The Origin of Novelty

All of which only look at superficial features. They even list the shark and dolphin as convergent. Have you ever studied the anatomy of a shark and a dolphin?

Maybe you should have read everything I said, instead of quoting the part that looked like I am shifting the goalposts. You would make a good sensationalist journalist, and that is not a compliment.I said: I have been pretty consistent that a transitional sequence proves nothing, yet if many are found, it can add strength to the theory of evolution. And I clearly acknowledged this particular sequence as "succesful" even if I believe it proves nothing to artificially place fossils in an order of features.

You would sound less biased if you acknowledged that some OTHER examples in that link do actually prove my point.

Which "first bat fossil"? The one JonF linked to in Message 762?Because that one *is* a fossil of Onychonycteris. And its dated to ~52.5 mya. As far as I'm aware, it is the oldest bat found. Yeah, that's not what's being done here, you're misunderstanding the point of the diagrams. They're not saying that those species shown are definately directly related to each other, but I can see how you would get that impression. Sometimes transitional fossils are used in diagrams to show how the ancestral species may have looked, but they're not supposed to be implying that they are certainly related. Right, yeah, and they're not supposed to conclude anything. But take a look at their similarities and their ages:If you were to pick up all those fossils and arrange them by similarities, then you could group them in the order they are shown. And then if you date them, you'll find that they line up in the order from oldest to youngest! Or lets say you take them and line them up by age, then you'll find that they also line up by similarities! You can independently get the same ordering by grouping them by both similarities *AND* age!What we are looking at is a particular set of facts. Fossils line up by similarity and age. What we are trying to do is propose a mechanism for these observed facts.So, how do you think that could happen? One possible explanation is outlined with the Theory of Evolution. The facts we have are consistent with the theory and the model offers an explanatory mechanism. These fossils aren't about proving it, it's about recognizing that the explanation does work.Regarding creationism, I don't have any reason for supposing that God created all those creatures in a way that they could be grouped independently by both similarity and age... unless God's creative process was something that looks like the mechanism outlined in the Theory of Evolution. Either way, the animals... they're evolving. Thems the facts. And we don't have a better explanation than the Theory of Evolution.

They are all just as bad. They are all superficial similarities that do not compare specific anatomical features.

You said:"To assume some extinct creature with the lifestyle of a crocodile or sea-lion is an evolutionary "missing link" by placing it between a group of pictures of land creatures and a group of pictures of sea creatures is a big and unscientific jump of logic." So it proves nothing. Again, you are moving the goalposts.

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For many years, avian systematists classified Old World and New World vultures as close relatives, both thought to be allied to raptors (hawks and owls). However, DNA hybridization suggested that, although Old World vultures are indeed related to raptors, New World vultures are not, but are descendents of common ancestors to storks and cranes (more recent studies are equivocal but still support independent evolution of the two clades). Morphological convergence was strong enough to actually mislead students of bird classification.

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from: http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/Convergence.htmlOf course, that doesn't prove his point but it does show that convergence can be so close it is hard to tell from actual relationships, no?

Fair enough.

Okay, we have a few messages here, so I'm going to combine my replies into a single message. We'll deal with the bat first. Yes indeed. It displays a combination of the derived features that we see in modern bats and the basal features that their putative ancestors would have had; just as one would expect from a true transitional fossil. That's not quite as big a problem as you seem to think (more on that below). Yes and it would be more impressive if we had fossils of every bat species that ever lived, but with fossils you have to work with what you're given. The point here is that this fossil validates the predictions of evolutionary theory. It does not validate any vague claims about "diversity" because such claims make no predictions. Well I have no idea how you came to that conclusion, as the pictures of the Californian leaf-nosed bat that I've looked at show that it had much shorter hind limbs and tail than Onychonycteris.You need to rid yourself of the delusion that you can outsmart the anatomical experts who conduct this kind of research. You simply don't have their expertise. You are not going to outwit them with a quick google search. And you have already been shown several examples of exactly this; horses, humans, whales... but you're still not happy.I think that you are still doubtful because you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick with regards to what we mean by a "transitional fossil" and what we mean when we discuss "evidence" in a scientific context. I'll get to that in a bit. For now I would simply like to note that when you claimed that there were no bat transitionals, you clearly had no idea about the existence of Onychonicteris. You should do your research before making such sweeping claims.Let's move on to your problems with transitional fossils.

