Are there transitional fossils?

[xianghua]

If you find a fictitious "car" like you keep talking about made of living cells with DNA, then it most likely was designed by the process of mutation and selection.

thanks for this honest answer. so you believe that a car can evolve naturally without any designer. of course, a self replicating car that made from organic components. now: who is have the burden of proof: someone that claim that a car (from this specific kind) can evolve naturally, or someone that claim that a car need a designer?

remember: as far as we know any car is evidence for design. so if you are claiming otherwise you will need to give us a very strong evidence that this isnt true and that a car can evolve naturally. but not just something that is base upon belief.

But as there is no strong selection for an animal to evolve to be car-like,

how do you know that there is no selection for a car in nature? if a spinning motor can evolve then also a car can. this is again just a belief.

 

[Job 33:6]

you are kidding me, right? here is from one of those papers:

"The bacterial flagellum is a reversible rotary motor powered by an electrochemical-potential difference of specific ions across the cytoplasmic membrane. The H+-driven motor of Salmonella spins at ∼300 Hz, whereas the Na+-driven motor of marine Vibrio spp. can rotate much faster, up to 1700 Hz"

so you are wrong here.[/QUOTE]

They mean a biomolecular "motor", not a mechanical motor like that of a car

 

[xianghua]

They mean a biomolecular "motor", not a mechanical motor like that of a car

so this is a motor. thanks. and why you are using a quotation mark when those scientists arent?

 

[Subduction Zone]

you are kidding me, right? here is from one of those papers:

"The bacterial flagellum is a reversible rotary motor powered by an electrochemical-potential difference of specific ions across the cytoplasmic membrane. The H+-driven motor of Salmonella spins at ∼300 Hz, whereas the Na+-driven motor of marine Vibrio spp. can rotate much faster, up to 1700 Hz"

so you are wrong here.[/QUOTE]
Nope, no claim, just a usage that was not meant to be taken literally. Do you know the difference?

 

[Subduction Zone]

so this is a motor. thanks. and why you are using a quotation mark when those scientists arent?

Not in the same sense that you have been talking about. Do you know what an equivocation fallacy is?

 

[doubtingmerle]

thanks for this honest answer. so you believe that a car can evolve naturally without any designer. of course, a self replicating car that made from organic components. now: who is have the burden of proof: someone that claim that a car (from this specific kind) can evolve naturally, or someone that claim that a car need a designer?

remember: as far as we know any car is evidence for design. so if you are claiming otherwise you will need to give us a very strong evidence that this isnt true and that a car can evolve naturally. but not just something that is base upon belief.

Uh no, first you need to prove that your fictitious car from DNA exists. Once you show me that car from DNA, we will discuss where it came from.

 

[doubtingmerle]

dp

 

[xianghua]

Uh no, first you need to prove that your fictitious car from DNA exists. Once you show me that car from DNA, we will discuss where it came from.

again: if a spinning motor can evolve according to evolution why not a car?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Of course "Science" is required and it should be (nice twist though)...

Twist in what way? Your argument is that evolution is shoved into the political spectrum while nothing else is (or, at least, not to that extent). This is factually wrong. Furthermore, evolution wasn't a court issue because of its validity being in question; it became an issue because creationists like you didn't like it because you viewed it as clashing with your beliefs. It was people like you that made it a huge issue. Not academics questioning if the theory had enough evidence supporting it to justify it being taught in public schools. Not psychologists or others in the social sciences that thought it would have a negative impact on the minds of youths thanks to research suggesting as much. No, it was people that had barely any knowledge about the theory but viewed it as a threat to their religious dogma that made it a huge deal.

the use of "races" in Origin of Species is never used to refer to humans (it's used roughly
like species would be).

No he uses both terms and in fact uses "species" very often in the same way I use it (its real meaning which at that time had not been changed)

-_- just because he uses both terms doesn't mean he doesn't use them interchangeably or similarly. Language has a lot of redundancy, and he uses the term "races" in reference to cabbages and other non-human organisms. In fact, I don't think Darwin even used the term in reference to humans in Origin of Species. Freaking read a paragraph of the text, seriously.

perhaps it is their racism creating bias in their scientific interpretations rather than the science contributing to their racism

Exactly! Only some of those interpretations were foundational and the effect lingers even to this day.

If that were the case, then people more educated about evolution should be more likely to be racist than people that know nothing about the theory. This is not the case. Those most likely to be racist are people raised in racist households. That, and people whose education is lacking in general.

