Transitional Fossils Show Evolution in Process

Uh, no.RAZD was talking about when a population that has divided into two populations actually becomes two different species, and he was trying to explain to you why the granularity of this detail at the "transitioning from one species to the next" level isn't relevant to whether a progression of species is unbroken or not.You can't draw a circle around Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) and Homo Sapiens and call it the speciation event because we already know there were other speciation events in that circle.These two very short replies (this one and your non sequitur fallacy-of-argument- from-authority reply to Wounded King in Message 118) tell us that you do not understand the explanations but feel the need to reply anyway.--Percy

Hi again Kaichos Man, Percy pretty well nailed it, so I'll just add some side comments to keep us on topic. We know that there was one species at "f" and that there are two species at "j" so therefore a speciation event has occurred between "f" and "j" - and we know that there is hereditary lineage between them because of the morphological study by Parker and Arnold. What we don't know, due to uncertainty about morphospecies, ecophenotypes, cryptic species, ecoclines, and their effect/s, is precisely where between "f" and "j" the actual speciation event takes place.A speciation event is defined as a splitting of the population into two or more reproductively isolated populations, so just a lineage of descent from an ancestral population does not necessarily mean a speciation event has occurred. Often when there is sufficient difference from the ancestral population to be similar to the difference between sibling species, an arbitrary speciation is defined, but there is no singular event to point to for where this occurs.This is what we see with Pelycodus (I've added the color lines, the original image without color lines is fig 10 from Gingerich, P.D. 1976. Paleontology and phylogeny: Patterns of evolution at the species level in early Tertiary mammals, American Journal of Science 276:1-28.): Here we see the evolution of the pelycodus\copelemur\notharctus lineages:

• the red lineage goes from Pelycodus ralstoni to Notharctus venticolus at the upper right;
• in between there is an arbitrary speciation with P.mckennai;
• then a possible speciation event, with P.trigonodus on the red lineage and Copelemur proetutus on the green lineage;
• then an arbitrary speciation to Copelemur feretutus on the green lineage,
• and another arbitrary speciation to Copelemur consortutus on the green lineage;
• back on the red lineage we have another speciation event, with P.abditus on the red lineage with a short lived branch in purple;
• then another speciation event after P.abditus on the red lineage to P.jarrovii on the red lineage and P.frugivorus on the blue lineage;
• finally on the red lineage we see another arbitraty speciation to Notharctus venticolus, which is also given a new (arbitrary) genus classification.

At the top we now have three genera, Copelemur, Pelycodus and Notharctus.Note that each of these fossils are transitional fossils, with each stage showing a range of intermediate forms between ancestral and descendant forms. We also see the formation of a nested hierarchy of common descent, the defining mark of macroevolution. In that case there would be many speciation events, as we know of several lineages that have split off from the hominid line between A. afarensis and H.sapiens.Your circle is so broadly drawn that it covers everything in this image, which shows at least 5 speciation events and 12 species: According to the image on this site there would be at least 10 speciation events:
http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.htmlAccording to the image on this site there would also be at least 5 speciation events:
Anthropology | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural HistoryThese images also show transitional fossils, with each stage showing an intermediate form between ancestral and descendant forms. We also see again, the formation of a nested hierarchy of common descent, the defining mark of macroevolution. Well, at least you are consistent - it seems that every point you have tried to make on this thread is overstated to the point of irrelevance. Plus the argument from consequences fallacy. This also seems to be a trend common to other posts you have made, it's like you feel that evolution is wrong, so you have to say something, no matter how silly it is.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : • addedEdited by RAZD, : plus

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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

