Where are all the missing links?

Hello, Evopeach.Are you ever going to actually deal with the data to which I linked in this earlier post?

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You didn't click on my links, did you. Disappointing.

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I feel your pain. I'm still waiting for Evopeach to look at the links in my post and explain why he thinks there are no transitional fossil species.

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considering the Java man, Nebraska man, Peking man deliberate hoaxes of the last century.

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Actually, the only deliberate hoax was "Piltdown Man" (which is conspicuously absent from your list). "Nebraska Man" was the case of the sensationalist popular press overblowing the initial, tentative suggestions of a scientist; "Java Man" and "Peking Man" were and remain legitimate scientific findings; in fact, the two are examples of one of those transitional species you claim don't exist.Speaking of transitional fossils, you asked: To which I replied, giving links to a discussion of the very transitionals for which you asked.So far, you haven't really commented on this.Edited to add a link for "Nebraska Man". You know, in case someone might want to educate himself as to the actual facts.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 16-Aug-2005 07:03 PM

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"The cradle of every science is surrounded by dead theologians as that of Hercules was with strangled serpents" -- T. H. Huxley

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I'm sure everyone here has played the game "telephone" in the past. By the end of a relatively short chain of people, the original message typically winds up pretty different from the original.

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I wonder if this would be an interesting variation on the game.Have the first person tell the message to two other people. Each of those people tells the message to two others; each of these four people repeats the message to two other people.After enough iterations to get some different messages, it might be illuminating to see what kinds of patterns arise. Could another person, who didn't observe this game in progress, be able to arrange the messages in a hierarchical pattern?

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Jonathan Wells says "similarity to living apes" was the only evidence hominid evolution was based upon.

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You make it sound as if that in itself isn't good evidence.-

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Missing links and intermediacy is what ToE is all about.

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Actually, it's not. The theory of evolution is as much about hierarchical classification (which is what the Wells quote is trying to ignore) and a few other juicy tidbits that make no sense whatsoever except in the context of common descent.Here is one of my favorite essays concerning the evidence for the theory of evolution. If you peruse it, you'll find that the fossil record is only on small piece (yet wonderfully confirming piece) of evidence for the theory of evolution.

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Specifically, just the claim that Pakicetus is a whale, imo, if examined and discussed by both critics and evos, and presented to kids, that ToE claims would be considered a joke.

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I doubt it. Kids are more sensible than you give them credit for.

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Why are you picking on Darwin? Why not Linneaus? Once his method of systematization was in wide practice, the evidence for evolution stood out.

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Indeed. When I was still a creationist, the presentation of Linnean classification was the first thing that made me say, "Uh oh!"I still think hierarchical classification is the best evidence in favor of evolution.

And one of Darwin's main lines of evidence lay in pidgeon breeding -- probably because in pidgeon breeders have undoubtably produced entirely novel traits that definitely were not present in the ancestral stock.

Herepton writes:

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There isn't any secret about this. You can find it in "The Origin of Species". His main evidence was experience with artificial selection, and observation of closely related species (in the sense of the Linneaus systematization) that were adapted to slightly different niches.

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IOW, he had no evidence commensurate to the extraordinary claim.

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You have clearly never read Origin of Species or Descent of Man. These books are, as Modulous pointed out, quite tedious because they are chock full of very detailed evidence for his theory of evolution. Two entire books full of extraordinary evidence.-

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And the reason is because the fossil record clearly supports sudden creation and not speciation.

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This is false.-

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Everyone agrees species change slightly over time, extrapolating, or more accurately - assuming this accounts for big changes is driven by worldview needs.

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This is false. There is no known mechanism that would prevent "microevolution" from producing "macroevolution". To assume that "microevolution" cannot produce "macroevolution without a mechanism to prevent it, especially with the huge amount of actual evidence that "macroevolution" has occurred is a mind-boggling example of denial that can only be driven by "worldview needs".-

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Offering explanations not supported or observed in the actual evidence is tantamount to "quote mining nature."

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I suppose that this might be true, but seeing the huge amount of excellent evidence in favor of the theory of evolution, it is irrelevant to this discussion.-

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Species only mate with like species, except when forced to in a lab setting.