But, you think founding principles of evolution imply racism. Name the ones you think are. My best guess would be that you think natural selection is racist, so I'll go about disproving that idea right now. Natural selection suggests that what survives and reproduces best in a given environment is what becomes prominent in the population and persists. If you view the different "human races" as being shaped by natural selection as to what would best suit the environment, the best conclusion one could make is that each given "race" is best at surviving in the environment from which they arose. As a result, no race would be universally superior to any other by default.

Seriously, I challenge you to actually demonstrate that any of the key principles in evolutionary theory are inherently racism. If you don't know what the key principles are, I'll give you a nice list to start you off: natural selection, heredity, mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, adaptation, speciation, variation, and extinction. Just to avoid confusion, "biased mutation" refers to the fact that not all mutations are equally probable, not racial bias.

his proposal that human and other animal embryos developed similarly is demonstrably correct

I agree! Its phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny that was required to be memorized by 1000s and 1000s that was WRONG!

-_- he doesn't even get a mention in modern text books. I didn't even know who Haeckel was until I was a member of this site. You're right in that his drawings should never have been in text books (aside from, perhaps, for historical context). It's not like late and midterm miscarriages didn't occur often enough to have a decent human embryo as a model for drawing.

However, as far as "memorized by thousands", the drawings were just a tool to depict a CORRECT scientific conclusion that was verified independently later on (not phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny, but rather the similarity in how embryos of different vertebrates develop). The most recent textbook I can find that utilized Haeckel's drawings was from 1998. Some claim there are ones that use nearly exact drawings but colored in, but when I look at them, they have anatomical details Haeckel's don't as well as being more anatomically analogous to embryo pictures, so I don't consider those to be a use of Haeckel's drawings.

I don't know how long after Haeckel's recapitulation theory was disproven that it was still in text books. The sources I find that mention it only say that it remained in them (and as incorrect "common knowledge) for some time after. It's terrible when outdated information remains taught in schools, though science isn't the only subject that falls victim to it. History textbooks often have issues. A more recent issue when it comes to science is that a textbook is liable to become outdated within a year thanks to the speed of scientific progress in various fields. Most public schools just can't afford to keep up with that. My AP biology instructor actually would correct the textbook from time to time, since it was 5 years behind.

Dr. Alfred Ploetz, one of the principal founders of the journal, Archiv fur Rassen und Gesellschaftsbiologie in Germany. Among the editors he employed were future Nazi scientists Eugen Fischer and Fritz Lenz, but also he hired Ludwig Plate (a close colleague of Ernst Haeckel and, a member of the Monist League). Ploetz (a friend of Heackel’s prodigy Eugene Dubois) was successor to Haeckel’s chair in zoology at the University of Jena. The first issue of the Archiv was dedicated to Haeckel and Weismann.

Read up on him, and what a piece of work this guy was. He founded a racist youth society at the age of 29. This guy was extremely racist before reading Darwin's or Haeckel's work, and continued to be a person of such low standing that the censors on this site prevent me from using the proper words to express how negatively I view this person after reading about him.

However, again, no evidence suggests that it was evolution that made him racist.

In the articles of the journal, Haeckel’s name was constantly referred to; it is clear that the contributors regarded him as one of Germany’s major prophet of political biology, and one cannot avoid noticing the great weight which at all times was attached to his scientific authority, and to his ideas on politics and evolution.

Sure, like Aristotle was viewed as a great intellectual mind during his life, even though most of his understanding of the world was proven incorrect many years later. Haeckel's theory had yet to be disproven during Ploetz's most prominent academic years.

Appealing to authority is a common tactic people use to justify their views. If that authority cannot speak for itself and isn't well understood by the majority of people, it becomes really easy to twist it to ones ideals. Such as a Nazi saying "science says only the strong survive and the weak die, so let's kill off the weak so that collectively we'll be stronger". To a person that has heard "survival of the fittest" out of context, it can definitely sound like it says that. But, only to people that don't know "fittest" refers to reproductive success. You have to be IGNORANT of the science in order for this underhanded debate tactic to work.

The Archiv, which continued to be published right up through the Nazi period (until 1944), became one of the chief organs in Germany for the dissemination of eugenic ideas and provided a respectable scientific framework for other Nazi writers.

No shock there, honestly. You still have yet to demonstrate that evolution was at fault for this, rather than pre-existing racism.

Also I researched and read trough three lists of burned books and one on forbidden authors and Origin of Species was NOT one of them and Darwin was not on the list.

Hmm, my mistake, it is actually the Evolution of Man by Haeckel which is banned (all works by that author were banned in Nazi Germany). So, you are right, Darwin is not on the list of banned authors. As it turns out though, most books burned weren't explicitly listed.

