Intermediate fossils

[Skaloop]

apes were apparently a "ancestor" of humans. If apes evolved into humans, then why are there still apes?

That is one of the biggest PRATTs around, and easily refuted. For starters, consider this counter-example: If Europeans came over and became Americans, why are there still Europeans? The answer is simple; because not every group of apes became humans. Really, only one did. Although technically, your question makes no sense because humans are apes, but I'll go with the spirit of your question. You must stop thinking of evolution as a ladder, moving from ape to human, and more of a tree. At point A, there was an ape-like creature. It wasn't human, and it wasn't like a modern ape. Like a fork in a road, there is a branching that causes two groups of this early ape to be separated. After thousands, perhaps millions of years, you get modern humans and modern apes on one branch each. So why wouldn't there still be apes around?

Some may argue that apes have yet to die off, in this case....why are A HUGE MAJORITY of the intermediate stages of apes no longer alive (this includes all animals present today, not just humans!)?

To answer your question on its surface, it's because of the simple fact that the vast, vast majority of species to ever exist on Earth are extinct. And since they were all transitionals of some kind...

Anyway, it doesn't matter why they aren't around any more. It's likely due to competition between similar species (say, us and Neanderthals) that ended up with one surviving while the other didn't. But regardless of how it happened, extinct transitionals pose no problem for evolution.

 

[pyro214]

If Europeans came over and became Americans, why are there still Europeans?

Yea except it involved WAY more then one transition, Americans became Canadians became Italians became ....X millions...became Europeans (yet only Americans and/or Europeans exist....). People argue now that evolution is unlikley because there is no hazards promoting us to evolve, while this hazard vs. time graph has to have some kind of slop that has been decreasing. Why arent humans that are noticably differnt but similar to us still around if the rate of hazards has been decreasing?

Maybe this might not make sense, my next statment will reinforce it.

not every group of apes became humans.

Then why did every group of "intermediate stages" become humans?
(following statment deals with "dieing off")
And what ever happened to survival of the fittest, if various species of humans kept on progressings forward yet divisions in the groups, branches of the tree, caused some of the humans not to evolve. What kept these branched off humans from outliving the varios types of monkeys/apes (whatever you call them?? [and this would most likley of had to take place more then once]

vast majority of species to ever exist on Earth are extinct.

Surley not every transitional stage of EVERY CREATURE would become extinct except for the current stage? (remember this goes far beyond humans)

 

[Edx]

depends on your view of a "transitional fossil"
to say hes wrong and just drop the question is merely a fallacy used to avoid answering the question.

If Creationists say something isnt a transitional fossil then they need to come up with a definition of one.

reply to my example of his statment:
apes were apparently a "ancestor" of humans. If apes evolved into humans, then why are there still apes?

I dont understand how youve managed to be on this board for so long yet still dont understand anything.

Humans evolved from ape ancesters, and are still apes today. We didnt change into anything else, humans are just modified apes as are other apes in their own way. To ask why there are still apes is like asking why there are different breeds of dog when they were all bred from a common wild ancestor that still exists, or why if you decended from your grandparents, why you still have cousins.

 

[FishFace]

We can imagine the atmosphere was different 80 thousand years ago; mostly argon.

Evidence? The early atmosphere is thought to be mostly Nitrogen and Hydrogen.

Animals grew bigger, lived longer.

Evidence? Is this linked to your previous claim? If the atmosphere was made mostly of argon, then there would be little chance of anything living at all. Without nitrogen, we could synthesize amino acids for example. (A lack of nitrogen causes a much bigger problem than a lack of oxygen for the early earth, if you believe in evolution, since nothing would be requiring oxygen, probably)

Days were longer.

Evidence?

This means the dates arrived at by radiometric dating are way off. As far as ice dating goes, I don't know.

Premise: I am right
Fact: Evidence contradicts me
Conclusion: Evidence is wrong.

Whereas the reasoning process is more normally, and more productively:

Fact: Evidence is X.
Conclusion: Something compatible with X.

 

[Herman Hedning]

We can imagine the atmosphere was different 80 thousand years ago; mostly argon. Animals grew bigger, lived longer. Days were longer.

We can imagine lots of things, but then it is just that - a figment of our imagination.

 

[pyro214]

Humans evolved from ape ancesters, and are still apes today. We didnt change into anything else, humans are just modified apes as are other apes in their own way.

try reading all my posts rather then one, what you quoted had already been replied to and i revised my statment....its post #302.

Heres some of it:

not every group of apes became humans.

