Summations Only

Note that I added my comment to show that you haven't even attempted to answer it. ... is not a theory, certainly it is not THE theory of evolution (ToE) ... but you have been told this before, and blunder on blindly with your ignorance.It is a conclusion reached from the evidence we have. It may be one population of single cell life or several that participated in horizontal transfer of genes (primitive sex), once life had developed on earth. There certainly is no evidence of any other precursors from over 3 billion years ago. Scientific theories explain evidence. The evidence shows that the oldest life forms are microbes, and the evidence shows that over time organisms with more complex forms arose. The theory of evolution explains how this can occur via known biological processes.If the evidence showed a different pattern in the past, then our theory of how the diversity of life developed would have to explain that evidence.This has been another teachable moment brought to you by Dredge. The theory of evolution has contributed to the advancement of medicine and breeding of pets, livestock and food plants.Again your stumbling ignorance is refuted by reality.EnjoyNotes:
⁽¹⁾ anagenesis is the process of lineal change within species over generations.
⁽²⁾ cladogenesis the process of division of a parent population into two or more reproductively isolated daughter populations, which then are free to (micro) evolve independently of each other. This forms a clade (nested hierarchy).

See Message 560 regarding your confusion between conclusions and theories.What is "happening all around us" are the processes of evolution -- anagenesis and cladogenesis.If we look at the continued effects of evolution over many generations, the accumulation of changes from generation to generation may become sufficient for individuals to develop combinations of traits that are observably different from the ancestral parent population. This is also sometimes called arbitrary speciation in that the place to draw the line between linearly evolved genealogical populations is subjective, and because the definition of species in general is tentative and sometimes arbitrary.The process of anagenesis, with the accumulation of changes over many generations, is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis. The reduction or loss of interbreeding (gene flow, sharing of mutations) between the sub-populations results in different evolutionary responses within the separated sub-populations, each then responds independently to their different ecological challenges and opportunities, and this leads to divergence of hereditary traits between the subpopulations and the frequency of their distributions within the sub-populations.Over generations phyletic change occurs in these populations, the responses to different ecologies accumulate into differences between the hereditary traits available within each of the daughter populations, and when these differences have reached a critical level, such that interbreeding no longer occurs, then the formation of new species is deemed to have occurred. After this has occurred each daughter population microevolves independently of the other/s. These are often called speciation events because the development of species is not arbitrary in this process. If we looked at each branch linearly, while ignoring the sister population, they would show anagenesis (accumulation of evolutionary changes over many generations), and this shows that the same basic processes of evolution within breeding populations are involved in each branch.An additional observable result of speciation events, however, is a branching of the genealogical history for the species involved, where two or more offspring daughter species are each independently descended from the same common pool of the ancestor parent species. At this point a clade (a nested hierarchy) has been formed, consisting of the common ancestor species and all of their descendants.The process of cladogenesis, with the subsequent formation of a branching nested genealogy of descent from common ancestor populations is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis.These are the processes of evolution. They are happening all around us. Again, as noted in Message 560: So you have had this answered twice. The theory explains the evidence, and the degree that all the evidence is explained is a measure of the validity of the theory. With no invalidating evidence, a theory that explains the evidence and makes useful predictions, is accepted as the best explanation we have for the evidence.Calling it "a story" does not diminish the validity of the theory nor it's ability to make useful predictions.And so closes another teachable moment brought to you by Dredge.Enjoy

Microevolution over many generations.It appears we can agree on that.ALL evolution occurs "within a species" ... there are no other mechanisms than the processes of evolution "within a species" -- so this should be no surprise to anyone knowledgeable about evolution. Microevolution in reproductively isolated populations, each population undergoing anagenesis, each one accumulating different changes from the other/s (and the parent population), until they are different species. Each population is evolving via lineal change within a species, and the results for each branch viewed alone would look identical to anagenesis.It is only because there are multiple lineages from a common ancestor that we can see differences between the populations accumulating until they are different species, and yes, this IS speciation.It appears we can agree on that. And dogs will always be dogs, but hey, kudos on seeing how nested hierarchies form, and recognizing that all descendants within a nested hierarchy will always be descendants of the original parent population. The names\labels may change, but those are just arbitrary designations used by humans to improve communication, nature doesn't care how we label things.First there is a single species population of greenish warblers. Then it becomes a species population of greenish warblers with relatively isolated population with reduce gene flow, resulting in multiple (5) varieties of greenish warbler. Then the isolation increases and you end up with a genus of greenish warblers rather than just a species (the name is changing), now with several species as the varieties become different species (via speciation). Then each of these new species could then undergo the same division into varieties that over time become new species, and they each become a genus and original "greenish warbler" designation becomes a family (again the name\label is changing).The names may change, but those are just arbitrary designations used by humans to improve communication, nature doesn't care how we name or label things. Perhaps the problem is with the term "macroevolution" and your understanding of it's meaning versus the one used in science.Care to give us your definition of macroevolution so that we can talk about it the same way? What is macroevolution?In science macroevolution is defined as anagenesis plus cladogenesis, which you seem to agree occurs around us. What else do you expect to occur?Let us know and we can proceed with this latest teachable moment bought to us by Dredge.Enjoy

