All species are transitional

Brad, as usual a cryptic post. I assume that you are justifying the use of the term missing link by alluding to what a couple of 19th century geologists thought about the term. I don't think that this will wash with what today's scientists think. The term may have been introduced by Lyell, I don't know, but my point was that as a scientific term it is meaningless.
I agree that there are, by necessity, gaps in the fossil record, but there is no point in giving the absence of evidence a specific term, the evidence either turns up or it does not. When the evidence does turn up, then I guess we can say that this fossil fits within the gap, but the cry from creationists will always be - but what fits the gap between the new fossil and the next, to them there is always a missing link, as if it was something that they perceive should be there, but never will be. Believing that evidence does not exist is an untenable position. But this is why creationists do not accept transitionals.As for I can't begin to imagine what you mean by this, can you explain, I do like trying to understand what others are trying to say. I consume bacteria every day, it's part of a healthy diet don't you know

A couple of geologists?You are divorcing what is "missing" and I am what is "linking".I was trying to make sure that whatever the word "species" denotes in this thread, that "transitional" may or may not apply provided that it is distinguished from "missing link".Personally I DO wonder if there are really no gaps in the fossil record (unless by that you mean those due to differences in taphanonmy) but I dont conclude necessarily that "stasis is data" even if it might. I tend to wonder if THAT is a conflation of Lyell and Gould brought on by the general lack of biologists being at the Gouldian Level. Mayr has to distinguish himself from Gould at just about every turn and yet he clearly saw the geologists for who they were, "It was the task of natural theology to study the design of creation, and natural theology was thus as much science as it was theology. The two edeavours, theology and science, were indeed inseperable. Consequently, most o the greater scientific works of this period, as exemplified by Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830-33) or Louis Agassiz's Essary on Classification (1857) , were simultaneously treatises of natural theology. Science and theology were fused into a single system and , as is obvioius with hindsight, there could not be any truely objective adn uncommitted science until science and theology had been cleanly and completely divorced from each other."Mayr p170 Toward A New Philosophy of BiologyI do not question common descent as much as I do that THIS divorce really occurred with Darwin. I think an adoption occured instead.Lyell however went on to write again...and there, I think he might have had made up something that needed seperation today but was not real when he wrote. I dont know. I have not done all the scholarship.I was able to realize that Waddington's analysis of bacteria fitness alluded to in my last sentence and carried on, to , today , with the biological community dispute between molecular biologists and whole organism biologists, scripts the "link" whether missing or present, whether properly justified or not, if one does an analysis of virus such that it is humans like you and I that consume bacteria (use them and create adapations TO them) but that viruses are to be thought rather, than as that kind of living thing human adapted to bacteria we agree we are, but as the components of an protracted analysis of different kinds of horizontal transfer of dead niche components (replication (no metabolism))instead. Of course I speak as a "biologist" to say something like that.That however was cryptic only in the extent that I WAS trying to keep the thread to the topic of species and not cistrons. If you were thinking of molecular trees compared with species trees then, well...ok.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 10-17-2005 05:31 PM

OK, so "a couple of 19th century geologists" was a bit harsh on Lyell and Agassiz, I do acknowledge them as some of the founders of modern geology. But the point was stated that the term missing link is scientifically meaningless, and I think that we do agree on this don't we, if what you are trying to get across is that the term transitional should not be equated with missing link?
Differences in taphonomy aside, there are still probably huge gaps in the fossil record simply because of the fact that not all fossiliferous rocks are currently accessable, also there must be large volumes of rock that were once laid down that simply no longer exist due to erosion.
However if you want to be pedantic about it these inaccessible rocks are not part of the fossil record untill they are accessed.
Let's just say that there are bound to be gaps in the history of life as seen by the fossil record at any point in time and that some of these gaps are undoubtedly going to be filled in as the fossil record increases. That is not to say that we do not have some fine examples of direct lineages of some species within the fossil record.As for Lyell and Agassiz's "treatises of natural theology" I think that it is a shame that today's creationists can not be as flexible as they were in their theology. Though I do agree with Mayr that "there could not be any truely objective and uncommitted science until science and theology had been cleanly and completely divorced from each other", I always say that I do not trust anyone who is religious because they have an ulterior motive Brad - thanks for the prose in the first few paragraphs keep it up you are becoming clearer in your posts.
Oh dear, now to the last two paragraphs, just when I thought that you were becoming more lucid.Something about the dispute between molecular and whole organism biologists. Are you alluding to the missing link between the living and the non living citing the virus as non living? Are you saying something about the fact that humans, like viruses are adapted to living by using bacteria? Are you suggesting that there are molecular taxonomies like organism taxonomies but having cistrons as nodes instead of species?
Interesting stuff, but as you say - another thread of another topic.

