The Great Creationist Fossil Failure

This is kind of an irrelevant statement, dear to YECs, but still meaningless. No one says that the fossil record is complete or perfect. However, it is data that must be honored in any explanation of the history of life on earth. Consequently, all species appear 'suddenly', but definitely not at the same time. In the meantime we have a large number of transitionals for some lineages which also must be explained by any theory.

Prepare for an avalanche of denial.After all, none of this is evidence (according to YEC).It's all just ... well, ... coincidence.

Just so it is clear that the evolution part is NOT towards anything, not towards adaptation or towards being unfit for the environment. It's just changes. It is the selection side that determines whether or not something is adapted.

Hi Mindspawn, it becomes increasingly obvious that you are arguing against a straw man rather than evolutionary theory. I have asked you to provide a statement of what you think the Theory of Evolution is, a request that you have ignored as far as I can see. My feeling is that you don't really have a concrete concept that you can articulate, and this hampers your arguments. Evolution occurs in populations not in individuals, so there is no prediction from evolution of have an individual fossil be part one species and part another, rather that the whole population would be a group of interbreeding generally similar appearing individuals. At any point in time they would be considered a species. And what in your mind is a "completely different organism"? So, for instance, we have the fossil record of Pelycodus:

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A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus, a primate

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The dashed lines show the overall trend. The species at the bottom is Pelycodus ralstoni, but at the top we find two species, Notharctus nunienus and Notharctus venticolus. The two species later became even more distinct, and the descendants of nunienus are now labeled as genus Smilodectes instead of genus Notharctus.

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As you look from bottom to top, you will see that each group has some overlap with what came before. There are no major breaks or sudden jumps. And the form of the creatures was changing steadily.

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Because evolution occurs in populations, some individuals would fit with previous populations and some with later populations as the whole population transitions from an early set of characteristics to a later set of characteristics.Here we also see the population dividing into two daughter populations that then become reproductively isolated (cease to share DNA) -- ie evidence that this evolution trend produces a new species.The larger species likely spent more time (was more successful) on the ground and the smaller species likely spent more time (was more successful) in the upper branches as they diverged, thus they occupied different habitats within the ecosystem while co-existing in the ecosystem. The variation in pelvis size within the current human population should show you how absurd your argument is. Again, this is your straw man, not actual evolutionary theory. There is NO "direction of the required transition". Dawkins describes evolution as a "drunken walk" as there is no goal that it is working towards, all it does is work for being successful at surviving and breeding in the ecology as it changes around the breeding population.This is why "intermediates" is a better term because it just says the (B) is between (A) and (C), while "transitionals" gives a mistaken impresion that getting to (C) from (A) is a purpose, a goal.Again, looking at Pelycodus above we see the populations gradually increasing in size until the split, when one population becomes smaller, more in the range of the original species. To the biologist both branches are evolving to fit their habitats. Nope, it is what you expect from your straw man view of evolution. No biologist expects a half duck and half crocodile, and would actually be shocked to find such a fossil. Every individual fossil is an intermediate between a previous population and a later populations (or extinction). Every one. Just as every living individual of every species on earth is an intermediate between their ancestors and their descendants ... unless they lack descendants (and their individual lineage is in danger of going extinct). What biologists expect are populations that are intermediate between ancestor populations and descendant populations, not individuals within a population, and that these populations would show features in the process of evolving from one form to the next.The features that aren't changing would be homologous, while those that are evolving would be derived from earlier features in a gradual process.Your claim is that these intermediate populations are just different fully formed species, but let's look at this in more detail:

