Are there transitional fossils?

[pshun2404]

"cousins of ancestors that look just like the ancestor"

All made up crap!!! Show us "the ancestor" so we can compare their looks...

 

[Jimmy D]

So let me see if I got this correct.

Birds

Man causes change in migration and territory
They mate with those they wouldn't normally
Offspring have defining characteristics
Each is still the same species

Dogs


Man causes change in migration and territory
They mate with those they wouldn't normally
Offspring have defining characteristics
Each is still the same species


That about sum it up?

Man has not interfered in the proccess, they have not been artificially selected and bred. The divergance in Blackcap population occured in response to a new food source, the origin of the food source is irrelevant. The genes that caused them to fly north occured naturally, their choice of mate was dictated by this new migration pattern.

Of course they're still the same species but they are beginning to show significantly different traits....

(The splinter group has evolved rounder wings and narrower, longer beaks than their southward-flying brethren. The researchers hypothesizethat both of these traits evolved via natural selection. Pointier wings are favored in birds that must travel longer distances, and rounder wings, which increase maneuverability, are favored when distance is less of an issue — as it is for the northwest migrators. Changes in beak size may be related to the food available to each sub-population: fruit for birds wintering in Spain and seeds and suet from garden feeders for birds wintering in Britain. The northwest migrators' narrower, longer beaks may allow them to better take advantage of all the different sorts of foods they wind up eating in the course of a year).

It's only been 30 generations since this began, thus demonstrating that your contention that it takes millions of years is shown to be utter nonsense.

If you think that's the same as the selective breeding of dogs you're even less perceptive than I gave you credit for.

 

[Jimmy D]

improves over time? When are they finally going to admit their classification of those finches are wrong, in 100 years?

Your objections are nothing new, do you really think that no one is aware of such questions or that they haven't been addressed?


Are Darwin's Finches One Species or Many? | DiscoverMagazine.com
The textbooks are wrong, says ornithologist Robert Zink of the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History. The ground finches may seem to be different species, at least with superficial comparison, but they’re stuck in what he calls Sisyphean evolution. “Species kind of get started, but . . . they never make it to the top of the hill,” Zink says.

In a recent paper in Biological Reviews, Zink helps make the case. “None of these ‘species’ are distinct,” he says. The various ground finches don’t differ significantly in ways that usually differentiate bird species, such as plumage patterns or song. Unlike with discrete species, these features aren’t stable and can vary over just a few generations, depending on weather and food availability. Sequences of their nuclear and mitochondrial DNA show little variation and none of the telltale signs that suggest distinct species.

The circumstances in the Galapagos — frequent interisland travel due to short distances between islands and interbreeding — prevent the finches from truly forming distinct species. It makes more sense to classify the birds as a single species of ground finch with ecologically driven variations, Zink says.

.......

Princeton-based husband-and-wife evolutionary biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant disagree. They started studying finches in 1973 and have long held that ground finches represent “species before speciation is complete.” (In fact, that’s how they titled one of their papers.) It’s natural that the nascent species would show genetic resemblance, Peter Grant says. Nonetheless, the traditional view that the ground finches make up six species holds up on the basis of breeding behavior and songs.

“It makes no sense to us as biologists studying populations in nature to combine them all into one species,” says Grant. Despite rare hybridization, the finch populations remain behaviorally and morphologically distinct and, according to Grant, are on their way to becoming separate species.

Have a read through this and tell us why the are wrong that the Galapagos finches provide us with valuable insights into evolutionary change - whether you call them separate bloody species or not... it makes NO DIFFERENCE.

 

[Jimmy D]

"cousins of ancestors that look just like the ancestor"

All made up crap!!! Show us "the ancestor" so we can compare their looks...

Complain as much as you like, if you don't accept what is meant by "transitional fossil" that's up to you, but don't make the mistake of thinking it has any relevance to anyone else. It's been explained to you many times now so you can't pretend that you don't understand. Paleontolgists and biologists accept Tik as a transitional fossil because it meets the criteria needed to identify it as such. - that you want to impose your own stricter, more narrowly defined (and made up) criteria is neither here nor there to the rest of the world.

Definition of TRANSITIONAL FOSSIL
a fossil that exhibits characteristics of both ancestral and derived forms

(A few) transitional fossils
When a fossil is called "transitional" between two types of animal, that means it shows some of the traits of both, but it does not mean it links those animals by direct descent. Evolution is a branching process - by which we mean that species often split in two. Therefore:

"Because evolution is a branching process that produces a complex bush pattern of related species rather than a linear process that produces a ladder-like progression, and because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, it is unlikely that any particular form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other."

