Transitional Fossils Show Evolution in Process

Hardly surprising when we have 101 posts, with the term "foraminifera ecophenotype" appearing in many of them (sometimes more than once).Don't you feel even slighly embarrassed that this is the best argument you can put forward, RAZD?

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"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

So by your own calculations, it could be wrong 15% of the time? Where does that leave Parker, Arnold and you with your "unbroken" evolutionary progression, RAZD?Edited by Kaichos Man, : No reason given.

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"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

I have one word for you, Cavediver. Pride.

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"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

No. Based on morphology alone, we don't have the faintest idea what we are looking at.Remember Stephen J Gould and his "tape of life", RAZD? The idea that evolution is highly unlikely to follow the same path twice? Get a load of this:

quote:

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JSTOR: Access Check

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Cifelli (10) described the two remarkable radiations of planktonic
foraminifera during the Cenozoic. Globigerinid ancestors
in the earliest Paleogene gave rise to a morphologically
diverse clade, which decreased strongly in diversity towards
the end of the Oligocene. Subsequently, another radiation in
the Neogene reproduced nearly the same spectrum of morphologies.

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Two "remarkable radiations", RAZD, The critter didn't just "evolve" the same way twice; all of its progeny repeated the exact same morphological radiation.Easy to believe if it was simple clinal morphology- information that was already present in the genome, just waiting for the right ecological conditions to activate it. In fact you would expect it to happen.Impossible to the nth degree (according to Stephen J Gould) if it was genuine RM/NS.Plasticity, RAZD. Not evolution.

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"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

quote:

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one could draw a circle around the above lineage to encompass "f" through "j" and label that the speciation event.

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Indeed. As one could draw a circle around Lucy and Homo Sapiens and label that the speciation event.Exactly how much of the scientific method are you prepared to jettison for the sake of the Theory of Evolution, RAZD?

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"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

A "gross exaggeration" is a gross exaggeration, WK. However I will plead guilty to overstatement. Sorry. Exactly the point raised by Simon Conway Morris, who believes that the ubiquitous nature of convergence points to "directed" evolution. It is you who should be cautious, WK.

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"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

Unless you can pinpoint the speciation event, you can't be sure this has actually happened. How do you know that the second population didn't come from a hitherto undiscovered ancestor? It is only by isolating the speciation event that you can prove the two populations derived from the previous one. And as I have just pointed out, the "granularity" of the detail is absolutely relevant to the establishment of an unbroken progression. Without it, no progression exists, unbroken or otherwise, beyond the usual non-science of inference. But they didn't lead from Lucy to H. Sapiens, did they Percy: Just a moment...Which is a very good illustration of why the "granularity" is so important. Hard, factual research revealed that Lucy was not our ancestor, and that's why assuming speciation is so dangerous (but only if you take the scientific method seriously, of course). As I have pointed out to you many times, Percy, a failure to accept is not a failure to understand. And it is sad to see that you are approaching the Dr Adequate end of the scale in gratuitous rudeness.

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"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

On the contrary, Conway Morris' belief was caused by the evidence. Multitudinous cases of inexplicable convergence convinced him that "evolution has many paths, but few destinations". It could not possibly be a random process. True of me, but not of Conway Morris. His religious conviction came from the evidence. Really? The stochastic de novo creation of genes? At odds of uncountable goggillions to one, with no help from natural selection because there is not yet anything to select?Now, that's faith, WK. That is truly clenching your eyes shut, raising your hands and proclaiming "I believe!"

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"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

Most of your post is answered in my post to Percy, RAZD. Lucy had the jaw architecture of a gorilla, thus she was not in the chimpanzee line and not an ancestor of H.Sapiens. The diagrams you posted are a great example of evolution's "Science by Artist's Impression". >Sigh.<

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"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