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THE THERAPSID--MAMMAL TRANSITIONAL SERIES

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The mammals are believed to have evolved from a class of Permian and Triassic reptiles known as therapsids. Taxonomically, mammals are distinguished by a number of features, the most obvious of which are hair (even such aquatic mammals as whales and dolphins still retain bristly hairs in their skin), and the presence of mammary glands which secrete milk, used to nourish the young. Neither of these structures is preserved in the fossil record, but fortunately, mammals can also be distinguished by a number of skeletal characteristics (particularly in the skull and teeth). In particular, mammals are distinguished from reptiles by a number of skeletal traits. Reptiles have a much larger number of individual bones in their skulls than do mammals. In reptiles, the teeth are all of the same shape, and although they vary slightly in size, they all have the same simple cone-shaped form. Mammals, however, possess a number of different types of teeth in their jaws, from the flat, multi-cusped molar teeth to the sharp cone-shaped canines. In reptiles, the lower jaw is made up of a number of different bones, and the jaw joint is formed between the quadrate bone in the skull and the angular bone in the jaw. In mammals, by contrast, the lower jaw is made up of a single bone, the dentary, which articulates with the squamosal bone in the skull to form the jaw joint. Reptiles also have a single bone in the middle ear, the stapes. In mammals, there are three bones in the middle ear, the malleus, incus and stapes (also known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup). At the top of the skull, reptiles have a small hole through which the pineal body, or "third eye", extends--this is absent in mammals. Finally, the reptilian skull is attached to the spine by a single point of contact, the occipital condyle. In mammals, the occipital condyle is double-faced.

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Paleontologists point out that the therapsids possessed many of the characteristics of both reptiles and mammals:

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"In advanced forms, the skull was intermediate in type between that of a primitive reptile and a mammal; many of the bones absent in mammals were on their way toward reduction or were already lost. A small third eye was still generally present in the top of the skull, but its opening was a tiny one." (Romer, 1967, p. 226)

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"The differentiation of the teeth progressed in the therapsids to high levels of development, with the advanced genera showing sharply contrasted incisors, canines, and cheek teeth, which in some of these reptiles were of complex form, often with accessory cusps or broad crowns. In many therapsids, the occipital condyle became double, as in the mammals." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, p. 118)

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"In many respect, the tritylodont skull was very mammalian in its features. Certainly, because of the advanced nature of the zygomatic arches, the secondary palate and the specialized teeth, these animals had feeding habits that were close to those of some mammals . . . . Yet, in spite of these advances, the tritylodonts still retained the reptilian joint between the quadrate bone of the skull and the articular bone of the lower jaw. It is true that these bones were very much reduced, so that the squamosal bone of the skull and the dentary bone of the lower jaw (the two bones involved in the mammalian jaw articulation) were on the point of touching each other." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, p. 127)

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The reptiles, as we have noted, have one bone in the middle ear and several bones in the lower jaw, and mammals have three bones in the middle ear and only one bone in the lower jaw. On the other hand, the jaw joints in the reptile are formed from different bones than they are in the mammalian skull. Thus, it is apparent that, during the evolutionary transition from reptile to mammal, the jaw joints must have shifted from one bone to another, freeing up the rest of these bones to form the auditory ossicles in the mammalian middle ear. ...

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... The earliest therapsids show the typical reptilian type of jaw joint, with the articular bone in the jaw firmly attached to the quadrate bone in the skull. In later fossils from the same group, however, the quadrate-articular bones have become smaller, and the dentary and squamosal bones have become larger and moved closer together. This trend reaches its apex in a group of therapsids known as cynodonts, of which the genus Probainognathus is a representative. Probainognathus possessed characteristics of both reptile and mammal, and this transitional aspect was shown most clearly by the fact that it had TWO jaw joints--one reptilian, one mammalian:

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"Probainognathus, a small cynodont reptile from the Triassic sediments of Argentina, shows characters in the skull and jaws far advanced toward the mammalian condition. Thus it had teeth differentiated into incisors, a canine and postcanines, a double occipital condyle and a well-developed secondary palate, all features typical of the mammals, but most significantly the articulation between the skull and the lower jaw was on the very threshhold between the reptilian and mammalian condition. The two bones forming the articulation between skull and mandible in the reptiles, the quadrate and articular respectively, were still present but were very small, and loosely joined to the bones that constituted the mammalian joint . . . Therefore in Probainognathus there was a double articulation between skull and jaw, and of particular interest, the quadrate bone, so small and so loosely joined to the squamosal, was intimately articulated with the stapes bone of the middle ear. It quite obviously was well on its way towards being the incus bone of the three-bone complex that characterizes the mammalian middle ear." (Colbert and Morales, 1991, pp. 228-229)

