Are there transitional fossils?

[USincognito]

its not. see again what im writing. i said that the claim above that if we will find all creatures in the same layer will not falsified evolution.

Finding a basal tetrapod fossil and a potential basal tetrapod trace fossil in strata dated to within ~30 million years is no where near finding "all creatures in the same layer". You need to explain the utter lack of whales, birds, land mammals, dinosaurs, synapsids, turtles, and let's not forget about plants - angiosperms - etc. in Devonian, Silurian and Cambrian strata.

 

[USincognito]

yep. we can see why its not a scientific claim that a human fossils with a dino one(for instance) will not falsified evolution.

Can you unbutcher the grammar of this sentence?

 

[PsychoSarah]

But you should understand I have no reason to assume my high priests are any more correct than your high priests and as all are human subject to the same mistakes. Unlike you I don't assume they are correct simply because most believe something to be true.

-_- we don't worship science; science is a process by which one can learn about the world around them, no more, no less. Also, consensus isn't what makes a theory convincing, but rather the evidence in support of the theory. Large amounts of strong evidence in support of a theory, and little to no evidence against it, will generally lead to a scientific consensus just because more evidence in support of a theory makes it more likely to be accurate.

As a matter of fact I was specifically warned some will try to teach false beliefs so to be aware.

I couldn't care less about changing your mind, honestly, despite my views that your beliefs lack sufficient evidence. I do have a strong aversion to people that spread incorrect information on perspectives within these debates. For example, the persistent claim that supporting evolution demands that your morality be somehow shaped by it. That's a pretty annoying inaccuracy.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

this is a fiishapod?:

Discovery pushes back date of first four-legged animal : Nature News

Tracks aren't bones.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

its not. see again what im writing. i said that the claim above that if we will find all creatures in the same layer will not falsified evolution.

But how will it not?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

No, go look back you will specifically find the number 90% quoted.

So no we can assume from your claim that every genus is the same species, is this what you are saying? Are you sure that's the claim you want to make? Think about your answer long and hard before you speak.

Show me. Or at least say the post number. Because I truly doubt your claim about 90% of scientists being wrong. It sounds so much more like a number you just pulled out of your rear end.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I expect they do have this one correct with one defined species and the rest subspecies. But what does that tell us about all the other classifications of genus where they have multiple defined species?

Kudos for finding that one correct genus classification which points out all their other mistaken ones tho!

I am weeping alright. Tears of joy for the quandary you just put yourself into.

What quandary? You keep doing this: you keep making these claims, then to try and evidence your claims, you keep making more claims.
As far as I know, you have ZERO scientific schooling, ZERO scientific credentials, and the only thing that I can take away from anything from you is your own delusional belief that you know more about all of the world's scientists purely because you believe you do. A living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Thanks.



O.k. Let's parse this out. The problem is you're approaching a scientific subject as a Platonist. To you "bird" and "avian" can only refer to a flying (mostly) being with feathers that chirps and tweets. Similarly "dinosaur" means any large reptile. The thing is science, and especially cladistics doesn't take a Platonist approach. Something can be clade X and clade Y as long as it has the hallmark characteristics of both groups. Appellations are monophyletic when they refer to a group of populations and are exclusive to other populations. Thus "dinosaur" is monophyletic when it refers to land dwelling archosaurs of the clade "Dinosauria" and excludes flying reptiles and marine reptiles. However, it includes those who descend from Dinosauria if they possess all the characteristics of members of that clade. In this case birds (which is a laymans term, not a scientific one) nest (no pun intended) within clade "Theropoda". Thus it is entirely accurate to refer to "non-avian dinosaurs" and "avian dinosaurs".



If you say so. I'll just stick with the facts rather than personal attacks.



Thanks for "teaching" me something I've known since the mid-70s. But your parenthetical comment is incorrect. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs. They are flying reptiles.

Fun fact - Dimetrodons weren't dinosaurs either. They were synapsids and more closely related to mammals than to dinosaurs.



I always find it ironic that Creationists "assume" cats (for example) are related because of similarity, but reject that other groups are related because of similarity. It's almost as if they draw arbitrary lines and make it up as they go along rather than take a serious and, dare I say, "systematic" approach to the subject.



Sorry, but when you start using the same slander as conspiracy theorists, you've already compromised having an honest discussion.

Then why not use the phylogenetic system and just call us all reptiles? But even that would be wrong since they came from fishes. But wait, that would be wrong because they came at the start from bacteria. So let's call ourselves bacteria and be done with it.

Birds, Dinosaurs and Reptiles | ASU - Ask A Biologist

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Show me. Or at least say the post number. Because I truly doubt your claim about 90% of scientists being wrong. It sounds so much more like a number you just pulled out of your rear end.

close to the very first post I made, if not the first one.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

close to the very first post I made, if not the first one.