If by "prove" you mean "prove beyond any doubt and uncertainty" then no field of science ever does this. The possibility that current views are wrong exists throughout all science.But species transition is what the evidence of the fossil record indicates. There can be no doubt that the fossil record represents a series of species that become more different the greater the span of time, and the inescapable conclusion is that the inexact reproduction (descent with modification) we observe in all modern species is a process that has been occurring since the beginning of life.Now we all understand that you prefer a different interpretation. I don't know the specifics of your views. Maybe you think each successive species in the fossil record is a special creation. Maybe you think all life captured in the fossil record lived at roughly the same time, maybe a span of a couple thousand years before the flood. But whatever your views, the order and dating and successive change of fossils found in the geologic column does exist, and evolution explains this evidence.What you must recognize is that pinpointing precisely when species change took place is not necessary to knowing that it happened. First there was one species, then there was a different but similar species, then there was yet another different but similar species, so obviously species change is taking place.What you must further recognize is that it is impossible to pinpoint when species change took place because evolutionary change is gradual. Just as you can't pinpoint when foothills becomes mountains or when harbor becomes sea, you can't pinpoint when species A became species B because the change is so gradual. Species are always in a state of transition. All species are transitional. What we call species are just phenotypic categories applied to a population of organisms at a specific point in time, and with fossils those points in time are usually chosen for us by the serendipity of when and which creatures happened to get preserved, survive to the present, and then become accessible to paleontologists.In other words, you're desire to "pinpoint" when species change occurs indicates a severe misunderstanding of the evolutionary process As I stated once before, whether or not sheer luck allowed an unbroken progression in the fossil record to survive and eventually be discovered isn't terribly important. No scientific finding is without uncertainty, and that includes this claim of discovering an unbroken progression. If in your opinion the evidence is insufficient that the progression is unbroken then I don't think anyone cares, but the entire fossil record is a clear and unambiguous progression, even if it isn't unbroken, and evolution is not only consistent with but explains this progression. Evolution is a theory that successfully explains the evidence and that makes predictions that have successfully proven out time after time, and this is what successful theories are expected to do. No one here is arguing that Lucy is in the direct ancestral line leading to Homo sapiens. You just introduced Lucy into the conversation out of the blue.Anyway, briefly and not to change the subject, paleontologists involved in hominid research are a remarkably diverse and opinionated group. Which ancient hominid species are and are not in our direct ancestral line will likely be debated for decades to come. But there can be no doubt that there were many different hominid species prior to us, and something must have happened that caused the old species to disappear and new ones to appear. The theory that successfully explains what happened is evolution. If you don't want to be criticized for posting 2-sentence drive-by potshots then don't do it.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Can you give us some evidence showing how Conway Morris changed from a non-believer into a believer in the face of the biological evidence? I'd susggest that most people gain religious convictions before they gain the relevant experience to become evolutionary biologists/ paleontologists. But I accept that this isn't always the case, I'm just not prepared to blindly accept your claim that Coway Morris came to his faith as the result of a Damascene conversion based on the fossil record and instances of convergent evolution. In some cases yes, there are a number of plausible routes for de novo gene creation, you may recall the thread 'New genes in the Human lineage' where we discussed some examples, and many more mechanisms for the recombination of existing genetic information into novel functional combinations. Your estimation of the odds, as usual for a creationist, is pulled out of thin air.You make out as if there is an alternative ID mechanism for the appearance of truly novel genetic information in the genome, which of course there isn't. When the two possibilities are mechanisms we know exist which can create genetic novelty on the one hand and no mechanism which we don't even know if it exists or not on the other then I think the known mechanisms require less faith.TTFN,WK