Para had the opening,

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Thus the finished creatures belong to a species, while the unfinished creatures are deemed somewhere "in between" species. Also, a transitional creature is supposed to exhibit useless features, or even defective features, because they are not the "finished product". But this is a false picture. The reality is that all species are transitional. There is no such thing as a "finished species". It's a mirage, for two reasons.

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I do not think that Para was not onto something here. I would have to reanalyze Mayr's thought that Darwin changed his mind not by a loss of faith but by attendant failures to support three creationist perspectives, one of which was pefection in the world, or for the sake of a mirage in the desert or sand of EvC "finished species". Yes, my last deviation from a former 'prose' clarity was the direction to "finish" that polishable discussion we are havin.Mayr in truth in the same year publising when my Human Behavior was being involutarily committedat a foreign state mental hospital due to a phone call from someone I never met under the questioning "if I had ever thought I was Jesus" (Jesus Christ, NO!) re-read Agassiz's classification and noticed that the past 20 years of Phd's he gave out in behavior were anticipated as a discipline by Agassiz 50 years prior. I cant see how Ethology should not reflect seriously within Aggaisiz's thought AND THIS CAN BE DONE REALLY AND SECULARLY by pursuing Croizat's contribution. The funny thing was that Mayr insisted that "we would call this(Agassiz stress on animal habits) somehting like the biological speciesconcept"!!!!!!!!!!I can not even believe some of the "biology" I read. Well if that is the case there is NO NEED to defend evolution from Creationism, just let the "behavior" speak for itself. Anyway, no I am not arguing from the missing fossils but from what forms the fossils can show in general and if this has anything to do with what Para was trying to show. I had meant to dig up the classic paper on Tiatothere horns which shows how someone used to reason from strata forms to genes. That bears on how difficult the problem of figuring out what the form inbetween is supposed to be and look like. I'll find it if you like. I believe Gould even referred to the paper in his last tome.Problem with Mayr's view of dimensionality is that he thinks he can write a 0-dimensional biological logos where he says essentialism and creatinoism connoted the same dimensional object. THEY DO NOT. In effect I asked Mayr if rather they do not but he personally can not (could not as he is no longer with us)comprehend the question. He has apparently used the notion of dimension to strucutre his claims about what counts as "population thinking" and what does not. This is in part a reponse of his to Dobhshanky's notion of adaptation and the assertion that individuals can not adapt and that there is no sense of population in biology as in physics but when I might have suggested my computational trees I am disagreeing by distinguishing Hausdorff dimension from the view of horizonatl vs vertical info transfer in any graph of the nexus of lineages. But that is biology and need not necessarily relate to the creationist thought of perfection but it might to the notion c/e wise if finished species and perfection are kept in the same motivated thought. They might. And they might Biblically just as some creationists discuss Ice cores.If however one thinks that Agassiz was discussing Mayr's "biological species" I continue to ONLY think that Mayr inadaquately generalized from birds what he accusses Waddington of having done in biology by making too easy analogies to language.None of this actually answers Paras query but perhaps I was just too caught up in Para's rather correct presentation of ecological/deme knowledge.Where Para started talking about "morphological species" I am still thinking about nonliving niche margins of species (hence in para lingo I could easily misread Gould for Mayr but I refuse to do so).As for teleology Mayr accused Waddington of this in particular and thus I tried to reexpress my feeling on-it-in terms of his ideas without all of the current language of molecular biology(to be added).I hope this helps.If you want a less nuanaced simple presentation of the Titatothere paper and the relevance to issues of e/c then I can easily supply it provided the paper is poppable from the stack I think it is in. I dont think this would be the best choice of a "finsished species" as I tend to think of consumers of viruses not bacteria as that. But that could easily be wrong. Best, Brad.