Which is...?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

What quandary? You keep doing this: you keep making these claims, then to try and evidence your claims, you keep making more claims.
As far as I know, you have ZERO scientific schooling, ZERO scientific credentials, and the only thing that I can take away from anything from you is your own delusional belief that you know more about all of the world's scientists purely because you believe you do. A living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Cognitive dissonance? If those Dino of that genus are one species, then all genus are one species. On the other hand if you claim genus are multiple species, then that genus is multiple species.

What good are those credentials? You just proved that genus is actually species and not several. I'm assuming since you posted it to prove me wrong that you are correct and I am wrong.

But you can't have genus be many different things at once. Now answer the question you were to think long and hard about.

You can't avoid it with your attempt at distraction. Well come on, one of them is on error, which will it be? Since creationists have pointed out many times that family or genus is the true designation of species, I am glad to see you finally agree.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Cognitive dissonance? If those Dino of that genus are one species, then all genus are one species. On the other hand if you claim genus are multiple species, then that genus is multiple species.

What good are those credentials? You just proved that genus is actually species and not several. I'm assuming since you posted it to prove me wrong that you are correct and I am wrong.

But you can't have genus be many different things at once. Now answer the question you were to think long and hard about.

You can't avoid it with your attempt at distraction. Well come on, one of them is on error, which will it be? Since creationists have pointed out many times that family or genus is the true designation of species, I am glad to see you finally agree.

Species is below genus.

The credentials show that you actually have learnt anything and that we can actually trust anything you say, which I can't trust anything you say since you're just a random nobody on the internet.

And no creationist has ever pointed out that family or genus is the true designation of species, I do not agree with you at all.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Not "a" scientist, every one of them.

Ah, you are just full of interesting tidbits. So every scientist has once made a mistake? Ok, I will remember that.

And your point is?

They've made another mistake of grievous proportions in their classifications, leading you to believe other fundamental errors.

Earlier you talked about not being able to tell if Dino were closely related like the Mastiff and Husky. So you see no problem with then declaring they are separate species?

Would your conclusion about the Husky, Mastiff and Chinook be correct if you labeled them as seperate species? No it wouldn't, you would see the Husky or the Mastiff as an intermediate species leading to the Chinook species.

Uh, no what I said was if I found two dinosaur fossils that were very close, then it would be hard to tell from the bones if they are as closely related as the Mastiff is to the Husky. But I then moved on to explain that we find many genera of fossils that advance over millions of years. And when we line the horse fossils up, for instance, by the age of the fossils, we see incremental changes approaching modern horses (and incremental changes approaching many other things). We have a high degree of confidence that these are different genera advancing to be more horse-like in time. And you simply ignore that, yes?

You would believe you had evidence of the evolution of species into other species. All because you couldn't tell what was what. And yet you see no problem?

Uh no, we do have evidence that species change to another species. Modern ring species are a good explanation of that.

But in the fossil record, that would be difficult to find two species and say for sure they are two different species. But what we do find is multiple genera, with a high degree of confidence that one genus evolved into another.

And I fail to see your claimed long line leading to mammals. EVERY species fossil found is the same from the oldest to the youngest. Again, it is only those mistakes in classification of the infraspecific taxa that enable you to see links where none in reality exist.

How do you know every species found has not changed? Most of the changes within a species deal with the soft parts, which don't fossilize well. So you look at fossils that we cannot tell if the soft parts of the animal have changed, and conclude that since we don't know, therefore that is proof they did not change. That is like looking at a distant galaxy and saying, that since we cannot see if any planets are there, therefore we prove there are no planets there. It proves no such thing. If we cannot see, then we cannot say for sure.

But what we can see is the Eohippus advanced to Mesohippus which advanced to Merychippus which advanced to Equus. We have good evidence for that. Do you have an explanation for why the fossil record shows that?

 

[doubtingmerle]

So tell us this magical burial that occurred that led to sedimentary layers? I am truly curious.

Something like this, for instance.

Any questions?

 

[AV1611VET]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Any questions?

L'Aquila?

 

[Astrophile]

this is a fishapod?:

Discovery pushes back date of first four-legged animal : Nature News

You appear to be not seeing the wood for the trees. Even if the Zachelmie tracks were made by a tetrapod that lived before Tiktaalik, they are still Lower or Middle Devonian. There is no evidence for Silurian, Ordovician or Cambrian tetrapods. However, the animal that made the Zachelmie tracks must have had Silurian and earlier ancestors. Thus the evidence still shows that Devonian tetrapods evolved from Lower Palaeozoic ancestors that were not tetrapods.

 

[doubtingmerle]

so it predict transitional fossils or not? if it predict then we most find such fossils. so you cant say "it cant say for sure".

