Transitional fossils not proof of evolution?

Actually, bats wings are very dissimilar to those of birds, and their morphology is otherwise not very rodent-like. I can understand how someone with absolutely no biological background would find them superficially similar, but no trained biologist would draw such a conclusion beyond that (like rodents) they are mammals. That's a cute story, but it's nothing like the way paleontologists actually work. They look at morphology on a much finer scale than, "This organism has wings. It is therefore the ancestor to this group of organisms, which also has wings." If that were true, we would be saying that birds evolved from pterodactyls, which we do not (birds evolved from a different dinosaur lineage). It's untrue for the same reasons that we don't currently say that bats are closely related to birds or rodents.In actuality, paleontologists make conclusions about relatedness through morphology in much the ways that anatomists do for modern organisms, except that the newer molecular tools are not applicable. And remember, molecular analyses have generally validated the phylogenies created through that sort of anatomical analysis, even though (as you wisely pointed out in Message 32) there are many ways that genes could theoretically be arranged to create similar-looking structures (if indeed organisms were being created from scratch by a Creator).By the way, did you seriously just say that termites are rodne-, I mean rodents with fur? Mendel had no way of knowing about mutation from his work, which was very limited by modern standards. We know about mutation now. Mutations happen, every single generation. Most are neutral and have no effect. Some are detrimental. More rarely, they can be beneficial. A newborn horse with wings would contradict modern evolutionary theory.We see mutations in every population, including horse populations. Even thoroughbreds.
Mutation Bestows Beauty and Death On Quarter HorsesThis is just an article from the popular press that popped up near the top on google. There are lots of examples of mutations in horses, and this is of great interest to modern horse breeders. The observable fact of genetic mutation totally negates your Mendelian genetics argument. Novel traits are observed to occur. Your understanding of genetics is amazingly outdated.ETA: Oh, but if you want to discuss mutations you'd better start another thread... I just remembered that the topic here is transitional forms. The moderators would not like this side-topic.Edited by Belfry, : No reason given.

Bats have wings similar to birds!?It's late at night here and I'm about to turn into a pumpkin so I don't have time to do the searches to dig up the info to show you, but the plain fact is there that the structure of bird wings and bat wings are competely different from each other.Essentially bird wings are based on bones analogous to our arm bones whereas bat wings are based on bones analagous to our fingers.

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Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after

I disagree fundamentally because to me, mechanisms acting as the causation for how and why transitions occur is the small piece of the puzzle. Steady gradualism is indeed the old model of evolution. Gradualism is indeed central to Darwinian macroevolution. Therefore, after years of heated debate, the overall theory needed pruning, tailored by such names as, Simpson, Mayr, Gould, Eldridge, and a few other trailblazers. They supplanted Darwin's account, or rather, the theory supplanted itself and rendered it antiquated. But for anyone to say that phyletic gradualism is a 'small' part of the theory is supplying an answer that is wholly unfactual. Its only been recently used to describe the pace at which a transition occurs. No one really understood the pace to begin with back in those days before the advent of dating methods. Before, it was Lyelian uniformity to differentiate between the geologic/biologic timescale. But I propose that punctuated equilibrium at the root has more to do with the lack of evidence than it does the rate of transitioning. Yeah, imagine that... But we know quite well that trains travel at different speeds. What we don't know is the rate of evolution, not because its unclear, but because we've never seen any trains (macroevolution) at all. My question has little to do with at what varying speeds do trains travel at, and has much more to do with whether trains (macroevloution) existed at all. Yes, punctuated equilibrium helped rid us of the antiquated theory of uniformitarianism, however, my issue with PE has to do with its flagrant effort to insist that we shouldn't expect to see very many transitions within the fossil record. I'm not arguing about the rate. The rate is inconsequential to me because I'm arguing the point that it never began to begin with. Non-directed panspermia concludes one thing that evolution overlooks, or at least makes a plea that many evolutionists are indifferent to; that "life comes from life." If no one can demonstrate that life cannot come from non-life, then a strictly naturalistic explanation of evolution is completely undermined. Its only been after test after test conveys repeatable and indisputable evidence that abiogenesis is impossible, that it now is cleverly deemed as inconsequential to ToE. Its important to many creationists because we believe that souls are on the line. I mean, virtually every theory that stole the show at the Scopes Trial was based off these antiquated theories. It was thought to be an unassailable truth then. And now that its been modified, because legitimate science is catching it in its own game, its been deemed as truth now. The scarcity of its own ability to present an irrefutable exegesis, even after addendum and amendment, is ringing its own death-knell. Progress is an inevitable part of science. If we plateaued in the fields of science and became trapped in a stasis of our own, I'd be concerned. But what if scientific progression actually determined that the ToE was falsifiable? What if its been doing that slowly, but surely, all along? Would you still cling to it? Some would dogmatically go down with the ship to til last breath. I was on the evolutionary boat ride, but I recognized holes in the hull and jumped ship. Most of Newtonian law has stood the test of time. Shockingly, however, cracks are appearing in Einsteins theory of Relativity. I mean, we should all be open to wherever truth may lead. Truth, is truth and the truth shall set us free. Even if I didn't like the truth, truth is better than falsehood. As I've shared, my main objection to phyletic gradualism, is the 'gradualism,' not so much the pace at which they suppose it has occured. As well, with PE, my concern with PE isn't that they use burst of rapidity in the theorum, but rather, that its being used as a n excuse not to present evidence, or at least, give us reasons why shouldn't expect to see any.