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Since the theory of evolution does not require otherwise, this is irrelevant to the discussion.This is like saying that since French speakers can only communicate with other French speakers the Romance languages could not have evolved from Latin. Do you see the error here?-

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The abandonment of substantiating even a skeletal chain of ancestry, which said chain is a logical prediction for a evolutionary theory, is because after searching for them high and low the world over: none could be found.

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Quite a few examples of transitionals and even "chains" are well-known, at least to non-creationists. Whatever the defects of the fossil record in Darwin's time, the fossil record is much more complete now. Even though the fossil record is unnecessary to the theory of evolution (since there are many other lines of evidence that show beyond a doubt that common descent must be true), it is true that the fossil record is extremely good evidence for the theory of evolution.-

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To all honest objective scientists this absence of evidence is damning, unless of course ones starting premises are untouchable and off the table.

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I realize that you find it emotionally necessary to hold onto this one particular creation myth. I don't really know why, and I suspect that even if I did know why I still wouldn't completely understand it. Nonetheless, the facts are what they are, even if you choose not to recognize this. The evidence exists, despite what you chose to believe. And the evidence that exists really only points to one logical conclusion, whatever you choose to accept.

Hmm. I see what you mean by feasibility. Ten generations would require more than a thousand people. I've never actually played telephone myself -- how many generations do you need to get a significant difference from the original message?I wonder if a written version would work -- would writing the message down make the person less prone to make mistakes in the exact message? Especially since they can copy the message exactly while they are writing it down. Maybe it would work if they would only read the message once, and then relay it from memory the next day.But it would be cool if the people would write down their message immediately after they relay. Then we would have a "fossil record" of the message. I wonder if it would be possible to reconstruct earlier messages just from the existing variations, and then compare them to the actual written "fossils"?Edited to add:You know where this could be done? A large university that teaches intro biology to large lecture halls, with several hundred students in each section. Several sections might be enough students. Then this could be one of the laboratory exercises. Anyone here teach biology at a large university?This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 06-Sep-2005 12:08 AM

Hello, Herepton.You seem to be repeating the same statements despite that they are shown to be wrong.

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Darwin admitted the fossil record showed no signs of intermediacy in his day, this supports....

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...the conventional theories of geology. Even in Darwin's time, the geologic record showed that the earth and life on earth was far older than the literal Genesis account would have you believe. Furthermore, despite fossils being relatively rare in Darwin's time, they certainly did not contradict his theory: more primitive species were known to be found in older strata than more "advanced" species.-

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We know ToE is not based on the fossil record because of the facts cited above.

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If by "above" you mean the posts that people have written in response to you, then you are correct; the theory of evolution is not based on the fossil record because of the wealth of evidence in other fields of science. But the fossil record has always been consistent with common descent; subsequent discoveries have confirmed the overall picture of common descent; and in the last generation remarkable fossils have been discovered that show actual transitional lineages between key taxa.-

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Gould and Eldrege are famous for concocting excuses as to why the record shows no speciation.

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Actually, Gould and Eldredge are famous for coming up with an explanation for certain observations that they made in their own particular fields, Gould in the study of certain snails in the Bahamas and Eldredge in his studies of trilobites. They also note instances where the more traditional gradualistic evolution has occurred.-

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The fossil record supports Genesis sudden creation....

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Actually, it doesn't.-

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Nobody knows how old the Earth is because there is way too much quality evidence that contradicts.

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All of this "quality" evidence seems to exist solely in the imaginations of creationists.-

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Why was human evolution touted as fact since early 20th century in lieu of the fact that Louis Leakey objectively admitted in 1967 that literally hundreds were missing ?

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For one thing, evolution was known to be a fact since the middle of the 19th. Why should humans be an exception? In fact, the same evidence that led Darwin to his theories also linked humans to the primates: namely, the hierarchical classification of species.-

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IOW, philosophy operating under the pretext of science ignoring the fact that the very items of which your whole theory rides on is missing.

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If you are speaking of the fossils, then the theory neither rides on them, nor are they missing.

Hello, Herepton.

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Your opinion assumes opponents assertions qualify as conclusive evidence.

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Along with many of these assertians are links to other web pages -- these web pages often contain references to actual scientific literature that you can look up if a research quality university library is accessible to you. I have looked up some of these citations on occassion.-

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What EVIDENCE did Darwin base his human evolution idea on ?