Transitional fossils are best thought of as being close relatives of the species which actually link two groups. They may have lived at the same time as those actual links, or they may not have (this confuses many people). As long as these problems are borne in mind, transitional fossils give a rough indication of what evolutionary changes were occurring.




What Is A Transitional Fossil?

Quick definition:
A transitional fossil is any fossil which gives us information about a transition from one species to another. (Or, about a transition from one group of species to another group of species.) A transition simply means that, down through time, there was some sort of change. The change must be big enough so that each non-transitional fossil can be easily be sorted into either a "before the transition" pile, or a "after the transition" pile. A transitional fossil is one that falls between the two piles.

A speciation event:
Suppose some species A was unchanged for 2,000,000 years. Then, across 200,000 years, they became smaller and acquired wider feet. After the change, we think of them as species B, and they remain unchanged for another 2,000,000 years. Then any fossil from that 200,000-year period of transition is a transitional fossil.

In this example, you would expect every transitional fossil to predate every fossil from species B. However, it is not true that the transitional fossils must be more recent than all species-A fossils. This is because the transition can happen to an isolated group of A's, instead of to all A's. (In other words: the existence of a child doesn't mean the parent vanished.) In fact, there are examples where a parent species is alive to this day.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Are you interpreting "kaboom" as "God spoke"?

No, by "kaboom" I mean "kaboom".

The kaboom hypothesis of creation is that one day, when there were no zebras, suddenly --KABOOM-- there were a couple of zebras, popped up out of nothing. Whether it was done by God or Thor or Pixies or unknown quantum phenomenon is immaterial. Do you or do you not believe in the kaboom hypothesis? Do you believe this is how the first zebra, lion, tiger, and bear came into existence?

I do not support the kaboom hypothesis. I believe the first zebra evolved from a line of transitionals.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Great! Only as far as we can tell, from the real evidence, it didn't happen. Are you saying I should accept this on blind faith?

Popping into existence out of nothing? Zebras do not pop into existence out of nothing.

No, I do not think you should take the kaboom hypothesis on faith.

 

[AV1611VET]

Do you or do you not believe in the kaboom hypothesis?

I do not.

I believe the first zebra evolved from a line of transitionals.

I do not.

 

[doubtingmerle]

"cousins of ancestors that look just like the ancestor"

All made up crap!!! Show us "the ancestor" so we can compare their looks...

Ok. Here is the Hyracotherium I was talking about. He is the little guy in front.

Now I cannot tell you if this particular Hyracotherium was one of the direct ancestors of the zebra, but he was certainly at least a distant cousin of the ancestors, which most likely looked very much like this cute little guy.

And after him, look what we find in the fossil record.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I do not.I do not.

OK, then if not the kaboom hypothesis, how did the first zebra come into existence?

1. Did God speak and the first zebra popped up out of nothing? (Kaboom hypothesis)
2. Did God speak, the mud stirred, and the first zebra popped up out of mud?
3. Did God speak, and the DNA of a Dinohippus cell got rearranged to form zebra DNA, and a zebra was born several months later?
4. Did God speak, and the DNA of a Dinohippus gradually evolved into zebra DNA over millions of years?
5. Did God speak, and the first cell formed, which later evolved into zebra over billions of years?
6. Did God speak, and the Big Bang occurred, and billions of years later, the zebra evolved?
7. Did God speak, and the multi-universe began, forming other universes, and out of one the zebra evolved?
8. Did God speak, and the laws of physics began, which led to the multi-universe and, later, zebras?

 

[AV1611VET]

Ok. Here is the Hyracotherium I was talking about. He is the little guy in front.

Is that a real skeleton, or is it plastic?

 

[AV1611VET]

OK, then if not the kaboom hypothesis, how did the first zebra come into existence?

1. Did God speak and the first zebra popped up out of nothing? (Kaboom hypothesis)
2. Did God speak, the mud stirred, and the first zebra popped up out of mud?
3. Did God speak, and the DNA of a Dinohippus cell got rearranged to form zebra DNA, and a zebra was born several months later?
4. Did God speak, and the DNA of a Dinohippus gradually evolved into zebra DNA over millions of years?
5. Did God speak, and the first cell formed, which later evolved into zebra over billions of years?
6. Did God speak, and the Big Bang occurred, and billions of years later, the zebra evolved?
7. Did God speak, and the multi-universe began, forming other universes, and out of one the zebra evolved?
8. Did God speak, and the laws of physics began, which led to the multi-universe and, later, zebras?

#2

 

[doubtingmerle]

Is that a real skeleton, or is it plastic?

Uh, no it is not a real skeleton. Skeletons don't survive long.