Then why did every group of "intermediate stages" become humans?
(following statment deals with "dieing off")
And what ever happened to survival of the fittest, if various species of humans kept on progressings forward yet divisions in the groups, branches of the tree, caused some of the humans not to evolve. What kept these branched off humans from outliving the varios types of monkeys/apes (whatever you call them?? [and this would most likley of had to take place more then once]

vast majority of species to ever exist on Earth are extinct.

Surley not every transitional stage of EVERY CREATURE would become extinct except for the current stage? (remember this goes far beyond humans)

and you seem to get confused when i call humans differnt then "intermediate stages" or "apes"....i thought you would know that i oppose evolution, and therefore see intermediate stages and apes as completley differnt species. Now since you call every birth a new "intermediate stage", i hope that you know im not refering to that, im refering to a distinct stage of a well defined human with some "ape" like characteristics.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Then why did every group of "intermediate stages" become humans?
(following statment deals with "dieing off")
And what ever happened to survival of the fittest, if various species of humans kept on progressings forward yet divisions in the groups, branches of the tree, caused some of the humans not to evolve. What kept these branched off humans from outliving the varios types of monkeys/apes (whatever you call them?? [and this would most likley of had to take place more then once]


Surley not every transitional stage of EVERY CREATURE would become extinct except for the current stage? (remember this goes far beyond humans)

The easier way to visualize things is to stop thinking in terms of discrete stages. Instead, think of continuous gene pools.

You have a gene pool that's changing over time. Individuals within the gene pool produce offspring and die off. So there is this continual turnover and change in any given gene pool.

Parts of the gene pool might seperate and become genetically isolated, forming new gene pools which will go on to change along a different "path" than the original gene pool. And sometimes entire gene pools go extinct.

In terms of each gene pool, the entire gene pool is shifting via breeding, mutation, selection, and so on. So the "current stage" in any given gene pool is always going to be the most recent stage of that gene pool. The same is likewise for any gene pools that may have branched off into their own distinct gene pools.

It's really important to be able to understand that populations (i.e. gene pools) evolve. When you can conceptualize that, then the rest will make sense.

 

[pyro214]

The easier way to visualize things is to stop thinking in terms of discrete stages. Instead, think of continuous gene pools.

You have a gene pool that's changing over time. Individuals within the gene pool produce offspring and die off. So there is this continual turnover and change in any given gene pool.

Parts of the gene pool might seperate and become genetically isolated, forming new gene pools which will go on to change along a different "path" than the original gene pool. And sometimes entire gene pools go extinct.

In terms of each gene pool, the entire gene pool is shifting via breeding, mutation, selection, and so on. So the "current stage" in any given gene pool is always going to be the most recent stage of that gene pool. The same is likewise for any gene pools that may have branched off into their own distinct gene pools.

It's really important to be able to understand that populations (i.e. gene pools) evolve. When you can conceptualize that, then the rest will make sense.

i dont get it :S

 

[RedAndy]

Surley not every transitional stage of EVERY CREATURE would become extinct except for the current stage? (remember this goes far beyond humans)

Generally speaking, that would be the case. (And don't call me Shirley )

The principle of competitive exclusion states that two species that occupy the same ecological niche will compete so fiercely that one would be eliminated. In this case, a new species would eliminate its ancestral species if they lived in the same area (or vice versa).

So yes, it is quite likely that most organisms that are ancestral to modern organisms have been outcompeted and driven to extinction. Furthermore, other ancestral populations could all have evolved into new species, so there was no ancestral population to wipe out.

 

[pyro214]

Generally speaking, that would be the case. (And don't call me Shirley )

The principle of competitive exclusion states that two species that occupy the same ecological niche will compete so fiercely that one would be eliminated. In this case, a new species would eliminate its ancestral species if they lived in the same area (or vice versa).

So yes, it is quite likely that most organisms that are ancestral to modern organisms have been outcompeted and driven to extinction. Furthermore, other ancestral populations could all have evolved into new species, so there was no ancestral population to wipe out.

still should be a large majority that have not been driven away/ evolved?

 

[Edx]

try reading all my posts rather then one, what you quoted had already been replied to and i revised my statment....its post #302.

If you had said something like, oops I should have know, I would have taken that into consideration and not corrected you, but instead you just defended your original statment.

Then why did every group of "intermediate stages" become humans?

Did you mean to write "why didNT", above? Because not all "intermediate stages" did become human.

And what ever happened to survival of the fittest, if various species of humans kept on progressings forward yet divisions in the groups, branches of the tree, caused some of the humans not to evolve. What kept these branched off humans from outliving the varios types of monkeys/apes

You seem confused, can you clarify what you are saying?

vast majority of species to ever exist on Earth are extinct.

