Summations Only

Even when the evidence is right in front of him as in Message 235:

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Here are two more pictures of the Pelycodus fossil data, now with some additional Copelemur fossil data from a neighboring ecology:

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These show the "gradualistic view" on the left, and the "punctuational view" on the right. Both show the data is the same: the horizontal bars represent the size distribution of the fossils in each layer, and these size distributions are seen to evolve from one generation to the next, from level to level, even when only size is measured (there are other differences as well, but this is a convenient way to document the data).

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Note that the only "interpretations" here are how the lines are drawn, not where the data is plotted.

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We could also talk about horse evolution:http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/fhc/Stratmap1.htm

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Hyracotherium ... represents the oldest known horse. It had a primitive short face, with eye sockets in the middle and a short diastema (the space between the front teeth and the cheek teeth).

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Although it has low-crowned teeth, we see the beginnings of the characteristic horse-like ridges on the molars.

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Orohippus ... is found in the middle Eocene of Wyoming, about 2 million years after the first appearance of Hyracotherium. The two genera coexisted during the Eocene, although Orohippus fossils are not as numerous or as geographically widespread as those of Hyracotherium.

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Orohippus was slightly larger than Hyracotherium, but shared its generally primitive postcranial skeletal structure. For example, as in humans, the lower limb bones of the forelimb (the radius and ulna) of Hyracotherium and Orohippus are distinct and unfused. This is the primitive condition for mammals, and permits rotational movement at the elbow and wrist joints. This condition is retained by animals such as small forest dwellers who must maneuver over uneven terrain. In its postcranial skeleton, Orohippus differs from Hyracotherium by having more enlarged middle digits on its fore and hind feet, and by displaying a complete loss of the first and fifth (thumb and pinkie) toes of the hindlimb.

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That is basically the amount of evolutionary difference between punctuation events where we see the new genera (not species btw) "appear suddenly" while the old genera still exists and then lasting longer in later strata.So does Eliyahu say there is no evolutionary relationship between these genera? ... and what would be the basis for that assertion?And that is just the start of the horses ...

Not a problem for people that understand what evolution is in biological terms rather than in creationist fantasy.It appears that Eliyahoo thinks that evolution is either very very slow (his evolution = gradualism statement) or very very fast (his evolve a hamster from a cat statement) ... and thus it is very evident that he doesn't understand the biology of evolutionary processes (and is unwilling to learn, like most creationists). He has confused many things with apparent completely careless abandon, things that even grade school education should have covered (at least here in the US). And he is also confused about "proof" and science and basic logic, and seems to think that if a theory is not proven by the evidence then it is disproven ... a rather uncredible leap of faith.

Which it is by the definition of the process of evolution: It is not equivocation Mike, rather it is distinguishing between the process of evolution and the theory of evolution. Equivocation would try to confuse the two. Nice to see you again.

In any one fixed length. Insertions change the lengths, result: unlimited. Try again: where are the limitations? So you didn't read the article you referenced. One simple method is duplication of an existing gene and then mutations to alter it to new use while the original continues the original use.Note this also adds to the overall length and complexity of the DNA ... By modification of existing traits via mutation and selection. I provided a sample in Message 63:

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When we look at fossils like the Therapsids we not only see a progression from reptile jaw and ear to mammal jaw and ear, we see several intermediate forms where the jaw is double jointed -- one at the reptile location and one at the new mammal location. Functional intermediates.

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The reptiles, as we have noted, have one bone in the middle ear and several bones in the lower jaw, and mammals have three bones in the middle ear and only one bone in the lower jaw. On the other hand, the jaw joints in the reptile are formed from different bones than they are in the mammalian skull. ...

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... it can be clearly seen in a remarkable series of fossils from the Triassic therapsids. The earliest therapsids show the typical reptilian type of jaw joint, with the articular bone in the jaw firmly attached to the quadrate bone in the skull. In later fossils from the same group, however, the quadrate-articular bones have become smaller, and the dentary and squamosal bones have become larger and moved closer together. This trend reaches its apex in a group of therapsids known as cynodonts, of which the genus Probainognathus is a representative. Probainognathus possessed characteristics of both reptile and mammal, and this transitional aspect was shown most clearly by the fact that it had TWO jaw joints--one reptilian, one mammalian: ...

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In a slightly later group, known as the ictidosaurians, the mammalian part of the double jaw joint seen in Probainognathus was strengthened, while the old reptilian part was beginning to become reduced in size. In describing a member of this group known as Diarthrognathus, paleontologists Colbert and Morales point out: "The most interesting and fascinating point in the morphology of the ictidosaurians (at least, as seen in Diarthrognathus) was the double jaw articulation. In this animal, not only was the ancient reptilian joint between a reduced quadrate and articular still present, but also the new mammalian joint between the squamosal and dentary bones had come into functional being. ...