Rather, the bones of the dead animal shape the rock into fossils. These fragile rocks are then used to make casts that can be used to make replicas of what we see in the rocks.

Using this method, we can form casts that are highly accurate representation of the original bones. That is generally what you would see, should you choose to go to a natural history museum.

 

[doubtingmerle]

#2

Which isn't much different from the kaboom hypothesis. Can I remind you that this does not happen? Never once has it been observed that mud started stirring, and out of it came a newly created mammal.

You have said elsewhere that you think the created kind is equivalent to genus. OK, here is what the horse genus (Equus) looks like: Equus (genus) - Wikipedia .

That is quite a range of animals. So apparently you think the mud stirred at the command of God, and began to form the first Equus. And apparently you think only one pair of Equus went on board the ark. And one wanders how so many horse, donkey, and zebra species would all come out of one pair of Equus several thousands of years ago. That is a lot of speciation! Interestingly, while your fellow creationists are denying speciation, you support widespread speciation in a few thousand years, such as the division between horses and zebras which you apparently think evolved from a common ancestor.

 

[AV1611VET]

Rather, the bones of the dead animal shape the rock into fossils. These fragile rocks are then used to make casts that can be used to make replicas of what we see in the rocks.

Photoshopped ... just what I thought.

Tell me, Merle, how does one get a three-dimensional representation of a complete skeleton from it being etched into rock?

Are you sure they don't take liberties with this thing ... making it look like they want it to look?

 

[AV1611VET]

That is quite a range of animals.

Sure is.

So apparently you think the mud stirred at the command of God, and began to form the first Equus.

Sure do.

And apparently you think only one pair of Equus went on board the ark.

Affirmative.

And one wanders how so many horse, donkey, and zebra species would all come out of one pair of Equus several thousands of years ago.

We don't wander [sic] at all. We call them things "miracles."

You see, in only one day (each), God populated the earth with plants and animals.

Zebras, horses, donkeys, whatever, running around all over the place.

Then came the Flood, and only the top species boarded the Ark.

After the Flood, they disembarked and speciated as necessary.

That is a lot of speciation!

Yup.

Interestingly, while your fellow creationists are denying speciation, you support widespread speciation in a few thousand years, such as the division between horses and zebras which you apparently think evolved from a common ancestor.

I'm sure that "common ancestor" is still around today.

 

[xianghua]

No, this is not what I want to argue. Of course all living and extinct species of apes had ancestors that lived during the time of the dinosaurs, but these ancestors were not apes; they were the ancestral species of mammals that the primates (including the apes) evolved from.

but if we will find an ape with a dino you can just say that ape evolved eariler that we assumed.

Therefore the first Devonian tetrapods must have had Silurian, Ordovician, Cambrian and Precambrian ancestors

only if you assume that evolution is true. but if its false- then its not sure that are such fossils. so you cant say "must had". its only a belief, not a fact.

Lucas argues that the Zachelmie tracks are not tetrapod tracks but fish nests or feeding traces (ichnogenus

so its just a chance that its fit well with other evidences that i gave above?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

You seem to misunderstand what we mean by "transitional". When we find many Hyracotherium fossils spread throughout the earth, for instance, and we say this is a transitional to modern horses, we are not saying that every single one of those Hyracortherium fossils we find is a direct ancestor of the horse. Rather, they are all cousins of the true ancestor. We will probably never find the true ancestor, and wouldn't know it if we saw it. Hyracotherium was a genus, and most likely consisted of many different species in different places and times. One of those subspecies happened to be the ancestor of the Orohippus genus, and one of the subspecies of Orohippus happened to be the ancestor of the Epihippus genus, and so on up through to the Mesohippus, Merychippus, and modern Equus genera to the zebra of which we have discussed often in this thread. So of the many members and probably many species we have found in the Hyracotherium genus, most likely all such fossil we find are not a direct ancestor to the modern horse and zebra. But that does not matter. The one species or sub species of Hyracotherium that was lucky enough to lead to the further horse series probably looked very much like all the other Hyracotherium fossils we find. So we point to the Hyracotherium as an ancestor, even though most of the fossils we find are actually cousins of the true ancestor.

Hyracotherium was an extremely successful genus, lasting over 20 million years. We don't know when a subspecies group broke off to become the Orohippus and millions of years later, the horse and zebra, but the Hyracotherium continued to exist, looking very much like the specific Hyracotherium that was the ancestor of the later zebra. So yes, when we find a Hyracotherium that is 40 million years old, it might be every bit representative of the ancestor of the Orohippus that is 50 million years old. So how can we say that a Hyracotherium that is 40 million years old represents an ancestor of the 50 million year old Orohippus? Because as far as fossils are concerned, all the cousin Hyracotherium we find are representative of the genus, and this help us to understand the one lucky subspecies of Hyracotherium that is the true ancestor. So we refer to the whole group of Hyracotherium as a transitional.

