Are there transitional fossils?

[Larniavc]

in random way,

It's been explained to you slowly and carefully why mutations are random but evolution is not.

Selection occurs.

That you repeat that error in the same thread tells me there is no point in telling you the same information again and again.

All the best.

 

[xianghua]

Find me a modern mammal skeleton deep in the Jurasiac, then we can talk.

why it will be a problem for evolution? we can claim for convergent evolution (mammals evolved twice) or something else.

. Even if they were more birdlike than archy, that would not disprove evolution.

you see how easy is it for evolution? even if its was a true bird (dating about 60 my before the suppose first bird) it will not fallsified evolution. the same for mammal from the jurassic.

Wait, what? How can creation account for the hundreds of transitional fossils that were found? How can it account for all the mammal-like reptile fossils, for instance, that are found in layers millions of years before the first mammals?

first: as i showed: a lots of suppose missing links arent in the correct place. and secondly: we can find a lots of missing links also in designed objects. but again: its doesnt prove any evolution.

 

[doubtingmerle]

xianghua,

We have found many transitional fossil that appear deep in the fossil record, exactly where we would expect them. For instance, there is a series of mammal-like reptiles that appear deep in the record, long before modern mammals appeared. They look like transitionals leading up to modern mammals. How do you explain all these mammal-like reptiles?

you see how easy is it for evolution? even if its was a true bird (dating about 60 my before the suppose first bird) it will not fallsified evolution. the same for mammal from the jurassic.

You have found nothing close to a true bird before archy. What we have found is a mix of poorly fossilized specimens which may have some features more birdlike than archy, but probably not. That is different from finding birds. You did not find birds down there. As archy is not considered the direct ancestor of modern birds, but only a distant cousin of the ancestors of modern birds, it won't be earth shattering if we find fossils that are more birdlike a few millions of years before archy. Find me a modern bird down there, then we can talk.

first: as i showed: a lots of suppose missing links arent in the correct place. and secondly: we can find a lots of missing links also in designed objects. but again: its doesnt prove any evolution.

No, you have not. You have shown that the distant descendents of presumed common ancestors are many years after the common ancestor. Of course! That does not prove the common ancestor lived the same time as his distant descendents.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I wrote what I meant - I was talking about species, not speciments. I was talking about impossibility of macroevolution based on what's available for us to see. To counter, you explained how mutations within species work, a microevolution. I don't dispute microevolution.

If microevolution occurs for millions of years, why wouldn't the net result of that be macroevolution?

 

[mark kennedy]

If birds evolved from dinosaurs, wouldn't fossils like anchiornus and archaeopteryx be what you would expect to find? How can these not be called transitionals?

Well hello doubtingmerle, I didn't know you were into the Crevo thing but I thought the nick was familiar. There are dozens of transitionals but that's not really the key to understanding evolution as natural history. The transitional fossil would only be the effect, there must be a cause and that cause must be genetic. Not really into birds, my thing has always been the evolution of the human brain from that of apes. I have a number of reasons for being convinced that the common ancestry of chimpanzees and humans is pure undiluted supposition, put simply:

Summary:

• HAR1F: Vital regulatory gene involved in brain development, 300 million years it has only 2 subsitutions, then 2 million years ago it allows 18, no explanation how.
• SRGAP2: One single amino-acid change between human and mouse and no changes among nonhuman primates. accumulated as many as seven amino-acid replacements compared to one synonymous change. 6 known alleles, all resulting in sever neural disorder.
• 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them.

The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

Especially interesting is the HAR1f gene. In one of the areas of the human genome that would have had to change the most, Human Accelerated Region (HAR), we find a gene that has changed the least over just under 400 million years HAR1F. Just after the Cambrian is would have had to emerge de novo, fully formed, fully functional and permanently fixed along broad taxonomic categories. In all the time since it would allow only two substitutions, then, while the DNA around it is being completely overhauled it allows 18 substitutions in a regulatory gene only 118 nucleotides long. The vital function of this gene cannot be overstated:

The most dramatic of these ‘human accelerated regions’, HAR1, is part of a novel RNA gene (HAR1F) that is expressed specifically in Cajal– Retzius neurons in the developing human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks, a crucial period for cortical neuron specification and migration. HAR1F is co-expressed with reelin, a product of Cajal–Retzius neurons that is of fundamental importance in specifying the six-layer structure of the human cortex. (An RNA gene expressed during cortical development evolved rapidly in humans, Nature 16 August 2006)​

This all has to occur after the chimpanzee human split, while our ancestors were contemporaries in equatorial Africa, with none of the selective pressures effecting our ancestral cousins. This is in addition to no less then 60 de novo (brand new) brain related genes with no known molecular mechanism to produce them. Selection can explain the survival of the fittest but the arrival of the fittest requires a cause:

The de novo origin of a new protein-coding gene from non-coding DNA is considered to be a very rare occurrence in genomes. Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee. The functionality of these genes is supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence. RNA– seq data indicate that these genes have their highest expression levels in the cerebral cortex and testes, which might suggest that these genes contribute to phenotypic traits that are unique to humans, such as improved cognitive ability. Our results are inconsistent with the traditional view that the de novo origin of new genes is very rare, thus there should be greater appreciation of the importance of the de novo origination of genes…(De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes PLoS 2011)
​

Whatever you think happened one thing is for sure, random mutations are the worst explanation possible. They cannot produce de novo genes and invariably disrupt functional genes. You can forget about gradual accumulation of, 'slow and gradual accumulation of numerous, slight, yet profitable, variations' (Darwin). That would require virtually no cost and extreme benefit with the molecular cause fabricated from vain imagination and suspended by pure faith.

Sure there are transitional fossils except for one very serious problem. Since the split there are virtually no chimpanzee ancestors since the supposed split. Makes you wonder what happened to the Chimpanzee ancestors because if they were not alive today there would be no fossil evidence they ever existed.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[HenryM]

It's been explained to you slowly and carefully why mutations are random but evolution is not.

Selection occurs.

That you repeat that error in the same thread tells me there is no point in telling you the same information again and again.

All the best.

Natural selection "works" after something is mutated. And it doesn't only occur in a womb. Other natural environments are selective too, don't take the glory from them. Selection would indeed occur and there would be evidence for us to see.

 

[Larniavc]

Natural selection "works" after something is mutated. And it doesn't only occur in a womb. Other natural environments are selective too, don't take the glory from them. Selection would indeed occur and there would be evidence for us to see.

And that's why we don't see more failed species. The mutations are unable to be fixed in the population.

 

[USincognito]

[QUOTE="mark kennedy, post: 70992164, member: 29337]

• The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

[/QUOTE]

Why do you keep repeating this lie? And you have been told dozens of times now why don't find chimpanzee fossils. Why do act as if you have not?

 

[SkyWriting]

All this does is how that you don't understand what the science behind the theory of evolution says.

People say that, but never offer up what they are thinking.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

People say that, but never offer up what they are thinking.

Because generally, it's against forum rules to call someone out on being idiotic.

 

[Jimmy D]

The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

Lucy is a chimpanzee?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Can you have it both ways? If mutations are random, then process is random.

Really now?

Let's evaluate that claim, shall we?
Let's look at a coin sorting device. This can be somehting really simple. For example, all coins (1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, 1€ and 2€) have different sizes/dimensions. You could fabricate a simple thing out of wood or plastic, where coins "roll" through, with holes on the bottom in the various shapes of the coins, the small ones in the beginning and progressively bigger to the end.

So the 10c coin will roll over the holes for 1c, 2c and 5c to finally "drop through" the 10c hole.

In the input bag, they are all mixed together. So the input is random - you don't know what the next coin will be. It can be any of those coins.

Yet the end result of this process will be anything but "random". You'll end up with 8 bags of neatly sorted coins. You won't find €1 coins in the bag of 10c coins.

So the lesson here is quite simple...
If the processing of the random input isn't a random process, then the output will not be random either.

And that's exactly what evolution is.
Natural Selection, much like the coin sorting device, acts like a filter upon the random input coming from mutations. Which random mutations ends up surviving, being past on to off spring and eventually achieving fixation in the genome is not random at all.