Hi Kaichos Man, still missing the obvious. Similar to what is found in a gorilla, not OF a gorilla. Surely you are not claiming that "Lucy" was a gorilla now, are you?Curiously, I'm aware of the possible change in status of A.afarensis that is going on, and yet aware that this still does not alter the argument that you have many more speciation events within any circle you can draw that includes A.afarensis with H.sapiens than you do in the example from the foraminifera, and so your argument that they are comparable fails.In the foram example you only have two species on the descendant side and one species on the ancestor side of the circle, and a complete herediary lineage between the ancestor form and either of the descendant forms.Attempting to switch focus from the forams to australopithicus does not alter that simple fact: once again you are guilty of a vast overstatement. Except that none of them show "artist's impressions" ... thus we have another of your blundering overstatements.They show species names with blocks showing hereditary lineage or they show species names with actual skulls showing hereditary lineage. The lineages shown were the best explanation at the time they were made and they have all been updated with new information, it's just that not everyone is in agreement yet on the complete status in those lineages (unlike the situation we have with the foraminifera).They are a great example of science in the process of changing with new information as it comes along. Please note that there are several paths proposed in:Anthropology | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural HistoryAnd that the only difference this status change for A.afarensis could make to the one posted ... (http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html)... is that there would be a branching point outside your overly enthusiastic circle with one branch that would lead from Australopithicus anamensis to A.afarensis on the one hand, and another to the lineage that leads to H.sapiens on the other.Thus this adds more speciation events to your circle and this makes your argument worse.Obviously this does not significantly alter the fact that your circle must include many more speciation events than the situation with the foraminifera branching that you attempted to falsely compare it to. Which you just did again. Sigh.Enjoy.

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Let's try to put this in terms that you will understand.Once upon a time there was a magical pixie named Bubbles who lived on the Rock-Candy Mountain in the Bubblegum Forest, and he had a pet unicorn named Twinkle who he loved very much. Now Twinkle the unicorn was a very good unicorn, and he always told the truth.One lovely day the pixie was riding his unicorn through the magical Bubblegum Forest when they saw the fossil record. "Oh my goodness", cried Bubbles, "what can this mean!""It's obvious," replied Twinkle the unicorn. "It proves that evolution has occurred, and only a drooling halfwit would doubt it.""You're right," replied Bubbles the pixie, and so the merry pair went on their merry way.We know that this story is true because it was written by Twinkle the Unicorn, who always tells the truth, and the fact that this narrative always refers to Twinkle in the third person is neither here nor there and should be disregarded.---Now, me, I'd rather look at the evidence. But you apparently put your trust in dumb fairy-stories. So there's one for you. If you find it less convincing than the fairy-story about the magic tree and the talking snake, please do explain why.

Hi Kaichos Man, Curious that the only ancient skulls included in the study are:

• Australopithecus afarensis (two versions) and
• Au.robustus (two versions) also known as Paranthropus robustus

Missing skulls in the comparison are:

• Ardipithecus ramidus
• Australopithecus anamensis
• Australopithecus africanus
• Australopithecus garhi
• Paranthropus aethiopicus
• Paranthropus boisei
• Homo habilis
• Homo rudolfensis
• Homo ergaster and
• Homo erectus
• Homo heidelbergensis and
• Homo neanderthalensis

So we don't see the change in this trait between the time of Australopithecus afarensis and modern primates in the other ancestral species - don't you think that is a little incomplete?Especially considering that the common ancestor between hominids, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans is older than the common ancestor between hominids, chimpanzees, and gorillas, while the closest jaw contour to humans is the orangutan? It would seem that this trait may have evolved differently several times, so the intermediate development is more important than the end points. So you pick and use a study as an example that does not have " 'granularity' of the detail" in order to imply that this is missing from the foraminifera lineage?Or is this just another example of your typically overenthusiastic overstatement, rather than any attempt to understand the reality of the fossil record. >>sigh<<Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : c