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Thus, the fossil record demonstrates, during the transition from therapsid reptile to mammal, various bones in the skull slowly migrated together to form a second functional jaw joint, and the now-superfluous original jaw bones were reduced in size until they formed the three bones in the mammalian middle ear. The reptilian quadrate bone became the mammalian incus, while the articular bone became the malleus. ...

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This is the process of evolution demonstrated in spades in the fossil record.

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Only for those undereducated in evolution or in denial of the evidence.Edited by RAZD, : color

Indeed, there is even a thread on that topic: Transitional Fossils Show Evolution in Process.Fossils are a test of the theory of evolution, each new find has the potential to challenge the theory and none have.

And he was not saying that evolution did not occur, nor was not evident in the fossil record, but that there was stasis observed in many species, that parent species continued to exist after daughter species appeared, and he was comparing punk-eek to gradualism.None of this disproves evolution.Note that this is also the location and timing for the Pelycodus fossil transitions mentioned in Msg 5: falsification by evidence: the fossil record does show evolution:

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When punctuated equilibrium occurs there is an explanation for it, but it isn't a universal occurrence.

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A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus

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The dashed lines show the overall trend. The species at the bottom is Pelycodus ralstoni, but at the top we find two species, Notharctus nunienus and Notharctus venticolus. The two species later became even more distinct, and the descendants of nunienus are now labeled as genus Smilodectes instead of genus Notharctus.

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As you look from bottom to top, you will see that each group has some overlap with what came before. There are no major breaks or sudden jumps. And the form of the creatures was changing steadily.

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oops again eh?

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Seeing as he has continued to repeat falsified claims since the beginning of this thread with no admission or allowance of being invalidated he is either trolling or incapable of understanding falsification. So yeah, a waste of time as far as trying to educate him on the facts and the evidence of reality.But the more he continues the more he shows how bankrupt this creationist type of argument is when dealing with reality.

And that gaps in the fossil record don't invalidate evolution.For instance, Coelacanths were thought to have gone extinct 66 million years ago (during the Cretaceous—Paleogene extinction event), and then modern species were found, the first in 1938 off the east coast of South Africa, and a second species more recently in the Indian Ocean off the shores of Indonesia.Did this group of fishes go extinct and then were re-created? Or is there a 65 million year gap in the fossil record? Have they been in stasis for 65 million years?Nope, the living species are not the same as the prehistoric species -- they have evolved:Coelacanth - Wikipedia

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... Traditionally, the coelacanth was considered a living fossil due to its apparent lack of significant evolution over the past millions of years;[3] and the coelacanth was thought to have evolved into roughly its current form approximately 400 million years ago.[5] However, several recent studies have shown that coelacanth body shapes are much more diverse than is generally said.[6][7][8] In addition, it was shown recently that studies concluding that a slow rate of molecular evolution is linked to morphological conservatism in coelacanths are biased on the a priori hypothesis that these species are living fossils.[9]

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So slow phyletic evolution over 65 million years ... a long period with little significant change.The same can be said for other "living fossils" ... such as crocodilians.Stasis does not mean no evolution, it means selection is towards conservation rather than change, and without significant change in the ecology there is no selection pressure for significant change.

Evolution and SocietyAn historical perspective on the development of the science of evolution ... and how ideas changed as information became available, including how Christian thinking was involved ... Lecture 9 PDF

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Wallace throws down the gauntlet

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The Sarawak Law

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Each species has come into existence coincident in both space and time with a closely allied, pre-existing species

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Alfred Russel Wallace, On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September 1853

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The problem with fossils and creationist thinking is that this law holds for all fossils found to date, regardless of whether or not precise "smoking gun" intermediates are found for new species, ... and creationism just does not explain why this should be so.Evolution explains it. Wallace’s line"

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Biogeography

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Understanding of the biogeography of the region centers on the relationship of ancient sea levels to the continental shelves. Wallace's Line is visible geographically when the continental shelf contours are examined; it can be seen as a deep-water channel that marks the southeastern edge of the Sunda Shelf linking Borneo, Bali, Java, and Sumatra underwater to the mainland of southeastern Asia. Australia is likewise connected via the shallow ocean over the Sahul Shelf to New Guinea; and the related biogeographic boundary known as Lydekker's Line, which separates the eastern edge of Wallacea and the Australian region, has a similar origin.

