What would a transitional fossil look like?

That was J. B. S. Haldane.

Repeating the same bullshit doesn't make it any less stinky. If this was true, rather than your fantasy bullshit, that would mean that all mammals are a single species, all dinosaurs are one species, all birds are one species. Your delusions of your own knowledge are pathetic. They do complicated things with their spines? Oh good, you are finally giving us some concrete information..."but it's all of a sort that the genome itself would govern, not a new species." What the fuck does that even mean?

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That was J. B. S. Haldane.

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I always get that wrong. Give me 6 months and I'll do it again.He seems like quite a character

We have the genomes which tell us all of the mutations that are needed. You don't have to assume or imagine anything. They are right there. The explanation for how humans evolved from a common ancestor shared with other apes is the mutations that separate us from other species.

Normal alleles are enough to distinguish one genome from another. Mutations just muddy things up. If they do anything viable at all they change an existing allele which affects a single gene that is part of the genome of the species, they don't do anything at all to introduce anything new to the genome that could ever begin the process of producing a completely new species. Think of how many things would have to be changed by your mutations even if they did change such basic things, and don't forget to take into account that most of the changes are not going to be beneficial and many will be deleterious, and somebody here recently pointed out that mutations to HOX genes that govern basic structure tend to produce monsters. The whole theory is just impossible.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Tell ya what. I don't know if I'll go on Inactive but I'll leave this thread which has become such a ridiculous mess anyway. So you all can go back to your false but satisfying ToE nonsense, your false fossil evolution, your false fossil transitionals etc.Enjoy.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If you say so.
You likely don't have any hanging on any of your walls then, right?I mean... I know they have no power, so I don't have any hanging on my walls.
Just saying. I see. So the ritual of prayer has the possibility (depending on God's answer) of bringing about God's power.
Sounds a lot like how the ritual of transubstantiation has the ability to change bread into the body of Christ through God's power.But prayer is not a ritual.
Only transubstantiation is.Got it. That's not unfortunate. It's just a fact. Mutations and time occur for millions of years to produce many different changes and variations. Substance.MutationsMutationsMutationsMutations Mutations MutationsLots of it is.
The chimp and human DNA is.. what... 98% the same, or something like that?
But, please be careful as I'm trying to use your language, you know modern chimps don't make humans... and you know no one thinks that.
What we're talking about here is a common ancestor diverging, one path leading to modern chimps and another path leading to modern humans. MutationsAll kinds of mutations - changes, additions and/or deletions.
I think it would happen because it did... we (chimps and humans) evolved from a common ancestor.
It's the only explanation that explains all the evidence. 1. Those are bigger, more difficult mutations.
2. Who says they didn't happen? If it happened, and the poor recipient died... then obviously their descendants wouldn't be around today for us to see them. Yes, that's possible.
And it's also possible that the more subtle, simpler mutations could happen.Let's look at the evidence!Oh, look... modern chimps exist. Modern humans exist. A common ancestor previously existed.
This happened.

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Normal alleles are enough to distinguish one genome from another.

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Really ? What is a “normal allele”? And are you talking about individual genomes or something more complicated?

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Mutations just muddy things up.

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If you mean that they mess up one of your favourite arguments you are exactly right.

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If they do anything viable at all they change an existing allele which affects a single gene that is part of the genome of the species, they don't do anything at all to introduce anything new to the genome that could ever begin the process of producing a completely new species.

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Why not ? And how can you tell ? And why isn’t a new allele something new ? What about a new gene ? Mutation can produce those, too.

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Think of how many things would have to be changed by your mutations even if they did change such basic things...

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If you mean “basic body plan” that doesn’t have to change at all to get a new species. Closely related species don’t vary an awful lot.

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...and don't forget to take into account that most of the changes are not going to be beneficial and many will be deleterious, and somebody here recently pointed out that mutations to HOX genes that govern basic structure tend to produce monsters.

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Neither of those are real problems at the level you are discussing. It’s only when you get into the details that they matter.

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The whole theory is just impossible.

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That’s your opinion. And your opinions are very often wrong. So it isn’t surprising that this one is, too.

Horses walk on their fingertips. They're down to one on each appendage.