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I respect the effort the poster has made to use clear definitions. However I would like to challenge the definition by quoting a brief example of talk about transitional fossils from a typical source (a state university).
"The research also suggests that at least three times in the evolution of dinosaurs and their closest relatives, meat-eating animals evolved into animals with diets that included plants. These shifts all occurred in less than 10 million years, a relatively short time by geological standards.
Asilisaurus is part of a sister group to dinosaurs known as silesaurs. Silesaurs are considered dinosaur-like because they share many dinosaur characteristics but still lack key characteristics all dinosaurs share. The relationship between silesaurs and dinosaurs is analogous to the close relationship of humans and chimps. Even though the oldest dinosaurs discovered so far are only 230 million years old, the presence of their closest relatives 10 million years earlier implies that silesaurs and the dinosaur lineage had already diverged from common ancestors by 240 million years ago. Silesaurs continued to live side by side with early dinosaurs throughout much of the Triassic Period (between about 250 and 200 million years ago)."
The link to the full article is at --Page not found - UT News.
Here's what I find troubling, the evidence is what every storyteller at the table has, the 14 fossils. The problem with calling something "transitional" is that in fact we don't know if it is transitional as a fact. Just writing down differences with similar animals does not show an evolution tree link. No one with scientific method observed the transition, for one. And even if it did happen, the transition, once for that particular dinosaur like animal, it would by definition be unrepeatable. Thus no science experimentation would be ever applicable to this fossilized creature. What would be more impressive more than storytelling is a mathematical video tape equivalent of the change, that would be interesting and make the university's claim compelling. As it is though, such alleged transitions are no more convincing than saying once 40,000 years ago an animal drank some water, which changed its life. Well, ok, to give this meaning: how would we break down what the 'transition' period is defined as? After all, the water the animal took in was a one-time event that changed the animal in some way. If that same animal is said to have 'transitioned' on some arbitrary day, say the same day it drank water at that stream and mated, how can we not limit further what a transition is? We should be able to say more than these bones look a lot alike, so we'll assume they are related. It doesn't take a lot of expertise to make causal assumptions that may or may not be true 430 million years ago. To assert that transitions have happened is to assume there ought to be more of it observed to show small, measureable, compelling shifts with at the least thousands of little jumps in this one single species, as opposed to merely telling a story that it has happened with a small pack of fossils in one place. Mathematical theories do not drive transition fossil theories (at least physics can prove such a past event given a causal universe). I see no way that mathematical proof (at least very high probability) of transitioning can ever confirm the transitional fossils actually --being-- transitions. If probability were high due to thousands of small changes in the same line (also an assumption which would have to be proved, that they are moving the same line), then it would be more compelling. But unrelated finds with 14 animals each in the site that lived in a relatively close period of time is not showing a long gradual change for certain. It only shows in that place, or a few small finds, that some animals that looked a lot like a dinosaur existed. But where is the so what coming in? How can the fact that some fossils have been found that have lots in common, prove that they are common. There are animals on the evolutionary tree in textbooks at universities that look similar but are on very different branches. Simply stating similarity doesn't make it so, it is assertion without high probability of correlation over time. Because lots of Firestone and Michelin tires on cars today look similar doesn't mean they came from the same plant (maybe, maybe not; it requires reliable first-hand accounts by company representatives or lots of UPS employees or else scientific repeatable change observation to figure this out).
Perhaps the dinosaur-like Asilisaurus kongwe animals were just created by someone or thing 430 million years ago? Or perhaps they transitioned over a (relatively short, ie unlikely) ten million years? But to say one 'knows' for sure is a claim that is meaningless by any mathematical probability scheme to back it up. It is rather a story that is told about the fossils everyone can see, in order to make evolutionists feel good about themselves for spending time listening to professors assert again and again ages in rock layers through graduate work all those years. And if we are all going to tell stories with low probabilities, then I can think of a 100 stories of how things transitioned, and expect you to believe some of them, since they are conceivably some other possible explanations. Then I can merely say if you don't believe me, you haven't studied enough. This is the problem with claiming evolution is shown in progress with isolated finds on one kind of animal Asilisaurus kongwe, when we really have no line or ability to draw the line of descent accurately. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. But it sounds like speculation based on a popular geology time line in that article I quoted. And I suspect the dating scheme is circular. Respected professor so and so said this layer is such and such years. So this gets repeated, until we are talking about things we can't prove, that over 10 million years these changes happened. Really, where is the repeatable proof in the same animal? The same problem applies to this definition of transitions, which is from the same family of interpretation about the fossil record today over things no one saw hundreds of millions of years ago. And if we say transitions exist today, then who gets to decide what is a transition line? The professor with the most theses done? How many science experiments has he done to show the high probability of the same line, and minor changes in the fossils with a fair test pool of examples?