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Only someone who was deeply ignorant of anatomy could make that mistake.You're not looking at these creatures with a naturalists eye. You are only seeing the superficial. The kind of observational acuity that is needed to properly observe these things is not something you can just take for granted. It takes years of training and practise to hone these skills. You - with the best will in the world - do not posses such skills. that's why you keep making errors like mistaking Onychonycteris for a modern bat, or thinking that Thyacines are similar in morphology to wolves. You need to learn to look deeper, or, at the very least, show a little more trust in the expert professionals who can. Believe it or not, they really do know what they're talking about.Anyway, as of Message 776, you acknowledge that this claim is erroneous; You're right. Taq's right. The anatomies of Tasmanian "wolves" and placental wolves are vastly different. Let's just take a look; Whilst they are superficially similar to each other, there are nonetheless important differences. The tooth formulae are different. There are basal features present in the marsupial wolf that are not seen in placentals (see here for more details on this). No palaeontologist worth a damn could possibly mistake the two. You could. I probably could. But that's because we're not experts. It would be easy for us to confuse a marsupial fossil for a placental one, but not for a trained expert. Real palaeontologists (as opposed to the ones that populate creationist fantasies) don't make that kind of mistake. No. There really isn't. You claimed; The examples given generally do not show this. They have superficially similar morphologies, but there are clear differences. In the case of sharks and dolphins, the differences are so vast that a child could tell their fossils apart. Convergent evolution is real enough, but it is not so convergent that there aren't still important differences. Just because two species are contemporary does not mean that neither could be the ancestor of the other."Species A" can give rise to "Species B" without "Species A" disappearing.Remember the definition of a transitional fossil that you cited in response to taq - "A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group".There's nothing there that demands that the more derived species need be the direct descendant of the more basal one. Indeed, the very same page you quote contains this comment;

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A source of confusion is the notion that a transitional form between two different taxonomic groups must be a direct ancestor of one or both groups. The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that one of the goals of evolutionary taxonomy is to identify taxa that were ancestors of other taxa. However, it is almost impossible to be sure that any form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other. In fact, because evolution is a branching process that produces a complex bush pattern of related species rather than a linear process producing a ladder-like progression, and because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, it is unlikely that any particular form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other. Cladistics deemphasizes the concept of one taxonomic group being an ancestor of another, and instead emphasizes the identification of sister taxa that share a more recent common ancestor with one another than they do with other groups. There are a few exceptional cases, such as some marine plankton micro-fossils, where the fossil record is complete enough to suggest with confidence that certain fossils represent a population that was actually ancestral to a later population of a different species.[10] But, in general, transitional fossils are considered to have features that illustrate the transitional anatomical features of actual common ancestors of different taxa, rather than to be actual ancestors.

