Fossil Record as the Strongest or most compelling evidence of Macroevolution

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I'm just saying that the Fossil record itself is not hard evidence for evolution. First of all the Fossil record's pattern of "smaller to bigger" organisms does not exactly say that "These organisms evolved", one can infer that this is what happened but it is not certain...

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That's part of the problem, though: the fossil record *doesn't* go from smaller to bigger. It goes in all sorts of different routes - including tiny fossils in the same strata as huge fossils - but they're *always* confined to a specific set of strata. Why?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Why can't it?
First there is the ASSUMPTION of millions of years, as can be fully seen in Ned's list. The fact is the rocks indicate sudden catastrophic burial. Proven through incredible preservation.(and why not?)

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1. The fossil record does *not* indicate sudden catastrophic burial. Minute, fragile details are carefully preserved in many places, ranging from bones of tiny animals covered in hard rock to tree roots in multiple tree horizons to nice neat river varves.2. What you see isn't preserved organisms. What you see is fossilized organisms. There's a big difference. Fossilized organisms have much of the organic material leached out and replaced by rock. Since different types of rocks leach at different rates, what replaces a fossil in the ground is going to be a different mineral as a whole than the surrounding rock; that is why fossils stand out and can be isolated.Naturally, fossilization is an incredibly slow process (there is not a single remain of homo sapiens sapiens that has fossilized even remotely close to as much as, say, a tyrannosaur.

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Secondly, we have these 'living fossils' which have not evolved in millions of years. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the 'living fossil' hasn't evolved in millions and millions of years, it simply is never going to.

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1) Such creatures are few and far between.2) Such creatures *have* evolved, just not as dramatically as their neighbors. Skeletal changes are still quite obvious.3) If a creature's niche doesn't change, there is no reason for the creature itself to change.Name a specific creature so that I can go into details.

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Add the lack of transitionals,(or rather none)

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I posted this just the other day: here's just the major steps (there are many more smaller steps that have been discovered) from humans down to jawless fish, and the ages that they're dated to (which, I'm sure it's just a coincidence to you, matches the morphometry). Please explain where the supposed gaps are.(*note - some of these may be "sister species" - I can elaborate on that if you would like)
(**note - dates with a ~ are rough approximates from the time period)1) H. Sapiens Sapiens (us) (40kya)
2) H. Sapiens (500kya)
3) H. Erectus (1.8 Mya)
4) H. Habilis (2.5 Mya)
5) A. Africanus (3.0 Mya)
6) A. Afarensus (3.9 Mya)
7) Ardipithecus Ramidus (5.8 Mya)
8) Orrorin Tugenesis (6 Mya)
9) Sahelanthropus tchadensis (7Mya)
10) Kenyapithecus (16 Mya)
11) Dryopithecus (~16Mya)
12) Proconsul Africanus (~20 Mya)
13) Aegyptopithicus (~30 Mya)
14) Parapithecus (~32 Mya)
15) Amphipithecus, Pondaungia (~35 Mya)
16) Pelycodus, etc (~50 Mya)
17) Cantius (~50 Mya)
18) Palaechthon, Purgatorius (~60 Mya)
19) Kennalestes, Asioryctes (~80 Mya)
20) Pariadens kirklandi (95 Mya)
21) Vincelestes neuquenianus (135 Mya)
22) Steropodon galmani (~140 Mya)
23) Kielantherium and Aegialodon (~140 Mya)
24) Endotherium (very latest Jurassic, 147 Ma)
25) Peramus (~155 Mya)
26) Eozostrodon, Morganucodon, Haldanodon (~205 Mya)
27) Kuehneotherium (~205 Mya)
28) Sinoconodon (~208 Mya)
29) Adelobasileus cromptoni (225 Mya)
30) Pachygenelus, Diarthrognathus (earliest Jurassic, 209 Mya)
31) Oligokyphus, Kayentatherium (early Jurassic, 208 Mya)
32) Probelesodon (~225 Mya?)
33) Exaeretodon (239 Mya)
34) Probainognathus (239-235 Mya)
35) Diademodon (240 Mya)
36) Cynognathus (240 Mya)
37) Thrinaxodon (~240 Mya)
38) Dvinia (Permocynodon) (~245 Mya)
39) Procynosuchus (~245 Mya)
40) Biarmosuchia (~255 Mya)
41) Dimetrodon, Sphenacodon (~270 Mya)
42) Varanops (~275 Mya)
43) Haptodus (~290 Mya)
44) Archaeothyris (~315 Mya)
45) Clepsydrops (~325 Mya)
46) Protoclepsydrops haplous (~325 Mya)
47) Paleothyris (~325 Mya)
48) Hylonomus, Paleothyris (~325 Mya)
49) Limnoscelis, Tseajaia (~325 Mya)
50) Proterogyrinus or another early anthracosaur (~335 Mya)
51) Temnospondyls (Pholidogaster) (330 Mya)
52) Labyrinthodonts (eg Pholidogaster, Pteroplax) (~360 Mya)
53) Hynerpeton, Acanthostega, and Ichthyostega (~365 Mya)
54) Obruchevichthys (370 Mya)
55) Panderichthys, Elpistostege (370 Mya)
56) Eusthenopteron, Sterropterygion (~375 Mya)
57) Osteolepis (~385 Mya)
58) Palaeoniscoids (Cheirolepis, Mimia) (~400 Mya)
59) Acanthodians(?) (~420 Mya)Want me to dig up pictures?

