat†is much less likely to be found as a fossil than the later “fully formed†bat of many species over a large range in different habitats. Still, very few of these will have been found as fossils but those found would appear to have no precursors due to statistical probability.

 

Clearly, examples of groups that are diverse, abundant and widespread are much more likely to be encountered than groups with opposite qualities ! Your wrong assumption is that everything through evolutionary history has been equally likely to be fossilised and found. That coupled with denial of the many intermediates that have been found, and denial of the robustness of our dating methods that shows the evolutionary pattern of first emergence of major groups in the fossil record allows you to remain in your creationist bubble.

[what if 1,648]

The absence of transitional forms between established species has traditionally been explained as a fault of an imperfect record, an argument first advanced by Charles Darwin. The accumulation of sediments and the entrapment and fossilization of animal bones is, at best, a capricious process: as a result, geologists are familiar with the difficulties of reconstructing past events. According to the traditional position, therefore, if sedimentation and fossilization did indeed encapsulate a complete record of prehistory, then it would reveal the postulated transitional organisms. But it isn't and it doesn't.

- Science, vol. 210 no. 4472 pp: 883-887

 

the above quote came from a 1980 conference on macroevolution.

[Mike Summers 454]

A thought experiment to do. Look at any human being and determine how many brothers, sisters, and offssppring they have. Do this for 50 people. Now ask those same people to verify your predictitons. Compare your predictions with their answers. Now you know the problem of claiming that one fossil is related to another. Evo makes a lot of assumptions like this and so it requires great faith to beleve what they claim as intermediates is not just another "just so" story (Unless evos are peychic?) LOL
 

[mike the wiz 1,210]

 

 

Wibble: We’ve already found a multitude of intermediate forms so it seems a bit bizarre to make a prediction that doesn’t even get off the starting block.

 

Well to start with you need to learn the difference between a prediction and a deduction, so this doesn't bode well for the rest of your post. But talking about predictions, since if you predict both outcomes your theory is unfalsifiable, which prediction would you go with? Would you say evolution would predict finding intermediates, had we never found the fossil record until now, or would you predict we wouldn't? In this post you have argued both, meaning there is no way to infer that evolution did not happen.

 

I specifically have referred to intermediate forms so that you must provide them. You can't simply say they are there, you have to show how they are intermediate. That is to say, you have to show the intermediate steps for how a leg became a wing, for bats, pterodactyls, winged beetles, pterosaurs, dragonflies, etc...are you saying you can show the intermediates, that were between leg and wing? Are you saying you can show the intermediates for dugongs that have a cousin with elephants, coming on to land? Are you saying you can show the intermediates for jellyfish and seahorses.

 

To STATE you have found a, "multitude" of intermediates, means you can show how exapting features became what they presently are, meaning you can show how ears became ears, how legs became legs, wings became wings, eyes became eyes, organs became organs.

 

I should tell you, your claim a, "multitude" of intermediates have been found, will not be supported by showing one or two examples, but by showing multitudinous examples.

 

 

 

Wibble: I think your problem is that you are picturing evolution in a very one dimensional way. Your objections that there is a lack of transitionals relative to “complete†forms in the fossil record would only carry any weight if evolution of a particular lineage always proceeded at a consistent rate while at each and every point on that line the representative species were equally abundant and widespread.

 

Like I said to Popoi, if you reason it this way that means that because they are absent (which you now seemingly tacitly admit, now that you are arguing they shouldn't be there it seems) then you have to treat intermediates as different from real lifeforms. That is to say, logically your argument is now tantamount to saying that, "all the missing intermediates would be low in number, but all the real lifeforms wouldn't be, meaning we would only find real lifeforms in the fossils".

 

There is no escaping the logic, because deductively we have real forms in the fossils, and then there are absent intermediate forms. They don't exist, you can't show how one form became what it is. Not one solid case.

 

 

 

Wibble: Take your frequently stated example of the bat. Why do we only find fully formed bats you cry and no non flying ‘pre bats’ ? Well once evolution hits upon a highly advantageous formula (as would be the ability to fly, clearly) then it is likely that that first form would subsequently radiate into many bat species taking advantage of different niches, becoming widespread and abundant. However, the ‘pre bat’ may only have been a local population in a geographical limited area and/or adapted to a habitat not conducive to fossilisation like a forest. So logically, the “pre bat†is much less likely to be found as a fossil than the later “fully formed†bat of many species over a large range in different habitats. Still, very few of these will have been found as fossils but those found would appear to have no precursors due to statistical probability.

 

This would also be the case for everything that allegedly evolved wings, they have no intermediates. I have heard this argument before, but the problem is you have to say that every real lifeform is highly successful, but never the intermediate stages, and since we do have examples of the stages BEFORE the intermediate stages which were also highly successful by your reasoning, then logically this means evolution chose to leave a highly successful place with high numbers, take a path towards low numbers and unsuccess then when they turn back into real lifeforms that actually exist, become successful again. And this must apply to all intermediates.

 

Yes, yet another story for why evolution is somehow true without any evidence it is. Logically a weak story, a very tenuous case because your speculation is simply that - speculation that could be regarded as mental gymnastics.

 

 

 

Wibble: Clearly, examples of groups that are diverse, abundant and widespread are much more likely to be encountered than groups with opposite qualities ! Your wrong assumption is that everything through evolutionary history has been equally likely to be fossilised and found

 

 

So you're saying every real lifeform is "diverse, abundant and widespread" and all the intermediate were not? And how do you test this notion? For example, can you show evidence that a pre-bat form lived for a short while? Oh I forget how can you, for there is no evidence a pre-bat existed, so I could also equally conjecture that it wasn't a pre-bat but was some sort of spaghetti monster.

