Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils Part II

Easy. Google "ring species"Dogs are a good example, can a chiuaua mate with a great dane? No. Does that make them different species? Yes by your definition.Yet. A chiuaua can mate with a type of dog who can mate with a type of dog, etc, until you do find a type of dog that can mate with a great dane. SO when did the speciation occur?

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It doesn't matter jazns.My definition is given so we can discuss species as a viable concept within the context of evolution. If a great Dane cannot mate with a Chihuau as you say, then they cannot produce fertile offspring and thus their union cannot produce evolution.Why is that so hard for you to understand?For the context of this discussion, if years from now we see species evolved in the fossil record from great Danes and Chihuaus, then we should probably count the Great Danes and Chihuaus as speciation events in the context of this discussion. Certainly, their forms would be vital to creating the new species that evolved from them, and as such they would represent and be transitional forms.What we are after here is not quibbling over difficulties with certain situations in classifying species, but how many different transitional forms should be evident in the fossil record.This message has been edited by randman, 08-09-2005 06:37 PM

The problem with this, randman, is that the variables involved are astronomical!You need to know the rate of mutation within the given species, the environment, the topography of the area, the tectonic activity, the population, the migratory habits of the species in question, and on and on and on.It's a calculation that cannot be made by folks chatting on a webboard. If some statisticians, biologists, mathematicians, and so on wanna take it on, fine. But for us to pull numbers and percentages from out our butts and speculate on "might haves" and "could haves" is simply profitless and dumb.This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-09-2005 06:50 PM

Not necessarily over a long period of time. For example, you could compare living mammals with fossils of them over the past 30 million years or so, and get a pretty accurate picture of the range of evolution within those mammal families of species, and the degrees of differences that could occur, assuming ToE assumptions about the geologic record, etc,...If this has not been done, then evos are not being honest in claiming the fossil record data is supportive of ToE. They have not done the analysis necessary to make that claim. the molecular clock is not a scientifically viable concept? aquatic or semi-aquatic geology? More challenging, but examining a wide range of mammals, particularly aquatic and semi-aquatic species, ought to be a reasonable approach to establishing a range of potentials that could be used for analysis. Well, if scientists have not done this, they have no right to claim the data is supportive of evolution, and we therefore have evidence of evos making wild, unsubstantiated claims about the data.

You've been called on this before. Stop making accusations of Fraud and Dishonesty unless you can back them up with evidence of motive and intent. If you continue to do this you will be suspended.

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I am backing up the claim. If you have not done an analysis of how many transitional forms should appear in a theorized evolutionary sequence and then an analysis of how many such fossils should appear in the fossil record and have been discovered, obviously giving a significant range considering the variables, then claiming the fossil record is supportive for ToE is an unsubstantiated claim because it would well be that such an analysis would predict a far higher number of transitional fossils to such a degree that the fossils on-hand are below that range, and thus indicate current models of ToE are inaccurate, and that the fossil record overall does not support the land mammal to whale evolutionary path according to those models.Until you have done the analysis, you cannot make such claims concerning the fossil record, and it appears the analysis may not have been done.Btw, I said nothing about motives, just that wild, unsubstantiated claims appear to have been made, if this type of analysis has not been made and factored into those claims.Edit to add that I did use the word "honest" and I apologize for the wording. It may well be they are being honest from their perspective, but it does not change the fact such an analysis should be done before one claims the fossil record indicates current ToE models are correct.This message has been edited by randman, 08-09-2005 07:08 PMThis message has been edited by randman, 08-09-2005 07:10 PM

This is not the case because the ToE does not predict fossils. Fossils are a side occurance that happens to support the ToE.The data that can be gathered by rates of evolution with class Mammalia is not necessarily reliable. As I have pointed out Crocodiles have evolved very little from their ancient ancestors, other mammals like the Monotremes probably fall into the same boat. Further, the rates of mutation change over time and, by definition, are random. I don't know what you are referring to, please explain? I'm sorry to say that there is greater variation than that. Think about the aquatic whales that lived only in the deep sea, or those in swamps, or those in mud-flows, or those in the arctic. There are allot of variations within the oceans alone and not all are conducive to fossilization. Yes, this is very important. Think about volcanoes and earthquakes swallowing up fossils over the millenia. You need to account for that as well. Great, many modern whales have migratory paths that span the globe. I guess we can narrow down our search to the whole globe. That helps alot! Scientists don't need to do this, because fossils are a fact! They exist, they happen.

