On Transitional Species (SUMMATION MESSAGES ONLY)

Peter writes:There was a comment/question (which can be found by tracing back in the message links):"Do you have an example of an organism that doesn't fit this criteria?Every species has traits from a pre-existing species and the species after it will have traits from it too so...."Which somewhat elaborated the point that (I think) I was attempting to make -- i.e. that any species could, in some respect, be considered a transitional one.

Taq writes:Really? I would say that shared characteristics transmitted from common ancestry tend to dwarf derived characteristics that evolved in each lineage. Humans, birds, lizards, fish all have backbones just as their common ancestor did. We all share the same basal embryonic developmental patterns. We all still use iron based hemoglobin to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide. The list goes on and on and on.On top of that, all of these shared and derived characteristics fall into the predicted nested hierarchy. We don't see species, living or dead, that have a mixture of mammalian and avian features, as one example. We don't see fish with vestigial patches of fur. We don't see birds with atavistic mammary glands. We don't see bats with feathers. All of these shared and evolved characteristics fall into the precise pattern predicted by the theory of evolution, and is inexplicable by creationism. That is the conclusion drawn from the objective morphology of fossils and living species. We conclude that these mixture of traits are due to evolution and common ancestry because the theory predicts the very pattern of shared characteristics that we observe. One does not have to assume shared ancestry in order to conclude that Archaeopteryx has dinosaur features not found in any living bird and avian features not found in any non-avian dinosaur. Those are simply the facts. From those facts we conclude that evolution occurred. And they do. Can you name a single body part that humans have but chimps do not?Can you name a single body part that humans have but whales do not? Compare that to the body parts that humans and whales share. One of the few differences I can think of is baleen. Whales and humans share the same mammalian lungs, liver, stomach, vertebrae, ulna, radius, humerus, cranium, brain, etc, etc, etc. Whales even nurse their young just like humans. If whales had vestiges of feathers it would disprove evolution. The simple existence of vestiges by themselves does not indicate evolution. It is the fact that the vestiges fall into the predicted nested hierarchy that points to evolution. I would disagree with "special cases" but the adaptation was relatively quick if you count 10's of millions of years as quick.

Taq writes:It is more than that. There is also the fact that shared features fall into a nested hierarchy as predicted by the theory of evolution. A common designer is not limited to a nested hierarchy, therefore there is no reason that one should exist. If mammals and birds have a common designer then what was stopping the designer from designing a species with a combination of mammalian and avian features? There is simply no reason that we should see a nested hierarchy if shared features were due to a common designer.On the other hand, a nested hierarchy is the only pattern that evolution can produce, at least for species that do no participate in horizontal genetic transfer. Therefore, evolution is the best explanation for the pattern of homology that we observe. Why should they still be there? For example, should lions still have gills according to your view of evolution? Why?

Dr Adequate writes:No. Actually, there's lots of them. In the real world, you know, the one you didn't make up in your head?As you yourself are about to admit in the case of whales. A case of evolution so undeniable that you yourself admit it ... is damning evidence against evolution?I have asked you to expand on this. It seems like it could be a whole new kind of creationist crazy.

Huntard writes: Ok. Yes, like evolution predicts. Well, yes. Even you admit that this is evience for evolution. See, where you use the word "adapted", biologists use the word "evolved". They're the same thing. What is it? The sentences "Marine mammals are clearly land creatures that adapted to the seas" and "in fact it makes a damning case against [evolution]" are contradictory. I asked you to stop contradicting yourself. That would make it easier to understand what you are on about.

Dr Adequate writes:This is, of course, not true. But not a good one, for two reasons. First, you are simply, flatly wrong about the prevalence of vestigial features.Secondly, the theory does not predict that everything should have vestiges of everything in its line of descent. What it predicts is that those features which appear vestigial should be consistent with the line of descent (as ascertained by the other evidence). That is, it divides vestigial features into two classes, the possible and the impossible --- it in no way implies that any such feature is necessary.A challenge to the theory would involve finding a feature in the "impossible" class.

Percy writes:I see the same contradictions others have noted. I would reinterpret what you're saying as that the whale evidence might support evolution, but that the rest of the evidence does not, and that whale evidence by itself is insufficient to conclude that evolution happened.But there are many examples of evolution as well evidenced as the whale, the horse being one that is very well known. It would indeed be evidence against the current evolutionary model of gradual species change over time if there were evidence for a flood around 4500 years ago followed by species change radiating from the Middle East to all points around the globe. Were such evidence found we would certainly have to consider the possibility you suggest of "innate triggers" and so forth. But there is no evidence for a flood, no evidence for a world wiped clear of life and repopulated 4500 years, and no genetic evidence for "innate triggers" that would cause the kind of species change you have in mind. The geologic column contains a fossil record of species change over time, with increasing differences from modern forms with increasing depth. That they appear to have evolved through lines of descent was readily apparent long before Darwin ever conceived his theory. Relatedness and the appearance of descent has been apparent to so many for so long that it seems perverse to deny it now.And yet you do, thereby introducing yet another contradiction. You claim (in another message) that the designer designed in the nested hierarchy that is reflected in the evidence of relatedness and lines of descent while denying that the nested hierarchy exists. Odd.--Percy

Dr Adequate writes:If it was instant adaptation, why are there all those intermediate forms? But this is not actually true. See my previous posts.