There is an easy to understand logic that regulates this process. Natural Selection.

The input is random.
The process is not.
Therefore, neither is the outcome.

What you call "evolution" is not end state, it's a process. Process cannot be random and not random at the same time.

A process typically consists of, at minimum, three things:
- input
- processing logic
- output

In evolution, this translates to:
- mutation during reproduction
- natural selection
- survival & go back to step 1

The input is random. The process itself is not.

It's one of the two. If it is random, then you have orders (upon orders) of magnitude more failed tests, and however you choose to explain their distinction, there should be evidence of it.

And there is. Lots and lots of it.

 

[mark kennedy]

Lucy is a chimpanzee?

Actually her skull was a little small for a chimpanzee.

 

[Jimmy D]

Actually her skull was a little small for a chimpanzee.

So she wasn't a chimpanzee?

 

[mark kennedy]

• The Taung Child, that replaced the Piltdown hoax, is a chimpanzee, so is Lucy.

Why do you keep repeating this lie? And you have been told dozens of times now why don't find chimpanzee fossils. Why do act as if you have not?

I repeat this matter of fact and opinion because the Taung child replaced the Pildown hoax. Why do you continue to shamelessly flame people of different opinions, perhaps you should look into ad hominems anonymous, fallacies are not your friends :

A skull taken from a mass grave site used during the Black Plague matched up with an orangutan jawbone. Even Louis Leakey, the famous paleontologist, had said that jaw didn’t belong with that skull so people knew, long before it was exposed, that Piltdown was contrived.

Leakey mentions the Piltdown skull in his book 'Adam's Ancestors':

'If the lower jaw really belongs to the same individual as the skull, then the Piltdown man is unique in all humanity. . . It is tempting to argue that the skull, on the one hand, and the jaw, on the other, do not belong to the same creature. Indeed a number of anatomists maintain that the skull and jaw cannot belong to the same individual and they see in the jaw and canine tooth evidence of a contemporary anthropoid ape.'​

He referred to the whole affair as an enigma: In By the Evidence he says 'I admit . . . that I was foolish enough never to dream, even for a moment, that the true explanation lay in a deliberate forgery.' (Leakey and Piltdown)​

The problem was that there was nothing to replace it as a transitional from ape to man. Concurrent with the prominence of the Piltdown fossil Raymond Dart had reported on the skull of an ape that had filled with lime creating an endocast or a model of what the brain would have looked like. Everyone considered it a chimpanzee child since it’s cranial capacity was just over 400cc but with the demise of Piltdown, a new icon was needed in the Darwinian theater of the mind. Raymond Dart suggests to Louis Leakey that a small brained human ancestor might have been responsible for some of the supposed tools the Leaky family was finding in Africa. The myth of the stone age ape man was born.

The Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith had built his long and distinguished career on the Piltdown fossil. When it was exposed it sent Darwinians scrambling, Arthur Keith had always rejected the Taung Child (Raymond Dart’s discovery) a chimpanzee child. Rightfully so since it’s small even for a modern chimpanzee. Keith would eventually apologized to Dart and Leakey would take his suggested name for the stone age ape man, Homo habilis, but there was a very real problem. The skull was too small to be considered a human ancestor, this impasse became known as the Cerebral Rubicon and Leakey’s solution was to simply ignore the cranial capacity.

"Sir Arthur Keith, one of the leading proponents of Piltdown Man, was particularly instrumental in shaping Louis's thinking. "Sir Arthur Keith was very much Louis's father in science" noted Frida. Brilliant, yet modest and unassuming, Keith was regarded at the time of Piltdown's discovery as England's most eminent anatomist and an authority on human ancestry...a one man court of appeal for physical anthropologists from around the world....and his opinion that assured Piltdown a place on every drawing of humankinds family tree." (Ancestral Passions, Virginia Morell)​

Ever notice that there are no Chimpanzee ancestors in the fossil record? That’s because every time a gracial (smooth) skull, that is dug up in Asian or Africa they are automatically one of our ancestors.