Then how do you explain the physical differences between chimps and humans if it isn't the genetic differences that separate them? What causes those physical differences if it isn't mutations? If most mutations are deleterious, then how are humans able to survive with 40 million mutations compared to the chimp genome? If we look at other species there are even more differences. How is this possible?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Trilobites have spines? Yes, but not like vertebrate spines ...

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Trilobites

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Identifing different species of trilobite is very hard, but with some guidance it is possible. You can identify a trilobite from the shape of it's shell, the ribs and the spines.

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See link for descriptions of 19 species, 7 with no spines. Spine locations and number vary considerably from head to toe on those 12 species with spines, as do the number of ribs. For instance:

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CALYMENE
LOWER SILURIAN TO UPPER DEVONIAN. 430-360 MYA. Calymene is recognized by it's rounded shell.
4 cm is a decent size for a Calymene.
The calymene trilobites found in Britian usually have 19 segments and those found in America usually have 13 segments.
They have rounded shells but no spines.

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and

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CORYNEXOCHIDA
LOWER CAMBRIAN TO UPPER DEVONIAN. 518-360 MYA. Corynexochida is recognized by it's flat shell.
5 cm is a decent size for a Corynexochida.
They have flat shells and short spines on the Thorax.
They have longer and fewer spines on the Pygidium.

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The spines of trilobites have nothing to do with their relative ability to curl up like a sow bug.The spines, when present, can be on the head (Cephalon), thorax, or tail (Pygidium ) and of varying lengths. Note the three lobes are longitudinal not transverse. Transverse segments - ribs - vary in number from species to species.This alone makes them more different one to another than are chimps and humans ... if you use the same criteria for classifying the "faith species" (purportedly set by the "faith genome") for trilobites and humans and chimps.And that is the crux of why your classifications are a farce.As for the topic: What would a transitional fossil look like? Without discussing the use or misuse of "species" ...

• A transitional fossil would have some primitive (plesiomorphic) traits/characteristics of an ancestral population
• A transitional fossil would have some derived (altered) traits/characteristics compared to an ancestral population
• A transitional fossil would have fewer derived (altered) characteristics compared to a descendant population
• A transitional fossil will also be in close proximity in both time and geographic location (the temporal/spacial matrix) to ancestral and descendant populations.

ie -- a transitional fossil would be intermediate in form (traits/characteristics) between an ancestral population and a descendant population. Derived traits are traits that have evolved from ancestral traits.

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Transitional forms

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Fossils or organisms that show the intermediate states between an ancestral form and that of its descendants are referred to as transitional forms. There are numerous examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, providing an abundance of evidence for change over time.

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List of transitional fossils

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This is a tentative partial list of transitional fossils (fossil remains of groups that exhibits both "primitive" and derived traits). The fossils are listed in series, showing the transition from one group to another, representing significant steps in the evolution of major features in various lineages. These changes often represent major changes in morphology and anatomy, related to mode of life, like the acquisition of feathered wings for an aerial lifestyle in birds, or limbs in the fish/tetrapod transition onto land.

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Darwin noted that transitional forms could be considered common ancestors, direct ancestors or collateral ancestors of living or extinct groups, but believed that finding actual common or direct ancestors linking different groups was unlikely.[1][2] Collateral ancestors are relatives like cousins in genealogies in which they are not in your direct line of descent but do share a common ancestor (in this case it is a grandparent). This kind of thinking can be extended to groups of life. For instance, the well-known Archaeopteryx is a transitional form between non-avian dinosaurs and birds, but it is not the most recent common ancestor of all birds nor is it a direct ancestor of any species of bird alive today. Rather, it is considered an extinct close evolutionary "cousin" to the direct ancestors. This may not always be the case, though, as some fossil species are proposed to be directly ancestral to others, like how Australopithecus anamensis is most likely to be ancestral to Australopithecus afarensis.[3]