Okay, You can take a short rest to think that over. Your claim was one of dishonesty. Please be prepared to back that up when you return or withdraw all of your charges of fraud and dishonesty.

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Your criteria for evidentiary support is a straw man. Evolution does not stand on the fossil record alone. You need to take into account the entire body of evidence, from disparet fields, that support the ToE. Fossils are a nice touch.Further, fossils are a chronical of specieas that have existed. Species that existed millions of years ago. How come we don't find modern whales mixed in with those old species? How come?How come we don't find modern things mixed in with those ancient things?Where did the old things go?Where did all the new things come from?Did you ever think about those questions randman?This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-09-2005 07:15 PM

Hi randman, strictly speaking no analysis is required; the number of transitional forms is equal to the number of generations between the the extinct ancestor and the extant species. See here for one example of how it has been modelledadded in edit: here's a relevant section from the cited paper:

quote:

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Existing statistical methods designed to account for incompleteness
of the fossil record typically use the size and distribution of gaps
within observed stratigraphic ranges of lineages to estimate the size
of the temporal gap between the oldest fossil and the LCA of the
lineages12. Although these methods are useful for species already
known from the fossil record, they are inappropriate for estimating
the time of the LCA of higher taxonomic groups because they
cannot account for species not preserved at all10,12. Our method for
estimating the temporal gap uses an estimate of the proportion of
species from the group actually preserved in the fossil record and the
shape of its diversification curve. The speciation model we use is the
non-homogeneous Markov branching process13,14 (Fig. 1).
We have developed a computational approach for estimating the
length of the temporal gap between the oldest known fossils and the
LCA of a taxonomic group, as well as an estimated confidence
interval (see Methods). We use as input the number of extant
species, the mean species lifetime, the ages of the bases of the
relevant stratigraphic intervals, the numbers of fossil species found
in those intervals and the relative sizes of the sampling intensities in
each interval. Estimates of the absolute values of the sampling
intensities may also be found (see Methods, equation (6)). This
gives an estimate of the proportion of species that existed in an
interval that were found as fossils.

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So in fact your accusations are unwarranted as the analyses you say are not carried out, in fact, are!mickThis message has been edited by mick, 08-09-2005 07:27 PM

Awsome post mick!I would also like to point out to randman how the people involved in this research are from various areas of science:From the article (universety info omited for brevety) So you see, if it wasn't for a real scientist like mick, to go and dredge up an article in Nature (One of the most prestegious and trusted Jurnals) we would have just been twiddling our thumbs and speculating.This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-09-2005 07:44 PM

mick writes:

quote:

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See here for one example of how it has been modelled

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Thanks, mick--that's fantastic.Now I can go about my autodidactic digging without having to worry about reinventing the wheel (though I'm just the obsessive for the job) As Roseanne Rosanna Dana would say...Never mind.

It all sounds like good stuff to me.I think the fool's errand part may be if you have any vague hope of convincing folks like randman.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Please define a "speciation event". You have yet to do that and your use of it in this paragraph doesn't help.The GDs and Chichihuaus would be (within this discussion) different species no one would call them speciation events. If, for the discussin, we define GDs and chichihuaus as different species then how many speciation events have occured between them? We are precisely quibbling over the difficulties. We can't count separated transitional forms if we don't have an operation definition (google that) of what a 'transitional form' is.If a small population is under significant selective pressure (and having an open niche available that is very different from the one before is about as significant a pressure as you can get) then the populations may undergo changes in very perhaps 100's of generations giving us 10,000's of 'transitional forms' in the first couple of 10's of millions of years of whale evolution and some 1,000's thereafter (when the niche is less open and the populations are larger).The above scenario combined with a low chance of a fossil forming and being found produces the case where every single fossil find will be a 'transitional' as they are all different.In fact the approximately 160,000 year history of the development of H. sapiens which is treated as all one species shows 'transitions' in that time. Archaic H. sap. is not exactly like us. But more recently we find much more homogeneity.

Randman is as confused on this as he is on pretty well every single issue discussed.The molecular clock is a way of dating genetic changes by comparing stretchs of genomes of, say chimps and humans and using that to determine when they last were one population.The clock makes a basic assumption that the rate of mutations of the chosen stretchs is constant. This is partially set by using fossils where possible.The stretchs used are specifically not those that randman is talking about since they have to be NOT subject to selection so he is way off track (again).