And yet you had no trouble talking about macroevolution in Message 575 where you said: So how can I help you understand "macroevolution" if you don't have some idea of what the term means - even if it is just some vague idea. That is why I also asked (Message 580): Italics added for emphasis.Let us know what else you expect to occur, and then we can discuss how realistic that expectation is.Enjoy

Once again we see a misunderstanding of how science works. In science theories cannot be proven, they can be validated or invalidated. Theories make predictions that can be used as tests of the theory: if they fail the test then the theory is invalidated and needs to be revised or discarded, but if they pass the test the theory is validated - but not proven, because the next test could invalidate it.The theory of evolution then predicts that IF the mammalian ear structure developed from the reptilian ear structure by evolutionary processes, THEN there would be intermediates between these structures.So this is a test of the theory: ARE THERE INTERMEDIATES?Yes.In fact there are many in the fossil record that show a progression over time from the reptilian jaw/ear structure (where the single ear bone is attached to the three bone jaw) to the mammalian jaw/ear structure (where the three bone ear is separated from the single jaw bone). This includes several species with double jointed jaws (the original reptilian joint and the new mammalian joint). Others show differences in the sizes of these bones as they change over time, adapting to the new structure.When placed in their respective locations within the spacio-temporal matrix they form a linear progression from one ancestral state to the newer derived state, not just one intermediate but intermediates between intermediates between intermediates -- just as predicted by evolution.This is not "proof" ... but it is strong validation of the theory. Consider that there is no reason for such gradations of intermediates to exist if evolution is not the process involved.Another teachable moment brought to you by DredgeEnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

No, it's useless for people that avoid science.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

Is it?What it means is that creation did not play a part, no matter what all the various religious beliefs pretend happened, and we can stop indoctrinating children with false information.We can stop lumbering our education with misinformation about evolution and reality.We can teach science unencumbered by delusions.Enjoy

Whether or not you are honest in undertaking this endeavor I suggest you engage with a librarian to help you find the material.For an introduction to the fossil record that pertains to the progression of jaw/ear bones I can suggest you start with:

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THE THERAPSID--MAMMAL TRANSITIONAL SERIES

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... The fossil transition from reptile to mammal is one of the most extensive and well-studied of all the transitions, and detailed series of fossils demonstrate how this transition was accomplished. ...

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The mammals are believed to have evolved from a class of Permian and Triassic reptiles known as therapsids. Taxonomically, mammals are distinguished by a number of features, the most obvious of which are hair (even such aquatic mammals as whales and dolphins still retain bristly hairs in their skin), and the presence of mammary glands which secrete milk, used to nourish the young. Neither of these structures is preserved in the fossil record, but fortunately, mammals can also be distinguished by a number of skeletal characteristics (particularly in the skull and teeth). In particular, mammals are distinguished from reptiles by a number of skeletal traits. Reptiles have a much larger number of individual bones in their skulls than do mammals. In reptiles, the teeth are all of the same shape, and although they vary slightly in size, they all have the same simple cone-shaped form. Mammals, however, possess a number of different types of teeth in their jaws, from the flat, multi-cusped molar teeth to the sharp cone-shaped canines. In reptiles, the lower jaw is made up of a number of different bones, and the jaw joint is formed between the quadrate bone in the skull and the angular bone in the jaw. In mammals, by contrast, the lower jaw is made up of a single bone, the dentary, which articulates with the squamosal bone in the skull to form the jaw joint. Reptiles also have a single bone in the middle ear, the stapes. In mammals, there are three bones in the middle ear, the malleus, incus and stapes (also known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup). At the top of the skull, reptiles have a small hole through which the pineal body, or "third eye", extends--this is absent in mammals. Finally, the reptilian skull is attached to the spine by a single point of contact, the occipital condyle. In mammals, the occipital condyle is double-faced.

