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Author | Topic: evolutionary chain | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
I was wondering if anyone can give me an evolutionary chain of either fossils or living animals,or a mixture of the two, starting in one of the major types of animals and ending with another. For example, fish to amphibian or reptile to bird. I would like a list stating who evolved from whom with descriptions of each animal.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
Ned, for some reason I couldn't look at any of those, it said, file not found when I clicked on them. Am I doing something wrong?
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
quote:I don't think this is what I was looking for. Did these guys evolve from each other? This message has been edited by Christian, 10-28-2005 06:11 PM
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
I did a bit of reading on this site http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
and concluded that it is most likely not what I am looking for. Let me try to restate what I am looking for to avoid confusion: I would like a chain of animals starting in one major type and ending in another. I don't mean that I have to have definite ancestors. What I would like, however, is something plausible. As I was looking at that tree, there were several ape/man type creatures (apparently), but not a definite order by which they could've evolved. Here's a part of what I read that led me to believe that was not what I was looking for: quote:Maybe I should narrow things a bit more. What if we start with any type of animal with a distinguishing characteristic, and then move backward to show what their ancestor without that characteristic could've been? some possabilities might be the jumping aparatus of the click beetle, the spinneret and male copulating organ of spiders, the wing of a bat, the neck of the giraffe, the male reproductive organs of the dragonfly, the mammary glands or four-chambered heart of mammals, the shells on turtles, etc. Start with any one of these (or come up with another one) and tell me who their most recent ancester was (or could have been) which did not have the distinguishing characteristic.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
Thanks, I'll look for that book.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
This looks pretty interesting. I read most of it, but as I'm short on time and it is rather long, maybe you can answer this question for me. could these animals actually have evolved from each other? If so, could you give me the chain of actual animals that could've evolved from each other, starting with an animal with the reptile jaw and ending with an animal with the mammal jaw?
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
Evolution gives rise to trees, not chains. Thinking of organisms in terms of chains of development is of fairly limited use.
It seems pretty useful to me. It's very useful to show evidence of decendence. For example, in biblical geneologies, they start with one guy, We'll call him "A" for the purpose of illustration. Then they say "A" begot "B" and "B" begot "C" and "C" begot "D", etc. This shows that "D" is truly a decendant of "A". In our case, though, we don't know exactly which animals decended from which because we weren't there, so we have to speculate. But it would be very useful to try to piece together actual chains. In any case, if we do have trees, shouldn't you be able to find chains on the trees?
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
I thought I already answered this but I can't find my answer so I'm doing it again. If I've done it twice, sorry.
Evolution gives rise to trees, not chains. Thinking of organisms in terms of chains of development is of fairly limited use. You wouldn't bother to think of your own ancestry in terms of a "family chain" leading from some arbitrary great-great-grandparent down to you; it's much more useful to consider your family as a tree, because it connects you to your cousins and uncles, as well as your direct ancestors.
But I'm not so interested in who you think my cousins are. I'm a whole lot more interested in who you think my ancestors were and why you think they were my ancestors. So for our purposes, I think a chain would be a lot more useful. Anyway, if we have trees, can't we find chains on the trees? If I look at my own family tree, I can find out who my grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather...etc. were.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
I guess I did post two replies to that, oops.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
Are you saying that guy A only begot B and B only begot and B only begot C and etc.?
Of course not.
Think of it this way. How many second cousins do you have? How many third cousins do you have? Now, add in all the ones that you have lost contact. Now, add in all the ones that you don't know about. Now, multiply that by a billion. Do you still want to call it a chain?
I'm not calling it a chain. I'm asking for a chain. It seems pretty clear to me that on any tree, there would also be chains you could follow. Let me say again that I am not asking for definite ancestors, only plausible ancestors, I'm even ok with a few missing links. I would simply like to see a chain of ancestry. For example, tell me who the most recent ancestor of the turtle was that had no shell, and then fill in the gap between no shell and shell. But what I don't want is a list of half-shelled species that couldn't have evolved from each other. Rather, fill in the gaps with some sort of plausible chain of actual species of animals that might possibly have evolved from each other. If there aren't chains like this, then I don't know how anyone could possibly say that the fossil record is evidence for evolution.
