Quote mining? The Pilbeam quote...

You are having trouble getting the point here. The "missing bits" are the detailed connection of the homonids to the last common ancestor of the extant other apes and ourselves.The connection from primates that creationists agree are NOT human to ourselves is NOT suffering from a similar lack of evidence in the fossil record. It is, of course, not as complete as we would like but it is not the subject being discussed in the quote.Milton did not get clear what was being discussed. This is clear since you are confused by what he is saying.Now, you were also going on about "virtually identical" animals. You've been asked for your position on that after seeing actual pictures. Is it still the same?You were also asked about the genetic similarities implied by the "mutations" comments. You haven't answered that yet either.

But which void was being discussed? I think I asked this before. You have the wrong "void". I would agree that "low" is a good characterisation.However, some 100's of pieces (some excellent --e.g., Lucy) some much less so ( e.g., individual teeth) fit into a dated framework. Each marks a place and only one picture fits over this partial jigsaw puzzle. At this time there is only one conclusion you can draw and there is enough to draw that conclusion and wait for more data.Remember, that this particular transitional pattern is only one of many. This type of pattern is painted over and over. So far the conclusion holds. You may take it as being a more tentative conclusion, others a safer one. But there isn't another one available based on the science.After steping back and looking at the bigger picture of homonid transition, then stepping back again and looking at others you can look at it through the 'eyes' of the molecular genetisist. Again the pattern holds.When all this is put together, the "meagre" homonid fossils become only part of the jigsaw and the picture becomes apparent. There is more than enough evidence for the bigger picture.The details, ah, the details, we want so many more full specimens spaced about 100,000 years apart. I wonder if there are there and how long it will take to find them. Unfortunately there may be times when the important transitions were happening in environments that were not conducive to good fossilization.

Would anyone answer no to that? Wouldn't that mean that you could lift something they said and tell someone else what they meant to say even if it was contradictory to what they were actually saying?Would WillowTree be ok with one of us doing that to his words?Nah, of course we want to know what Pilbeam's opinion is.

I'm not going to go back to reading the original material. Maybe we can do that a bit later.I do think that the word meagre was intended to apply to a fossil void in the intial raise of the homonid or pre-homonid forms. That is there is a shortage of details at around the time we separated from the line leading to our nearest existing relatives.However the quote is being "mined" to suggest that there is such a shortage of fossils covering the entire path from clearly non-human but erect homonids to us that the conclusion that we are connected to them is higly suspect or false. This is not true.You state: If that is the case then Milton's contention is wrong. Just plain wrong. Ah, now this is a little different. The phrase "at the time of..." makes a difference. I don't know what evidence was available "at the time of" the quote. I assume by this you mean that things have changed. At this time the assessment is no longer valid.Now we have moved the argument from where we started. We started using Milton's quote in support of a lack of transitionals period, full stop.Now we seem to have decided that there might be transitionals today but not at the time he lifted the quote. Is that where we are now?(btw while I don't know about things "at the time of" the quote I suspect that the contention of Milton's was still wrong. We'll see about that level of detail in a bit)

There is a serious misunderstanding between us buried in this sentence. What is this "the" missing link?A "link" implies two things being joined in some way? What do you think are those two things? Why is it just one link? How many links do you think there are? If more than one, what other things are being joined? What fossil void is in question? Could you explain that a bit more?

Uh, there was more than one question in that post. Could you finish up?Also, "upright man" is what exactly? And "ape" in this context? (note it can't be a chimpanzee ok? )------------------
Common sense isn't[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-20-2003]

Which reminds me, WillowTree there are still questions here for you.

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Common sense isn't