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Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Transitional Fossils Show Evolution in Process | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kaichos Man Member (Idle past 4513 days) Posts: 250 From: Tasmania, Australia Joined: |
you're trying to choose other people's paths, too. What better way to choose someone's path than by denying them a choice of paths? "Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Hi Kaichos Man,
You're adding more off-topic commentary to a subthread where people were making an effort to coax Sailorstide back onto the topic. If you want to post messages not about fossils but instead about teaching religion in public school science classrooms then you should raise the issue in threads where it would be on topic. Or you could propose your own topic over in Proposed New Topics. Thanks. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Hi Kaichos Man,
Here's a link to the article by Pawlowski and Holzmann whose abstract you quoted from:
Where does it say anything supporting your claim that Arnold and Parker confused morphological differences with species differences? You appear to be taking your argument (and your image) from The Fossil Record: Foraminifers by Sean D. Pitman M.D. Why don't you cite your sources and throw this guy, and Pawlowski and Holzmann, too, some credit? If Pitman or Pawlowski and Holzmann have any arguments against the Foraminifers as an example of a continuous fossil record of evolutionary change then you haven't reproduced them here in a way that makes any sense. We understand the ecophynotypic argument, but you never show how Arnold and Parker committed that particular mistake. --Percy
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Hi Kaichos Man - still reading more into information than is there?
Notice how they differ markedly in relation to their environment. That's because they are ecophynotypic. That should have sounded a warning bell for Tony Arnold and Bill Parker but it obviously didn't. However, fortunately there are more professional scientists around: There are a couple of problems here. Notice at the right edge of your graphic there is a group labeled "planktonic" and the rest are all benthic. Your article applies to benthic forms:
quote: While Arnold and Parker studied planktonic:
Evolution at Sea quote: So the free floating ones are not bound by the ecological constraints of their local environment the way the benthic ones are. Furthermore, your article only covers two groups of benthic forams: http://www.springerlink.com/content/83502273g54060w5
quote: However, similar studies have been done on the planktonic forams with similar results of finding cryptic species. Foraminifera - Wikipedia
quote: Where "morphospecies" are species groups defined by their morphology, while understanding that there may be one or more cryptic genetic species involved. This means there are possibly more species, but it is difficult to say because they look the same. So finally, there is the problem of what the evidence actually shows, versus what you claimed:
... They underestimated diversity. They got it wrong. They thought they were looking at different critters, when they were the same critters wearing different coats. Ecophenotypes, RAZD. Not evolutionary successors. ... You have it exactly backwards -- the cryptic forams were wearing the "same coats" while exhibiting greater diversity under those "coats" (tests). At worst this means that where Arnold and Parker saw some speciation events, they may have missed others due to crypsis, and this in no way invalidates the speciation events seen, nor does it invalidate the panorama of transitional forms for the planktonic forams. Classifying forams by their tests ("coats") underestimates the diversity, but does not invalidate the fossil record of change in breeding population from generation to generation. Enjoy we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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deerbreh Member (Idle past 2918 days) Posts: 882 Joined: |
No, to disprove evolution you need something that absolutely can't be explained by the current theory--some undisputed fact that just doesn't fit, and can't be made to fit. Well put and of course that is why the intelligent design folks keep dragging out yet another example of "irreducible complexity" each time someone dismantles the previous example. Almost reminiscent of the much discredited "Gish Gallop" argumentation technique.Index.php - RationalWiki And of course "irreducible complexity" is really a variation of the "no transitional fossils" claim by the traditional YECers. Which is exactly why in my opinion there is not really a dime's worth of difference between a YECer and an IDer.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Further to the previous reply, the article cited can be found here:
Cryptic species of planktonic foraminifera: thier effect on paleoceanographic reconstructions, by Kucera, M., and Darling, K.F., 2002. Bits and pieces from the article:
quote: Things to note:
None of this recent work invalidates the fossil record showing lineages of common descent with changes in morphology over time, nor does it invalidate the observed division of parent populations into reproductively isolated daughter populations, rather this new work reinforces this pattern and extends it to a finer detail in the living species. This same level of detail may not be discernible in the fossil record, yet we can assume that it exists or not, and the pattern of common descent still holds, locked in the fossils, evidence of intermediate forms between ancestral and descendants, evidence of evolution in process: forams are indeed transitional fossils, as the term is used in science. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : more links Edited by RAZD, : glitch fixed we are limited in our ability to understand
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Kaichos Man Member (Idle past 4513 days) Posts: 250 From: Tasmania, Australia Joined: |
Ah, RAZD.