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Thus, the fossil record demonstrates, during the transition from therapsid reptile to mammal, various bones in the skull slowly migrated together to form a second functional jaw joint, and the now-superfluous original jaw bones were reduced in size until they formed the three bones in the mammalian middle ear. The reptilian quadrate bone became the mammalian incus, while the articular bone became the malleus. The entire process had taken nearly the whole length of the Triassic period to complete, a time span of approximately 40 million years. Since the determining characteristic of a mammal in the fossil record is the structure of the jaw bone and joint, all of the therapsids up to the Morganucodonts are classified as reptiles, and all those after that are considered to be mammals. As Romer puts it, "We arbitrarily group the therapsids as reptiles (we have to draw a line somewhere) but were they alive, a typical therapsid probably would seem to us an odd cross between a lizard and a dog, a transitional type between the two great groups of backboned animals." (Romer, 1967, p. 227)

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So we have clear evidence of populations evolving gradually from reptile to mammal, including a set of intermediate populations with double hinged jaws, each one intermediate in form and features between ancestral populations and descendant populations.Now before you say these are separate species that "appear suddenly fully formed," you have some additional things to consider:

1. Look back up at Pelycodus and
2. notice that the fossils are in stratigraphic layers that represent time, older at the bottom, younger at the top, but also that
3. they are in the same location geographically.
4. so they are connected in both time and space.
5. To be descendant populations they would have occur in a continuous time and location path.
6. To be special creation of fully formed new species there is no requirement for continuous time and location between them and other species. They could happen anywhere, anytime.
7. Pelycodus shows a continuous path in time and space, population after population after population after population,
8. ... just as evolution predicts, and not as special creation predicts.
9. Now consider Therapsidae,
10. where again we see the fossils again ordered in time and space with more ancient forms and features being found in older strata and more derived forms and features being found in newer strata ...
11. ... in the same general geographic location, connected in time and space, and that
12. each intermediate population falls between older less derived ancestor population and later more derived descendant populations, ...
13. ... just as evolution predicts, and not as special creation predicts.

Now please notice that I say "as evolution predicts" -- this is because the fossil record is not the theory of evolution, or the evidence for it (we already have that in abundance from the nested hierarchies for the clades of life around us, and reinforced by the entirely separate but equally convincing evidence of DNA nested hierarchies), but rather each and every fossil is a test of the theory.These tests keep validating the theory by providing the evidence that the theory predicts.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : .

Unfortunately, my feeling is that mindspawn doesn't really care.

I understand what you're saying, but I guess I'd disagree with that way of saying it. Evolution isn't towards any specific goal, but it is definitely toward adaptation. Changing environments produce adaptations to the changes. We might not know what the adaptations will be in advance, but we know that in general change will be toward better adaptation.It's mutations that are random with respect to fitness and are selected for or against. A change caused by mutations is not an adaptation until the change is selected for, and a change that is selected against is not an adaptation at all.--Percy

Hi mindspawn, Aw shucks! You may recall that Dr A did challenge that post. You are not being ganged up against arbitrarily. As a matter of fact, all of the most severe dressings down that I've had on this board have come from other evolutionists. I think that stems from the way you argue; it comes across as intrinsically dishonest. For starters, your ideas are so... shall we say, idiosyncratic, that many observers find it hard to believe that anyone could honestly hold so patently absurd an opinion. Further, you are prone to sweeping dismissive statements like "evolutionists have presented no evidence". This comes across as dishonest; you know perfectly well that we have, you just disagree with it. That's your prerogative, but since you have declined to engage with any of the evidence you have been given, your dismissive attitude is unwarranted.If it's scientific truth you want, you need to engage more with the evidence and do so in much more detail. If you were to do that, I think that the insults would dry up quickly. In the mean time, you're kind of exasperating to debate with. No problem. But that still leaves countless errors unacknowledged. Dimetrodon is still not a reptile. Highlands were not rare in the Paleozoic. Mammals are not ill-suited to swamps. Those are all mistakes mindspawn. I looked them up. You're going to have a long wait. Best to bring snacks. Quite right, it wouldn't be enough.As it goes, the evidence is considerably more compelling than that. Multiple whale intermediates have been found. They share morphological features that go beyond the superficial. They appear in exactly the right period. In short, they repeatedly and independently match the predictions of the ToE. If that isn't evidence in favour of evolution, I can only wonder what would be.By the way, you keep using that word "clades". I do not think it means what you think it means. Evidence of clades is evidence of evolution. Clades are groupings based upon the notion of evolutionary inter-relatedness.