Percy writes:Interesting, I hadn't heard that one before. If you go to this link at Widipedia, it describes the interpretation I was using.--Percy

Taq writes:What criteria are you using to determine if a fossil is intermediate or not? Evidence please. No one claims that they came from each other. What we claim is that they share a common ancestor. They would all be found in the same strata since they are all living at the same time, so they would not be said to be a fossil sequence.

Dr Adequate writes:Well, for example, all mammals possess vitellogenin (egg yolk) genes; only echidnas and duck-billed platypuses actually use them, of course. In non-monotremes they survive as vestigial pseudogenes. So that's 99.82% of mammal genera at a single stroke, with vestigial features in every cell in their bodies (except red blood cells, which have no nuclei). Yes there are. If you wish to deny that they are transitional forms that's another thing, but that they are morphologically intermediate is unquestionable. They therefore constitute evidence for an evolutionary transition.If you have any evidence for your saltation hypothesis now would be a great time to produce it.

Tanypteryx writes:This is not correct. They are crawling with bits and pieces.Mammals have hair and mammary glands, that are bits and pieces that were inherited from their ancestral lineage back to the first Mammals.Mammals have a skeletal system, and a respiratory system, and a circulatory system, and a digestive system, and a nervous system and these, and everything else, are the bits and pieces that were inherited from their ancestral lineages.All the animals alive today fit into nested hierarchies of traits (bits and pieces) that they inherited from their ancestral lineages.It is those bits and pieces that we use to study and classify all living creatures. And we have millions of fossils that also fit into those nested hierarchies and show us how those lineages have changed and branched over the history of life on our planet.You are making wild pronouncements that are based on no evidence at all and that, in fact, totally ignores all the evidence that has been gathered and studied by countless scientists for the last couple centuries.I learned this in 7th grade science, where were you?

Percy writes:I think what you mean to say is that creatures do not have anatomical evidence that their very distant ancestors were anatomically different, and of course you are wrong. Mammals, for one, all share the same basic body plan of four legs (or two arms and two legs), four feet (or two hands and two feet), a head, a jaw, teeth, mammary glands, etc., etc., etc., yet all the species of mammals are different. And if you examine the fossil record you'll find the fossils of some of the creatures intermediate between modern forms. If evolution never happened there could be no reasonable expectation that such fossil forms would exist, and yet they do.About these "bits and pieces" you keep talking about, it seems that you must think that, for example, for a protohorse to evolve into the modern horse that the protohorse's clawed paws had to become vestigial and replaced by a new hoof structure. And that if the modern horse actually evolved from some protohorse then we should be able to see vestigial paw structures inside the foot of a modern horse. It certainly sounds like this is how you think evolution works, with your claims that we should find all sorts of bits of pieces of distant ancestors.Vestigiality doesn't deserve the attention it gets, but it is very true that some structures do, because of changing environmental circumstances, find that their original purpose no longer exists. They can't suddenly disappear. What happens is that they're gradually selected against, often becoming smaller and retaining less of their original but now unused capabilities. This happened to the human appendix and to the whale's and snakes legs.But what is much more common is that one structure evolves into a new or modified structure. No bits and pieces of the old structure are left because they've all become incorporated into the new structure. The hooves of the modern horse evolved from the paws and claws of some ancient protohorse. Bones from the reptilian jaw became the middle-ear bones of mammals. There are not bits and pieces left over because they've all become incorporated into new structures with modified and sometimes completely novel functions. The opposable thumb of apes evolved from earlier mammals with no opposable capability, while the panda evolved a "thumb" from a wrist bone, and there are no bits and pieces to be left over. Of course vestigial organs exist, they're part of the evolutionary history of life, but they are dwarfed in sheer volume by the co-opting of existing body parts for modified or new functions, which is far, far, far more common than vestigiality.--Percy

Dr Adequate writes:Yes it is, since it's what that hypothesis would predict. Well, no it isn't.But as I have pointed out, it is our expectation that comparatively few of these should be vestigial. But saying that this ought to be the case if the ToE is true debunks your argument.As I said, the fact that you are descended from monkeys and monkeys have legs does not mean that you should have vestigial legs. You should just have legs. The ToE does not predict that every remnant should be vestigial. Most of them should be fully functional, since you can't build a working animal entirely out of vestigial features. In the places where the theory of evolution actually predicts that we should find them. But they don't. Obviously the fact that marine mammals have vestigial features does not in any way imply that (for example) platypuses don't.

Percy writes:Uh, Robert, I presented some evidence and made some arguments in my post that addressed these very same arguments that you just repeated yet again. Rather than having me repeat my arguments again, please just go back to Message 159 and respond to what I said (indeed, you should do this for everybody), particularly where I explain why there is less vestigiality than you think there should be.We understand your position, you don't need to repeat it over and over again. We want to see how you think your way through the evidence and arguments for evolution that we're presenting to you. Watching you simply ignore them lacks interest and drama.--Percy