I bring up "ecophenotypes", a single species exhibiting a range of morphotypes. Then you bring up "morphospecies", which can be several species exhibiting the same morphotype- and accuse me of having it the wrong way around! The fact is, forams are extraordinarily plastic. They possess, as you have pointed out, "cryptic genetic variation". It may be worthwhile to establish exactly what that means:
quote: Notice that this doesn't make them seperate species. It means a single species can take many forms. This results in ecophenotypes and morphospecies. It means that when you look at three morphotypes you could be looking at six species or one. And the fact is, it's impossible to tell:
quote: The cryptic genetic diversity of living foraminifera has been established through molecular studies. But the forams comprising the fossil record contain no DNA. That's why Arnold and Parker had to rely on microphotography. And given that -at any given time- they could be looking at the same species taking several forms, or a single form representing several species, their claims of establishing an unbroken evolutionary progression are laughable. "Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 309 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
And given that -at any given time- they could be looking at the same species taking several forms, or a single form representing several species, their claims of establishing an unbroken evolutionary progression are laughable. Wouldn't it be great if you could establish that by argument rather than by confident assertion?
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2723 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Kaichos Man.
Welcome back! It's good to you(r words) again.
Kaichos Man, msg #37, writes: Notice that this doesn't make them seperate species. It means a single species can take many forms. This results in ecophenotypes and morphospecies. It means that when you look at three morphotypes you could be looking at six species or one. You're confused, Kaichos Man. Look at your quote again:
Kaichos Man writes: quote: They thought they were looking at different critters, when they were the same critters wearing different coats. It says morphology underestimates diversity. There is more diversity than morphology would suggest. That does not mean "the same critters wearing different coats"; that means, "different critters wearing the same coat." There is nothing here that suggests that there is ecophenotypic diversity in forams. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Hi Kaichos Man, you will be pleased to know that I gave your post serious consideration. I'm going to go long on you, because you deserve it.
When you first posted the question about ecophenotypes I noticed that you provided no evidence to link the term to foraminifera other than your claim. Previous experience with your claims leaves this a questionable source of authority at best.
Message 30: Notice how they differ markedly in relation to their environment. That's because they are ecophynotypic. It seemed fairly obvious to me that you had, once again, willfully misinterpreted some piece of information. I notice you've changed the picture - the other one showed better the divisions of the different groups of foraminifera (remember that this is a phylum not a species), however I can still work with this new graph as it shows the major groupings of forams. There are ~13 known orders of foraminifera, with more taxon divisions below that. Parker and Arnold said that they had documented over 300 species ("Counting both living and extinct animals, about 330 species of planktonic forams have been classified so far, Arnold said."), so there are likely quite a number of extant species. Here is your previous image for reference (from your actual source):
quote: Notice that the width of the bars in this graphic represent the number of families within each group, so we still are not down to the species level or even the genus level. BTW -- I'll echo Percy here: if you are going to post pictures or quote sections of articles you should provide links to your sources as part of your evidence, it's that old thing about proper credit where it is due eh? Here is the text that accompanies your current picture:
quote: Evidently Tosk is a creationist trying desperately to explain away the vast geological ages and massive data on foraminifera with a global flood and half vast imagination. You should use (a) more current resources and (b) more reliable resources. Let's continue: This latest picture shows 14 different examples of forams occupying different ecologies, and this may be where the known orders were when it was published (in 1988). Certainly we cannot assume that this picture represents species or genera or even families of forams, as too few are shown. The second reason I thought you were blowing smoke, was that I had not run across the term you gave in any previous reading on forams, and it was not mentioned in the article on forams in wikipedia (not that this is an authority, just a relatively current referential starting point). The third reason I thought you had it all wrong, was that the article you quoted (without source) contradicted what you said:
quote: Percy found the link to the abstract you quoted from:
Message 33: Here's a link to the article by Pawlowski and Holzmann whose abstract you quoted from:
Where does it say anything supporting your claim that Arnold and Parker confused morphological differences with species differences? And here is the whole abstract:
quote: There are a couple of things to note here:
Now, in general, when biologists talk about variations within a species they use the term variety. Several different varieties can exist within a single species, and it is common in many species to have distinctive varieties. To have ecophenotypic variants you would need to have distinctly different varieties within a genetic species. Conversely, when biologists generally talk about differences between species they talk about diversity, when speciation occurs the parent population diversifies into two distinct species. Cryptic means that different species look alike: Species complex - Wikipedia