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A clade (from Ancient Greek: κλάδος, klados, "branch") is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants, and represents a single "branch" on the "tree of life".

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The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, a species (extinct or extant), and so on right up to a kingdom. Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed monophyletic (Greek: "one clan").

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Since a clade consists of an organism and all of its evolutionary descendants, it is quite absurd to talk of "changes beyond a clade" and to claim that clades are a prediction of creationism is just too funny. Darwin admitted a weakness in the fossil evidence, not the theory itself. And he did this over 150 years ago. Newsflash! Fossil evidence has improved quite a lot over the intervening century and a half. You waste your time attacking the fossil record as it was understood by our great-great-great-grandfathers. Modern palaeontology has moved on. Leave it to creationists to be stuck in the Nineteenth century.Darwin predicted that whale ancestors would be found and we now have fossils of creatures intermediate between a modern whale and a land-dwelling mammal. Any way you slice it, that is evidence in favour of evolution. I look forward to feeling better. Tell you what, I'll join you in that little fantasy right after you produce a Cambrian rabbit. Or a Carboniferous squirrel. Or a Devonian eagle. Or a single tangible shred of positive evidence for your position. Because right now, we have an embarrassment of fossils that validate the predictions of the ToE and you have not a single goddamn thing.Mutate and Survive

Indeed. Let's take a look a a Cambrian example of a chordate, the phylum that includes humans. Pikaia - WikipediaNow I'm no palaeontologist, but I'm going to go ahead and say that it's not a dead ringer for a human being. Your mileage may vary.Is mindspawn going to concede that this little critter shares a clade with humans? Or is he going to stop crowing about how all the phyla were present in the Cambrian?Mutate and Survive

That sure looks made in his image to me.

Are you saying that my question about all orders and classes being represented in the Cambrian record has been a waste of time?

Indeed, and that is part of the ongoing learning process that I value here. Curiously, I have argued that the concept of clades is the closest parallel in evolutionary terminology to the creationist concept of kinds -- each reproduce after their own kind. A member of the wolf clade will always be a member of the wolf clade and not become a member of another clade via evolution. This is generally viewed by creationists as "micro" evolution.This is a point on which we can agree while pointing out where we disagree:

• there is no clade I am aware of that doesn't have evidence of an ancestor in a larger clade, as would be required by special creation, and thus the evidence from clades is for evolution and not creation, and
• there is no restriction on what may evolve within a clade, and that this is best demonstrated by convergent evolution, and by mimicry, where members of different clades become similar in appearance and behavior:
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  Analogy: Squirrels and Sugar Gliders

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  Beyond being cute and cuddly, flying squirrels and sugar gliders have many striking similarities: big eyes, a white belly, and a thin piece of skin stretched between their arms and legs, a trait which helps them "glide" and remain stable when leaping from high places.

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  But sugar gliders and flying squirrels also have some key differences. Most importantly, they reproduce and bear their babies in fundamentally different ways:

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  Flying squirrels and sugar gliders are only distantly related. So why do they look so similar then? Their gliding "wings" and big eyes are analogous structures. Natural selection independently adapted both lineages for similar lifestyles: leaping from treetops (hence, the gliding "wings") and foraging at night (hence, the big eyes).

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• "Macro" evolution (*) occurs within clades via "micro" evolution and divergence from common ancestors.

