Transitional Fossils Show Evolution in Process

So you pin your faith principally on the words of just one man? Out of all scientists (or "the evolutionary fraternity", as you dub them in your quaint jargon) you derive your faith mostly from the words of Dawkins alone? Just this one man?Haven't you ever considered the possibility that however devoutly you worship Richard Dawkins, he might be wrong? Please try to answer this question objectively. Perhaps you are shocked that I blaspheme against your chosen Messiah, but I think it's a fair question.I should also be interested to hear which particular words of your guru give you faith and comfort. I've read some of his books, and I must have missed the passages that give you so much religious certitude. Perhaps you could quote from his own words to demonstrate whatever it is he says that has made you take him as your spiritual leader. It must be powerful stuff.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And here was I thinking that I knew that aardvarks and zebras were different species. Thanks for putting me right.

Well of course you haven't seen anyone concede defeat on any subject. How could you? That would require you to be right about something.I, on the other hand, have.If you wish to share in this delicious experience, you could admit that you were wrong when you pretended that marsupials aren't mammals. But I'm not holding my breath.

Hi Kaichos Man, still at the quote mining and misrepresenting eh? One can never be 100% certain about anything. One can, however be certain enough for practical applications, and even if one is right 90% of the time that would be more than sufficient in my opinion. You need to show that there is less than 90% confidence in the foraminifera classifications, and to date you have been totally incapable of doing that.Again what are we trying to be so certain about? The absolutely correct classification of every single variety and subspecies population all the way back to the first common ancestor population of foraminifera? Hardly a realistic goal, nor do Parker and Arnold claim any such impossible result.Certain enough that the lineages of descent are adequately described to sort most organisms into their respective places? The evidence is that this is, in fact, where we are, with some disagreements about some groups at the outlying tips of classification - whether they are species or subspecies.Certainly there has been no major revision of the taxonomy of foraminifera above the level of family and very very little at the level of genera.You have not posted a single reference that speaks to reclassification of any major level above genera. Your failure to find any such evidence shows again that we can easily have over 90% confidence in the current classifications.You're still fighting the reality here. Curiously, your opinion has little ability to alter reality. The full quote is (italics mine for emphasis): In no way does this imply that this happens across the board to such a level of pervasiveness that all the data is rendered invalid. Interestingly, that would be the kind of evidence that you would need to make your claims, and the evidence still just is not there.The problem you have vis-a-vis Parker and Arnold is that these clinial morphological coadaptations within environmental gradients AND your possible ecophenotypic variations within a species in environmental gradients occur at the same time as the core species as it evolves.That core species remains in the evidence along with the varieties, and this core species allows Parker and Arnold to map their tree of relation without being sidetracked by these varieties into erroneous conclusions about these species. These variations are horizontal to the vertical geological time sequence of evolutionary change over millions of years.For Parker and Arnold to be confused by the ecoclinial variations, the core species would have to be missing from the fossil record, and sadly, for you, they aren't.Thus sorting the foraminifera out by morphology alone, as was done by Parker and Arnold, would result in branches from the main trunk. The main picture of the trunks would not be altered by what are minor variations on the theme of the core species in the overall picture.The result is an analysis with at least 90% confidence of correctly mapping the evolutionary changes over time.Now let's look at your latest misrepresentation: Sounds pretty bad at first glance, but is that really what he is saying? The full quote is:

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The standard taxonomic reference for the group, Loeblich and Tappan's 1987 Foraminiferal Genera and Their Classification, while an excellent reference, is nearly 20 years out of date, becoming more so all the time, and classifies only to genus level. One striving for an accurate suprageneric classification must supplement it with numerous updates, revisions, additions, and emendations, ...

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So the reason that one needs to supplement the standard reference to have a classification above the level of genera is because the standard reference (now 23 years out of date, and preceding Parker and Arnold) only classified forams to the level of genera. You forgot to mention that part, and that means your quote is a false representation, a falsehood, a quotemine.

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... including Loeblich and Tappan's 1992 Present status of foraminiferal classification, and Sen Gupta's 1999 Systematics of Modern Foraminifera. ...

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The first being 18 years out of date and the second being 11 years out of date ...... while we have seen genetic studies since McCloskey's 2005 article that have shown that many apparent subspecies variations are in fact cryptic genetic species, where even minor morphological differences can represent real species differentiation. Certainly these new studies would improve the overall classification of foraminifera if combined on anThese later studies still present a major problem for your assertions, as they have not uncovered a single case of misidentification of a subspecies that should belong to a different family. Fascinatingly, that would be the kind of evidence that you would need to make your claims, and the evidence still just is not there. Instead these studies confirm the morphological sorting down to that level of species detail, with the possibility of extending it to cover the cryptic species within current morphospecies.

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... Accurate species-level classification requires a vast and growing, not to mention often conflicting, library of references.

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So once again we see that it is at the species level that the accuracy becomes a problem

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The proposed solution to this taxonomic quagmire is an online database of foraminiferal taxonomy. Such a database would provide the benefits of being hierarchical, easily searchable, widely and easily available, and always up to date. ...

