'We' Evo's think.....................

So Turkana Boy would not be helpful if you stuck him in a 'line of skulls'.
My question , is to find out if there are skulls that would not be helpful if you include them in 'a line of' hence my silly talk about jigsaw phenomena. I'll cut out the humour .p.s Thanks for answering, now can I stick turk boy in 'a line of' and wreck the theory . sorry. I'm at it again

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So Turkana Boy would not be helpful if you stuck him in a 'line of skulls'.

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No offense, Mike, but you sometimes say some strange things. Turkana Boy is exactly what we expect to see if evolution is true. It is totally unexpected from the creationist stand-point, so much so that the creationists usually just try to make the ad hoc explanation: "well, God just created some butt-ugly people."

Mike,Actually the "out of sequence" examples you seek to find are a bit of a red herring. Stasis is expected in lineages whose environment changes little. If they spawn another species that changes rapidly, neither species immediately becomes extinct, & we find the parent species after (geologically speaking) the daughter, then it will be "out of sequence".This is one of those examples where looking at a single example is unrepresentative of evolution as a whole. Looking at a large number of cladograms (evolutionary trees), & comparing them to stratigraphy, we should see what correlation?1/ Assume the flood occurred & macroevolution didn't (even assuming the flood didn't happen). The correlation between stratigraphy & cladograms should be very low, accounted for by chance. This is the null hypothesis.2/ Assume the flood didn't occur & evolution did. We should see a relatively high correlation, stochastically speaking. Certainly not 100%, since cladistical problems as well as poor fossil sampling will serve to bring the average down, but it should be high enough to falsify the null hypothesis.Which scenario do you think the results support?Mark------------------
"The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time" - Thomas Henry Huxley[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-20-2003]

So he is included in 'a line of'.
I am asking not stating.[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 11-20-2003]

So living fossils' environments never changed?Good points, but there are still problems. Like from the evolutionarily view (2) horse tail rushes literally stuck in the mud and literally - living fossils. Has the environment ever changed?
Will they always be stuck in a rut?

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So he is included in 'a line of'.

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A closely related cousin. So closely related that the human characteristics can be seen quite clearly (most creationists, I believe, try to classify H. erectus as modern human), but also with the features we see in earlier species of hominid. Again, this is what we expect to see, according to evolution.Let me ask you: why do you think that "in the line of" is so important?

Because it was put together according to your theory. But what I am really interested in, is whether there are skulls put aside that would not 'fit' the line up.
I was under the impression turky boy was an undecided, like Ned said, but now your saying he is in the line up. But forget that- what ones are not in the line up?[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 11-20-2003]

I don't understand what your point is, what you think the problem here is. Let me try to explain things from the beginning.A scientific theory is an explanation for the data that we observe in the real world. A theory cannot be proven in the mathematical sense - we can only hope that if it explains the observations that we make very well, and if one can make predictions based on the theory and see these predictions observed, then we consider the theory "confirmed", and if the track record is such a great string of successes, then we might say that the theory is "proven" in the sense that it becomes unreasonable to doubt it.Evolution makes predictions. Here is the prediction for this particular case; humans evolved from earlier species; based on anatomical considerations humans and the non-human apes are closely related. Therefore (and here is the prediction) there should be a common ancestor to apes and humans; there is a line of species connecting an early ape to modern humans, and therefore in the fossil record we should find species that show this evolution, that is, we should find fossils that are "in-between" apes and humans in their characteristics, and the earlier fossils should be more like the ancestral ape, and the later ones should be more like modern humans.Note that there is nothing about whether any particular species is on the direct line to humans or a side-branch - only that there should be species either on the line or close enough to it to show these "in-between" characteristics.The claim is that Turkana Boy is exactly what we expect from evolution. Here is a creature that is remarkably human-like but not human. And it shows some slight characteristics that may be considered ape-like - but not definitively ape-like since he is so closely related to modern humans, and if placed in the context of other fossils, we find that Turkana Boy fits into a continuum that stretches from definite ape to definite human.Evolution explains this very nicely, and even predicted it before these fossils were found. How does creationism explain this? It can't. At best, it can only mutter "that's just the way the creator wanted it." At best, creationists must take the line of skulls and arbitrarily draw a line to separate "ape-kind" from "humand-kind".This is not an isolated example. Evolution makes many predictions that have been confirmed very unambiguously. This data does not have to exist, yet it does. Evolution explains it. Evolution predicted it. Creationism simply cannot account for this in any systematic way.Again, what is your problem with the data? Do you not accept the data? Do you not accept the interpretation of the data? Why can't you accept it? So far you have raised non-issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with the theory of evolution.