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Titantotheres, common in the area, were ponderous and titanic perissodactyls (odd-toed, hoofed mammals) that stood 2.5 meters tall at their massive shoulders. Titantotheres acquired bony, slingshot-like horns on their skulls that may have been used in courtship and defense. Abundant in the early Tertiary the herbivorous Titantotheres disappeared in the late Oligocene as short grass spread over the dry plains.

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@http://home.att.net/~sgeoveatch/pawnee_buttes.htm
I'm guessing is the place. The old paper does not seem to be on-line. I'll scan some of it later.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 10-18-2005 07:31 AM

Halucigenia,What follows is not just a reply to you, but also some general comment, perhaps to clear up some things. Well, what I hoped to achieve with this thread is to show that there are no holes. My thought experiment is only impracticable for us, because we don't have all the ancestors available to make a seamless row from one "species" to another. Nature has had them available and has actually carried out the experiment, many times over. There was just no one around, living long enough, to witness it. So, in that sense, it isn't even a thought experiment.When I said "there are no holes", perhaps I should have said "there can be no holes", as the following example may illustrate. In my lineage, there are brothers and cousins of my grandfather who did not have children, but the very fact that I exist means that someone in that generation must have had children. It is logically impossible that there is a hole between my grandfather and me. He must have had one or more children and one of them is a literal transitional between my grandfather and me. The rest of my argument is just an extension of that principle beyond the blurry boundary of Homo sapiens, wherever paleontologists care to draw the line.I was also hoping that the thought experiment would make it clear what I mean by 'transitional'. I am aware of the fact that the word 'transitional' can be used in several different meanings in diverse discussions, but I wanted to focus on a meaning that lies closest to the everyday meaning of "something in between two extremes", with the emphasis on the concept of descent.Creationists approach evolution in an everyday, common-sensical way. One way to talk back is to use equally everyday, common-sensical concepts. I know common sense often lets us down in more intricate cases, but for the sake of argument, and above all, everybody's understanding, I think it can be useful.

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"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

I understand that "moment of isolation" is not to be taken literally as a "moment," but how can we imagine a seamless gradual change from non-isolated to isolated? I can do that very well if we are defining "species" in terms of physical differences. If we define it that way, one can see how the designation that some such place along the evolutionary chain might be called a new species--but one might very well designate some other spot: that's what your analogy about big and little numbers indicates.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-19-2005 02:35 PM

Think of all the different races of dogs man has bred. Take for instance Great Danes and Chihuahuas. Although they are both dogs, it is not possible for them to mate. Their genes may be compatible, but mechanically it isn't going to work, neither at the time of conception, nor at the time of giving birth. So, Great Danes and Chihuahuas are mechanically isolated.But we know that they are both descendants from wolves. If you take a Chihuahua and trace back its lineage, you will find a wolf in there somewhere. Same with the Dane. Being wolves, the ancestor-wolf of the Dane and the ancestor-wolf of the Chihuahua are not mechanically isolated. If you go even further back, you can find one ancestor of all wolves, and hence of all dogs.Going forward again, you can imagine a lineage going from the wolf-ancestor to the Great Dane, and one from the same wolf-ancestor going to the Chihuahua. Both lineages cross the isolation threshold.