When an animal evolves, the ancestors often survive for a long time. So we have humans, but we still have monkeys. We have humans, but we still have reptiles. We have humans, but we still have fish. Many animals very similar to those intermediates still exist.

OK, back to the footprints found before Tic. There are several possibilities here. One is that the "footprints" are misunderstood or misdated. Let's assume the footprints 18 million years before the earliest known Tic are confirmed authentic. As the link that Jimmy D posted explained, all this would do is push back the date of the common ancestor of the Tic and the animal that made those footprints. So even if the animal that made these footprints was better adapted to terrestrial life than Tic, Tic could have remained for millions of years in the marshes, just like Hyracotherium remained after Orohippus evolved, and apes remained after humans evolved. And the Tic fossils still in the wetlands may be representative of the small group that first invaded the land million of years earlier, even though others had already moved inland by the time those fossils were made. None of that defeats evolution. Tic fossils from 20 million years after the invasion of the land can help us understand those that first invaded the land.

In closing, let me say that I have honored you with complete paragraphs. Usually when I write here I need to keep the paragraphs short because many have a short attention span and quickly start skimming. If a person is not going to read the whole paragraph, then I am wasting my time writing it. So I usually confine my writings to short statements and questions, in hopes that something will get through. Here however, I am honored to express a concept that is more complex, and that requires actual paragraphs. I am taking the chance that you will not let me down, but that you are one that actually reads and responds to complex paragraphs.

Exactly what we see with dogs. Call those infraspecific taxa cousins of you like but evolution is not needed to explain that variation. There are no multiple species in the line, just their incorrect classifications of those infraspecific taxa as seperate species. Your raptor genus is a prime example of the proper classification which matches observational data.

 

[pshun2404]

Your objections are nothing new, do you really think that no one is aware of such questions or that they haven't been addressed?


Are Darwin's Finches One Species or Many? | DiscoverMagazine.com
The textbooks are wrong, says ornithologist Robert Zink of the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History. The ground finches may seem to be different species, at least with superficial comparison, but they’re stuck in what he calls Sisyphean evolution. “Species kind of get started, but . . . they never make it to the top of the hill,” Zink says.

In a recent paper in Biological Reviews, Zink helps make the case. “None of these ‘species’ are distinct,” he says. The various ground finches don’t differ significantly in ways that usually differentiate bird species, such as plumage patterns or song. Unlike with discrete species, these features aren’t stable and can vary over just a few generations, depending on weather and food availability. Sequences of their nuclear and mitochondrial DNA show little variation and none of the telltale signs that suggest distinct species.

The circumstances in the Galapagos — frequent interisland travel due to short distances between islands and interbreeding — prevent the finches from truly forming distinct species. It makes more sense to classify the birds as a single species of ground finch with ecologically driven variations, Zink says.

.......

Princeton-based husband-and-wife evolutionary biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant disagree. They started studying finches in 1973 and have long held that ground finches represent “species before speciation is complete.” (In fact, that’s how they titled one of their papers.) It’s natural that the nascent species would show genetic resemblance, Peter Grant says. Nonetheless, the traditional view that the ground finches make up six species holds up on the basis of breeding behavior and songs.

“It makes no sense to us as biologists studying populations in nature to combine them all into one species,” says Grant. Despite rare hybridization, the finch populations remain behaviorally and morphologically distinct and, according to Grant, are on their way to becoming separate species.

Have a read through this and tell us why the are wrong that the Galapagos finches provide us with valuable insights into evolutionary change - whether you call them separate bloody species or not... it makes NO DIFFERENCE.

Hi Jim! No, I actually understand perfectly well. I read the work done by the Grant's almost a decade before I came to believe in God (76 or 77) Even then I saw the facts and the fiction. As for Zink I also already was aware of his insights and actually in times gone by I actually used him as support for the view I espouse.

You are NOT incorrect that studying the finches provide us with valuable insights into evolutionary change, and I do not make such a claim. In fact I agree that they do. In my opinion they validate the view which says the mechanisms we ascribe (natural selection, speciation, and so on) produce variety not entirely new creatures.

I also want you to know your example of this happening today was a good one. IF only in 30 or so generations, THEN imagine what after 50,000 generations? I get it I do, though they have already been around for at least 1000s of generations? But the key word is imagine...

One thing (their speciation) is a fact, the other (that they MAY BECOME an entirely different creature, like amphibians allegedly becoming reptiles of whom 50,000 generations have occurred) is not.