Mike, Probably, that's why they don't live there anymore.Furthermore, I can vaguely recall a fossil tardigrade that was alleged to be identical to its modern homologue. But that's the only one, the rest are just similar. Care to find me a 65 million year old Latimeria chalumnae?I think it was you that I discussed "living fossils" with before, so you'll forgive me if I cut and paste.....

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"Can you show me a fossil species of starfish from the Mesozoic that is alive today? What about a frog, or shark even? What about the creationist staple, the coelacanth? In truth there are coelacanth fossils, but not the living ones today. In fact Latimeria chalumnae has an extra pair of ventral fins plus a double tail. An analogy would be creationists of 70 million years in the future saying that our four legged cow is identical to their six legged bovines!

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This question needs tackling on two levels, firstly, I assume you are generally familiar with the classification system? As you probably know, it is a heirarchical system that has big groups full of smaller & smaller subsets. Take frogs, for example. They belong to Order Anura (along with toads). An Order is a fairly high level taxa, the equivalent to Therapsida, containing monsters such as T.Rex, Velociraptor, Allosaurus, etc. Or the Primates, containing mammals as diverse as humans, bush babies, lemurs, & marmosets, for example. Now, the higher the level of taxa, the longer you can expect members of that taxa to have hung around, since a high level taxa has MANY smaller taxonomic levels within it, & therefore has a greater taxonomic survivability than smaller taxa. Order Anura contains families, genus', & species. What could we reasonably expect of the pattern of survivability of different taxonomic levels, then? Families are the larger of the taxonomic scales (that contain genus' & species), so we could reasonably expect fossil members of Anuran families to go back further than the genus or species level. That is what we see. There isn't a single genus or species living today that is represented in the Mesozoic (251-65 mya), yet families are. So to say frogs are found unchanged in the fossil record is disingenuous. The further you go back the more basal Order Anura becomes, which is by itself strong evidence of evolution. In fact this is a trend in the fossil record. Creationists always claim that taxa appear with no precursors (with justification), yet fail to take into account that when they do appear, they are very primitive versions of what they eventually become. Take Order Carnivora, for example, containing the canines & felines. Today it's fairly easy to tell any one canine skeleton from any one feline. The further you go back, however, the features that makes felines felines, & canines canines become more & more less pronounced. But I digress....

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To put it another way, Order Anura may survive, but many smaller sub-groups do not, & are even replaced by newly evolving organisms that are different enough to be placed in a new genus, yet are still frogs or toads by definition.

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Secondly, why would an organism change in morphology over time? Very simply, because their environment does. Imagine an organism that isn't well adapted to it's environment. It will suffer as many (roughly) mutations as an organism that is well adapted to it's environment. The difference being that all mutations that affect the well adapted organism will be deleterious (because they upset the optimal morphology/chemistry), but the substandard organism is going to get some of it's mutations be beneficial (because there is room for improvement). There come a point where our maladapted organism becomes well adapted, & any further mutations are selected against. This is called stabilising selection. Hence, if an environment doesn't change appreciably as far as our organism is concerned, it will remain in "stasis".

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What I'm saying is that "living fossils" are representative species of higher taxa. They are only considered anomolies because we once thought they were extinct. Hypothetical scenario: Imagine it was thought that there were no frogs today, but some were discovered on an island. They would be considered living fossils, yet in truth they would be no more "living fossils" than frogs today. How many horsetail fossil species are alive today? Or is it that horsetails are a surviving taxa, like vertebrates, or reptiles. Are they living fossils too?Presumably if other niches opened up horsetails would be able to exploit them assuming nothing else got their first. Horsetails were outcompeted in other niches which is why they exist where they do today. Remove the competition.......I realise that you want to see "living fossils" as being things that existed pre-flood & also live today, but they simply aren't the same organisms that are the actual fossils. Nor are "living fossils" a problem for evolution, because they aren't the same organisms that made the actual fossils, either. It's irrelevant, because they are not, but so what if they were the same?But you haven't answered the question I posed in post 48:"1/ Assume the flood occurred & macroevolution didn't (even assuming the flood didn't happen). The correlation between stratigraphy & cladograms should be very low, accounted for by chance. This is the null hypothesis.2/ Assume the flood didn't occur & evolution did. We should see a relatively high correlation, stochastically speaking. Certainly not 100%, since cladistical problems as well as poor fossil sampling will serve to bring the average down, but it should be high enough to falsify the null hypothesis.Which scenario do you think the results support?"Mark------------------
"The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time" - Thomas Henry Huxley[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-20-2003]

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First, just to check:
Q: Ape or human?
A: Don't know.