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He wrote two entire books (as well as many individual monographs) on the subject, detailing his investigations and the evidence he marshalled in support of his theory. The books are titled The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man: these books are undoubtably in a library near you, being as famous as they are. I have linked to on-line versions.-

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What part did his known racism play in those observations ?

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Probably very little.-

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As late as the early 20th century Darwinists were relying on racism to support hominid evolution.

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Perhaps some "Darwinists". Just as some "Christians" were relying on racism to support their interpretations of the Bible.-

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What scientific evidence did Darwin and subsequent evolutionists base human evolution claims on ?

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1. Fact: Most breeding organisms produce more offspring than is necessary to replace themselves.2. Fact: The population of most species are not increasing.3. Conclusion: Most individuals must die before reproducing.4. Fact: Many of the physical traits of individual organisms are hereditary.5. Fact: Some traits make an organism more likely to survive and reproduce, while others make an organism less likely to survive and reproduce.6. Conclusion: From 3, 4, and 5 we can conclude that organisms with the traits that make them more likely to survive and reproduce will produce offspring with those traits, while organisms with traits that make them less likely to survive and reproduce will leave few or no offspring with those traits.7. Conclusion: A corollary of 6 is that as generations pass, the number of organisms with "good" traits will increase, while the number of organisms with "bad" traits will decrease, until eventually all individuals in the species will have the "good" trait and the "bad" trait will disappear altogether.8. Fact: New heritable traits, usually subtle, occasionally appear.9. Fact: These new traits do not appear in any predictable pattern; these traits can appear in any body part or instinctual behavior; furthermore, some of these traits are helpful to an organism's survival, and others are detrimental.10. Conclusion: From 7, 8 and 9 we can conclude that a species will slowly "improve" with time, as new helpful traits appear and as the organisms with these traits are better able to survive and produce offspring with these traits.11. Fact: There is no mechanism that is known to prevent these small, incremental changes from adding up, over time, to large changes; furthermore, there is no known physical organ in any species nor any instinctual behavior that cannot arise from previous, simpler organs or behaviors.12. Conclusion: From 10 and 11 we conclude that there is nothing that will prevent very simple, primitive living species from producing the complex species that we see around us.13. Fact: Occassionally separate populations of a species will become physically isolated from one another and cannot interbreed.14. Conclusion: From 9 and 13 we conclude that these populations will evolve independently; from 12 we conclude that these will become different species.15. Conclusion: From several interations of 14, we conclude that several species can have a common ancestor.This is Darwin's theory of evolution in a nutshell. The two books I mentioned present mind-numbingly detailed observation to back up the points that I labeled as facts, as well as to present further evidence that evolution not only could have happened, but, in fact, has actually happened:16. Fact: Over the course of human history, animal and plant breeders have produce a huge variety of animal and plant breeds; many of these breeds share of common ancestor, and these breeds are often very, very different from one another as well as from the ancestor.17. Conclusion: The appearance of random traits coupled with a selection process can result in evolution.18. Fact: The species can be classified in a hierarchical pattern.19. Conclusion: 15 and 18 allows us to conclude that all known species have evolved from a very few (perhaps one) ancestral species.The books I have mentioned (as well as Darwin's other work) present very detailed evidence to support these facts and conclusions. I have left out his details of the fossil record as it was known at that time, as well as biogeography and other topics. Darwin brought in a lot of evidence from many different areas; I highly recommend that you read his two books all the way through to get an idea of how thorough he really was; I cannot do his work any justice in a short post like this.And, of course, over the last 150 years scientists in a wide variety of disciplines, using a wide variety of methodologies have only further confirmed the theory of common descent.Much of this is off-topic here, except to drive home the point:The fossil record was in Darwin's time (remains today) a very small, inessential part of the evidence in favor of the theory of evolution. However, although the fossil record is not essential to confirming the validity of the theory of evolution, the discoveries made in the last century and a half nonetheless does confirm it quite spectacularly.

Hello, iano.

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The above mentioned make uniformist presumptions.

