Transitional fossils not proof of evolution?

And I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for you nosey kids.

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Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

We hear that all the time - and then you go and contradict yourself by showing that you haven't looked at the evidence at all.

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There are no transitional fossils.

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Actually, there are lots of transitional fossils. Lots and lots. In fact, there are more transitional fossils than you can shake a stick at.-

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How did bats evolve? Where are the transitional fossils?

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If bat transitionals were found, would you then accept the theory of evolution? If so, the why don't you accept ape-human transitionals, ungulate-whale transitionals, fish-tetrapod transitionals? If not, then why bring it up?Here is how science works: you make a prediction and then see if the predicted phenomena are observed. Here is my prediction: if and when bat transitionals are found, we will find that they are related to the primitive arboreal mammals that also gave rise to primates. This is because current molecular phylogenies confirm that bats are distant cousins to primates.What we will not see is that pre-bats are related to primitive carnivores. We will definitely not see that proto-bats were related to birds. This is what we predict based on the theory of evolution.So if bat transitionals are discovered, and they have these predicted phylogenic relationships, what will you have to say? (Might be a moot question, since we have no guarantee that bat transitionals will be found. But, heck, we found whale transitionals, so who knows?)-

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I have gone over to the creationist camp, based on evidence, not faith.

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I used to be a creationist, but the evidence has shown me that literal Genesis creationism is untenable. Funny, huh?-The other points in your post are off-topic for this thread.-By the way, welcome to EvC. I look forward to your contributions here.

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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)

by hook or crook, you are welcome here .Edited by Damouse, : No reason given.

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-I believe in God, I just call it Nature
-One man with an imaginary friend is insane. a Million men with an imaginary friend is a religion.
-People must often be reminded that the bible did not arrive as a fax from heaven; it was written by men.
-Religion is the opiate of the masses

Well, I'm willing to help you a bit with your homework. I think that the ape fossil question is tangentally related to the topic, because the ape fossils do represent transitions along the lineage that eventually came to include our own, and some of the early ones show a mixture of ape and old-world monkey characteristics.First of all, humans are classified as great apes (in the superfamily Hominoidea), so all of those human ancestors you're talking about (the upright-walking apes, subfamily Homininae) are also apes. And since all apes are related, the ape fossils that predate the divergence of the hominin lineage from other apes are also ancestral to humans, at least indirectly. But we certainly have lots of ape fossils that are not classified in the human subfamily.Here are some of the fossil ape genera (lifted from John Hawks' Anthropology weblog):

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Aegyptopithecus (likely ancestral catarrhine)

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Proconsul

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Afropithecus

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Otavipithecus

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Turkanapithecus

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Dryopithecus

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Ouranopithecus

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Sivapithecus

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Gigantopithecus

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Ankarapithecus

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Lufengpithecus

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Oreopithecus

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Following the link above (and searches on Google) will provide you with much more information!

and if you ever fail to do your homework again, you're getting a saturday....

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-I believe in God, I just call it Nature
-One man with an imaginary friend is insane. a Million men with an imaginary friend is a religion.
-People must often be reminded that the bible did not arrive as a fax from heaven; it was written by men.
-Religion is the opiate of the masses

I think what pompuspom is referring to is the lack of fossils from the line leading to modern non human primates from after the split with our lineage.I think he suspects a plot to move "ape" fossils into the line leading to Homo. He is confused enough about the facts that one can't be sure that is what is going on but that's my guess.You are, of course, right about the definition of "ape" in one sense. But it should be clear that ppp is using the colloquial defintion of "non-human primate". Better be careful of terms here.

Hi, Pompuspom here again. I'll try to stay on topic in future. As an answer to the question, yes, I would believe in evolution if transitional types of bat fossils were found. I think that you are all starting off on a presumption that evolution is true. Sorry for not doing 'homework'. I am no expert on this matter, not a scientist, just someone with average IQ who thinks a lot about it. When I was out travelling in asia recently, I thought through the bat problem. A bat has wings formed by very long fingers, obviously. Now consider, what advantage is a slight elongation of the fingers in one mutated animal? if the membrane covered the fingers, would this aid in the animal's flight? thinking that it was perhaps a 'squirrel' with some skin-membrane used like modern flying squirrels. This finger extention mutation would have to be passed into the general 'squirrel' population, without being absorbed back into the population, not carrying on this mutation. We have to think then that gradual mutations of the finger extentions were possible over time, without breaking, after hitting a tree, because the flight was not good. I can't see it. The bats wings are perfect for flight. I'll read through your supplied links. I am not closed-mind on this whole subject, I am willing to be convinced.

