evolutionary chain

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And check out arach's post #186 where he quotes a creationist source that says that modern horse breeds have differing rib counts.

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And creationists themselves admit that different horse breeds have a common ancestor, so they must admit that evolution can produce different numbers of ribs.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

But I don't think that humans evolved from primates with tails either. It would be more of a case if the fossils were found in the same place, in different layers. When they're found all over the world, it's hard to know, for sure which ones are really older. I have no idea where the info came from if that's what you mean.

You are wrong about not being able to tell which is older. The methology of dating fossils in rocks is very well established. For older fossils, most fossils are dated via the Potassium/argon radiometric dating.

To be more accurate: We lack a tail, just as the apes do because we share a common ancestor who also lacked a tail. We can say this with some degree of certainty because it is a trait all apes share.If we were to trace our lineage back in time through this common ape ancestor we would likely find an ancestoral species who did indeed have a tail. The law of uniformatarianism, horizontal continuity and superposition would support which ones are in the same strata, or which ones are younger or older. Dating techniques support where they are placed in the stratigraphy.You also have certain fossil species which have been shown to have existed for brief periods of time over certain geographical ranges. If I find a trilobite species in the rock in the same horizon as my target fossil, I know it "the target fossil" has to be within a certain age range. I can pinpoint the age of the fossil by using other dating techniques, by dating the matrix surrounding the fossil.

Welcome back Christian. You 'of course' realize that the above is just an argument from incredulity ... that relies more on wanting you to feel embarassed about the question than about the facts ...... and that evolution can and does involve increasing and decreasing the numbers of ribs in species as well as between species: look at snakes as an example of adding ribs and vertebrae. All this means is that a genetic sequence that says "build a rib" is duplicated or damaged for such a simple change. There is nothing really disadvantageous about having one or two more or less than a current population, unlike say having an extra leg, or an extra finger or toe (and we see people with these extra digits frequently).If this is the standard of argument of this persons source, then it is rather untrustworthy from the start.I haven't read through the rest here yet, so I'll reserve further comment for later.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

You can read the table of contents, the first couple of pages and the index on amazon.com:Link to "see inside" the book (click)They often have some "previews" of books on their site (and sometimes have used books for sale).

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

One of the problems you will encounter is what "macro"evolution is - how is it different (if it is) from "micro"evolution? Think about this as you read through this thread for some points. Message 21 introduces therapsids and the transition from reptile to mammal -- fairly "macro" as things go, but the individual changes involved were on the "micro" level - speciation. Just basal to mammals since the differentiation. The "macro" part is accumulated changes since that division - more {speciation\"micro"evolution}, a LOT more.There is also a discussion of horse evolution on this thread with the development of a novel feature in the horse hoof, a secondary pump to move blood in the leg.These are the kinds of things creationists ask for in discussing "macro"evolution and then run from discussing when they are brought up.Have fun with your debate (realize that you will NOT change the minds of the religiously convinced, so treat them with respect, and give them information not emotion)Welcome to the fray.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

OK, I wasn’t around on here when this discussion happened, but reading over this is painful. Christian was asking a fair question - can you show me a hypothetical chain consistent with the fossil record. Within a few posts, Christian makes this clear again, saying that it only has to be plausible - not that we have to know for sure exactly that this is the actual descendant.With such a question, we should have provided a ton of very useful and clear pictures. Instead, we went around for post after post talking about how we can’t know exact ancestry (which isn’t needed in this case anyway), and about how evolution produces trees or bushes (which is fine, but chains still exist along any lineage, and plausible ones are all that’s needed anyway).Now, in all fairness, several people did give good information, and the homind sequence early on was good and was not defended - which it certainly could have been since it is plausible (or at least major sections of it). The later horse and whale discussions were good too. There is a series of cartoons that show what I think is desired here, on the Cosmos series. We need to make more of those, and in image form. I have several good pictures here, and don't know how to attach them, but you know the kinds of pictures I mean.Christian may well have been too nitpicky later, and indeed did quibble over good chains, but am I the only one who feels her initial questions were fair, and that we failed miserably in answering them, even though we have tons of excellent examples of exactly what she wanted?I think this is an area where the educated community really has some work to do - to make these clear and easy chains available - even if they have footnotes that we avoid in scientific papers, with phrases like “plausible”, “consistent with the fossil record”, and “exact lineages cannot be known for certain”.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

First, they need to be images that are not covered by copyrights, then they need to be posted (hopefully to an independent website so that original images on other sites are note "deep-linked" here causing bandwidth problems to the original sites), then the coding is:[img]http://.../.../image.jpg[/img]or[thumb=300]http://.../.../image.jpg[/thumb]In the latter one, 300 sets the size of the thumbnail image (I think the default size is 100), and this makes an automatic link to show the full sized image (best for loading time on the threads when any large images are used).There are several people here that can host pictures (have a site that I can use, and admins can host pictures as well) Perhaps we should start a new thread for this, one not encumbered by the "post after post talking about how we can’t know exact ancestry" and other issues with this thread.Or you could write (or edit a group effort for) an article for the column forum on this topic, so it can serve as a reference for debate on other threads. If you go this route the pictures would be part of the article and could be hosted by the forum (I believe).Thanks.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.