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Paleontologists point out that the therapsids possessed many of the characteristics of both reptiles and mammals:

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"In advanced forms, the skull was intermediate in type between that of a primitive reptile and a mammal; many of the bones absent in mammals were on their way toward reduction or were already lost. A small third eye was still generally present in the top of the skull, but its opening was a tiny one." (Romer, 1967, p. 226)

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"The differentiation of the teeth progressed in the therapsids to high levels of development, with the advanced genera showing sharply contrasted incisors, canines, and cheek teeth, which in some of these reptiles were of complex form, often with accessory cusps or broad crowns. In many therapsids, the occipital condyle became double, as in the mammals." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, p. 118)

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"In many respect, the tritylodont skull was very mammalian in its features. Certainly, because of the advanced nature of the zygomatic arches, the secondary palate and the specialized teeth, these animals had feeding habits that were close to those of some mammals . . . . Yet, in spite of these advances, the tritylodonts still retained the reptilian joint between the quadrate bone of the skull and the articular bone of the lower jaw. It is true that these bones were very much reduced, so that the squamosal bone of the skull and the dentary bone of the lower jaw (the two bones involved in the mammalian jaw articulation) were on the point of touching each other." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, p. 127)

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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. Thus, it is apparent that, during the evolutionary transition from reptile to mammal, the jaw joints must have shifted from one bone to another, freeing up the rest of these bones to form the auditory ossicles in the mammalian middle ear. (In fact, in most modern reptiles, the jawbones in question actually function in transmitting sound waves to the inner ear, so the transformation postulated above is not a functional change, merely an improvement in a fnction that these bones already had). As Arthur N. Strahler puts it, "A transitional form must have had two joints in operation simultaneously (as in the modern rattlesnake), and this phase was followed by a fusion of the lower joint." (Strahler 1987, p. 414) The creationists find this process to be impossible to conceive, and claim there is no fossil evidence for it:

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"The two most distinguishable osteological differences between reptiles and mammals, however, have never been bridged by a transitional series. All mammals, living or fossil, have a single bone, the dentary, on each side of the lower jaw, and all mammals, living or fossil, have three auditory ossicles or ear bones, the malleus, incus and stapes. In some fossil reptiles the number and size of the lower jaw bones are reduced compared to living reptiles. Every reptile, living or fossil, however, has at least four bones in the lower jaw and only one auditory ossicle, the stapes. . . There are no transitional fossil forms showing, for instance, three or two jawbones, or two ear bones. No one has explained yet, for that matter, how the transitional form would have managed to chew while his jaw was being unhinged and rearticulated, or how he would hear while dragging two of his jaw bones up into his ear." (Gish, 1978, p. 80)

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"Mammals also have three bones in their ears, while reptiles have only one. Where did the two 'extras' come from? Evolutionary theory attempts to explain it as follows: Reptiles have at least four bones in the lower jaw, whereas mammals have only one; so, when reptiles became mammals, there was supposedly a reshuffling of bones; some from the reptile's lower jaw moved to the mammal's middle ear to make the three bones there and, in the process, left only one for the mammal's lower jaw. However, the problem with this line of reasoning is that there is no fossil evidence whatsoever to support it. It is merely wishful conjecture." (Watchtower and Bible Tract Society, 1985, p. 81)

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Not only is this explanation not "merely wishful conjecture", but 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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"Probainognathus, a small cynodont reptile from the Triassic sediments of Argentina, shows characters in the skull and jaws far advanced toward the mammalian condition. Thus it had teeth differentiated into incisors, a canine and postcanines, a double occipital condyle and a well-developed secondary palate, all features typical of the mammals, but most significantly the articulation between the skull and the lower jaw was on the very threshhold between the reptilian and mammalian condition. The two bones forming the articulation between skull and mandible in the reptiles, the quadrate and articular respectively, were still present but were very small, and loosely joined to the bones that constituted the mammalian joint . . . Therefore in Probainognathus there was a double articulation between skull and jaw, and of particular interest, the quadrate bone, so small and so loosely joined to the squamosal, was intimately articulated with the stapes bone of the middle ear. It quite obviously was well on its way towards being the incus bone of the three-bone complex that characterizes the mammalian middle ear." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, pp. 228-229)