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and animals going from 'bigger' to 'smaller' and hey presto

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You do realize that that is complete nonsense, right? There are more species of tiny dinosaurs than there are of large ones. There were megafauna covering earth until H. Sapiens Sapiens showed up on the scene, as well as miniscule species. There is not even the slightest size pattern in the fossil record - I mean, go check out the sizes of the species in the transition list and compare them to their contemporaries, for God's sake!

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But ofcourse These are the FACTS. Are you going to deny 'living fossils'? Or 'preservation'?

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On what planet?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-10-2003]

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Well, we already know about the 'so called' transitionals of humans. So you can tick them off my list. As for the other nice complicated names, that's all very well but no actual and definate transitionals have been found. Even those blokes down at Cambridge who where evolutionist told me that. So naturally I agree with Darwin, that the fossils are indeed the worst part of his theory.

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Again, I'll ask: Where are the gaps?

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Frogs

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Name one species around the time of, say, hylonomous that resembles a modern frog. Go on, try. The earliest proto-frogs are salamander-like creatures from about 260mya. By 225 mya, their legs began to be elongated, and the pelvis began to line up with the spine (indicating becoming steadily more jumping-oriented). In more recent times, the tail vertebrae fused into the urostyle, and have adapted more specialized control mechanisms.

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starfish

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The earliest echinoderms - very primitive creatures, whose first ancestors resembled a sea lilly - appear in the late Precambrian/early Cambrian; they don't diversify until the Triassic (with some looking superficially like modern starfish), although they still remain rare and very specialized. They don't really take off until the permian radiation (especially crinoids), which is where you begin to see species that look like modern starfish.

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fish

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I can't believe you actually tried to paint such a broad category with a single brush. You didn't even separate jawless from bony fish, a separation that took place during the silurian, if I recall correctly.