Just one other thing. I'll come back to you when I've looked into the human ancestor stuff. My starting point is now as a non-beleiver, so I want to see good evidence of non-humans, which are not ideas based on a ape/monkey skull and a human skeleton found in the same location.

i can't tell you about bats, but i can tell you about birds. well, this is a standard creationist/id fallacy. the original purpose of the elongation may not have been flight, and it probably was not powered flight.there are very many animals even today that use membranes to glide from tree to tree. the popular one is the flying squirrel. such an animal probably began by jumping from tree to tree. larger and larger membranes were selected for, because the longer it can glide, the more chance it has of surviving and not being eaten. from a stage similar to flying squirrels, bats would have had similar selection factors:the longer the fingers, the larger the membrane surface, the longer the glide time. and once you get a successful glider, powered flight is not far off. flight need not be perfect, and adaptations need not be complete. even know, flying animals run into stuff all the time. the adaptation just needs to be slightly more effective at the selection factor than the general population. well, i dunno about that. i don't think they're lift-generating on their own, like bird wings.Edited by arachnophilia, : changed subtitle

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that's a pretty egregious misrepresentation of hominid paleontology.

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Oops, yes there seem to be a lot of extinct apes. 'Still not convinced about bats. (or human evolution) Perhaps bats wings are not perfect for flight, but they'r the best a mammal can do. I read about a bird fossil, long time ago now, which seemed to show a bony tail. This is convincing to me as a link-fossil. (about the only convincing thing I've ever found) Just a short bony tail.Edited by pompuspom, : feel like it

well, it's more than that. modern humans other primates have a lot of things in common. but the fossil hominids, i assure you, are not monkey skulls on human skeletons. while chimeras DO happen in paleontology from time to time, they are generally recognized very easily.the fossil hominids we have are indeed somewhere between modern humans, and other primates, even in their shapes. bats are hard, yes, because we have very, very few bat fossils, and no actual record of the transition. why do you say that? all birds have bony tails. the modern ones are very short, and end in a pygostyle. earlier "birds" range from nearly identical to other dinosaurs to very similar to today's birds. many do have long bony tails, as well as actual hands and claws.

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I had a quick peek at one of these links supplied in reply to my statement that 'there are no link fossils'. There is a lot of text. One could spend a long time trying to find evidence on the net, and any material available to read. I'll do some more research, when I have time. All this material is based on a belief that evolution is true. I am absolutly convinced that it is not true. So convinced that I am open to any evidence to challenge my thought. I was in a natural-history museum in Germany recently, and there was the eohippus (forgive spelling) the ancestor of the horse. Hang on a minute, could you please supply me with evidence that this animal evolved into a horse? 'Don't just say it did'.
The bat wing, as far as I'm aware has a curvature, caused by the shape of the 'fingers'. The curvature is the shape which creates lift on a wing, similar to a goose wing.
The human evolution subject, in my previous existance as a beleiver, provided the strongest evidence for evolution, but recently I've seen monkeys from S.America with a rounded head shape.Edited by pompuspom, : No reason given.Edited by pompuspom, : No reason given.

I'm not sure that's clear from the post, and I guess he was satisfied. He seemed to mainly be concerned that "All of them are human ancestors," which is easily dealt with by pointing out that the Asian ape lineage (including the fossil genera Dryopithecus, Sivapithecus, Gigantopithecus, and Lufengpithecus, and leading to orangutans) is in a distinct clade from the African apes (including humans), so those are not considered ancestral. We do have good fossils of Asian apes from after the hominin split. Gigantopithecus is known to have shared its range with Homo erectus. Not much found yet for the recent ancestors of chimps or gorillas, I guess.