Try out this exercise, sitting in front of fossil distribution data

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[B]Laugh away Edge.I must similarly confess to cracking up every time I read Gould's famous 'tradesecret' quote. The idea that an entire discipline would have a secret that utterly destroys the entire basis of their paradigm and yet continue going in to their work places each day is highly amusing but also very sad. [/QUOTE]But that is certainly NOT what Gould meant at all.

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When I first read paleontology monographs I was sure that all those dotted lines were littered with transitional forms or at least two or three per line. When I finally realized the truth of it, that none of the dotted lines represented actual data my jaw dropped and I suddenly realized in what sense Gould was writing. Gould was writing literally. I had given mainstream science so much benefit of the doubt I never accepted what the creationist books said or even what Gould et al had said. Only now that I have seen the data with my own eyes do I understand how it all works and how Gould could possibly have said what he said.
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That runs into one BIG problem. It isn't what Gould was talking about at all. Gould was attacking an extreme gradualist view which was at the time assumed in paleontology. He was talking about a lack of transitional fossils between a species and other species immediately descended from it. He and Eldredge went on to apply evolutionary theory to the problem and produced the original version of Punctuaed Equilibria.

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Gould himself later said that transitional fossils between higher taxa were "abundant".

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[QUOTE] You ridicule our faith in the flood (distribution mechanisms in particular) but in your scenario you have systemaitc dotted lines that link not to observed forms but to more dotted lines. Your faith is at least as great as ours.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 01-15-2003][/B]

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That isn't true either. Your problems are far worse because there is so much data against your view. The problem of "ghost lineages" is due to a lack of data - the equivalent of an "argument from silence". And an argument that has proven unreliable in the past. Michael Behe used to point to the absence of transitional fossils for whales as a problem. Then in the '90s those missing fossils were found. So there is a recent example where the problem was not even the fossil record, but just our limited knowledge of it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[B]Paul K I disagree. The distribution diagrams show that not only are gaps systematic but the dotted lines don't even join up to anything other than more dotted lines. Gould meant it literally.[\QUOTE]Even here you are relying on Faith. If you want to know what Gould was talking about you should refer to Gould's writings. Why don't you ? Because you know that I am right ?How about :"The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil record remains the fundamental canard of current antievolutionism. Such transitional forms are sparse, to be sure, and for two sets of good reasonsgeological (the gappiness of the fossil record) and biological (the episodic nature of evolutionary change, including patterns of punctuated equilibrium, and transition within small populations of limited geographic extent). But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy."
(Top Cash Earning Games in India 2022 | Best Online Games to earn real money) [QUOTE] I kmnow all about PE. PE was required becasue of the distinctness of the fossil groups.[\QUOTE]It was also predicted by evolutionary theory. Even Darwin got close to it. The whole point of proposing PE was that paleontologists were forcing their interpretations into an extreme gradualist view which had no sound foundations in the theory it was supposedly based in. In their original paper Eldredge and Gould make it very clear that their view is derived from Mayr's work on speciation. [QUOTE] And I fully agree with him with the proviso of inverted commas around the word 'transitional'! Whether we talk from fish to amphibian to reptile or within orders you can get apparent transitonals but they are distinct organisms. They are simply organisms buried in a pattern of sea-floor to marine to aquatic to land. The more similar the closer they are vertically![\QUOTE]Which raises the question of why the dating of rocks does not show this progression. At all. Why don't we run out of marine fossils where the amphibians first appear ? The distribution of trilobites is another problem - why don't we find them sorted by their life-style - all sea-bottom dwellers in one strata, all free-swimming species in another ?It seems that even here you face a problem far more serious than the ghost lineages. [QUOTE] The crown jewel of transitonals is the mammalian reptile sequence. Look what evolutionists say about it: [\QUOTE]A New Scientist article 20 years old ? A couple of facts you omit to mention is that it is generally accepted that we cannot reliably identify direct ancestors or descendants without the very sort of data that Gould says is so rare - intermediates between species. Another is that the fossil record is not that good - we do not have every or even most species. So even if your quote is entirely accurate today it is no great surprise.On the other hand there is a feature of these fossils that is very telling against creationism. We do see a very good sequence showing how the mammalian jaw evolved from the reptilian - something that appeared unlikely enough for some creationists to proclaim it impossible. Why, assuming creationism, should creatures with an intermediate jaw even exist ?In short you are using what is at best very weak evidence (if it is evidence at all) to dismiss much stronger evidence. And you claim that your opponents are relying on faith !

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You said:

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Your problems are far worse because there is so much data against your view. The problem of "ghost lineages" is due to a lack of data - the equivalent of an "argument from silence". And an argument that has proven unreliable in the past.

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I have been at pains to point out that the ghost lineage problem is a systematic one for six seperate groups only because of evolutioanry assumptions about three other groups. You can believe the problem will go away if you want.

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Whether or not it goes away depends on whether the fossils are found. I have reason to believe that in some cases it will be since we have past cases where it has happened. Surely it would require a lot of faith to assume that we will never discover any more significant fossils.

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But as I say at present you have the equivalent of an argument from silence. YOu need to develop it more to even have a good argument. And even then you cannot honestly make the claim that your opponents have more faith than you without addressing the weakensses in your position. Misrepresenting Gould is hardly a good way to go about either.

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Michael Behe used to point to the absence of transitional fossils for whales as a problem. Then in the '90s those missing fossils were found. So there is a recent example where the problem was not even the fossil record, but just our limited knowledge of it.

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Your supposed transitonals here are weaker than those of the reptile-mammal transition.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 01-20-2003][/B]

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Indeed they are. But they are still very good transitionals. They still represent an example where your argument failed. They still represent a successful prediction of evolution - a prediction that creationism could not make.