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As I've shared, my main objection to phyletic gradualism, is the 'gradualism,' not so much the pace at which they suppose it has occured. As well, with PE, my concern with PE isn't that they use burst of rapidity in the theorum, but rather, that its being used as a n excuse not to present evidence, or at least, give us reasons why shouldn't expect to see any

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I becomming certain that you really don't understand phyletic gradualism or punctuated equilibrium. You keep making references that make me think you are getting these definitions from sources other than the original Eldredge & Gould paper (Eldredge N and Gould SJ (1972) Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. In T. J. M. Schopf, editor, Models in Paleobiology, pages 82--115). I believe that you think you have a handle on them, but you don't.Phyletic gradualism is not the idea that species change slowly. It is not uniformitarianism from geology applied to biology. I think even biologists make this error. Phyletic gradualism is the idea that any genetic change in a population must necessarily spread through the entire population or go extinct. These population-wide changes gradually accumulate. Speciation could be the transformation of an entire species OR divergence into species of different populations of the same species. Essentially, under a phyletic gradualism model sympatric speciation cannot exist. Because sympatric speciation is observed we know that phyletic gradualism is not the only way in which evolution progresses. Darwin was not tied to strict gradual evolution but was tied to phyletic gradualism. A non-selection form of phyletic gradualism that is probably important (and if Douglas Futuyma is right, critically important) is genetic drift.Punctuated equilibrium is that idea that species (groups of populations) remain relatively constant over time. Genetic changes are absorbed and usually lost through dilution. However, in small populations or subpopulations (these is key) unique traits can become fixed more easily. When we see species change in the fossil record it appears rapid because the subpopulation rapidly replaces the dominant population under selection pressure.What is import is that both of these concepts are about species change or what you would call microevolution. Since you have no problem with this I am not sure why it keeps coming up. My suspicion is that you are under the impression that evolutionists are trying to hide the lack of transisitionals between major taxa. We have those (at least most). What is apparently rare are changes between species. They are not nonexistant, but rare. PE applies what we know about population genetics (a la Sewell Wright) to the paleontological record. Gould's original research was with a genus of landsnails with a good fossil record, Cerion. In that genus shell types remain constant then rapidly change.

Your explanation had the ring of truth about it, but I have a question about this: I'm interpreting this as meaning that every individual in a population must possess every allele, which doesn't make sense, so I must be reading this the wrong way.Anyway, I got my definition from Wikipedia. Here's how the Wikipedia article begins. If you're right then someone should correct this: I just finished reading the Wikipedia article on sympatric speciation and I'm pretty sure I didn't understand why its impossible under phyletic gradualism (for which I'm now sure I don't know the proper definition, pending clarification).--Percy

You are referring to what here? And why does it shock you?lfenEdited by AdminNosy, : No reason given.

"Progress is an inevitable part of science. If we plateaued in the fields of science and became trapped in a stasis of our own, I'd be concerned. But what if scientific progression actually determined that the ToE was falsifiable? What if its been doing that slowly, but surely, all along? Would you still cling to it? Some would dogmatically go down with the ship to til last breath. I was on the evolutionary boat ride, but I recognized holes in the hull and jumped ship. "Truth is always better then a lie. Always. The search for truth seems to lead you down a path of lees evidence, however.
To the referances of a sinking ship, what is this, a political party?! As to scientific progress, its the only option. And by your own standards, science could not uncover proof of an all powerful creator unless it wanted to be found. So unless your god is hiding or trying to trick the human race, who has now reached a 30% aetheist rate in the united states, it is impossible tha science will EVER point to him. what will it discover, a bloody spear? or perhaps the Ark of the covanent itself.If the ToE was falsifiable, i would question mine and everyone elses belifes. But increasingly its becoming obvious that religion really was "the opiate of the masses", and only that. Proof of a divine force is heavily lacking.