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You are quite right in pointing out that it is practically impossible to be completely certain of the specific ancestral relationships that might have existed between two fossil taxa. However this is not critical to observing that they are transitional. What matters is that they display a mixture of basal and derived characteristics.The ToE predicts that we should find transitional fossils, not that we should be able to determine the exact family trees of every extinct organism.But anyway, objections about dating are hardly relevant. A transitional series like that of whales can be clearly dated. The species depicted in the horse evolution diagram that CS showed you have all been reliably dated and cover some tens of millions of years. The whale species cover millions of years and only a couple of them were contemporaneous. Speaking of which, you said this of the whale diagram; No, they really couldn't. The early whales, such as Basilosaurus and Durodon had clear differences from modern whales. For example, their blow-holes were located midway between the snout (as in the basal ancestors) and the top of the head (as in modern whales). They could not be confused with modern whales, at least not by any expert worth their salt. Yeah, that would be a huge leap of logic. A leap so huge that it would be unscientific. Good job then that no palaeontologist would make so flimsy a case.The putative evolutionary sequence for whales is based on far more detailed anatomical comparisons than the ones you imagine. I suggest that you do some reading up on the subject before commenting further. Except that their very different morphologies would be a clear indicator that they were not directly related. They look very different. They're not even in the same genus. Again, this is a mistake that a naive interpretor might make, professional palaeontologists are not naive. You appear to contradict this statement later in the same message; You have to remember that evidence is not about absolute proof. It's about building a case. More on this below. For now, I would agree with you that good transitional sequences help to build a case for evolution. I would add that they do so regardless of DNA.I think it's important that you address the fossil record on its own terms. Demands for DNA are effectively demands for the impossible. Yes, it would be nice if fossils contained DNA. But they don't. Does this mean that they contain less information than we might like? Sure. But does it mean that they can't tell us anything? Of course not! Your approach to the fossil record seems to be all or nothing. Either fossils come in perfect sequences, replete with DNA, birth certificate, driving license and are accompanied by both parents, or you dismiss them completely. That's silly and unreasonable.Fossils are by no means a perfect source of information about vanished lifeforms, but they are the only one we have and thankfully, they can tell us a great deal. Fossil evidence is useful to the ToE because the ToE makes certain predictions. This allows us to compare those predictions to the actual fossil record. There is no need to invoke demands for DNA in such a process. To do so appears obstructionist. Fair enough. Why don't you tell me exactly what evidence it is that you were hoping to see from two evolutionarily related species? What is it that you think we might hope to see in the fossil DNA that we can't see in modern DNA comparisons? After all, if I were to point to a human genome and a gorilla genome and observe that they are similar, I somewhat doubt that you would hail this as evidence of an evolutionary relationship. So why would it be so important to you when we discuss fossils? Yes it would. It would help build the case. It would not represent proof though. To explain why, we're going to need to take a look at the difference between evidence and proof and how science approaches these issues...

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In the past few messages you have made statements that I would consider to be contradictory. On the one hand you have said that transitional fossils cannot provide evidence of evolutionary relatedness. On the other you have agreed that good transitional sequences back the evolutionary model. Clearly you don't see those statements as being quite as contradictory as I do.I think that this difference in approach is largely a semantic one. I think that when you and I speak of "evidence", we are using the word in subtly different ways. You use the word as if "evidence" were synonymous with "proof" or "absolute knowledge". That is not how I would understand the term in a scientific context.When scientists speak of evidence they are using the term in a specific way, based on how the scientific method operates. "Evidence" does not mean "proof". Rather it means an observation that has the potential to support or falsify a hypothesis. An observation can be described as favourable evidence if it agrees with the predictions made by the hypothesis.Wikipedia has this to say on the subject of scientific evidence;

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In scientific research evidence is accumulated through observations of phenomena that occur in the natural world, or which are created as experiments in a laboratory or other controlled conditions. Scientific evidence usually goes towards supporting or rejecting a hypothesis.

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Note that this is not the same as absolute proof.In our example, the hypothesis we are testing is the ToE. What we have to do is look at the predictions made by that hypothesis and test them against observations. The fossil record is one such observation. DNA comparisons are another. There are many other examples of observations with the power to support or falsify the ToE; biogeography, comparative anatomy, embryology, etc. For a topic as vast as evolution, no one piece of evidence, no single fossil, no DNA match, could be enough to prove the hypothesis, but each piece of evidence adds a little more weight to the theory.So when we look at earlier in the thread, where you said that " These attempts at creating sequences are not proof or even evidence for evolution", I hope that you can now see that you were not quite right. They are not proof. But they absolutely are evidence. They match the predictions of the theory of evolution. How could they be anything other than evidence?When we show you a diagram of something like horse evolution, we are not claiming that this constitutes absolute proof of evolution. What we are claiming is that these observations closely match what we would expect to see if evolution were true. We are not claiming that we can say with absolute certainty that Eohippus was definitely the direct ancestor of the modern horse. But we are saying that the fossil evidence is consistent with the predictions of the ToE and that, given the number and strength of these successful predictions, the ToE is backed by very solid evidence.