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white sharks

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Which you can see evolving from jawless fish in the devonian and radiating from rays and skates. Shark teeth and scales have been a mixed blessing; while we've been able to witness the continual change of shark's teeth through early history (when many things weren't fossilizing well), the downside is that they don't report on the overall morphology of the creature. Sharks are actually one of the closest cases to Darwin's original prediction - they are chronomorphs (species that show only gradualism, not PE).The earliest shark scales are from about 455 Mya; however, they are so different from modern shark scales, some question whether the species should yet be called "true sharks". The scales gradually change, until about 420 mya, there is little dispute that they should be referred to as sharks. Then, at about 400 mya, you start getting the teeth. They're two-pronged, a pattern that slowly changes to the more modern form over the next 50 mya. The first skeletal features start to be found from 380Mya. It had a large spine in front of a long, low dorsal fin covered in many fin spines, and a rearward spine on the back of its skull; it was only found in freshwater deposits. Its body was somewhat eel-shaped as a whole.Ancient sharks differed from modern sharks in many respects, which change slowly over time to what we see today. Devonian sharks had a short, rounded nose with long jaws, something that has reversed since then to allow for a more powerful bite. Early shark jaws were fixed to the braincase in the front and back (modern sharks only attach at the back, which allows them to protrude their jaws to help "suck in" prey). The braincase and olfactory capsules were relatively small, suggesting a (relatively) poor sense of smell and less developed brain. As mentioned, early shark teeth have two cusps (if you believe fossils were sorted, why did two-cusp shark teeth usually migrate down (some shark species retain this), but one-cusp always migrate up? There are millions and millions of fossilized shark teeth, and every last one follows this pattern). Early sharks had rigid triangular pectoral fins (allowing for less mobility), with the earliest sharks having somewhat eel-like fins. Early shark vertebra were completely uncalcified (modern sharks have calcified bands), and were all fairly similar to each other (modern sharks have "sculpted" vertebra that fit together better for swimming). This would have made them less powerful swimmers.

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all the known species of today that are found fossilized.

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You know, you just show your ignorance on the topic by bringing up many of these species.

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hat's funny because only last week was a scientist showing me a sharks tooth as big as my hand which now is thumbnail size.

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The earliest sharks were fairly small. Sharks got larger and then smaller again. The tooth that you saw was probably from a Carchardon megalodon - which are from under 25 mya. Very, very recent.

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The same with dragon flies.

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And, at the same time period... ur-ants, the ancestor of both bees and ants - a rather diminuative critter. They had both large and small - and ample species of both! Speaking of ur-ants, that was yet another prediction of evolution... genetic and structural analysis indicated that bees and ants were of the same stock, but had evolved separate lines... and sure enough, there was great excitement when the first ur-ants were found.

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The same with croc's the same with insects, the same with beasts.

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Want me to go into crocodiles? "insects" and "beasts" are too general, be more specific.

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Everything lives shorter and smaller than it did.

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Flat-out utterly incorrect. Do some reading before you post such things. The line of human evolution has for the most gets *smaller* as you go further back - check out the species cited. Also, how do you get lifespans from the fossil record? The only things that I can think of offhand that can be used for that are coral clocks and tree ring chronology (both of which show an older world than 6000 years)------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-10-2003]

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Hasn't the 'line of skulls' been done already. Note the promonent forehead dissapears and reappears. The last three I admitt look similar, the rest could be apes.

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Wait, are you trying to say that you expect features to constantly move in a certain direction, as if guided? That may be an argument against guided evolution, but not against evolution itself. "could be apes"? What more do you want? You insisted that there's a gap - to quote the phrase, "put up or shut up". Where is it?Additionally, do you understand why, seing fossils like this, and finding that dating methods (which confirm each other) placed them in strata in the line (as presented above) - and that this occurs with essentially all species (excluding those which are too brittle to preserve well, such as bats, or those in poor preservation environments) - often far better even than hominids - why the theory of evolution was developed, from the earlier "multiple creations" theory (that was created to explain why things were consistantly in particular layers)?

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I admitt I don't know this million years or that million years, or those million years. You say do some reading, but it was a geologist telling me these things. You still havent got rid of the living fossils. You can know every species on earth but you wont be able to change simple facts. Even the 'cambridge report' on fossils was more honest and they were evolutionist.

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I went in depth into all the fossils that you asked for - what more did you want? Did you even read it?Which report are you referring to?