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In other words, accurate information is available, it is just a matter of sorting it out in the quagmire of numerous different sources into a unified updated and cohesive whole.End result: over 90% validated confidence in classification down to the level of genera and slightly less confidence in classification down to species with a bit more uncertainty down to the level of subspecies variants. Hardly turning the world of foraminifera classification on it's ear.Enjoy.ps - for the record ... I've seen stubborn people who can't admit to being wrong, true, but I've also seen a number of people admit to being wrong, both creationist and evolutionist. I've seen a number of creationists being converted to evolutionists by arguments at this forum (cavediver and Rahvin are two that will tell you that they have changed as a result of this forum convincing them that creationism was wrong), but I have not seen a single evolutionist change to creationist.Perhaps you are projecting your inability to admit to being wrong onto everyone else?Edited by RAZD, : added ps

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End result: over 90% validated confidence in classification down to the level of genera

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90%. That's not bad.

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and slightly less confidence in classification down to species

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90% of 90%. 81%. Hmm. Getting a bit dodgey.

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with a bit more uncertainty down to the level of subspecies variants.

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90% of 81%. 73%. Oh dear. And this is the "unbroken evolutionary progression"? More than a quarter of it may be wrong?Still. Good enough for what passes as science in evolution.(Aside) - Hey, Foxdog. Get my drift?

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cavediver and Rahvin are two that will tell you that they have changed as a result of this forum convincing them that creationism was wrong

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Two people who have obviously never experienced a rhema. Christianity without the Holy Spirit? There's no such thing.

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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

Might I enquire as to how you know they've never experienced this?

Because if they had then they wouldn't have left Christianity. Duh!

Sorry, no. I was a creationist for about 6 months when I was 14. That was about as long as I could manage. Twenty three years later, EvC helped me rid myself of Christianity.

Oh, I agree. It was a year from my conversion when I was baptised in the Spirit. Unbelievable experience - empowered me to proclaim the Gospel to everyone at school. I used to have crowds of kids gethering round to listen, heckle, and be amazed at what I told them. We had a flourishing Christian Union and our church youth group went into overdrive. Years later I was a worship leader with Vineyard, and years after that I was strongly involved with Hillsong - you may have heard of them I speak in tongues (still can of course), gave words of prophecy and knowledge, and have brought many to Christ.And finally appreciate it all for the delusion it is But it was a fun ride...ABE: Sorry folks - seriously OTEdited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Hi Kaichos Man, Of course you are assuming that it is 90% at each level. Remember that we are dealing with a phylum:Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Rhizaria
Superphylum: Retaria
Phylum: ForaminiferaThis is how the taxonomy stacks up:

        * Kingdom
o Phylum
+ Class
# Order
* Family
o Genus
+ Species

If genus classifications have 90% confidence then what is the confidence levels for family, 100%? order , 111%?, and class, 123???Rather obviously your assumed factor cannot be correct, or your application of a factor at each level is bogus.If we assume, for the sake of argument, 100% confidence for the phylum classification then the factor for each step would have to be (0.90)^{^1/4} or 97.4% confidence per level of classification to end up at 90% for genus:phylum 100%
class 97.4%
order 94.9%
family 92.4%
genus 90.0%Continuing on we now get:species 87.7%
variety 85.4% ... better than 5 out of 6. Note that this is your "major difficulty" in classification in Message 55, your "[i]taxonomic quagmire[/t]" in Message 89, and it appears to be correct 85% of the time? Yes, because you have absolutely failed to show that the progression they developed is completely wrong. You can't even show that it is occasionally wrong. The occasional messed up species classification does not affect the progression in transitional forms.Certainly you have not challenged the idea that transitional fossils exist and that they show transitions from ancestral populations to descendant populations.Even if Parker and Arnold were correct only half the time there would still be a mountain of evidence of transitions and a plenitude of transitional fossils.You are down to playing with fictional numbers and even there you can't show that no transitional fossils exist.Time to review where this thread started: And we are still at those same conclusions, completely unaffected by any of your various arguments ("parrot droppings"). All you have done is waste posts.Enjoy.

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Hi PercyThis just shows how important this forum is, we have now become the first find: We are now the first pick. Helen is now in second place. Looks like the issue is so rare that the few posts here have been sufficient to alter the results.Enjoy.

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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

Of course he doesn't, because it isn't. He didn't even put it forward as an argument relevant to the OP, merely as an interesting observation; a trivial sidebar to Percy's proof that you were not telling the truth about foraminifera.With your peculiar difficulties in comprehension, don't you think you should take up some hobby other than debate? Or at least make it easier for yourself by arguing for something less flagrantly wrong? The burden of having to argue for creationism, of all things, has crippled the arguments of much better men than you.Now, I might ask you if you're even slightly embarrassed to pretend that this is his "best argument", but in the first place your behavior does not lead me to suppose that you are capable of feeling shame, and in the second place the view of your intellectual capacities I have formed as a result of reading your posts persuade me that --- ludicrous though it may seem --- you might actually believe what you're saying.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.