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I know that this is a bit of a long post, but I wanted to address your objections as thoroughly as I could. Please don't feel pressured to reply in full or right away. Just try to address the important points.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Hi Ned, good to see you back!I agree that the example of vultures shows that convergent evolution can lead to difficulties in classification, but that was not quite what mindspawn claimed. He claimed that convergent evolution could create "near identical phenotypes". The vulture example does not go that far. As far as I can tell, none of the examples go that far.I think that mindspawn is over-egging it here. He is right that to say that these cases can be confusing but he is dead wrong in claiming that this difficulty is so great that it invalidates all classification of fossil taxa.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

No there are other bat fossils, dated older, 55 million years ago, a little older than the Onychonycteris. (not that I accept radiometric dating, but it can indicate relative ages).
These earlier bat fossils are very similar to today, showing no significant evolutionary changes, which gives some strength to the possibility that the Onychonycteris is merely a unique bat that became extinct (its not THAT unique actually, 5 claws instead of two, and relatively short wings not too different from some modern bats).Australonycteris Australonycteris - Wikipedia But even today we have the full range of environments. aquatic, semi-aquatic, land. We therefore have the full range of animals for those environments. Its easy to arrange animals in a sequence and there will always be a full range to choose from. So arrangements are meaningless as evidence, because every age has had marine/semi-marine/land fauna.There are other more logical explanations for the fossil record. If we observe the sudden appearance of new forms, fully intact and without clear transitional forms, this points to rare niche environments suddenly dominating due to changes to the environment. This process is observed, unlike evolution of new novel additional coding genes which remains un-observed. Paleontologists should logically be looking for ancient niche environments , but instead they look for transitional forms because of their evolutionist bias. The fossil record looks like rare animals in niche environments suddenly dominated earth. This is why new species appear suddenly and completely in the fossil record without transitional forms. This is consistent with what happens in any changed environment, the unsuitable forms die off, the suitable forms in that area suddenly dominate, and other suitable organisms will slowly infiltrate the new environment. We haven't observed this on a worldwide basis in modern times, but the same principles would apply to a worldwide change. A world change to the environment would necessitate new dominant species. If scientists did not have evolutionary bias , they would be looking for niche environments in ancient layers that show that these niche creatures did actually exist, long before they dominated.These niche environments do exist, the anomalies are endless, none accepted by science, and so will only be found on sites not acceptable for a scientific forum:
cococay
http://s8int.com/phile/page56.html
http://paleo.cc/paluxy/ironpot.htm
Welcome to 6000years.org | Amazing Bible Discoveries | Proof the Bible is TrueBut I'm making you think, there is a whole more logical explanation for the fossil record, entirely consistent with science's own studies of how the world has changed: Its approximately like this:
1) Marine anoxic (trilobites)
2) Marine oxic (fish), small landmass
3) Increasing landmass, swamps (amphibians)
4) Sudden global warming with some marine anoxia (reptiles)
5) Sudden global cooling (mammals)Evolution? Or merely proven changing environments when ALREADY existing fauna and flora from isolated environments dominate the planet? Where does the evidence really point? The lack of transitionary fossils, and the increasing number of anomalies points more and more to the proven process of PROLIFERATION of already existing species, rather than the unproven process of the introduction of additional genes containing genetic novelty.Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

Not at all, I think Granny Magda has a better take on my position. She understands that evolutionists can "build a case" through increasing transitional sequences. No single sequence can prove anything, the more sequences that are found, the more evidence for evolution. Most sequences are frankly not convincing enough. You need small changes to a specific species, and this must be in an expected evolutionary path. The horse example always fails, because there were ancient species with hoofs existing at the same time as the 3 toed horse, so when most sequences have definite failures, the case for evolution does not build strength.You can however see short-term nested hierarchies, in ancient fossils, and today. This can show the adaptive flexibility of the genome to produce a range of phenotypes, and also some mutations that produce large phenotye changes (dwarfism). So I am in agreement with the rapid evolution of phenotypes in short-term phenotype changes that is reflected in the fossil record. This may support short term evolution, but this is part of the baramin concept too.