So while Diportodontia is a different clade from Rodentia, and it is a member of the marsupial mammal clade and not the placental mammal clade they both are members of the mammal clade ... there IS a common ancestor population they evolved from, (and we can go back further) ... BUT while each have not evolved "out of their (Diportodontia, Rodentia) clades" they have arrived at a similar point through selection and mutations.Evolution is not limited by dogma.Enjoy(*) the formation of nested hierarchies (clades within clades) and new species that diverge from their common ancestor and sister speciesEdited by RAZD, : .

Hi edge, Oh God, let's not pull at that thread. If we start wondering whether anything we write here is a waste of time we're screwed.Mutate and Survive

Hi RAZD. "There is a common ancestor they evolved from"The problem is, can't the clade, can't the cladogram exist, WITHOUT this ancestor?Have they found this ancestor? If so can you name it?The problem is, a homoplasy is basically only, "not a homology" because it does not fit with the evolutionary story of divergence.Think about it - two creatures identical but one marsupial and one placental, logically speaking, should falsify evolution.So how do we logically falsify evolution? Heads it's evolutionary divergence. (homologies) Tails it's evolutionary convergence (homoplasies)But what if the actual conclusion is that God as a Creator, simply does not obey any rules. What if for example, God wanted a marine-version of a tortoise simply because He liked the idea, and so He created a turtle?With turtles I guess you could say evolution by coincidence has made them ever so slightly analogous.The most amusing example of an analogous feature is the Ichthyosaur, especially when we hear Gould himself admit to the 1-in-a-billion odds, it seems, and that is the problem, the coincidence-list for evolution seems to be astronomical, some forty convergent types of eyeballs I heard from Dawkins."This sea-going reptile with terrestrial ancestors converged so strongly on fishes that it actually evolved a dorsal fin and tail in just the right place and with just the right hydrological design. The evolution of these forms was all the more remarkable because they evolved from nothingthe ancestral terrestrial reptile had no hump on its back or blade on its tail to act as a precursor - Gould.(Oh look, it seems Gould has used the word, "hydrological", according to Dr Adequate I guess that means Gould was not a "real scientist", if we are to appreciate what Dr A said in message one of this thread.)CONCLUSION: it seems to me "analogues" are just excuses for why divergence can't solve the problem. How can we scientifically test whether natural selection can converge and break odds that end up an astronomical figure?How can we scientifically test? If we can't, that means we just have to believe evolution did it. Your two clades with the larger mammal clade, don't include the transitionals, so can't cladograms just be classifications without any evolution?EXAMPLE: vehicles --> then two wheeled vehicles (motorcycles) and four wheeled, (cars).Thus there is no requirement for any relatedness.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

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clade
kleɪd/
nounBiology
noun: clade; plural noun: clades

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a group of organisms believed to comprise all the evolutionary descendants of a common ancestor.

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No. It would be difficult to know, wouldn't it? At least if you are talking about the most recent common ancestor. But as a reasonable approximation it'd be Hadrocodium. No, that's not true. Well sure, but if they were identical then one wouldn't be a marsupial while one was placental. Those two groups have significant differences. It's not mathematics. You'd need to empirically falsify it. No. Then God, as a creator, is not logical and falls afoul of the very problems you criticize evolution with. Heads it's God, Tails it's God. 'Seems to me' is not good enough.

Well, you'd have to start by knowing what you were talking about. And so it would just be a huge massive coincidence that all God's whims happened to give support to evolution? What do you mean by "forty convergent types of eyeballs"? N.B: you did not hear that from Dawkins. This is exactly what we would expect --- identical selection pressures produced analogy but not homology. For example, if you looked at the tail of an ichthyosaur instead of merely talking nonsense about the subject, you would see that its caudal vertebrae go into the lower lobe of its tail, unlike any fish. I have noted your exceptionally poor reading comprehension before. At no point did I say that real scientists do not use the word hydrological. Just because your conclusion is as nonsensical as your premises, that doesn't mean that it would follow from them.---I notice that you have strictly avoided all mention of the topic of this thread. I realize that it would be embarrassing for you to discuss it, but is it not almost equally embarrassing for you to come on this thread and avoid it?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.