Australopithecus afarensis: AL 288-1
Australopithecus africanus: Taung 1
Lucy a Chimpanzee
Taung Skull not Human-like 26 August 2014

These two are the only Hominid fossils I've seen that are really being passed of as transitional. They both have chimpanzee size brains, with all the features one would expect of a knuckle dragging, tree dwelling ape. What is far more important then finding something indicating a transitional fossil, which they have failed to do, is to understand what the basis of the three-fold of the human brain from that of apes

 

[mark kennedy]

So she wasn't a chimpanzee?

That's exactly what she was, but because she was female she was a little smaller then the mean average. You see, every time a gracial (smooth) skull is dug up in Africa it's automatically a human ancestor. No one even explore the possibility it might be a transitional chimpanzee, that won't get you written about in National Geographic.

 

[mark kennedy]

Really now?

And that's exactly what evolution is.
Natural Selection, much like the coin sorting device, acts like a filter upon the random input coming from mutations. Which random mutations ends up surviving, being past on to off spring and eventually achieving fixation in the genome is not random at all.

There is an easy to understand logic that regulates this process. Natural Selection.

The input is random.
The process is not.
Therefore, neither is the outcome.

A process typically consists of, at minimum, three things:
- input
- processing logic
- output

In evolution, this translates to:
- mutation during reproduction
- natural selection
- survival & go back to step 1

The input is random. The process itself is not.

And there is. Lots and lots of it.

It's not a coin flip, how traits are inherited and change over time are Mendelian in their causation.

Mendel also hypothesized that allele pairs separate randomly, or segregate, from each other during the production of gametes: egg and sperm. Because allele pairs separate during gamete production, a sperm or egg carries only one allele for each inherited trait. When sperm and egg unite at fertilization, each contributes its allele, restoring the paired condition in the offspring. This is called the Law of Segregation. Mendel also found that each pair of alleles segregates independently of the other pairs of alleles during gamete formation. This is known as the Law of Independent Assortment. (Mendelian inheritance)​

What is random and relatively rare is spontaneous mutations, the odds of an adaptive trait on an evolutionary scale from a random mutations are vanishingly small. These copy errors result in things like cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease and the fragile X syndrome.

Among the mutations that affect a typical gene, different kinds produce different impacts. A very few are at least momentarily adaptive on an evolutionary scale. Many are deleterious. Some are neutral, that is, they produce no effect strong enough to permit selection for or against. (Rates of Spontaneous Mutation, Genetics 1998)
​

So many misconceptions, so little time.

 

[Jimmy D]

That's exactly what she was, but because she was female she was a little smaller then the mean average. You see, every time a gracial (smooth) skull is dug up in Africa it's automatically a human ancestor. No one even explore the possibility it might be a transitional chimpanzee, that won't get you written about in National Geographic.

I'm not following, was it a small chimpanzee, a traditional chimpanzee or an early homo species?

Are you suggesting that no one examines these skulls? I can't say that I find that very convincing to be honest.

 

[mark kennedy]

I'm not following, was it a small chimpanzee, a traditional chimpanzee or an early homo species?

The body size was about average, the cranial capacity was a little below average due probably to probably to her gender.

Are you suggesting that no one examines these skulls? I can't say that I find that very convincing to be honest.

How on earth do you get, 'don't examine these skulls', from Lucy is a chimpanzee. By all means learn all you can about them because they do have their story to tell, and mythographers have been making up stories about them.

 

[xianghua]

xianghua,

We have found many transitional fossil that appear deep in the fossil record, exactly where we would expect them. For instance, there is a series of mammal-like reptiles that appear deep in the record, long before modern mammals appeared. They look like transitionals leading up to modern mammals. How do you explain all these mammal-like reptiles?

so if we will find first cars, then a commercial cars, and then a trucks in a specific order we should conclude that those vehicles evolved from each other?

No, you have not. You have shown that the distant descendents of presumed common ancestors are many years after the common ancestor. Of course! That does not prove the common ancestor lived the same time as his distant descendents.

ok. lets take a specific example. according to evolution we should find first fish, then a missing links between a fish and a tetrapod, and then a tetrapod. but we actually find the wrong order- first we have found fish, then a tetrapod, and then a missing link (tiktaalik):

Tiktaalik - Wikipedia

a fossil in the wrong place.