Origin of Species being explicitly banned seems to be a misunderstanding that stems from certain ban requirements left to the discretion of the libraries given them. Namely, that " All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the people" were banned, as well as "Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism". The confusion is understandable. Since the books banned in Nazi Germany were only named by title if they were particularly offensive to the government (same goes with authors being listed), I wouldn't be shocked if some libraries burned Origin of Species, while others didn't.

Since I can't get clarification on whether or not Origin of Species would have been regularly burned, I'll cease to mention it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

again: if a spinning motor can evolve according to evolution why not a car?

Cars don't have DNA or anything like it.

 

[PsychoSarah]

we cant claim that the entire skeleton is made from nonsense parts.

Why not? It was a jumble of mostly crushed bones in a mishmash, and the vast majority of anthropologists don't view the fossil skeleton as accurate to what the bones belonged to. Protoavis representations look like this http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z6-BMZ76WEQ/VLyxgjbq6_I/AAAAAAAAAaI/q9af3x749Mc/s1600/protoavis-2.jpg, which is why I made the comment that the "beak" shape would likely be the result of the upper and lower jaw being smashed together (if that is even a skull). The vertebrae of the neck look anatomically wrong with their significant variations in thickness, especially with the thinner bones being towards the center of the neck when the vertebrae should be gradually larger or a relatively similar to each other as they go farther from the base of the skull. The "wing/arm" bones are positioned strangely in correspondence to the spine (should be positioned farther back) and the ones that are in the middle and end of the wing are weirdly short. I've taken anatomy and physiology courses, this fossil just doesn't look like the bones should go together this way, if they even all belong to the same animal.

we can clearly see that this fossils have a bird-like shape in general.

Sure, the bones are arranged to look like that. But with it being uncertain that those bones even all belong to the same species, I don't view that as very relevant.

so the question remains how all those parts can fit to form a bird-like creature. just a coincidence?

This atrocity is made of human fingernails https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5b/95/9d/5b959db31125b0f171520f4e0a739342.jpg

This is made of bones https://www.creativespotting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Untitled-back-2009.jpg

This is made from just chicken bones https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/89/3d/a4/893da45d343b0e7d504b9ed093302e2b.jpg

Also, the bones of that Protoavis weren't even that intact before being arranged like that, with fragments having to be glued together to even get that. Seriously, you can rearrange bones to look like a lot of things, it doesn't mean the bones belong in that position.

i dont think so. if so we can say that its just a coincidence that lucy bones fit to form a human-like ape.

Lucy's bones weren't found all crushed in a pile of bones from a multitude of species mixed around. Protoavis was the WORST CASE SCENARIO, this is not comparable to Lucy at all. Plus, what of the OTHER fossils of Lucy's species found? Unlike Protoavis, for which there is only one, there are more than a dozen different bodies for Lucy's species.

its a lots of bones. we cant exclude the possibility that this specific part belong to a human.

You are seriously saying "even though all the Protoavis fossils were in a jumbled pile of multiple species, that skeleton is definitely all from the same species, but those A. afarensis foot fossils found at a site in which there are only fossils of this species which do not match up to human proportions but indicate the presence of foot arches is quite possibly human". You think Protoavis being a real fossil would be an issue for evolution, so you defend it despite the fact that there are valid reasons to not view the fossil as legitimate. You think Lucy is a huge find for evolution, so you try to belittle it as much as possible, despite the fact that the crippling flaws of the Protoavis fossil don't even apply to Lucy's fossils or any others of her species.

You know what, here are two check lists for Protoavis and A. afarensis. The first lists traits that, if "YES", support the fossil being real and an accurate representation of the organism it is derived from. The second lists traits that, if "NO", support the fossil being real and an accurate representation of the organism it is derived from.

List 1:
Fossil bones were found in good condition: Protoavis "NO", A. afarensis "YES"
Fossil bones date consistently: Protoavis "YES", A. afarensis "YES"
Multiple fossils of this species have been discovered: Protoavis "NO", A. afarensis "Yes"
Multiple fossils of the same genus have been discovered: Protoavis "NO", A. afarensis "YES"
When analyzed by multiple, neutral professionals, the consensus is that all the bones belong to the same species: Protoavis "NO", A. afarensis "YES"

Protoavis 1, A. afarensis 5.

List 2 (points from this list count as negative):
Fossil bones were found among those of many different species: Protoavis "YES", A. afarensis "NO"
Fossil DNA cannot be extracted: Protoavis "YES", A. afarensis "YES".

So, the total after both short lists is Protoavis -1, A. afarensis 4. What objective means did you use to come by the conclusion that if I consider A. afarensis fossils to be put together correctly, then I should think that the Protoavis fossils were put together correctly? Because it seems plainly obvious to me that Protoavis is much less likely to represent a real organism than A. afarensis.