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Contents

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1. Nautiloids to ammonoids
   
2. Cephalopods
   
3. Evolution of insects
   
4. Evolution of spiders
   
5. Invertebrates to fish
   
6. Chondrichthyes
   
7. Bony fish
   
8. Fish to tetrapods
   
9. Amphibians to amniotes
   
10. Turtles
    
11. From lizards to snakes
    
12. Lizards
    
13. Pterosaurs
    
14. Archosaurs to dinosaurs
    
15. Dinosauria
    
16. Dinosaurs to birds
    
17. Bird evolution
    
18. Synapsid ("mammal-like reptiles") to mammals
    
19. Evolution of mammals
    
20. Early artiodactylans to whales
    
21. Evolution of sirenians
    
22. Evolution of pinnipeds
    
23. Evolution of the horse
    
24. Human evolution
    
25. See also
    
26. References
    
27. External links

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Finally, coming back to trilobites ...

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Trilobite Order Redlichiida

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Order Redlichiida is divided into two suborders, Olenellina and Redlichiina. ...

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The Olenellids are restricted to what was Laurentia in the Lower Cambrian, which now includes part of North America. In contrast, the Redlichiina are found in numerous Lower Cambrian locations that were not part of Laurentia. The different stratigraphical ranges are important as they form the basis for the phylenogy of Redlichiida. In fact, Lieberman (2002) has argued that cladistic analysis together with the biogeographic data supports the notion that early trilobite cladogenesis (i.e., the evolutionary splitting) occurred about coincident with the breakup of Pannotia sometime between 600-550 million years ago. Lieberman also conducted cladistic analyses among a group of basal trilobites within the Redlichiina, and the paraphyletic Fallotaspidoids. The group had primitive characteristics, such as the absence of facial sutures allying them with the Olenellina, and other characteristics allying them with the Redlichiina. Shared characteristics supported a phylogenetic position of the fallotaspids as transitional to all or almost all other trilobites except the Olenellina.

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Location in the temporal/spacial matrix is established by the "different stratigraphical ranges" and the "biogeographic data" linking the various fossils in time and space.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : added topic bit

...and so in summary then, apart from every fossil that has ever existed, there are no transitional fossils. Not even the swimming cow ones.

Recognising the diversity of trilobites does not require being blinded by Darwinist propaganda. We know this because trilobites are abundant as fossils and have been studied since long before Darwin. The work of classifying them into their various species, genera, families and orders was begun by creationists.The name 'trilobite' is usually attributed to Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch; a Protestant theologian at the University of Jena. In addition to his work on the history of Christianity and the gospels, he had an interest in fossils and wrote what was, at the time, the most detailed account of trilobites in existence. He declined to make a formal, Linnean classification of different trilobite species because he felt there wasn't enough evidence to do it properly (specifically that he had very few articulated fossils to work with and so did not know which heads went with which tails). Nevertheless, despite having nowhere near the amount of materials we work with today, and despite being a creationist theologian, he clearly recognised the huge diversity of species.

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This head, or to state it more clearly, this shell under which the head of the animal is hidden as under a helmet, has forms so varied in the Kingdom of Fossils, that it becomes troublesome to report and determine all these variations. (....) We do not find these horns in all the animals found, nor in any which British authors havewritten about in the Philosophical Transactions; this difference, as well as several others which we have already noticed on the head shield of this animal, informs us that the Trilobite is a widespread type of animal consisting of a very large number of species and subordinate species.

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One of the most important early figures in classifying trilobites was John W Salter, an Evangelical Protestant who lost his job as senior palaeontologist at the Geological Survey of Great Britain over his bitter arguments with the atheist Thomas Henry Huxley. His classification of trilobites (published several years before Origin of Species) introduced some of the orders we still use today. I'm unsure what Salter thought about Darwin's ideas; but he'd spent years classifying trilobites into different families before he ever heard them.I find your approach to trilobites a bit odd. You have no problem with other animals sharing the same body plan and yet representing different kinds - cats and dogs are much more alike in body plan than different families of trilobites and yet you're happy classing them into different kinds. I know you deny this to be true since, in the case of dogs and cats the angle of the neck is somehow enough to denote a fundamentally different body plan; but let's note that it wasn't evolutionary scientists that first noted this fact - creationists like Georges Cuvier could easily see that cats and dogs belonged in the same order (unlike trilobites). What difference does it make if there are many kinds of trilobite?Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.