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You tell me, it's your find. (they are always trying this 'test the fool' approach') - Remember, I am the foolish creo who cannot think, so you tell me what you think it is.

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The answer is, it's neither. It's an ancestor of ours. It's closer to being human than, say, a chimpanzee, but not as human as we are today. It's found in just the right layer of sediments that it should be - and modern humans are not found in these layers without vaulting. Anywhere. You need to understand: there are many, many fossils in our line. There are also side branches - chimpanzees are an even more distant side branch. Side branches are continuous, too. What is *not* present are "chimeras" - creatures with a mosaic of features that formed on different branches. Branches do not "merge". Some start, some die off, but they never re-join, and they're never almost never isolated branches, without a line of relatives that lead up to it** (** - exceptions include creatures with very brittle bones that don't fossilize well, such as bats).Would you use the presence of a wolf to try and disprove the presence of a dog, if you found both a dog and wolf fossil? If your answer is "no", why are you trying to do the exact same thing with hominids? Both our direct ancestors, and our near relatives who aren't directly ancestral to us, are found. Why do you see this as some sort of a problem? It's only a problem if there's a mosaic of features - which there isn't.Do you understand?And please - no more posting until you can name specifics. We're all getting tired of arguing against false generalizations here.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

I'm sorry I wasn't as clear as I could have been.There are two sorts of "undecided"s being used in some of these posts. One is refering to whether a particular species in on the lineage leading to us. The other is this rather artificial, that is the "is it human or is it ape" type of undecided. I mentioned that before as a sort of a meaningless distinction but one you seemed to think could be made.Turkana boy is taken as being on the lineage to H. sapiens and a member of our genus.Since we will continue to search for more evidence there is always a chance that further details will move H. erectus off the line to us I guess you could call it "undecided" if you wanted too. Everything is "undecided" in that sense. However, we have now found a fair number of specimens and it seems very unlikely that some entirely new species will crop up that would replace erectus. So it is pretty darn "decided". (very darn decided in fact )

Sorry Rei but 1. It's my topic 2. I was here before you, and I'm tired of non answers.
It's funny the way you all think for me and give me evo talk. There are no false generalisations, just questions. Infact aren't most of my posts on this topic questions? I've hardly taken the defensive if I am asking YOU concerning YOUR knowledge. I am not 'suggesting' things I have asked, could I put a skull in 'the line of' that would not fit?Yes or NO. No motives - just a question with no underlying hidden creationist agenda. The lack of capability in answering indeed speaks volumes. As I know there are probably skulls that don't help. However I think Ned HAS tried to answer, the context of the other posts is, well evolution talk. Your defensive position assumes I am out to get you. If evo's can't answer simple questions about this, then how am I going to want to further my knowledge on evolution?

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the context of the other posts is, well evolution talk....If evo's can't answer simple questions about this, then how am I going to want to further my knowledge on evolution?

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So, you want us to answer your questions about evolution without any "evo talk"? Would you care to go onto any of the other forums and explain Christianity without any "Jesus talk"?

Jesus or God or the bible on this topic. The evolutionists did before me. Which is proof of their defensive position. As I have only asked questions of simplicity concerning a 'line of skulls', don't they deserve simple solutions?wasn't message 15 the first mention?
And guess who wrote it?[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 11-20-2003]

You, to my mind, have still not asked your question clearly enough? Would you try to pretend there has been not exchange so far and start over with a re-wording of what questions you want answered?In the meantime I will have a go at guessing what you are getting at. You've been shown a date sequenced set of homonid skulls and asked to comment on them. You haven't done much of that in any substantive way.It seems you are asking if Turkana boy could be put in some such line up and "not fit" in some way?I don't think so is my answer but you aren't talking to a paleoanthropologist who would be the sort to really answer your question in a reliable way.Remember, the skulls you were shown are ordered by dating. But that is only a teeny, tiny part of the analysis done. There are detailed (very) descriptions of every detail of the specimens done. These offer ways of linking them too. They are not just "stuffed" into a line. If that is what you are thinking. Just exactly what are you thinking, Mike?