quote: ... italics for emphasis. So when the paper says that both examples "perfectly illustrate high cryptic diversity revealed in almost all molecular studies" they specifically mean that there are cryptic species that look very similar but that they are genetically distinct. They may be (likely are) closely related (especially given that Ammonia is a genus), but they are not variations within a single species. Likewise when they say that "morphology-based studies largely underestimated foraminiferal diversity" they means that there are more species than is readily apparent from just looking at the morphology due to the cryptic species looking so similar. Entirely the opposite of what your creationist website tries to pretend. Now I though I made this point clear when I posted the quote from the wikipedia article on forams (that mentions morphospecies but does not mention ecophenotypes):
Message 34 Foraminifera - Wikipedia quote: Where "morphospecies" are species groups defined by their morphology, while understanding that there may be one or more cryptic genetic species involved. This means there are possibly more species, but it is difficult to say because they look the same. Notice that when we talk about modern planktonic forams, that there are some 40 morphospecies, 40 groups that are morphologically different. Now I though I drove this point home in the next post when I provided you with a second reference, this one on planktonic foraminifera, similar to the ones studied by Parker and Arnold, that ALSO talked about morphospecies:
Message 36 (edited for brevity): Further to the previous reply, the article cited can be found here:
Cryptic species of planktonic foraminifera: thier effect on paleoceanographic reconstructions, by Kucera, M., and Darling, K.F., 2002. Bits and pieces from the article:
quote: Things to note:
Notice that all the references to classification of forams as "ecophenotypic variants" are dated 1976 or earlier. Before Parker and Arnold (so they would be aware of this possibility) and before DNA sequencing for genetic analysis. Notice that this paper shows that what appeared to be "ecophenotypic variants" is now, by genetic analysis, seen as the genetic variation within the different morphospecies explained by the different genetic types, species classifications based on DNA instead. Now we come to your recent post.
I bring up "ecophenotypes", a single species exhibiting a range of morphotypes. Then you bring up "morphospecies", which can be several species exhibiting the same morphotype- and accuse me of having it the wrong way around! First, you will note that I did not introduce morphospecies, I provided the evidence from scientific studies of actual forams by scientists who classified them as morphospecies, and went on to show that the articles were indeed talking about morphospecies and not ecophenotypes. These articles show that you had it backwards.
The fact is, forams are extraordinarily plastic. They possess, as you have pointed out, "cryptic genetic variation". It may be worthwhile to establish exactly what that means: And again, you provide no reference of actual science done on forams to substantiate this claim. Please note that nowhere in my post did I mention "cryptic genetic variation" -- that this is YOUR misrepresentation of the argument against you. I mentioned cryptic species (because the articles talk about cryptic species), and I mentioned cryptic genetic diversity (reference above to terminology).
The cryptic genetic diversity of living foraminifera has been established through molecular studies. But the forams comprising the fossil record contain no DNA. That's why Arnold and Parker had to rely on microphotography. So I went looking for scientific articles on forams and ecophenotypes to see what I could find.
quote: Note (1) that this is 1978, and (2) that these forams involved ("Ammotium, Ammonia, and Elphidium") are three benthic genera, one of which Ammonia is specifically referred to in the article on benthic forams that showed cryptic genetic diversity instead of ecophenotypic variation. New information displaces old mistakes.
quote: 1986 - still old stuff, and ... Ammonia again. The other articles I found mentioned ecophenotypes because they cited the old papers as part of the history of classifying forams. One of these papers is the one I've provided in Message 36. By the time that Parker and Arnold made their morphological analysis of all the known marine planktonic forams, the idea of ecophenotypes had pretty much disappeared, and when you get to all the current articles that are based on genetic analysis we see that previous classification involving "ecophenotypic variants" were eroneous, and that the slight morphological differences were due to real genetic differences between cryptic species.
It means that when you look at three morphotypes you could be looking at six species or one. And the fact is, it's impossible to tell: No, Kaichos Man, it is not always possible to tell when you just look at the morphologies, however when you use genetic analysis and determine that there are distinct different genotypes involved you can tell, due to real genetic differences between cryptic species. This is what science has done since 1988. It has invalidated your premise that ecophenotypes are rampant through the phylum, and it has consistently shown that there are more genetic species instead -- more diversity, not less. Parker and Arnold showed what a robust morphological analysis could do to the biogeology of forams, but they underestimated the diversity of species involved. As such their morphological tree of descent from common ancestors stands, not dismembered, but stronger as it is validated by the genetic analysis of planktonic forams. The transitions and speciation events they show are still valid transitional fossils, although they may represent genera instead of species. Enjoy. ps -- thanks with providing me with another creationist hoax site (for Message 56):The Emperor Has No Clothes - Naturalism and The Theory of Evolution telling lies to gullible believers Edited by RAZD, : link Edited by RAZD, : clrty we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Kaichos Man Member (Idle past 4513 days) Posts: 250 From: Tasmania, Australia Joined: |
quote: You are suggesting then, RAZD, that ecophenotypic variation doesn't occur in foraminifera? "Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin
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hawkes nightmare Junior Member (Idle past 5054 days) Posts: 28 Joined: |
ok, about those pictures with the sugar glider and the flying squirrel. i have a question: what did the prehistoric sugar gliders look like? where are the transitional fossils between where they didn't have extra skin, to the ones where the started to develop it, to the present picture? show me.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Well Kaichos Man, what do you think?