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During ice age glacial advances, when the ocean levels were up to 120 metres (390 ft) lower, both Asia and Australia were united with what are now islands on their respective continental shelves as continuous land masses, but the deep water between those two large continental shelf areas was, for over 50 million years, a barrier that kept the flora and fauna of Australia separated from those of Asia. Wallacea consists of islands that were not recently connected by dry land to either of the continental land masses, and thus were populated by organisms capable of crossing the straits between islands. "Weber's Line" runs through this transitional area (to the east of centre), at the tipping point between dominance by species of Asian against those of Australian origin.[2]

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The problem with biogeography and creationist thinking is that this geographic distribution applies to living species as well as all fossils found to date ... and creationism just does not explain why this should be so.Evolution explains it.Edited by RAZD, : added wallacea

No, because the discussion goes on without him. His lack of response shows how empty his argument is, while the plethora of responses on so many levels demonstrates the depth of information, evidence and facts that support the theory of evolution in so many different ways.The main audience here is the lurkers, particularly anyone with any lingering doubts about the power of evolution to explain the evidence at every turn.

The "thesis" presented by Eliyahu was essentially three fold: first that major players in the field of evolution and paleontology said that the fossil record showed stasis, second that species appeared suddenly in a manner consistent with creation, and third that the quotes used disproved evolution.None of these claims are true representations of what the fossil record shows.First: stasis.Stasis is a stage in evolution that occurs when there is no selection pressure to change, and the selection pressure then acts to keep the population phenotypes at their average positions. This occurs often when ecologies are stable, but even then evolution is not stalled. One can look at any breeding population and see evolution in process in the mix of variations around those median positions: the population is not monoclonal.Nor is stasis necessarily a result - there is evidence of gradual evolution over 65 million years in the foraminifera fossil record, and almost complete record showing variation over time and speciation events.Second: sudden appearance\creation.Whenever there is a complete record there is no sudden appearance of new species, rather the existing species are seen to branch into new species. When we see the appearance of a new species, there are two factors to note:

1. there is a gap in the fossil record at the beginning of the new species, and
2. there is always a closely related species nearby in both time and geographical location.

We can see how this gap can give the appearance of sudden creation when we look at the fossil record of the Pelycodus:http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/pelycodus.html

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If the fossils at the point of divergence were missing the you would have the sudden appearance of N.Nuniensis beside the existing Pelycodus populations.This second point was made by Wallace:

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The Sarawak Law

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Each species has come into existence coincident in both space and time with a closely allied, pre-existing species

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Alfred Russel Wallace, On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, September 1853

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If such sudden appearance were consistent with creation, then we must needs conclude that the creator was incompetent or dissatisfied with the results and had to keep tinkering and tinkering and tinkering: not a conclusion that most creationists would be comfortable with, imho.Third, quote mines and proof.When each of the quotes used are evaluated in detail by reference to the original papers, it is clear that the authors do not consider stasis to be evidence that evolution does not occur, just that it occurs at different rates at different times. This is especially true when one looks at other articles than the ones used for quote mines:

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Paleobiology, 31(2), 2005, pp. 133—145
The dynamics of evolutionary stasis
Niles Eldredge, John N. Thompson, Paul M. Brakefield, Sergey Gavrilets, David Jablonski, Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Richard E. Lenski, Bruce S. Lieberman, Mark A. McPeek, and William Miller III

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Abstract.The fossil record displays remarkable stasis in many species over long time periods, yet studies of extant populations often reveal rapid phenotypic evolution and genetic differentiation among populations. Recent advances in our understanding of the fossil record and in population genetics and evolutionary ecology point to the complex geographic structure of species being fundamental to resolution of how taxa can commonly exhibit both short-term evolutionary dynamics and long-term stasis.

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And there is a whole "quote mine project" that discusses the misuse of quoted statements like those used by Eliyahu here, many of which are listed, and several showing that the copied "quotes" included typos from creationist sites, demonstrating that these quotes are not original with Eliyahu.The evidence we have shows that fossils do support evolution (see Message 5 for more on foraminifera and pelycodus examples), nor does a gap show lack of evolution (see Message 329 and the large gap in the coelacanth record but evolution still occurred).This alone invalidates the thesis, however there is a final element involved here:The Theory of Evolution is not based on the fossil record, it is based on the observation of the diversity of life in the world as we know it, the observation that the process of evolution and the process of speciation occur, they have been observed, and they are facts: Because such phyletic change in breeding populations is a continuous process, determining when the changes are "sufficient" to be a new species is a subjective observation, and this is frequently called arbitrary speciation. The fossil record is a test of this theory, and thus to use it to disprove the theory one needs to show that fossils contradict the theory, that the fossils cannot be explained by the above processes. Gaps in the fossil record do not do this. New species arising next to existing closely related species, in both time and location, do not do this.The genetic record is another test of this theory, and the fact remains that it is consilient with the fossil record with the formation of nested hierarchies demonstrating how species are related.The argument made by Eliyahu was not supported by any evidence other than blind assertions and copious quote mines that failed to demonstrate his thesis when looked at in detail.The thesis made by Eliyahu is disproven both by copious fossil evidence and by the authors of the quotes when the details of their articles are reviewed.Edited by RAZD, : ..