Surley not every transitional stage of EVERY CREATURE would become extinct except for the current stage? (remember this goes far beyond humans)

Not every ancestral lineage is extinct in all animals. But realise that Evolution will still continue in the original population unless it goes extinct which tends to happen when you have 2 species in this way that are now competing with each other when one has an adaptation that is more beneficial. But assuming that doesnt happen imagine population B splits from A and and so they can no longer successfully reproduce and therefore cannot share genetic material. If we fastforwarded time they get further and further different and varied from each other as time goes on.

and you seem to get confused when i call humans differnt then "intermediate stages" or "apes"....i thought you would know that i oppose evolution, and therefore see intermediate stages and apes as completley differnt species.

You arent using the term species correctly. If you arent going to use it properly dont use it. "Kind" has no scientific definition, and you are using species as if it means kind.

Now since you call every birth a new "intermediate stage",

No I dont. You need to stop thinking of evolution as "stages" in this way. It doesnt work like that.

i hope that you know im not refering to that, im refering to a distinct stage of a well defined human with some "ape" like characteristics.

Human characteristics ARE ape characteristics. We didnt just evolve from apes, we're STILL apes now. Think of it this way. Duck characteristics ARE bird characteristics, but not all birds have duck characteristics. For the same reason humans are still apes but not all apes are human. So ducks are still birds, and humans are still apes. Humans are apes by every objective criteria as are ducks being birds and ducks didnt just stop being birds because they gained duck characteristics.

You cant be given a dictinct stage of a well defined human because the point is further back in homo sapians lineage the animal will look closer toward the original species they evolved from. The point at whcih we say "this is a human now" is arbitary. The issue is the futher back you go all life will look more and more similar to each other.

 

[RedAndy]

still should be a large majority that have not been driven away/ evolved?

No, because the principles of ecology work against the idea that ancestral species should be able to coexist with new species. An ancestral species that existed alongside a species that had evolved from it would be the exception, not the rule - and a highly unlikely exception at that.

Moreover, remember that evolution is happening all the time - any population that is isolated from any other will almost certainly follow different evolutionary pathways due to different environmental conditions. Thus we cannot even properly say that one population is "ancestral" to another, because both have been evolving, so to speak, for the same amount of time.

 

[JohnR7]

Real science does not do this. Real science does not have unbased assumption. Creationism does.

Creationism is Real Science. Creationism is any science that shows the Bible is true.

There are some things we accept on faith. But there are also lots and lots of things in our Bible that science can verify as being true. That is creation science.

If you want to get into a non scientific discussion of the Bible then that would be apologetics.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Creationism is Real Science. Creationism is any science that shows the Bible is true.

Re-inventing words again are we? Why can't you just play along with the definitions that everyone else uses?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Creationism is Real Science.

No, it is not. Creationism is a religious movement that is unscientific by the very foundations and definitions of science.

Creationism is any science that shows the Bible is true.

Creationism: the unscientific idea that the universe, the Earth, terrestrial life, and/or human life was created or otherwise directed by an external deity; typically used in leu of a literal Bible;

Science: the method of logically deducing the most likely expanation of why a given set of data is the way it is (e.g., the Theory of Evolution explains why Evolution behaves as it does).

Bible: a logically inconsistent set of documents; held by some to be sacred, divinely inspired, and/or literally true (i.e., both internally logically consistent, and non-contradictory to reality).

True: a statement in a given scenario is true if it completely correlates with said scenario (e.g., 'pigs can fly' is not true in reality, since pigs cannot fly in reality). When used in 'The Bible is true', is equivalent to 'literally true', is equivalent to 'both internally and externally logically consistent'.

These are my own definitions off the top of my head. If anyone spots any flaws, please tell me so I can annotate them (I'll be using them in my own dictionary of terms that I've defined in debates).

Anyway, the point was that your statement ('Creationism is any science that shows the Bible is true.') is catagorically false. You are, in fact, referring to the archaic practices of the first scientists, who set out to demonstrate YHWH and the Bible in reality.

There are some things we accept on faith. But there are also lots and lots of things in our Bible that science can verify as being true. That is creation science.

... no. Creation 'science' is any attempt to incorporate one or more religious creation myths (e.g., Genesis) into a scientifically valid hypothesis. So far, all attempts have failed.

To be blunt, the Bible's validity is irrelevant to Creationism, although most Creationists have the overarching goal of incorporating the Bible's creation myth.

If you want to get into a non scientific discussion of the Bible then that would be apologetics.

Scientifically, the Bible is nothing more than a set of documents of questionable authorships and logical consistancy. No more, no less.