Furthermore, this isn't even the only species in the same genus as Lucy for which we have foot arches in fossils. A. sediba has a complete hand fossil from a single individual as well as foot bones with arches http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/4...tralopithecus_sediba_fossil_skeletons-SPL.jpg . The foot arches aren't even the most important bones for depicting bipedal walking, the hips are, and we have way more hips than foot bones. These are not

again: we can push back the evolution of mammals. scientists pushing back creatures all the time:

Earlier origin for flowering plants

And did they push back flowering plants to coming before non-flowering plants? No. And of course the fossil record timeline is going to adjust a bit as more fossils are discovered and make the timeline more accurate. However, you'll NEVER find a mammal in the Cambrian. Why is that, please give a non-evolution explanation as to why not a single mammal is ever found from the Cambrian.

so in every fossil that we found scientists not only date the fossil but also the layers around them?

Especially when the species is considered relevant to human evolution specifically. However, it's not like every trilobite dug up is dated, since their fossils are excessively common. The rock layers are always dated. If there is sufficient reason to suspect that a fossil's age cannot be derived accurately this way, usually the fossil will be dated as well.

see above with the flower case. by the same logic : till this discovery you never find such a flower that is date about 100 my younger. now we have found such a flower so we can just push it back.

Yet, that's not older than the first non-flowering plants on land, now is it? That's certainly not older than the first plant life that lived in water. Where is the order of appearance compromised? Additionally, it was pollen fossils in your reference. It's entirely possible that this pollen came from the ANCESTORS of flowering plants that did not produce flowers themselves, yet had similar pollen. It took me all of a few seconds to think of that possible explanation.

remember this one?:

| Biology Letters

Yeah, and I expanded my reading on the matter. It's a fossil thought to have ended up in older sedimentary layers thanks to fissures being prominent in the region in which it was found, due to it being morphologically very similar to modern reptiles despite being extremely old and genetic studies suggesting a divergence between iguanas and other squamates being more recent than this singular fossil would suggest. Yeah, whenever there is ONLY 1 fossil to go by, and the circumstances around the fossil in question make dating or identification particularly questionable (such as being crushed in a pile of a bunch of fossils from many different species, or, in the case of this particular fossil, being found in an area filled with fissures for animals to fall into), it's reasonable to cast doubt on the accuracy of the dating... the doubts were later CONFIRMED through molecular testing on the fossil itself. This situation is not comparable to Lucy, it's not even comparable to Protoavis. Why are you bringing it up?

""Any acrodontan—let alone an advanced agamid—in the Triassic is thus highly unexpected in the light of recent studies."

Yup, the fossil didn't quite fit with the genetic comparisons of various modern lizards or the rest of the fossil record... and was found in a place full of fissures. And it is the only fossil like that. It's deviant, hence the reason for investigation in the first place, as well as performing molecular tests on the fossil itself.

"Tikiguania estesi is widely accepted to be the earliest member of Squamata, the reptile group that includes lizards and snakes. It is based on a lower jaw from the Late Triassic of India"

Hmm, perhaps in 2011, this "widely accepted" statement was true, but later molecular studies of the fossil indicated it was much younger than the rock it was found in.

"It is extremely unlikely that Tikiguania is an advanced agamid from the Triassic, and that the draconine jaw ‘morphotype’ has persisted largely unchanged for 216 Myr."

Something quite interesting: Tikiguania estesi age was considered wrong even by the person that discovered it, who actually correctly identified it as being much younger. Also, all the important sources I can find in regards to this fossil mention the Triassic age as either being unreliable, or wrong. So... your point?

"Tikiguania would have been evidence for an anomalously early (i.e. Triassic) age for what molecular studies suggest is a highly derived squamate clade (Acrodonta), implying that all major clades of squamates such as iguanians, anguimorphs, snakes, scincomorphs and gekkotans had diverged in the Triassic. However, none of these groups appear unequivocally in the fossil record until substantially later [5]. Indeed, some recent palaeontological and molecular studies of squamate divergence dates have not mentioned Tikiguania, presumably because of its problematic nature"

Yeah, and? When there were molecular studies performed on the fossil itself, it was found to actually be much younger than the rock around it... so case closed. You never need to bring this up again.

 

[xianghua]

ok sarah. i have found this figure (look at figure 5):


Protoavis

i cant see how they can be so much wrong about this fossil. we have a lots of bones that clearly showing us a bird-like creature. but lets say that you are right and this fossil isnt a bird and from the other hand the lucy fossil is correct. even in this case it isnt an evidence for evolution. do you agree or disagree?

by the way: when the tikaalik was found they also had only one fossil and claimed that its an evidence for evolution base on one partial fossil.