If every living creature that ever existed got fossilized, yes. Again, what you are asking for is not reality. Fossilization is extremely rare and the ones that actually got fossilized and survived to this day is even rarer.
Maybe you can tell me what percentage of species living today are seen in the fossil record.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
But that's not how descendance works. Families expand, not descend. Just like evolution, pretty much.
Right, but within that expansion there are chains. My husband, for example, can trace his geneology for 14 generations by looking at his family tree. He could draw it as a huge, complicated bush, or he could write it as a chain starting with a great-great-great...grandparent and ending with himself. Yes, that leaves out a lot of family members, but it shows who his direct ancestors were.
1) The Bible geneologies are fictitious.
Highly unlikely since the people back then knew who their relatives were and if the geneologies were fictitious, people would've had something to say about it. However this has very little to do with the topic.
2) The Bible geneologies are strictly paternal and primogenitural; they're not true geneologies because they leave out almost all of the family.
most of the family is left out on purpose to simplify the geneologies. Simplifying the geneologies is useful to show more clearly who the ancestors were. That may not be why the women were left out, but that's also a whole other topic.
Why? What use would you get that you wouldn't get from the whole picture? Why hobble yourself?
With a simple chain I could look at each species and determine if I agree that it is plausible that this species evolved from the previous one. I'd rather not be "hobbled" by a huge bush when all I need is a chain.
Only by working backwards. If you want to work forwards, you need to be thinking in trees.
Well, It's lovely to look forward and imagine the tree of ancestors I will have, but it does very little to prove or disprove evolution. So lets work backwards. P.S. I haven't answered your posts on intelegent design for two reasons.1)I'm kind of caught up with this thread and the one about the age of the earth right now. 2)You've stumped me for the time being and I'm going to have to do some more research before I can answer you.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
There's so much in this thread now, it's hard to find the chains I've been given. You gave me a list, but I clicked on all of those and got nothing. Maybe you could list the chains you want me to take a look at and I'll do that.
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
It's difficult to know where to start since it's been awhile since I've posted on this topic and so much has been said. I still haven't read everything that's been said. So if I ask questions which have already been answered please bear with me.
To anyone I haven't responded to: Please understand that this is because of a lack of time and not because of any desire to avoid anything. That said, I'll jump in.
Again, you are asking for something from fantasy land.
I think you misunderstood me. There have been studies done to try to determine just how complete or incomplete the fossil record is. I thought I'd ask for the information rather than provide it so people wouldn't attack my source. Here's a quote from Michael Denton's book Evolution: a theory in crisis
Maybe you can tell me what percentage of people living today are decendants of people that have been recorded in history. G.G.Simpson recently estimated the percentage of living species recovered as fossils in one region of North America and concluded that, at least for larger terrestrial forms, the record may be almost complete!(Simpson, op cit, Table 8) Here's a Table compiled from Romer (whatever that is):
#of living orders of terrestrial vertebrates.......43 # of living orders of terrestrial vertebrates found as fossils.....42 percentage fossilized..............................97.7% # of living families of terrestrial vertebrates..............329# of living families of terrestrial vertebrates found as fossils..261 percentage fossilized...........................79.1% # of living families of terrestrial vertebrates excluding birds...........178# of living families of terrestrial vertebrates found as fossils excluding birds .........156 percentage fossilized............87.8%(Romer,op cit,compiled from information on pp 347-96)
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
I think that there is some rather strange reading of them going on. You might note that the family level is the lowest given and that it is a % of currently living groups. Consider that when you tell us how you interpret this result.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Also, why would you post this when it isn't relevent once you've been given several "chains"?
Sorry, my time is so limited (I feel I'm saying this over and over). I have not had the chance to read all of the posts on this thread. I would like to take a look at those "chains" and see if they are what I was asking for. First I'll have to find them. I don't see how this is irrelevant, though. I think someone said something about the fossil record being incomplete and that that was why the kind of chain I am requesting cannot be offered. I was trying to argue that the fossil record isn't really as incomplete as people think it is.
Could you now tell us what those percentages are supposed to mean?
I would answer this question but I'd rather spend my time looking for those "chains" I've been given
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Christian Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 157 Joined: |
Birds are less easily fossilized than other things.
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