I should have chosen my words better (that's what I get for writing in a hurry). I am not referring to every single allele. Just that changes in a population would be relatively homogenous throughout the population. Species could remain morphologically stable or change, but whichever occured would take place throughout the population. A novel phenotype can arise but would most often be swamped out. If it persisted it would spread gradually throughout the entire population. This is in contrast to Sewell Wright's shifting balance which states that combinations of traits would cluster around fitness peaks within the population and those traits could lead to speciation. These fitness peaks would be one source of the daughter species Eldredge & Gould propose that would "suddenly" replace the parent species. This is the reason phyletic gradualism excludes sympatric speciation in most situations.The wiki definition is okay. I did some searches through my library and I do find phyletic gradualism synonymized with general gradualism fairly frequently. The difference as I was taught is that all evolutionary change (ok, not all, but nearly all) evolutionary change is gradual. Even those forms that rapidly dominate and replace the parent population gradually changed somewhere (the rate of gradual change varies, of course). Phyletic gradualism is the idea that the apparent evolution of a species would be gradual as changes would slowly accumulate as parent species produced daughetr species. If I have time over the next week I will search through my notes and papers for more info and refs on this. I did take exception with this from the definition: The individual is the unit of selection and the population evolves. This hasn't changed since Darwin!

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Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

yeah? speaking of whales, i posted an interesting diagram of a sequence a while back. what's your interpretation and speculation?yes, frankly, it is that obvious biologists and paleontologists. *buzzer* sorry, you lose. bats wings are in no way similar to bird's wings. no, i'm sorry, they would not.bats are mammals, anapsids. birds are dinosaurs, diapsids. bats are five-toed. dinosaurs and birds are three toed. bats have wings formed out of membranes stretched all five fingers. dinosaurs have at most three fingers, and birds have wings formed out of feathers extending from these three fingers, fused together. bats have mammalian clavicles. birds and dinosaurs have a single furcula. bats have a mammalian sternum. birds have keeled breastbones (some dinosaurs have similar smaller breastbones). bats have varied mammalian teeth. dinosaurs and birds have one kind of tooth (if any). bats have mammalian cheekbones, suborbital ridges, and eyes towards the top of their skull. birds and dinosaurs do not, and have skulls flattened vertically. bats have sacrums (like humans), birds and dinosaurs have tails. (birds' tails are short, and end in a pygostile. this condition exists in some dinosaurs). bats have mammalian hips, much like ours. birds have flattened plate-like hips, more similar in arrangement to some dinosaurs.this are the things i see as grossly obvious features WITHOUT a biology degree. the connection to "reptiles" and birds is far, far more obvious using only skeletons than the connection between birds and mammals. a less insulting assertion would have bats and rampharyncoid pterosaurs.and actually, while we're at, bats aren't rodents either. you seem to have this impression that paleontologists just make stuff up. they don't. the outrageousness of your assertion that scientists would mistake bats for birds shows a truly medieval understanding of science. scratch, a biblical understanding.it's not according to science that bat are birds, but according to the bible:

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Lev 11:19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