You are suggesting then, RAZD, that ecophenotypic variation doesn't occur in foraminifera? The evidence shows that whenever genetic analysis is done, that no evidence for ecophenotypic variation is found, and in it's place, several cryptic species are found that are more than adequate to explain the previous old (1976) idea that ecophenotypic variation was involved. The evidence shows that the text accompanying your second picture, the one by creationist Trosk, is false, and that the different orders of forams are not all one species. His diagram is obviously a depiction of many of the same shells as the first diagram, which represents the orders of forams, not species, and when species are genetically distinct within the genus level, any attempt to claim that orders are one species is just plain ridiculous. Trosk is a discredited charlatan, and "Sean D. Pitman M.D." is either a gullible fool, delusional, ignorant of reality, or intentionally lying (your choice). You have the opportunity to learn from his mistake. Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi again hawkes nightmare, finding your way around?
ok, about those pictures with the sugar glider and the flying squirrel. ... You mean the example of convergent evolution that was given in Message 14:
We now, in the last 50 years, have a second method to verify the nested hierarchy through genetics. Genetics was\is probably the biggest test of evolution, for there is absolutely no reason for a nested hierarchy to appear in the genomes of organisms without common ancestry being true. We see that similar forms occur with convergent evolution, say of sugar gliders and flying squirrels:
So if evolution were not true, that these organisms did not evolve from highly diverse lineages, placental and marsupial diverging long ago, then there should logically be similar DNA for the formation of similar features. Instead genetic analysis says one is placental and the other is marsupial by the nested hierarchies visible in the genetic record. The genetic record confirms the pattern of evolution found in the fossil record. If evolution were not true then there should be homologous DNA for analogous features, and this is not seen in life today. If you reply to the message with the information you are replying to with the message reply button (there's one at the bottom right of each message):... your message is linked to the one you are replying to (adds clarity). This helps people track back to see what the previous post was about. You can also look at the way a post is formatted with the "peek" button next to it.
... what did the prehistoric sugar gliders look like? where are the transitional fossils between where they didn't have extra skin, to the ones where the started to develop it, to the present picture? show me. Why? You will note that these cute little guys are not presented as intermediate fossils, but rather part of a secondary test of evolutionary theory. The fact is that skin rarely fossilizes, and so such features are hard to distinguish in the fossil record -- they may be there but not noticed as ancestral to the sugar glider or flying squirrel. What we do know from the skeletal and genetic evidence of both animals, is that they have distinctively different features and traits under the skin, and that the appearance of similarity is just that: superficial skin deep appearance. The appearance of similar design would argue that similar DNA would be involved for the development of each, but this is not the case. This is an opportunity, however, to introduce another transitional fossil:
quote: Note that there is no fossil evidence of the skin, so the attachment of the skin to the skeleton is inferred from secondary evidence. This is the abstract link for the Nature article (you will need sign in privilege to read the full text):
quote: Here is the graphic showing the plot of limb ratios from the full article in Nature:
You will notice that Onychonycteris finneyi is exactly between the non-flying cohorts and the flying bats known in the fossil record and modern day. Note that Symphalangus, the blue triangle closest to this fossil, is a gibbon. Bradypodidae, the next closest, are sloths, Sciuridae, near the bottom left, are squirrels, and this would include the flying squirrel. Scandentia are tree shrews, thought by many to share a common ancestor with bats. Cynocephalus is a "flying" lemur:
A transitional fossil is one that shows traits intermediate between ancestral forms and descendant forms, and this bat is clearly between modern bats and non-flying arboreal organisms. Enjoy.
... as you are new here, some posting tips: type [qs]quotes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:
quotes are easy or type [quote]quotes are easy[/quote] and it becomes:
quote: also check out (help) links on any formatting questions when in the reply window. For other formatting tips see Posting Tips Edited by RAZD, : addd we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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hawkes nightmare Junior Member (Idle past 5054 days) Posts: 28 Joined: |
nice with the bat. very well presented evidence, but i believe it was just a type of bat that died out because it couldn't adapt o its environment, not a transitional species. and as you should well know, different species cannot interbreed, so you cannot say that another ype of bat got it on with this one.
thank you for your concern with my being new here, but i know the layout of forums, as i am currently registered to about 5 or 6 of them. you will see me as hawkes nightmare on all of them.
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