 

Before you say, "that's unfair", why is it? Think about it - you have zero proof a pre-bat existed and I have zero proof a spaghetti monster existed, so why can't I argue that the way to become a bat is to become a spaghetti monster as it makes evolution easier to reach a successful stage?

 

 

 

Wibble: That coupled with denial of the many intermediates that have been found, and denial of the robustness of our dating methods that shows the evolutionary pattern of first emergence of major groups in the fossil record allows you to remain in your creationist bubble.

 

 

Well that's twice you claimed intermediates, I expect your multitudinous examples in your next post then. Can you show the world the intermediate stages for wings, not from artwork but from the multitude of evidence you have claimed? Oh I forget, you don't have multitidinous examples because those stages are not "diverse, abundant and widespread"

 

Heads it's evolution if it's not there, as only intermediates aren't successful

Tails the intermediates are there despite no examples of intermediate stages. 

 

 

 

So you have to show how legs became legs. Not once but for everything that had to evolve them. You have to show how wings became wings for all things that evolved them, and vice versa, etc....you have to show how a seahorse evolved from a fish since fish came first as a rudimentary vertebrate, etc..to prove it is an intermediate stage, it has to show how a feature was in no uncertain terms, becoming another feature we presently have. So for example with an ichthyosaur you have to show a stage between the correct fins, and limbs. The popular examples have all been refuted, and it can be shown those examples don't really "count" because of what Blitzking said, you actually have to show how the anatomy DEFINITELY was derived from a previous form. If you don't it's just speculation that it was an intermediate, but maths shows us a few things that may look like them, out of a world of millions of species, is expected, but that those forms won't really show a definite ancestral derivation of anatomy.

 

For example;

 

 

 

Indeed, Tiktaalik’s fin was not connected to the main skeleton, so could not have supported its weight on land. The discoverers claim that this could have helped to prop up the body as the fish moved along a water bottom,³ but evolutionists had similar high hopes for the coelacanth fin. However, when a living coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was discovered in 1938, the fins turned out not to be used for walking but for deft manÅ“uvering when swimming.[T]here are functional challenges to Darwinian interpretations. For instance, in fish the head, shoulder girdle, and circulatory systems constitute a single mechanical unit. The shoulder girdle is firmly connected to the vertebral column and is an anchor for the muscles involved in lateral undulation of the body, mouth opening, heart contractions, and timing of the blood circulation through the gills.⁶However, in amphibians the head is not connected to the shoulder girdle, in order to allow effective terrestrial feeding and locomotion. Evolutionists must suppose that the head became incrementally detached from the shoulder girdle, in a step-wise fashion, with functional intermediates at every stage. However, a satisfactory account of how this might have happened has never been given.’

 

Wibble, there are none mate. I don't mind if you accept evolution theory but don't pretend there are intermediates unless you can show me your multitudinous examples AND how they must be anatomically derived. In the above example, they don't show they are anatomically derived so it is merely SPECULATED that tiktaalik was an intermediate, because a happy coincidence with some strange fish made for living a particular way, gives a superficial appearance-of-evo because of mosaic features (plesiomorphies from either tetrapod or fish but not intermediate between fish and tetrapod). These aren't intermediates, you simply SAY they are.

 

Like Mike said, if it's just another "just so" story of how intermediates have somehow not been captured in time, then we might as well also accept superman-theory; (message one)

 

http://evolutionfairytale.com/forum/index.php?/topic/6367-comparing-my-friends-superman-claims-with-evolution/

 

That's the problem - you could invent any excuse for evolution but the fact it doesn't turn up in the fossils, is anything but, "statistically probable". Nor can it's absence be the predicted evidence for if we enter that kind of weak conjecture then it isn't even science any more for I could argue the same for spaghetti monsters filling the gaps, and reason some imaginative reason why we wouldn't expect to see them if they had existed.

 

Imagine if I said a Martian war destroyed Mars leaving no evidence there were ever any martians and gave a clever explanation of why we would find exactly what we would see, that being nothing. Is, "nothing" really the best evidence of Martian existence? In the same way, is, "nothing" really good evidence for evolution? If we accept such tenuous ad-hoc reasoning solely invented as an escape for the fact the predicted evidence is not there, then really I have shown we could also accept any absurd thing. For example your story that intermediates were not diverse and successful, you state that as though it is a scientific fact but nobody has ever tested it. It is like me saying this; "spaghetti monsters with slow metabolisms could still exist because we know from real life forms things with slow metabolism exist."

 

Goodness grief, how does that make a pre-bat a reality? There is no functional stage you can show for any bat between limbs and wings, without selection culling the freak as soon as it lost it's claw. 

 

Lol

[what if 1,648]

the pattern we were told to find for the last 120 years doesn't exist.

- niles eldridge.

 

eldrideg reminded everyone at the meeting of what many fossil hunters have recognized as they trace the history of species through successive layers of sediments.

species simply appear at any given point in geologic time, persist largely unchanged for a few million years and then disappear.

there are very few examples - some would say none - of one species shading gradually into another.

 

the popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four toed fox like creatures to today's much larger one toed horse has long been known to be wrong.

- boyce rensberger, the houston chronicle nov. 5 1980, reprinted from the new york times.

 

here is what gould said about the above article by boyce:

there were some "good and responsible commentaries in the general press" and he specifically mentions an article by Boyce Rensberger in the New York Times.