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And what else should we do? If we are trying to figure out how things did work, are working, or will work in the then and there, what else can we do except apply what we know about the here and now? What are our choices except to give up trying to understand anything? When I lock my front door and go to work, I assume that my house will continue to exist. Perhaps you object to this "uniformist presumption", but why should I expect that my house will cease to exist? There are no principles that I am aware of that would cause my house to cease to exist until I return in the evening. Maybe you think my uniformist presumption is silly, but I will still make sure my lights are turned off and the water taps are off to ensure that these allegedly existing lights and water do not run up my utility bills. In fact, I have evidence that my house does exist. When I get home, there are phone messages on my answer machine indicating that my phone machine still existed while I was gone, and the garbage I forgot to take out is starting to smell indicating that the garbage still existed and was fermenting. No doubt you think I am silly to make such a uniformist presumption -- no doubt you think that your "intelligent designer" designs an answering maching with messages on it just as I am unlocking my front door (and, genius this designer is, just happens to put messages on it that correspond to what actual people claim to have left when I call them back!). However, I think my uniformist presumptions correctly predict what I will observe -- phone messages actually correspond to people who want to speak with me, garbage left will begin to smell, lights left on will run up an electric bill. You are entitled to your magical designer who runs all this, but I am more than satisfied with my "uniformist" theories.Likewise, you might not like the assumption that the world has worked more or less the same for the last three billion years, and biology has been more or less the same for the last three billion years. But assuming that Darwinian common descent through natural selection of random characteristics leads us to explain an amazing amount of the world around us. The fact is that the species can be placed in a hierarchical classification scheme. The is a necessary result of common descent; common descent could have produced no other pattern. You are entitled to believe that some "common designer" created the species in such a way as to fit a hierarchical pattern (but why? whim?), but I don't understand what it does for you. Common descent explains why we see terrestrial mammal/whale transitionals but not fish/whale transitionals, why we see ape/human transitionals but not carnivore/human transitionals, why we see dinosaur/bird transitionals but not rabbit/bird transitionals. A "common designer" could have designed species intermediate between birds and bats; my guess is such species will never, ever be found. If species looking like primitive pre-bats are found my guess is that they will look more like the tree dwelling mammals that will be found in the same strata. I make this prediction despite that there are no fossils yet known of primitive pre-bats. If I am correct, that such fossils that are intermediate between tree-dwelling mammals and bats are found, why is this not a good indication that these uniformist presumption is a good presumption?There is a ton of evidence that not only is easily explained by the theory of evolution, but would also pose great problems if the evidence were any other way. One simple theory not only explains all of this, but predicts all it as well; without the theory of evolution none of this makes any sense but can only be explained as ad hoc whims of some "designer". Why is this not good evidence that the "uniformist assumption" is a good assumption?When people complain about "uniformist presumptions", I have no idea what they expect. Without a good reason to suspect that the "uniformist presumption" is incorrect, why is it unreasonable to make the assumption? More to the point, seeing that so much evidence exists that the "uniformist presumption" is, in fact, correct, why should this be labeled a "presumption"? To use a phrase by Herepton, I cannot fathom why anyone would object to the "uniformist presumption" unless they are committed a priori to some "world-view".

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You disappear for days on end.

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And then he just repeats what he said before he disappeared. It would be nice if he took the time he was gone to actually devise counter-argumenents to our replies to him.

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It seems to me that a 'designer' - as you describe Her - would have left a lot of more-or-less successful experiments behind. So, where are all the missing experiments?

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Well, what happened was that all species were designed by subcommittees. After the basic guidelines for life was laid out, the Animal committee made its designs, the Plant committee made its designs, and so forth.Then on the Animal Committee, the Arthropod Subcommittee designed its version of an animal, the Chordate Subcommittee made its designs, and so forth.On the Chordate Subcommittee, the Reptile Subsubcommittee designed its own version of a chodate, based on the basic Chordate design, as did the Mammal Subsubcommittee.Then the Cetacean Subsubsubcommittee, impressed with the work of the Teleost Subsubcommittee, decided to make its own version of a "fish" (although, being a subsubsubcommittee of the Mammal Subsubcommittee it was contrained by the basic Mammal Design), and a similar thing happened with the Chiroptera Subsubsubcommittee in regards to the designs produced by the Aves Subsubsubcommittee of the Reptilia Subsubcommittee. The Primates Subsubsubcommittee, of course, decided to make its own version of tree dwelling life (in consultation with the Angiosperm subcommittees, of course)....Well, you get the idea. There wasn't an intelligent designer -- there were lots and lots of designers, all contrained by specs mandated by higher ups.