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'The tooth that you saw was probably from a Carchardon megalodon - which are from under 25 mya'

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The man that you saw was probably an elephant and was 2 million years old.

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I'll bet you 20$ that if you go ask, the scientist will say that it's a megalodon. Want to take me up on that bet?Pretty much everyone who collects shark teeth has one. They're the largest species of shark ever to inhabit the earth - and they're all in very recent strata.

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the bigger they are the longer their lifespan.

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Tell that to a vet. Then get a great dane and a beagle, and see which lives longer.

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'The earliest proto-frogs are salamander-like creatures from about 260mya.'

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My mum is 400 my old.

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Show me the multiple dating methods which all agree that she is 400.

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Do me a favour, take out millions of years to prove to me your looking at the facts without presumption. One year at the museum it said this that and the other was 300 million years old. The next year it said this that and the other was 350 million years old. I obviously didn't realise I hadn't been the museum for 50 million years.

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Specifics, please? Even without dating, you still need to explain the sorting, and the nice smooth transitions. You need to explain why fossils change dramatically as you go up and down in the fossil record, but not side to side - and, no matter where you look in the world, if a species lived worldwide, it always exists in the exact same fossil ordering. And you also need to stop the nonsense about fossils being "size sorted", which is about as true as 1=2 - even the most cursory knowledge of archaeology would teach you that.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-10-2003]

1) You didn't address where I showed you that, in fact, these species have changed *dramatically* over the course of their history; what is remarkable about so-called "living fossils" is that they only changed via gradualism (i.e., occupied the same niche continuously, vs the typical pattern of niche change).2) Take a dragonfly, and change its environment. It will *never* get big, no matter what you set it to. Crocodiles will get somewhat larger in an ideal environment, but within reason - there's no way to raise a sarcosuchus, for example. Ask any zookeeper. The problem is that an organism's shape is only valid within certain constraints; just making things bigger doesn't fix the problems. Bone structure on land needs to have strength proportional to the square of the height, while blood flow needs to increase linearly - except with height changes, which add an extra linear making it a square growth. Nerve timing will get off as the head moves further away from the rest of the body. I could go on. The best example of this is humans with pituary problems that keep on growing: they virtually always die young, in horrible health.Now, if you selectively breed for larger organisms, you *will* get larger organisms - it's easily reproducible in the lab with drosophila. ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-10-2003]

[quote]

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'I'll bet you 20$ that if you go ask, the scientist will say that it's a megalodon. Want to take me up on that bet?'

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Sorry to dissapoint you, but the scientist showing me the tooth compared it to a recent shark, and yes it was the same.

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Give me the scientist's name, and where they work. I'll track down their number, and call them. You can run, but you can't dodge reality, Mike. They undoubtedly compared a megalodon to a modern shark (modern, not 9-25mya). Megalodon is not found in the modern earth, just fairly recent strata.

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'Show me the multiple dating methods which all agree that she is 400.'

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It's easy , I'll ask that museum I went to.

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Dodging substance, Mike? You're still short one sorting mechanism, one example of a species that hasn't changed dramatically over the course of Earth's history, and one example of a gap that you can point to that you feel is too large.

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My main points are, preservation and living fossils. Do you deny these facts? Answer without an animal name or m.y.

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I already showed you that sharks have changed dramatically. Want me to cover crocodiles as well? If your definition of "living fossil" is a species that hasn't changed over the entire fossil record of it (or has only changed size), then there are none. What exactly is your question about preservation?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-10-2003]

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'1) You didn't address where I showed you that, in fact, these species have changed *dramatically* over the course of their history; '

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Forgive me , but look at my comebacks. A gentle visit to the e.v.c to mention 2 facts was my actual intentions.

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And what comeback are you referring to? Where, for example, did you address shark evolution?

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The fossils I was shown 'living fossils' were recognisable.