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"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

Untold hundreds upon hundreds of thousands species have come and gone and geologic formations failed to capture any of them transitioning ?We know Darwin grudgingly admitted - over a hundred years later Gould confirms while offering an excuse as to why. Richard Milton says the world has been searched thoroughly with well-funded expeditions and zip.We have the horse sequence and if I were to actually post the amount of evidence a non-prejudicial observer would have to conclude the evidence has been grossly exaggerated - plus the fact that there is no actual evidence connecting the species.Why don't you describe the patterns your last phrase is talking about ? What makes a person even think in the first place such a thing as a transitional fossil may exist ?The intermediacy claim is made by Darwinists and they admit the formations show none. Whatever intermediacy is - it is the ***reason for being*** evidence that supposedly justifies the existence of your theory.In hindsight Darwinists have been forced to admit the prediction of Darwin did not come to pass. This conspicuous fact is now eviscerated of any falsification meaning by the only option left - assert all species are intermediate, and by doing so we are back to square one: macroevolution still assumed because there is no actual evidence connecting the species showing relationship between them.RayThis message has been edited by Herepton, 10-19-2005 03:25 PM

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Untold hundreds upon hundreds of thousands species have come and gone and geologic formations failed to capture any of them transitioning ?

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Fortunately, we have lots of examples of species "transitioning" in the fossil record.(Copied from Douglas Theobald's article to ImageShack to save TalkOrigin's bandwidth.)This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 19-Oct-2005 10:51 PM

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

Huh? Transitioning?How does that make any sense? The fossil record is a record of dead organisms. Transition from one form to another is something that happens to populations, not to individuals.Therefore no one fossil can "transition." That's not an expectation coherent with sense. Quick, driver - follow those goalposts!

And when I said pick holes I meant it a little more generaly.
I agree that there can be no holes in any lineage, your point is clearly put, but obviously not understood by Herepton as Herepton says Logic actually dictates that there must be transitional fossils and that every fossil found can be thought of as transitional. Herepton appears to be picking holes where no holes exist Also Herepton seems to think that asserting that all species are transitional means no macroevolution instead of realising that accepting that all species are transitional shows that there is no distinction between macro and micro they are just part of the continuous change of species. I think that Herepton still wants us to unearth that illusive half cat half dog or half elephant half mouse fossil as an example of a transitional and until these impossible fossils are unearthed will not accept evolution.

Well, there's a reason for that. You see, Herepton is a bastard.No, but really, don't get me wrong. He is a bastard in the sense that there is no actual evidence that the man who calls himself his father is actually his father. Because if there were such evidence, in the form of DNA comparison, then he'd have to concede that there is also actual evidence for the relatedness of humans and chimpanzees.Since he does not acknowledge such evidence, he surely won't mind being called a bastard.

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"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

The word "threshold" is troubling to me, but I'm not going to bug you about it anymore. Some kind of denseness on my part.ABE: maybe I'll start a new thread about my problem with defining a species as an "isolated gene pool."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-20-2005 03:17 PM

Half the problem is that there is no {line\delineation} but a gradual change over time that accumulates until at some point a person says "hey, that's different!"The other half the problem is that you do get two or more different populations that diverge, and at some point they stop interacting genetically: it could be due to {non-compatible sex} but it is more likely to be {non-desire} - they don't see the others as potential mates due to differences in appearances or behavior. The Asian Warbler ring species is a good example here.
http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~irwin/Greenish%20warblers.htmlThe {non-desire} can be the shadow-line (sometimes crossed) and two species can co-exist with near similar genes but not actively breed - becoming less able to interbreed as time passes until another shadow line is crossed: sterile offspring (the donkey, zebra and horse). The final shadow line is crossed when breeding no longer produces living offspring.Even with population isolation there is not hard fast line but a period of transition.

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I have no problem with that. I understand it quite clearly; but that implies a different definition of "species" (physical differences).But if the definition is "isolated gene pool" then it does not seem like that is gradual. It seems like a "threshold." Either a gene pool is isolated from some other gene pool or it's not, I would think. In what sense does a gene pool become gradually isolated, meaning they no longer interbreed with a group they used to interbreed with? Does "gradual" mean on and off? Sometimes they interbreed and sometimes they don't until finally they stop altogether?