One is observation of evidence that can be and has been tested and the other is an explanation to fit a hypothesis (which began with Darwin) that was already accepted as true by those who wanted it to be true L-l-o-o-n-g-g-g before they had found anything that could be interpreted to fit that presupposition.

But be careful Jim or people from your own camp will accuse you of relying on "old" science...(lol)!

 

[Jimmy D]

Hi Jim! No, I actually understand perfectly well. I read the work done by the Grant's almost a decade before I came to believe in God (76 or 77) Even then I saw the facts and the fiction. As for Zink I also already was aware of his insights and actually in times gone by I actually used him as support for the view I espouse.

You are NOT incorrect that studying the finches provide us with valuable insights into evolutionary change, and I do not make such a claim. In fact I agree that they do. In my opinion they validate the view which says the mechanisms we ascribe (natural selection, speciation, and so on) produce variety not entirely new creatures.

I also want you to know your example of this happening today was a good one. IF only in 30 or so generations, THEN imagine what after 50,000 generations? I get it I do, though they have already been around for at least 1000s of generations? But the key word is imagine...

One thing (their speciation) is a fact, the other (that they MAY BECOME an entirely different creature, like amphibians allegedly becoming reptiles of whom 50,000 generations have occurred) is not.

One is observation of evidence that can be and has been tested and the other is an explanation to fit a hypothesis (which began with Darwin) that was already accepted as true by those who wanted it to be true L-l-o-o-n-g-g-g before they had found anything that could be interpreted to fit that presupposition.

But be careful Jim or people from your own camp will accuse you of relying on "old" science...(lol)!

Hi Pshun, that post of mine was addressed to to Mr Huskies not your good self. You and I might might have differences of opinion but I do credit you with putting some thought into your arguments.

 

[pshun2404]

Complain as much as you like, if you don't accept what is meant by "transitional fossil" that's up to you, but don't make the mistake of thinking it has any relevance to anyone else. It's been explained to you many times now so you can't pretend that you don't understand. Paleontolgists and biologists accept Tik as a transitional fossil because it meets the criteria needed to identify it as such. - that you want to impose your own stricter, more narrowly defined (and made up) criteria is neither here nor there to the rest of the world.

Definition of TRANSITIONAL FOSSIL
a fossil that exhibits characteristics of both ancestral and derived forms

(A few) transitional fossils
When a fossil is called "transitional" between two types of animal, that means it shows some of the traits of both, but it does not mean it links those animals by direct descent. Evolution is a branching process - by which we mean that species often split in two. Therefore:

"Because evolution is a branching process that produces a complex bush pattern of related species rather than a linear process that produces a ladder-like progression, and because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, it is unlikely that any particular form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other."

Transitional fossils are best thought of as being close relatives of the species which actually link two groups. They may have lived at the same time as those actual links, or they may not have (this confuses many people). As long as these problems are borne in mind, transitional fossils give a rough indication of what evolutionary changes were occurring.

What Is A Transitional Fossil?

Quick definition:
A transitional fossil is any fossil which gives us information about a transition from one species to another. (Or, about a transition from one group of species to another group of species.) A transition simply means that, down through time, there was some sort of change. The change must be big enough so that each non-transitional fossil can be easily be sorted into either a "before the transition" pile, or a "after the transition" pile. A transitional fossil is one that falls between the two piles.

A speciation event:
Suppose some species A was unchanged for 2,000,000 years. Then, across 200,000 years, they became smaller and acquired wider feet. After the change, we think of them as species B, and they remain unchanged for another 2,000,000 years. Then any fossil from that 200,000-year period of transition is a transitional fossil.

In this example, you would expect every transitional fossil to predate every fossil from species B. However, it is not true that the transitional fossils must be more recent than all species-A fossils. This is because the transition can happen to an isolated group of A's, instead of to all A's. (In other words: the existence of a child doesn't mean the parent vanished.) In fact, there are examples where a parent species is alive to this day.

I understand what you are trying to say, but note in the first reference the concept of “derived” forms (a latter development) in the second words like “between” and “a branching process” which negates or re-shapes the “tree-like concept because “it is unlikely that any particular form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other”, i.e., no evidence of a direct ancestor and so on. And the correct language like “best thought of” or “may not have” is subjunctive and not factual, though it CAN help us to sort (a tendency humans do with all things), we admit “A transitional fossil is one that falls between the two piles (one from before and one from after).

My view does not negate that members of the ancestral group cannot still be around (if they are indeed ancestral), it is that the latter variation (pile B which allegedly comes from pile A) cannot be its (pile A) source.