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nevermind that it's been observed and even prompted by human beings. no species adopts traits from other species. what you're thinking of hybridization.hybrids also exist, btw. the popular napoleon dynamite example is the liger, but we've been cross-breeding horses and donkeys for millenia to create mules.so in other words, even though your assertion isn't an accurate portrayal of evolution, it's wrong anyways. horses are tetrapods. actually, all land animals are tetrapods. find me a single vertbrate with more than four limbs. and in english, we are limited to 26 letters. look at what we can say. so my speculation is based on my speculation?i would challenge you to provide me with a hole in the record. but it's obvious that you wouldn't present me with anything evolution is actually claiming -- just bats into birds and horses with wings and other things that demonstrate you don't actually have the foggiest idea WHAT evolution is. wow. just, wow. ok that proves it. darwin was a liar and fraud! and we all just have over-active imaginations!look. we have history in rock that agrees with the theory. in geology, we have something called the LAW of superposition. it states that the further down you go, the older the rock. radioactive (NOT CARBON) dating confirms this. some things angular unconformities demand this law -- and i have never, ever, ever seen a creationist even take a SHOT at explaining away angular unconformities.when we have the rock grouped by ages, and pattern of the development of life becomes obvious. we see more diversity in younger rock than we do in older rock. there are more fossils, more species, and more "complex" species the higher we go. in the precambrian we have NOTHING to small, soft, barely multi-cellular creatures. in the cambrian, we see those creatures with hard parts. as we go higher, we see bigger multicellular creatures. first invertebrates with shells, then vertbrates. as we go higher, we start to see primitive fish. no, i never said there were only hard fossils in the cambrian. i'm sure somebody's found a few soft creatures. but there are *NO* hard creatures in precambrian. none. at all. only softies. the "sudden explosion" is a product of the development of hard parts -- letting animals fossilize better. the last skull in that image is a modern human. the second last skull in that image is a cromagnon, which are all modern humans (just older). this is less insulting that your above assertions. crocodiles are dinosaurs' closest living relatives (birds ARE dinosaurs). in fact, these guys have skulls that look a lot like a crocodile's.but there are of course many, many differences that should be obvious to you... well, to me anyways... that point to the fact that he is not a crocodile, but rather a baronyx with spines (spine-o-saurus), and a theropod dinosaur. that "walking on two legs" is a big one. reptiles splay their legs, to remain close to the ground for warmth. there is no cold-blooded animal alive today that walks with straight legs, distancing itself from the ground: spinosaurus had something every different from crocodilian blood flowing through his veins. "laboratory conditions" means controlled, observed, documented, and experimented upon. it doesn't mean it doesn't happen outside the lab, where things are much more complicated. defy genetics? you're the one defying genetics. genetics tells us that we share about 99% of our DNA with chimps. heck, we share about half of our DNA with the banana the chimpanzee is eating. sorry, no giant robots here.

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both sets of wings contains arm, hand, and fingers. just in different ways. bats have five digits, birds have one (or sometimes two (or something three when they're very very young)). a bird's wing is a carpometacarpus, resulting in the fusing of three digits (two were lost in the more reptilian dinosaur ancestry). bats have all five digits, and all are extended except the thumb. the only bird-like animal that even HAS a "thumb" is troodon. and i'm not sure that's even the same digit.here's a fun diagram i found searching the interwebs:

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Your response indicates that you find this idea fantastic, but it's not.Yes, we ARE evolving as we speak. Our current form is in no way some sort of endpoint.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

(but not into x-men or ninja turtles)

You have different views on so many different things that in the interests of time and of staying on topic, I'm just going to have to let some stand. Maybe this will come up in another thread where it would be on topic. Doesn't this represent a contradiction in your viewpoint? You have no choice but to believe that the pace of evolution is affected by selection pressure, since this is shown experimentally under controlled conditions in the lab, and is consistent with our observations in the wild. And you accept speciation. What you reject is not the variable pace of evolution, but evolution beyond the what you call the 'kind' level for which you have no definition.Supposedly creationists want their ideas taught as science, but since they can't even do something as fundamental as define their terms there really isn't much hope.There is nothing to act as a barrier to evolutionary change. Biological change occurs with almost every reproductive event. In the absence of significant selection pressures these changes constitute drift, which can be thought of on a simplistic level as small and undirected changes, while in the presence of significant selection pressures the change can be rapid and directed, for instance, cold selecting for warmer coats. Uniformitarianism was long gone by the time PE came on the scene. As has been explained to you many times now, PE is an explanation for why we shouldn't expect to see very many *species/species* transitions within the fossil record. Transitionals between higher taxa levels are very well represented in the fossil record.I see a couple of problems that can only be laid at your door. First, despite it being explained to you over and over again, you continue to misunderstand something very simple about PE: it's about species/species transitions, not transitions at higher taxa levels.Second, you keep denying the existence of transitionals. It is silly for us to keep going back and forth with us saying "Transitionals exist" and you saying "No, they don't." I've already posted one set of photographs of a transitional sequence, but apparently that isn't convincing. Is it because you want more photographs? Higher taxa levels? If you explain what evidence it is that you want then we can try to provide it for you. But please, let's stop this silly back and forth about whether transitionals exist or not. The rate is inconsequential to you, but earlier you argued that gradualism is of overarching importance. I'm beginning to get the feeling that your arguments change according to what it is you're trying to rebut at the time. I'm not sure why the fallacy in your argument isn't as obvious to you as it is to everyone else. Prior to World War II you could use the same fallacious logic to argue, "If no one can demonstrate the splitting of the atom, then the theoretical possibility is completely undermined."But this, too, is off-topic. Now you're going way off-topic, but just briefly, this is what I was talking about before when I said that creationists have a fairly uniform philosophical outlook that is religious, not scientific, in nature. The ToE *is* falsifiable. That would explain why you're drowning. I wish you would work harder to stay on topic. My mention of Newtonianism was just an analogy to highlight the fallacy of equating change and progress in science with error and misconduct. You're wrong about relativity, but this isn't the thread to discuss it. You're going to have to explain the apparent contradiction of objecting to "gradualism" but not "pace." There must be a distinction there that I'm not seeing.--Percy