Um, its one fossil, and its known from fragmentary remains. What's this about significant evolutionary change? How do you know? Whoa, whoa, whoa... That's not the same thing. You can't just put a seal in between a manatee and a goat and act like you're looking at a transitional species.It has to have features from both before it and after it. Its not as easy as you're making it out to be. No, you're not understanding this. Actual real transitional fossils... grouped by traits... line up by age. They're not meaningless arrangements.What is the explanation of it? Don't try to downplay the importance, consider why we are seeing this stuff... Escuse me? How does a fully intact form suddenly appear?You do know how babies are made, right? Daddy fertilizes mommy and the baby grows inside her until it is born. Nothing ever just appears fully formed, that's nonsense.Seriously, look at what you're saying: "What if animals just magically poofed into existence?" I mean, really?, is that what we are to be considering? Then there'd be no reason for the transition features to line up by age. But they do. Why?

What you're making us think is that you still have no idea what the hell you're talking about.That is not an accurate description of the fossil record. Even for a synopsis, it's just dreadful. It's inaccurate, simple-minded and just out and out wrong. Not only is it the worst description of the fossil record that I've ever seen, it may be the worst description of the fossil record that anyone has ever seen.For an argument about reality to be logical it has to agree with reality. What you have there is not reality. It's some dumb shit you made up.If you genuinely want to have so much a s a chance of understanding this topic you need to stop making shit up. Seriously. You're embarrassing yourself.Mutate and Survive

I've been told to accept what scientists say without questioning it, yet as soon as a scientist contradicts your position, you willing to reject the evidence? lol typical of a biased viewpoint. The EARLIEST bat, had echolocation already, this bat had "part of a periotic", ie its ear bone was identifiable.http://xerxes.calstate.edu/pomona/articles/record?id=FETC...Murgon Bat - The Australian Museum
Ear bones of Australonycteris show that it could navigate using echolocation. The teeth of Australonycteris are unusually worn, perhaps through regular contact with hard food like beetle carapaces.So the very first bat suddenly appears already having flight and already having echolocation. No significant evolutionary change since that first one. Thanks for describing it so eloquently. That is basically what has been done. It is actually that easy, in every age there are common aquatic, common semi aquatic, and common terrestrial animals. So there is always abundant material to work with, even more so before the major extinctions. I agree that scientists have tried to be as honest as possible with their taxonomic relationships, but it is all basically guesswork based on the assumption of evolution. The facts are that there were a lot of unique animals, mainly in groupings, and most of them have gone extinct. What stuff? Lucy? Bats? Whales? Exactly! The fossil record says they just appeared, this is what the evidence is showing, sudden appearance of fully "evolved" forms without the "common ancestor" being evident. Evolutionists then project backwards mathematically to guess when the original "common ancestor" existed, its because they hardly ever find any original common ancestors. The more common observation of niche environments becoming proliferate should be entertained too, rather than assuming evolution, when more common processes are observed. They don't. The only one given in this thread is the whale line-up. But that's as logical as your seal/manatee/goat sample. Its pure guesswork. During every age there is the full aquatic/land range , and so its no problem finding the right so-called transition in every layer. There's always a seal or a pelagiceti somewhere on earth at any given time. So there's bound to be a "transition" at just the right time in history, because every time in history has an aquatic animal that can walk. The human line-up ..... lol... Lucy the ape is a human? And I'm not allowed to question taxonomic experts according to Granny Magda. What about the first mammal? It has mole ears and mole limbs, its a mole. Scientists say its the "transition" from a reptile with ground hearing and splayed limbs. They say mouse-like or shrew-like, what about mole-like. They should just take a look at a mole. Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.