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Is this "variation within kinds"? (this is a drawing of the earliest "true shark" - xenacanthus - and we have parts of protosharks as well) (want some of the next transitional sharks?)

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Now ask yourself this, if they havent evolved, or changed slightly within their kind why havent they changed over M>Y , could this 'not' support evolution and M>Y

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Do you call this not having "changed slightly within their kind"? This is about as close to the radiation of sharks, rays and skates, and earlier jawless fish as you can get.

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if your reasonable you will admitt, this with the quick sudden preservation of fossils can indicate Creation. This is what Creation Scientists are saying, if your reasonable you'll agree they've stuck to the facts.

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Again, you clearly missed what I stated before about preservation vs. fossilization. Fossils are not skeletons of preserved organisms; they are places where minerals leached into cavities left over by decaying organisms. Why are no fossils from recorded history even close to complete fossilization? Also, how did delicate things (such as tree roots, footprints, varves, etc) "preserve"?Once again, you're short one sorting mechanism, one example of a species that hasn't changed dramatically over the course of Earth's history, and one example of a gap that you can point to that you feel is too large.Please try to fill these things in with your next post, instead of vague responses.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Well, picture are all I've ever been shown. Artists interpretations but no facts or fossils. That is why I enjoyed John Mackay's evidence, as he always brings it with him.

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xenacanthus fossilComplete in the fossil are early shark teeth and scales. We have a complete fossil transition from this creature to modern sharks - want more pictures? Mackay can omit all he wants, but that doesn't change the reality of the fossil record

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The human Being. Sorry but the line of monkeys wont cut it.

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Then where do you draw the line? And what leads you to conclude that there is a line, given the fossils? [quote]

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'and we have parts of protosharks as well)'

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Parts, that speaks volumes.

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Yes, I know that you expect perfect preservation of a species with no bony skeleton from >400 million years ago. Why don't you just ask for Sauron's Ring while you're at it? Of course, seing as xenacanthus is considered a true shark, that gives you a picture of what it takes to qualify as a protoshark. The parts that we have are scales and teeth.P.S. - Thanks for letting me know who the "scientist" is. I emailed him pretending to be a creationist looking for help in a debate, so hopefully I'll get a response back some time this week. As I stated earlier, it's going to be a megalodon tooth. I can pretty much guarantee it.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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'P.S. - Thanks for letting me know who the "scientist" is. I emailed him pretending to be a creationist looking for help in a debate, so hopefully I'll get a response back some time this week. As I stated earlier, it's going to be a megalodon tooth. I can pretty much guarantee it.'

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Unfortunately you wont listen to what he is saying though. Which is a shame as he used to be an evolutionist and scientist for years, he is not stupid, he is a very learned man. He always brings recognisable fossils with him aswell. Why not just be honest about who you are? This doesn't bode well for me believing what you say.

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1) I'd love to be honest with him. Unfortunately, there's one problem: "Creation scientists" have this nasty habit of not responding when evolutionists press them on issues. If I knew that Mackay wouldn't be that way, I'd have been open with him, but I want to do my best to ensure that I get a response. 2) I'm not sure which adjective to use to describe someone who developed The Quote Book, the most erroneous, mis-transcribed, out of context collection of quotes I've ever seen - poor work even by creationist quoting standards. It was so bad that they replaced it with the Revised Quote Book, which itself is a pretty lousy piece of scholastic work. You wouldn't think that the acts of *reading* and *writing* would be that hard

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'Mackay can omit all he wants, but that doesn't change the reality of the fossil record '

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Nor does it change the fact that he's the expert on fossils.