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As well, with PE, my concern with PE isn't that they use burst of rapidity in the theorum, but rather, that its being used as a n excuse not to present evidence, or at least, give us reasons why shouldn't expect to see any.

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This of course is completely wrong. It has been pointed out that Punctuated Equibibrium does not explain the lack of fossil transitions. There is no lack of fossil transitions to explain. What Punctuated Equilibrium was meant to explain are two positive observations from the fossil record:(1) Many (but not all!) fossil species clearly do not change or change only very little over very long periods of time; and(2) new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, indicating that they evolved over a relatively short time. However, in these cases, these new species are clearly related to the previous species, and differ only to an extent that is explainable by creationist approved "microevolution".But the most serious error is your belief that there is no evidence for evolution or for Punctuated Equilibrium. The fact is that we have positive evidence of Punctuated Equilibrium model. That is, we have several examples of one species that was apparently replaced abruptly by a descendent species over large geographical region, but a small geographic location provides a detailed account of the gradual transition of the one species into the other.This web-page by Don Lindsay, in the section titled "Is There Any Evidence For Punctuated Equilibrium?", has links to four examples. One of the examples: There you have it. One example of a species that was "suddenly" replaced by a new species. Yet a small location yields the minute gradual transition of the one into the other. Exactly the scenario proposed by Gould and Eldridge.Edited by Chiroptera, : for clarity

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"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
-- H. L. Mencken (quoted on Panda's Thumb)

No, the combinations are not limited to the gene pool. Almost every reproductive event is imperfect and has the potential to generate new alleles, new genes, even new chromosomes. Duplications create a fresh slate upon which more genetic changes can be introduced. Generally speaking, these kinds of reproductive errors are referred to as mutations, and they add to the gene pool.About this: And this: These are more in the nature of accusations than debate and shouldn't be part of this thread. If you want to argue, based upon evidence, that evolution is imaginary and made-up, then you should propose a new thread. This thread is about how well transitional forms in the fossil record support the theory of evolution. It is based upon careful observation and measurement. Here's the photograph provided earlier, it's comes from 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1: These are all skulls of hominids. They start with the modern chimp (A, Pan troglodytes), then pick up with the sequence leading to modern humans. B, the oldest, is Australopithecus africanus and N, the youngest, is Homo sapiens sapiens. There is a clear and gradual progression from B to N (though note that three Neanderthals are included, and we're already fairly certain they are only cousins, not ancestors - about the rest there is still debate, to varying degrees, about whether they are cousins or ancestors).The more recent the skull the more closely it resembles modern humans. Looking at this diagram it is obvious that your comment that "they are all skulls of apes" is incorrect. (By the way, the ape designation contains a large degree of ambiguity since in the most widely used classification systems humans are classified as a type of ape, but I think we all understand what you mean, that you are claiming that none of the skulls but N are human or any relation to humans.) You seem to be forgetting that creationists concede that evolution can produce speciation. That's why they define 'kind' as being at a level higher than species, though they never provide any other essential details about the definition of 'kind'. Anyway, it is higher level transitions that creationists reject. The evidence for speciation is undeniable, so creationists have stopped denying it. One doesn't want to get lumped in with the flat-earthers, after all! What you really reject is the possibility that evolution can produce new genuses and families and orders, and that it can produce novelty and innovation. Defy genetics? You must be very confused about genetics. As I've said, almost every reproductive event includes changes. Since there is no known limit to the accumulation of changes, there are no known limits to the changes that evolution can produce. Classification systems tend to assign relatively arbitrary boundaries in many cases, so not only is there no known mechanism for evolution to stop at these boundaries, there is also no way that evolution could somehow "know" where we've drawn our arbitrary boundaries so that creatures could evolve right up to the boundary, but no further. In other words, there is no possible mechanism for what you're claiming to happen.--Percy