Gorilla Genome

[Oncedeceived]

It is.



Fossils are not considered to be direct ancestors.

Now wait a minute here, are you sure you want to claim that fossils are not considered to be direct ancestors?

 

[Loudmouth]

Now wait a minute here, are you sure you want to claim that fossils are not considered to be direct ancestors?

Are we going to get yet another list of quotes where you conflate the words "transitional" and "direct ancestor"?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Are we going to get yet another list of quotes where you conflate the words "transitional" and "direct ancestor"?

I don't remember any such prior discussion on transitional or direct ancestors.

 

[Loudmouth]

I don't remember any such prior discussion on transitional or direct ancestors.

You do understand that transitional or "filling a gap" does not mean that the fossil is a direct ancestor, correct?

 

[Loudmouth]

I also made this comment earlier.

If I start digging and find a 100 year old human skeleton, does this mean that humans emerged on this planet just 100 years ago?

 

[lifepsyop]

Transitionals are very real. That you have to ignore the evidence says a lot about your argument.

Sigh.... "real" ? What does that even mean? Even scientists will tell you that a transitional sequence is only inferred, and models are subject to change with more data. One of the main problems with this is that you really have no clue if multiple character traits "evolved" independently instead of being inherited.

Where is this "amphibian-mammal transitional fossil" that you speak of?

From Peter Bowler's "Life's Splendid Drama" p.280

Thomas Huxley argued on morphological grounds that the mammals were so different from any known reptile, living or fossil, that the class would have to be traced back directly to the amphibians... Huxley's 1879 paper "On the Character of the Pelvis in Mammalia, and the Conclusions Respecting the Origin of Mammals Which May Be Based on Them"

Here Huxley took issue with Gegenbaur on the interpretation of the pelvis, insisting that the reptilian modifications were opposite to those found in mammals....

Thus, argued Huxley, "it seems to be useless to attempt to seek among any known Sauropsida [reptiles] for the kind of pelvis which analogy leads us to expect among those vertebrated animals which immediately preceded the lowest known mammals."

The Promammalia would have had a pelvis intermediate between that of the platypus and that of a land tortoise, and this would have been the type from which all modifications of the Sauropsida and Mammalia had diverged. This type, he claimed, could be seen in the pelvis of the salamander. Hence, "these facts appear to me to point to the conclusion that the Mammalia have been connected with Amphibia by some unknown 'pro-mammalian' group, and not by any of the known forms of Sauropsida.[reptiles]"

There was other evidence pointing in the same direction, especially the fact that the main conduit of the arterial blood from the heart is the right aortic arch in the Sauropsida, but the left in Mammalia. The implication was that two lines of evolution had diverged from the heart of Amphibia.


Thus it is easy to see that in the absence of a "mammal-like reptile transition" model, one could potentially be drawn in it's place linking amphibia directly to mammals to the exclusion of reptilian forms.

The fog of evolution would create a "transitional" narrative either way. These are simple facts which you must deny.

From 1866? Seriously?

The time period doesn't matter... A similar model was proposed in 1991.

from 1991. Amniote phylogeny. In Schultze, H.-P. & Trueb, L. (eds) Origins of the Higher Groups of Tetrapods: Controversy and Consensus. p.320 ...

Gardiner (1982) proposed a rather revolutionary cladogram in which the Diapsida and the Archosauria were separated, . and the birds were a sister-group of the mammals .He listed 28 postulated bird-mammal synapomorphies-i.e., shared characters of the brain case, brain, snout, vertebral column, circulatory system, glands, and physiology (both groups being endothermic)...

Lovtrup (1985) proposed a third cladogram, which also involved a breakup of the Diapsida and Archosauria, and the establishment of a bird-mammal clade, the Haemothermia. He also split up the Lepidosauria, making the squamates and the tuatara the most primitive amniote groups. Independent lines of evidence for amniote phylogeny have been obtained from studies of amino acid sequences in proteins... These have given rise to a number of maximum parsimony trees.

The majority of these protein-based phylogenetic trees hypothesizes a sister-group relationship between birds and mammals, in apparent support of the morphological views of Gardiner (1982) and Lovtrup (1985).



Here we see plenty of data that could be used to infer a complete different bird origin story in the absence of a dino-bird model. This "transitional" sequence based on bird-mammal similarities would be just as legitimate. It's a perfect demonstration of how plastic evolution theory is.

Then explain why we don't find rabbits in the Cambrian.

You are desperate, aren't you?

The inconvenient fact is that the order we observe is correct. Once again, it is YOU that is ignoring the fossils.

"The order we observe is correct" ? Are you trying to make it sound like you don't know what you're talking about?

 

[Oncedeceived]

You do understand that transitional or "filling a gap" does not mean that the fossil is a direct ancestor, correct?

That is not what you said, you said:

Originally Posted by Loudmouth

It is.



Fossils are not considered to be direct ancestors.
​

Now I'll ask again, Now wait a minute here, are you sure you want to claim that fossils are not considered to be direct ancestors?
​

 

[Loudmouth]

That is not what you said, you said:

Now I'll ask again, Now wait a minute here, are you sure you want to claim that fossils are not considered to be direct ancestors?
​

That is what I am claiming. I know of no scientist who will claim that any fossil has a direct, living descendant, other than recent fossils where DNA can be sequenced.

 

[Loudmouth]

Sigh.... "real" ? What does that even mean?

It means that fossils have a mixture of features from two divergent taxa.

What definition do you use when you say that transitionals are lacking? What do you mean by transitional?

I will await your answers.

