Transitional fossils not proof of evolution?

I'll reply to this message should you return.--Percy

This is off topic in this thread, so I'd echo Chiroptera's comment that you should take this up in the Motivations for the non-belief in God thread. I see you posted there once back in early May.--Percy

Your last message before the weekend, Message 103, had three replies. I think the main point, not that there weren't other important points, was that you continue to misunderstand the theory of punctuated equilibria in several ways:

1. Punctuated equilibria addresses the issue of transitional fossil evidence at the species/species level, not higher levels.
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2. Fossil transitional evidence is abundant at higher taxa levels.
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3. During the more rapid evolution of the punctuation, normal evolutionary steps are not skipped. Mutations and allele recombinations happen at the same rate as before (though there is some evidence that populations under stress experience higher rates, that possibility is not a necessary part of the theory of punctuated equilibria). What increases is the rate at which the environment selects for mutations and allele combinations that are different from the current profile for the population.
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   For example, lets say that in a stable environment a common allele combination produces thicker coats. Individuals with this characteristic are selected against because they are too hot in the summer time, and they are slightly slower then their brethren with lighter coats. The population is stable with regard to this characteristic. For as long as the environment remains relatively stable, the population will remain stable with respect to thickness of coats.
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   But then a change in environment causes shorter cooler summers and longer colder winters. Now, suddenly, individuals with the allele combination for thicker coats are selected *for* rather than against. Their lighter coated brethren tend not to make it through the colder winters, and the cooler summers no longer negatively affect the thicker coated individuals. They're still slower than their lighter coated brethren, but the percentage of individuals in the population with the allele combination for thicker coats rapidly increases over a period of just years.
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   If the cold period persists then many other advantageous mutations and allele combinations will also be selected for instead of against, and the population will undergo rapid evolution, perhaps sufficient to eventually be considered a different species.
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   The important thing to note is that no evolutionary steps are skipped. It is just that selection causes advantageous genetic changes to be selected for and thereby become rapidly distributed and represented in the population.

Until you reach a proper understanding of the theory of punctuated equilibria and of the relevant evidence, the responses to your criticisms can only be to keep telling you that you don't yet understand it.For example, you've often repeated that there's far too little transitional fossil evidence. This is only true at the species/species level.For another example, you keep offering quotes from people like Gould that you think are saying that there is little transitional fossil evidence, but you don't seem to understand that they are talking about the species/species level.For yet another example, you keep saying that PE advocates evolutionary jumps. It doesn't.Until you correct your errors in understanding, you cannot construct a meaningful critique of PE.--Percy

There's an explanation lying behind Nosy's way of responding to your question. The issue of transitionals has been addressed here many times, and experience has shown that creationists rarely accept the scientific definition of transitional, and that they ignore some subtle distinctions between transitionals at different classification levels, i.e., species, genus, order, family, etc.So Nosy was just trying to protect himself from giving a detailed answer about transitionals only to have you reply, "That's not what I consider a transitional, and I don't care if science thinks that's a transitional, it isn't." If we approach this more generally and ask about transitionals between fish and amphibians, a number of transitionals appear in the fossil record. The most famous is the Coelacanth, of which there is actually a modern representative. The Coelacanth is a relative of the ancestor of tetrapods, which are land-based animals. Much closer relatives have also been found, but perhaps this is enough for now until we clarify the types of transitionals that you'll find acceptable.--Percy

It isn't the modern coelacanth that is the relative of the transitionals to tetrapods, but ancient ones. You're probably thinking that extinct species with modern representatives couldn't possibly be near relatives of the tetrapods that emerged a few hundred million years ago, but that's probably because you're making the mistake of assuming that all populations of a species evolve the same way, and that's not the case. Some Coelacanth populations (actually, their relatives) evolved significantly, some to eventually become the tetrapods, and some did not.Anyway, would it help if we became more specific about transitional fossils between fish and amphibians?--Percy

You're asking about the Coelacanth? Coelacanth is an order, not a species. The species that survives today is not the same one as any of the fossil species that have been discovered. While we have no DNA from the extinct Coelacanths, since they aren't even the same species there must be a huge number of random genetic differences with the modern species.--Percy

First, as others have said, the species extant today are not the same species as millions of years ago. If you want to focus on something specific, such as horseshoe crabs, then we could do this, but keep in mind that horseshoe crabs is a class, not a species. Though the class of horseshoe crabs is very ancient, specific horseshoe crabs species alive today are not.Second, even if you did find a modern species that appeared the same today as millions of years ago, the fact remains that without ancient DNA samples you simply cannot make the statement that the DNA is unchanged between millions of years ago and today. Our expectation would be that the non-coding portions of the DNA would pick up random genetic changes at a relatively constant rate, but without ancient DNA samples this cannot be checked directly. However, comparisons of non-coding regions of DNA of species across a broad spectrum of relatedness supports this view. It is familiarly known as the molecular clock.--Percy