Hello, davids-evolution, and welcome to EvC!The "enter" key is your ally here - a space now and again will make your posts much easier to read. Your suspicions are unfounded - but that's for a different thread.

Which "14 fossils"?There are a lot more fossils than that. What are you talking about?

I'm glad to be here to think through some of these processes.By the way, your point on the enter key is useful, I'll take that into account. (But I won't let a monkey in a cage be the source of the enters or we may be here a very long time, eons).At least it makes sure that to read it, one can't easily select only certain paragraphs, but like you, I appreciate greater clarity.Page not found - UT NewsIn this particular article, the thing I find interesting (in a useful way) is the availability of some fairly secure conclusions: like what an animal ate by its teeth shape, size and wear. These inferences are based on what we can observe, which is teeth wear a certain way (speed, angle) when you eat this. Paleontology earns its pay with such fair inferences of reason. The present change in bone/teeth is informative of the past. Physics is useful in this regard with cosmology.I suppose for me at least, a greater problem stands in grey areas of skeletons showing evolutionary change from simple to more advanced. But words like "sister group" show a lot of interpretation is going on that we can't show high probability for. If I walk into the discussion believing that similar skeletons in form or shape show a family resemblance, that is only somewhat justified. Right now, if I see two human skeletons I can fairly use reason to deduce they are the same animal. But suppose I bring in a lemur and a human skeleton and assert they are related, as some recent finds have done to their embarrassment after their colleagues checked their work? So there is a line to be drawn, in saying these are related on a branch of the evolutionary tree, and these are not. Who gets to play the role of God interpreter and decide for us all deductively these two lines are animals that once had these same ancestors on this upper left hand side of the evolutionary tree? Must be a nice job, you assert interpretations which happened hundreds of millions of years ago can explain similar skeletons.
But for all that person deciding knows (professor/researcher) there is no way to get beyond small differences into larger changes without lots of assumptions (art of interpretation, like a scientific hypothesis but without the testability of repetition today) to connect the dots. Assumptions are increasingly involved when making up a 'line' that animals like silesaurs 'followed.' These unrepeatable assumptions are subject to unwarranted interpretation that we are told is 'sure,' after the next form is found in a relatively close layer in a different location. How do we really know that silesaurs shifted in less than 10 million years (a very short time)? There is going to be a serious limit on timing impossed by a system brought to bear from other assumptions. Geology says this time frame is involved in such a layer. We can match these layers. But then what about the assumptions brought in to connect different size and shape bones from the 'same' animal.... That is then a low probability comment from a professor based on interpretation, when we can't tract the line closely enough, with enough of the same animal in the same pack (which we can't). These lines are drawn beyond the packs we find them in (like one or several close digs) are subject to low probability for inferences of reason.If a person were to say, well we can see changes in bones today in size, that is very much true. I could then reply, we find humans in the USA with bones far larger than some in other places (say Peru or China). Are the Western bones more evolved? Are they further along? No. These are the issues of interpretation which are notoriously risky games of connect the dots. When we weren't there in the dig zone with radio animal tracking tags 430 to 420 million years ago, we cannot know for 'sure' that increased size in skeleton is a move in the right "hegelian" (if I may use that) direction. Perhaps the larger ones are devolving (which would certainly be possible with the way most Americans live eating grossly large amounts of food and killing themselves with diseases as a result).

Your point is obscure.You wish to deny all the implications of all the evidence, but you have not really offered up any excuse. Where's your excuse?