 

[Oncedeceived]

That is what I am claiming. I know of no scientist who will claim that any fossil has a direct, living descendant, other than recent fossils where DNA can be sequenced.

Who said anything about a living descendant? I certainly didn't.

 

[sfs]

Who said anything about a living descendant? I certainly didn't.

What would it be a direct ancestor of, then?

 

[Oncedeceived]

What would it be a direct ancestor of, then?

The direct ancestor of the lobed-finned fish and the tetrapod.

 

[sfs]

The direct ancestor of the lobed-finned fish and the tetrapod.

First, no one thinks Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor of lobed-fin fish. Second, what's tetrapod? I'm a tetrapod, but you're not talking about living descendants. So I still don't know what you think it's supposed to be a direct ancestor of.

 

[lifepsyop]

It means that fossils have a mixture of features from two divergent taxa.

lol, nothing equivocal about that. Like I said, based on your own criteria, there used to be a "transitional" sequence from amphibians to mammals to the exclusion of reptiles. There was also a link drawn between birds and mammals as sister taxa to the exclusion of dinosaurs. All of this was based on shared characteristic data.

Let's not forget that the "transitional" sequence doesn't have to be in stratigraphic order. You really don't like dealing with that fact because it shows how fluffy your theory is.

As we can see, Evolution theory is designed to simply mold itself around any data configuration. There are no hard constraints establishing the likelihood or reality of any of it with regards to universal common descent.

By the way, how do you objectively identify which shared features convergently evolved and which ones are homologs? Oops, you can't. Evolutionists just tell each other that convergent evolution probably didn't happen that much but they have no idea because universal common ancestry only exists in the imagination. Yet when they're put in a tight place they will say "oh, well a lot of convergent evolution happened here"... and so it goes.

 

[Oncedeceived]

First, no one thinks Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor of lobed-fin fish. Second, what's tetrapod? I'm a tetrapod, but you're not talking about living descendants. So I still don't know what you think it's supposed to be a direct ancestor of.

No one NOW thinks Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor of lobed-fin fish. The first known tetrapod.

 

[Loudmouth]

Sigh.... "real" ? What does that even mean?

These are very real transitional fossils. They are not figments of someone's imagination.

These transitional fossils were dug from the ground and represent a real biological organism. That is what I mean by real.

Even scientists will tell you that a transitional sequence is only inferred, and models are subject to change with more data.

Just like any scientific model. You are complaining that transitional fossils are part of a scientific model? More importantly, you can't even show that the inference is wrong. What we have are the exact fossils that evolution predicts we should find, and you ignore them.

You make all these accusations that if there were falsifying data for evolution that scientists would ignore it. What you are really doing is projecting your own denial onto others. We have the very fossils that support evolution, and you ignore them.

One of the main problems with this is that you really have no clue if multiple character traits "evolved" independently instead of being inherited.

That is not a problem for determining if a fossil is transitional. All you need is a mixture of features from two divergent taxa. You seem to be confusing the conclusion with the observation. A fossil with a mixture of mammal and bird features would be transitional, and it would also falsify evolution.

Here Huxley took issue with Gegenbaur on the interpretation of the pelvis, insisting that the reptilian modifications were opposite to those found in mammals....

Huxley? As in the 19th century? Have something from the last 100 years?

from 1991. Amniote phylogeny. In Schultze, H.-P. & Trueb, L. (eds) Origins of the Higher Groups of Tetrapods: Controversy and Consensus. p.320 ...

Gardiner (1982) proposed a rather revolutionary cladogram in which the Diapsida and the Archosauria were separated, . and the birds were a sister-group of the mammals .

Sister group is not a transitional.

I am still waiting for you explanation as to why we don't have rabbits in the Cambrian. Why are you avoiding this question?

 

[Loudmouth]

No one NOW thinks Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor of lobed-fin fish. The first known tetrapod.

When did they ever think that Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor? Even in the original publication they have Tiktaalik as an offshoot.

"Here we describe the pectoral appendage of a member of the sister group of tetrapods, Tiktaalik roseae, which is morphologically and functionally transitional between a fin and a limb."
The pectoral fin of Tiktaalik roseae and the origin of the tetrapod limb : Nature

 

[Loudmouth]

Who said anything about a living descendant? I certainly didn't.

That's what direct ancestor means, a direct ancestor of a living descendant.

Are you playing the definition game again?

 

[Loudmouth]

lol, nothing equivocal about that. Like I said, based on your own criteria, there used to be a "transitional" sequence from amphibians to mammals to the exclusion of reptiles.

Papers from the 1800's are not my criteria.

You are grasping at straws.

Let's not forget that the "transitional" sequence doesn't have to be in stratigraphic order. You really don't like dealing with that fact because it shows how fluffy your theory is.

The transitional sequence does have to be in phylogenetic order, which it is. The platypus is transitional in that it has a mixture of reptilian and mammalian features. However, no one expects it to be a direct ancestor, nor would we expect to find platypus fossils in the same sediments as mammal-like reptiles that mark the beginning of mammalian evolution. That you fail to understand this only highlights your inability to discuss these matters.

 

[JacksBratt]

These are very real transitional fossils. They are not figments of someone's imagination.

These transitional fossils were dug from the ground and represent a real biological organism. That is what I mean by real.

There is no proof that any of these started as one and over time changed into the other.

You have a bunch of different skulls of different beings. Of which you cannot prove if it even had children and if it did, how long they survived.

This is all speculation, extrapolation, assumption and faith. You believe it because someone told you that it was true, and someone told them.

Nobody has any evidence or proof that these evolved from one to the other.

This is proof of only one thing... each of the owners of these skulls lived once.... that's it.