And did they push back flowering plants to coming before non-flowering plants? No. Why is that, please give a non-evolution explanation as to why not a single mammal is ever found from the Cambrian.

2 options: all those mammals created after the reptiles. and b)the mammals population was too small to live any fossil.

and yes: if we can push back flowers we can push back also mammals. if for instance mammals appeared before reptiles we can claim that reptiles evolved from mammals

 

[Subduction Zone]

ok sarah. i have found this figure (look at figure 5):


Protoavis

i cant see how they can be so much wrong about this fossil. we have a lots of bones that clearly showing us a bird-like creature. but lets say that you are right and this fossil isnt a bird and from the other hand the lucy fossil is correct. even in this case it isnt an evidence for evolution. do you agree or disagree?

by the way: when the tikaalik was found they also had only one fossil and claimed that its an evidence for evolution base on one partial fossil.



2 options: all those mammals created after the reptiles. and b)the mammals population was too small to live any fossil.

and yes: if we can push back flowers we can push back also mammals. if for instance mammals appeared before reptiles we can claim that reptiles evolved from mammals

Of course those examples are evidence for the theory of evolution. It is undeniable evidence. Too bad that you do not seem to have a grasp on the concept. Would you like to go over it?

 

[PsychoSarah]

ok sarah. i have found this figure (look at figure 5):


Protoavis

-_- I asked for a better picture of the fossil, not a diagram. The fossil doesn't even look like this diagram. Look, that diagram would have you thinking there are fossil ribs, but look here https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Protoavis_paratype_skeletal.png not a single rib bone to be found. Furthermore, if there is a reverse toe to this "species", then why do you not see that arrangement for the fossil? What about the bones of the "hands" depicted in that diagram that in no way match up to this fossil. This diagram doesn't seem to represent the actual fossil at all.

i cant see how they can be so much wrong about this fossil.

-_- I've already told you, the bones were found in a crushed mess among bones belonging to multiple different species and were later glued together. Heck, individual bones could be composites of different bones belonging to different species. Furthermore, the only major advocate of that fossil is the guy that put it together. That should be a huge red flag in and of itself.

we have a lots of bones that clearly showing us a bird-like creature.

And I clearly showed you a violin skeleton. How did you miss my point that bones can be arranged to look like they belong to something they don't very easily?

but lets say that you are right and this fossil isnt a bird and from the other hand the lucy fossil is correct. even in this case it isnt an evidence for evolution. do you agree or disagree?

The fossil record in general serves as evidence for evolution. It's no longer the strongest evidence for evolution, thanks to genetic comparisons and various evolution experiments. It's the history of evolution, more or less. Also, again, what standards did you use to judge the authenticity of the A. afarensis fossil foot (which doesn't belong to Lucy, fyi) and the Protoavis fossil. I want to know how you could possible conclude the latter was more likely to be legitimate than the former.

by the way: when the tikaalik was found they also had only one fossil and claimed that its an evidence for evolution base on one partial fossil.

When Tiktaalik was discovered, 3 different individuals were found at the same site. I know this because it was relevant in a different debate thread. Furthermore, the Tiktaalik fossils are continuous pieces, like this http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/f2013/raabe_mic2/travelportal/Tiktaalik fossil.jpg
Oh, and not to forget this http://forskning.no/sites/default/f...ublic/112793_tmpnVbM_G_None.jpg?itok=9hPhC_Cm
this is the only one I have found that isn't all in one piece (view is from the bottom) http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge/image_1686_2e-Tiktaalik-roseae.jpg
It only takes a quick Google search to fact check yourself. These are pretty complete fossils too.

2 options: all those mammals created after the reptiles. and b)the mammals population was too small to live any fossil.

Addressing your first proposal: You have to provide evidence that this "creator" exists or used to exist before this explanation is worth considering.

Addressing your second proposal: No. If mammals were well adapted enough to survive in this time period, they would be numerous enough to leave fossils behind. Animals don't just have self-sustaining populations of just 100 individuals as the norm. Additionally, consider the shear variety of mammals that would have had to exist relatively unchanged for evolution to be invalid, and yet not fossilize. Not even leaving behind footprints. Even stating that the mammals happened to live in areas with poor conditions for fossilization would have been better than your proposal, even though that one is still pretty terrible.

and yes: if we can push back flowers we can push back also mammals.

Pushing back and changing the order are two different things, and you fail to acknowledge my comment that the pollen could have come from non-flower producing ancestors of flowering plants.

if for instance mammals appeared before reptiles we can claim that reptiles evolved from mammals

No, for these reasons:
1. the genetics don't pan out. Reptiles are genetically closer to amphibians than mammals are to amphibians, but reptiles should be genetically farther away from amphibians if they evolved from mammals (thus making them a more distant evolutionary line).
2. the physiology wouldn't make any sense. Mammals, unlike reptiles, can have sustained, long term, significant movement thanks to differences in the muscle cells (example, I could run for an hour straight, but a reptile could never hope to do that). There's no advantage to reptiles having lost that ability through evolution, thus it doesn't make any sense.