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No, he's not. He's a geologist. And if he's showing you megalodon teeth, they're going to be from miocene sediments, because that's where they're found - *new* on the geological time scale, not old. Miocene sediments, apart from overthrusts (which are obvious geological formations, because there's the clear cutoff line and the border areas are crushed), dramatic folding (also patently obvious, because the sedimentary lines and even the fossils in them get folded as well), and things like concreted rubble beds (also quite obvious), will only ever be covered by pliocene, pleistocene, and holocene sediments. Ever. No exceptions. If he were to show you sharks from devonian sediments, say, you'd find that they're actually *small*. Xenacanthus (which I showed you - the earliest skeletal shark, found in devonian sediments) is only about three feet long. When sharks made it to the open seas, they were anything but the top predator - they're found with Dunkleosteus, a 20 foot long placodem that resembles the creature from the Aliens movies, with fins, and much larger.Again, apart from the above cases (which are quite obvious formations), devonian fossils will always be found below (typically *way* below) miocene formations. Always. And, of course, the dating of these fossils always matches up IFF a reliable dating method (or multiple ones) can be composed from the surrounding rocks (of course, not every rock has suitable radioisotopes, and depending on the method, there can be situations that make using a certain radioisotope invalid).What causes the ordering, Mike?

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'Yes, I know that you expect perfect preservation of a species with no bony skeleton from >400 million years ago. Why don't you just ask for Sauron's Ring while you're at it? '

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Exactly, why should I jump to evolutionary conclusions, and remember I don't believe in millions of years.

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But evolutionists do. Thus, the fact that we don't find many fossils before then is *expected* by the ToE, and thus, is anything *but* evidence against it. It's as if your spouse was at the grocery store, you knew they were at the grocery store, and someone came up to you and tried to use the fact that they're not at home as evidence that you don't have a spouse. A more appropriate analogy to this situation would be if you don't expect God to be tangible or physically detectable, and a scientist came up to you and said, "look, we can't detect God, so God isn't there.".

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I assume your fossil is now extinct? What exactly does it proove by itself?

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There is a complete smooth, completely gradualistic transition from that eel-like creature to modern sharks in the fossil record (want pictures of its decendants?). Modern sharks are not ever found with that ancient eel-like creature, but you find a steady, completely smooth (gradualistic, not PE) transition from it to modern sharks the further up you go - each species, unrelated by size (only by structural morphometry), confined to its own layer in a smooth transition line. Also there are some very interesting offshoots in the permian, including Heliopricon - a shark with teeth that form a closed spiral, and Edestus giganteus - the "scissor toothed shark", a shark whose old teeth didn't fall off, but stuck further and further out in front of its face. And, as is the case with *every fossil*, apart from overthrust, folding, etc, they are all confined to their particular layers - regardless of where in the world they are at.P.S.: Do these look like the tooth that you saw? As I said, every collector of shark fossils has to have at least one.... Modern shark teeth like megalodon are very different from ancient shark teeth (early devonian, mid devonian, etc). Again, I need to ask: What is "sorting" the shark teeth?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-11-2003]

Ah, I love this. I just checked my email.------------------------------------------
Dear Karen,Thank you for your email. The cast is from a White Shark - picture is
attached.Are you interested in receiving free regular email updates? These are
sent out approximately every two weeks - a copy of our most recent one
follows.The Creation Research Team
Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access Denied
------------------------------------------Now tell me, is *this* the tooth that you saw? Because if so, compare it to the teeth you saw on the link that I posted from ebay. Notice something?It's the same species tooth!This is a megalodon tooth. They're only found in miocene sediments. What he showed you is a very recent (geologically) tooth, found only in upper strata. Here's a random one from the ebay link.Look familiar? Megalodon (Carcharodon megalodon or Carcharocles megalodon) is a huge white shark species, either a direct ancestor of the great white shark or a close sister species; thus, there is debate over whether it should be in the same genus or not. Regardless, they are very close relatives. And, they're very close in the sediments to each other. The further back you go, the more eel-shaped they begin to look, and they lose many of their advanced features.I'm thankful that, while sharks fossilize poorly (because of cartiligenous skeletons), at least their teeth and scales preserve well (very well, in fact) ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."