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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. Thus, Diarthrognathus was truly at the dividing line between reptile and mammal in so far as this important diagnostic feature is concerned." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, p. 128)

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The therapsid-mammal transition was completed with the appearence of the Morganucodonts in the late Triassic. This group is described by paleontologist T.S. Kemp:

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"The axes of the two jaw hinges, dentary-squamosal and articular-quadrate, coincide along a lateral-medial line, and therefore the double jaw articulation of the most advanced cynodonts is still present . . . The secondary dentary-squamosal jaw hinge had enlarged (in the Morganucodonts) and took a greater proportion if not all of the stresses at the jaw articulation. The articular-quadrate hinge was free to function solely in sound conduction." (Strahler, 1987, p. 419)

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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. The entire process had taken nearly the whole length of the Triassic period to complete, a time span of approximately 40 million years. Since the determining characteristic of a mammal in the fossil record is the structure of the jaw bone and joint, all of the therapsids up to the Morganucodonts are classified as reptiles, and all those after that are considered to be mammals. As Romer puts it, "We arbitrarily group the therapsids as reptiles (we have to draw a line somewhere) but were they alive, a typical therapsid probably would seem to us an odd cross between a lizard and a dog, a transitional type between the two great groups of backboned animals." (Romer, 1967, p. 227)

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There's more in the article. Unfortunately they don't identify their references, but a good reference librarian should be able to sort them out.The fossils mentioned are only the hightlights of the transition, as there are many more that fill in around them.Another resource is Palaeos Vertebrates: Therapsida Overview - it is an interactive presentation of the nested hierarchy and the various intermediate forms.You can click on any of the groups to get more information, and if you click on Cynodontia you get the next page and:

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In the unbroken evolutionary sequence from reptile to mammal, the cynodonts are intermediate between earlier and more primitive theriodont therapsids and the earliest mammals. These highly successful animals first appear in the late Permian, radiate quickly into a number of different forms (including both terrestrial and semi-aquatic) before the end of the period, reach their maximum diversity in the Early Triassic, and become increasingly mammal-like as the Triassic progresses, giving rise to true mammals in the later Triassic. By the start of the Jurassic, only the insectivore-like tritheledonts and rodent-like tritylodonts remained; the latter continuing alongside true mammals throughout the Jurassic and even into the early Cretaceous.

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In cladistic nomenclature, the term "cynodont" is also used to include mammals, which evolved from cynodonts and hence are, phylogenetically speaking, derived cynodonts.

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Hurray we are derived cynodonts.The link at the end of the cynodonts dendrogram is broken, it should link to this Mammaliformes page, and at the bottom of this dendrogram portion is Mammalia.We are also derived mammaliforms. Keep going and you can get to primates and Primate cladogram evolutionAnother teaching moment brought to us by Dredge.Enjoy

I think Dredge is somewhere between OEC and Gap Creationist.An old earth does not bother him or his beliefs, old life does.But the logic pitfalls that hobble YEC also hobble other forms of Christian creationism, especially in regards to fossils and the evidence they provide for (1) the earliest life being single cell prokaryotes similar to modern blue-green algae, and (2) the natural history of life on earth falling into nested hierarchies based on homologies and shared derived features.There are also Hindu Old Age Creationists and Muslim Young Earth Creationists, so a better inclusive term is just Creationist.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

You are evolving into a Deist ...

I came back and was delighted to see some movement on this thread ...... only to find it has been ruined and turned into another Faith flood foolery thread.

Perhaps the best summary is to quote from two posts on this thread.The first in reply to ICANT's post Message 66, It's not just a simple arrangement of pictures selected and arranged to fit the theory, it is the arrangement of the fossils by their relative location in both time and space -- the objective empirical data does the arranging, not the scientist. The Theory of Evolution explains this spacio-temporal matrix, special creation does not.and the second in reply to Faith's post Message 116, That graphic clearly shows both the temporal and the spacial distribution of the fossils and the clear connections from one find to the others, where widening areas show diversification (cousins and possible sub-species), and the overlaps show probably hybridization, and the flow up shows some dead ends, with the one path that leads to Homo sapiens, with it's current diversification and global distribution, just as expected.