Evolution can say for sure that transitional fossils exist. It cannot say for sure that we will find a particular transitional fossil.

Likewise, if I throw a needle in a haystack, I can say for sure the needle exists. If I have a limited time to look, I cannot say for sure that I will find it.

not at all. as i explained with the cars example.

Let's suppose I measure my tomato plant today and find it 10 cm high, and tomorrow I find it is 11 cm. That is good evidence that the tomato "evolved" from a 10 cm high plant to an 11 cm high plant. Yes, it is possible my neighbor pulled the plant out and substituted another plant when I was not looking, but most likely that is not what happened. Likewise, when I see all the fossils that line up as evolution expects, then I find it hard to believe a designer kept putting more and more advanced animals out there, popping them into existence out of nothing, until finally it created the zebra.

If the zebra came about by thousands of creations out of nothing as animals got progressively closer to Zebras, that requires thousands of extremely unlikely events. Evolution, on the other hand, is a far more likely explanation.

lets say that for the sake of the argument i believe in several creation events. now, what do you think is best explain by the evidence: a natural evolution or a design?

What is the best explanation for the Ford Mustang? That Ford blueprints advanced with time until they reached the Mustang, or that the Mustang was designed? Could it not be both?

And if the Mustang blueprints evolved with time and the Mustang was designed, then why cannot it not be that the zebra DNA evolved with time and it was designed? Why do the two need to be exclusionary?

So even if you prove the zebra was designed--but you haven't--you will not have proven that the DNA did not evolve.

 

[Abraxos]

I thought you were referring to the placement of the Grey Wolf in the dog family tree since I'd never heard anyone use "top down" to refer to evolution before.

But the rest of your comment is just asinine. The Newfoundland breed of dog has waterproof fur, while the Grey Wolf does not. So is that it a loss of information or not?

Gray Wolves have a waterproof coat. :/

That said, the Gray Wolf I suspect is not the true original but a close second or third or fourth generational breed.

But even if the Gray Wolf had not have a waterproof coat, there is a point that needs to be addressed on how genetic variation works and how this is applied to natural selection in the wild. If a "waterproof" coat that is not obviously apparent in a Gray Wolf, that isn't to say that the information was not in the Gray Wolf, but a combination of things occurred from a genetic standpoint. The breeds we see today have some aspects of the Gray Wolf, some more emphasized and made obvious than others. These specific features (or feature) could be favorable in certain situations, but not favorable in other situations.

For example, a dog smaller in stature from the Gray Wolf but retains it's big coat will indeed end up being drier when swimming due to a loss of size. However, it will be less active in the hot days due to being overheated more quickly - even in danger of extinction. So there are always favourable and unfavourable aspects to these breeds that descended from the original. Even if the Gray Wolf did not have a "waterproof" coat, that isn't to say that genetically that information wasn't there, only that to get a "waterproof" coat you require to 'lessen' some aspects from the Gray Wolf genome to achieve more emphasis on a particular aspect. But there is always a favourable/unfavourable aspect.

 

[Jimmy D]

I see an entire living world where infraspecific taxa exist in every species.

We all do.

I see a fossil classification that has not a single one.

Look harder then.

My logical brain concludes from the evidence that they are wrong in their classifications since it fails to match observational evidence we can see right around us.

As has been shown on this thread, your opinion on the classification is irrelevent to the TOE.

 

[Abraxos]

look at this chart. Now explain to me. How does a flood explain that hundreds of fossils matching this series were found?

How the horse evolutionary process is depicted is with the smallest at the bottom and it gets bigger the higher up the "tree" it goes. The theory of evolution has a logic to it, but we mustn't confuse logic with correction. As with the evolutionary tree of the horse as depicted by the evolutionists. It's logical but is it correct?

If I gave you a pile of dog skulls of every conceivable dog in the world, and you have never seen a dog before and I say to design for me an evolutionary tree, what would you do? You would basically arrange them from smallest to largest. So the Chihuahua will be at the bottom and the Great Dane at the top.
If we want to get a little more specific, we would develop the tree with all the flat, stocky looking dogs on one branch (the Bulldog, the Pug, etc) with the Boxer types on other-side. In the middle we would have the more in-between, sturdy types - on the right we would have something like the more lean, slim long machine types (Greyhounds, Afghans, etc).

Basically you have arranged a beautiful tree. But is it correct? No. It would be absolutely wrong because they all didn't come out of the Chihuahua in the first place. In fact they came out of the Wolf breeds and these varieties of dog breeds were all from the Wolfs gene pool.

The same rule applies to the horse evolutionary tree; they were all there at the same time. Even today, we have many different sized horses. This is variation within a horse breeds not evidence for the theory of evolution.