 

[xianghua]

ok sarah, i will focus in the main points.

again, lets say that lucy indeed had this foot arch. it cant be evidence for evolution because two reasons:

1) we can find "modern" traits even among older primates. for instance: the long-nosed monkey have a human-like nose. but he actually more primitive then apes like the chimp or the gorila. so a modern trait (like the foot arch) mean nothing even according to evolution.

2)we can find the same progress in human-made objects. but it doesnt prove any evolution.

Addressing your first proposal: You have to provide evidence that this "creator" exists or used to exist before this explanation is worth considering.

1) i think that we can do that. you may check this argument here:

the self replicating watch argument


2)you also need to prove that evolution can change a reptile into a mammal to consider this as a valid possibility.

Pushing back and changing the order are two different things, and you fail to acknowledge my comment that the pollen could have come from non-flower producing ancestors of flowering plants.

they are both possible according to evolution. we can push back even the entire fossil record.

No, for these reasons:
1. the genetics don't pan out. Reptiles are genetically closer to amphibians than mammals are to amphibians, but reptiles should be genetically farther away from amphibians if they evolved from mammals (thus making them a more distant evolutionary line).

in this case we can claim for different selection pressure that made this result (for instance we can say that reptiles genomes was changed much more faster then mammals and amphibians) . or even claiming for convergent evolution between mammals and amphibians.

 

[Job 33:6]

ok sarah, i will focus in the main points.
in this case we can claim for different selection pressure that made this result (for instance we can say that reptiles genomes was changed much more faster then mammals and amphibians) . or even claiming for convergent evolution between mammals and amphibians.

Genetics identify more than mere "similarity", they demonstrate order and timing of evolution as well. Claiming something like, oh they just evolved faster, wouldnt survive 10 minutes in any peer reviewed environment. And, the comment about convergent evolution between amphibians and mammals doesnt make sense, as the two are nothing alike.

Paleontology and genetics are independent fields. And, there are examples of geneticisits and paleontologists arguing over timing and order of evolution (at times). But the two are ultimately synchronized. A good example of this is ah, the story of ramapithecus. In which paleontologists had ramapithecus fossils and dated a significant piece of human evolution at 14 million years, while geneticists tagged it at 8 million years. The difference here as well is small, but its just an example. It wasn't until later that paleontologists found more complete specimens of ramepithecus, that they ultimately gave in and admitted their mistakes, thus re alligning genetics with paleontology as it always has been.

If you found mammals prior to amphibians or fish, it would be a major battleground and the theory of evolution would likely collapse. But take for example those tetrapod tracks found 15 or so million years before tiktaalik. The difference in time (15 my) is so fine that the discovery, while it raises peoples brows, isnt something heavily disputed or fought over, because it isnt a significant enough change that could not be reconciled by either field.

 

[pshun2404]

Twist in what way? Your argument is that evolution is shoved into the political spectrum while nothing else is (or, at least, not to that extent). This is factually wrong. Furthermore, evolution wasn't a court issue because of its validity being in question; it became an issue because creationists like you didn't like it because you viewed it as clashing with your beliefs. It was people like you that made it a huge issue. Not academics questioning if the theory had enough evidence supporting it to justify it being taught in public schools. Not psychologists or others in the social sciences that thought it would have a negative impact on the minds of youths thanks to research suggesting as much. No, it was people that had barely any knowledge about the theory but viewed it as a threat to their religious dogma that made it a huge deal.

-_- just because he uses both terms doesn't mean he doesn't use them interchangeably or similarly. Language has a lot of redundancy, and he uses the term "races" in reference to cabbages and other non-human organisms. In fact, I don't think Darwin even used the term in reference to humans in Origin of Species. Freaking read a paragraph of the text, seriously.

If that were the case, then people more educated about evolution should be more likely to be racist than people that know nothing about the theory. This is not the case. Those most likely to be racist are people raised in racist households. That, and people whose education is lacking in general.

But, you think founding principles of evolution imply racism. Name the ones you think are. My best guess would be that you think natural selection is racist, so I'll go about disproving that idea right now. Natural selection suggests that what survives and reproduces best in a given environment is what becomes prominent in the population and persists. If you view the different "human races" as being shaped by natural selection as to what would best suit the environment, the best conclusion one could make is that each given "race" is best at surviving in the environment from which they arose. As a result, no race would be universally superior to any other by default.

Seriously, I challenge you to actually demonstrate that any of the key principles in evolutionary theory are inherently racism. If you don't know what the key principles are, I'll give you a nice list to start you off: natural selection, heredity, mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, adaptation, speciation, variation, and extinction. Just to avoid confusion, "biased mutation" refers to the fact that not all mutations are equally probable, not racial bias.

-_- he doesn't even get a mention in modern text books. I didn't even know who Haeckel was until I was a member of this site. You're right in that his drawings should never have been in text books (aside from, perhaps, for historical context). It's not like late and midterm miscarriages didn't occur often enough to have a decent human embryo as a model for drawing.

However, as far as "memorized by thousands", the drawings were just a tool to depict a CORRECT scientific conclusion that was verified independently later on (not phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny, but rather the similarity in how embryos of different vertebrates develop). The most recent textbook I can find that utilized Haeckel's drawings was from 1998. Some claim there are ones that use nearly exact drawings but colored in, but when I look at them, they have anatomical details Haeckel's don't as well as being more anatomically analogous to embryo pictures, so I don't consider those to be a use of Haeckel's drawings.

I don't know how long after Haeckel's recapitulation theory was disproven that it was still in text books. The sources I find that mention it only say that it remained in them (and as incorrect "common knowledge) for some time after. It's terrible when outdated information remains taught in schools, though science isn't the only subject that falls victim to it. History textbooks often have issues. A more recent issue when it comes to science is that a textbook is liable to become outdated within a year thanks to the speed of scientific progress in various fields. Most public schools just can't afford to keep up with that. My AP biology instructor actually would correct the textbook from time to time, since it was 5 years behind.

Read up on him, and what a piece of work this guy was. He founded a racist youth society at the age of 29. This guy was extremely racist before reading Darwin's or Haeckel's work, and continued to be a person of such low standing that the censors on this site prevent me from using the proper words to express how negatively I view this person after reading about him.

However, again, no evidence suggests that it was evolution that made him racist.

Sure, like Aristotle was viewed as a great intellectual mind during his life, even though most of his understanding of the world was proven incorrect many years later. Haeckel's theory had yet to be disproven during Ploetz's most prominent academic years.

Appealing to authority is a common tactic people use to justify their views. If that authority cannot speak for itself and isn't well understood by the majority of people, it becomes really easy to twist it to ones ideals. Such as a Nazi saying "science says only the strong survive and the weak die, so let's kill off the weak so that collectively we'll be stronger". To a person that has heard "survival of the fittest" out of context, it can definitely sound like it says that. But, only to people that don't know "fittest" refers to reproductive success. You have to be IGNORANT of the science in order for this underhanded debate tactic to work.

No shock there, honestly. You still have yet to demonstrate that evolution was at fault for this, rather than pre-existing racism.

Hmm, my mistake, it is actually the Evolution of Man by Haeckel which is banned (all works by that author were banned in Nazi Germany). So, you are right, Darwin is not on the list of banned authors. As it turns out though, most books burned weren't explicitly listed.

Origin of Species being explicitly banned seems to be a misunderstanding that stems from certain ban requirements left to the discretion of the libraries given them. Namely, that " All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the people" were banned, as well as "Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism". The confusion is understandable. Since the books banned in Nazi Germany were only named by title if they were particularly offensive to the government (same goes with authors being listed), I wouldn't be shocked if some libraries burned Origin of Species, while others didn't.

Since I can't get clarification on whether or not Origin of Species would have been regularly burned, I'll cease to mention it.

"Origin of Species being explicitly banned seems to be a misunderstanding that stems from certain ban requirements left to the discretion of the libraries given them. Namely, that " All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the people" were banned"

This is exactly what I mean. I have ONLY heard this claim from atheists with an agenda. Hitler HATED Christianity (considered it a bastard child of Jewry) therefore that never was an aspect the Nazis considered. ALL libraries in Germany were under the control of their edicts (and they had better have not been caught ignoring them).

"I wouldn't be shocked if some libraries burned Origin of Species, while others didn't."

But since there is not one iota of evidence even indicating this took place we can eliminate that assumption as well.

 

[pshun2404]

Genetics identify more than mere "similarity", they demonstrate order and timing of evolution as well. Claiming something like, oh they just evolved faster, wouldnt survive 10 minutes in any peer reviewed environment. And, the comment about convergent evolution between amphibians and mammals doesnt make sense, as the two are nothing alike.

Paleontology and genetics are independent fields. And, there are examples of geneticisits and paleontologists arguing over timing and order of evolution (at times). But the two are ultimately synchronized. A good example of this is ah, the story of ramapithecus. In which paleontologists had ramapithecus fossils and dated a significant piece of human evolution at 14 million years, while geneticists tagged it at 8 million years. The difference here as well is small, but its just an example. It wasn't until later that paleontologists found more complete specimens of ramepithecus, that they ultimately gave in and admitted their mistakes, thus re alligning genetics with paleontology as it always has been.

If you found mammals prior to amphibians or fish, it would be a major battleground and the theory of evolution would likely collapse. But take for example those tetrapod tracks found 15 or so million years before tiktaalik. The difference in time (15 my) is so fine that the discovery, while it raises peoples brows, isnt something heavily disputed or fought over, because it isnt a significant enough change that could not be reconciled by either field.

I agree 100% about the correction process, and I am so proud that eventually some scientists get honest and correct earlier mistakes. The problem for me is the mistakes are often taught as true for too long (like ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny), brainwashing too many innocently inquiring minds. But it is good that scientists attempt to correct each other.

And yes 15 my in geological time is slight, but what this says is that Tik is NOT the transitional BETWEEN fish and tetrapods, which has been taught as true for decades. Dawkins called Tik the PERFECT example and let's face it, he was being opinionated, and has been proven incorrect. But who knows we might find other fossils in the future that will change the narrative again. The narrative is almost never the fact, it is a hypothesis driven story attached to explain so it fits the hypothesis (in my opinion not good science).

 

[Job 33:6]

I agree 100% about the correction process, and I am so proud that eventually some scientists get honest and correct earlier mistakes. The problem for me is the mistakes are often taught as true for too long (like ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny), brainwashing too many innocently inquiring minds. But it is good that scientists attempt to correct each other.

And yes 15 my in geological time is slight, but what this says is that Tik is NOT the transitional BETWEEN fish and tetrapods, which has been taught as true for decades. Dawkins called Tik the PERFECT example and let's face it, he was being opinionated, and has been proven incorrect. But who knows we might find other fossils in the future that will change the narrative again. The narrative is almost never the fact, it is a hypothesis driven story attached to explain so it fits the hypothesis (in my opinion not good science).

Value still remains in tiktaalik, as its morphological traits are truly traits of both tetrapod (it has rotating wrist bones, a mobile neck, lungs etc.) and fish (fins, gills, scales etc.). Even if tiktaalik were not the one and only first species that underwent the transition, it doesnt defeat what can be learned about the transition of fish to tetrapod from its bones.

Every fossil found is of a species that more than likely has gone extinct. But just because a species goes extinct, and may not be -the- specific species that is our ancestor, doesn't mean that its morphological traits are useless in giving insight as to where, when and how evolutionary transitions occurred.

A transitional fossil is a fossil that carries traits of ancestral and derived groups, but itself doesnt need to be a fossil of the soul organism that has been present, beginning to end throughout all of earth history.

And with that, while tiktaalik may not have been the beginning to end or first to last, it still could very well have been a closely related cousin of that specific transitional (which is what 99% fossils are, they are likely all closely related cousins).

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So personally, i would still call it a transitional form, and a good one. Because it was likely a closely related organism to that which was the first to undergo the transition, in relatively recent times before it. Even the tracks found shortly before it, those tracks likely arent of the first tetrapods either. Rather they are more likely another close relative that collectively were a part of a fish to tetrapod radiation.

If hypothetically we were to say that tiktaalik were not a transitional fossil, on the basis that it were merely a closely related relative that actually went extinct. Then we could probably say the same for 99% of other transitional fossils, which by that definition would mean there are no true transitional fossils, just fossils that show the transition that were merely closely related to the original species that underwent the transition.

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To try to summarize what im saying, I think there is just a misconception about what a transitional fossil is and what paleontologists are capable of depicting. And that misconception could be for both those who oppose the theory of evolution and those who support it. And I think people look at things like the tracks in poland, and try to downplay it all, as if there is no pattern at all and as if it is all random. As if tiktaalik didnt actually have traits of both tetrapod and fish. While others may even look at a group of fossils and say. yes that is in the most literal sense, my great ancestor (which could never truly be known in a fossil that is 400 million years old).

And as for the narrative, well, in this world where the media is driven by entertainment and motives, i suppose there will always be uncertainty in how things are depicted. Especially when it comes to something as entertaining as religion vs science.

 

[Gene2memE]

"I wouldn't be shocked if some libraries burned Origin of Species, while others didn't."

But since there is not one iota of evidence even indicating this took place we can eliminate that assumption as well.

Maybe not book burning of the Origin of Species specifically, but the Nazi Party's 1935 official list of books for lending libraries - known as the 'Principles for the Cleansing of Public Libraries' - barred the following:

"6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Haeckel)"