Is evolution a fact or theory?

[NobleMouse]

To: @KomatiiteBIF and @The Barbarian

Thank you brothers for the illustrations and explanations - I love visuals... it would seem I am a visual learner

It isnt that PE proposes that there are no intermediate forms (3 proto horses are noted in the figure above, for example). Rather, it proposes that intermediate forms are of rarer occurrence due to variable rates of evolution.

Yes, and I didn't mean to infer that Gould nor PE suggests there are absolutely no intermediate forms, but rather to suggest that PE is the response in reaction to the apparent lack of supposed transitional fossils under the conventional paradigm. Under the conventional paradigm there are fossils labeled as transitional fossils, just less than originally expected back in the 19th century.

While I see from the visual that the intent is still to suggest the same amount of time passes with or without PE, PE (even if unintentionally) challenges the long-age assumptions (which I understand are ultimately based off of conventional geological assumptions) as we know that variability can and in some cases does appear within a single generation. Put another way, I believe the reason Darwin corresponded with Lyell before publishing On the Origin of Species is because Darwin's assumptions were that many slow and gradual changes occur, not few changes happening rapidly... so he needed the deep time that results from uniformitarianism assumptions in order for his theory to be plausible.

As the geologic record itself exists in a PE manner. Rocks do not exist in an infinite number of layers, so why should fossils?

Good observation!

@The Barbarian
Sorry, I am not good at multi-quoting, so please pardon if it seems 'choppy'. I also appreciate you adding the images of Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Going back to my post (#110) these affirm the high hopes and enthusiasm of looking to find transitional fossils. I believe prior to these, the 'hopes' of finding the magical "missing link" previously rested on Eusthenopteron; however, it is now widely agreed by secular scientists (and of course creationist scientists too) that this was strictly aquatic. Time will tell in how Acanthostega and Ichthyostega are viewed under the conventional paradigm.

Creationist scientists (and even some that operate under the conventional paradigm) see a number of challenges with the current sea-to-land 'transitional fossil' sequence:

1 - The shoulder girdles of the Devonian tetrapods do not represent an "in between" structure from the fishes believed to have evolved from and the later tetrapods of which they are believed to have evolved into - they are unique and functional for their created purpose.
2 - The earliest tetrapod fossils are found in late Frasnian sediments, but their presumed ancestors are barely older. I believe this may be, in part, the type of situation that necessitated the theory of PE.
3 - The supposed morphological transition from paired fins to limbs / digits are not evident by the fossils and the proposed sequence in the transition does not follow a clear/logical flow (again, going to the diagram of PE provided by K-BIF of the horse... the artist makes it look logical/progressive... which we do not see when looking at the actual fossils):

4 - In fish the head, shoulder girdle, and circulatory systems operate as a single mechanical unit. The shoulder girdle is firmly connected to the vertebral column and is an anchor for the muscles involved in lateral undulation of the body, mouth opening, heart contractions, and timing of the blood circulation through the gills, whereas in amphibians the head is not connected to the shoulder girdle, in order to allow effective terrestrial feeding and locomotion. Evolutionists must suppose that the head became incrementally detached from the shoulder girdle, in phased fashion, with functional intermediates at every stage while at the same time (and unrelated), progressively developing functional appendages to support the weight on land.

Creationist scientists identify these as Chimeromorphs where what we see is that each created kind is a unique combination of traits that can individually be shared with members of other unrelated groups. Day 5 God made fish (and birds), day 6 God made (among other beasts, livestock, and man) tetrapods. Tetrapods remain tetrapods and fish remain fish; however, operating in an common environment, both can develop similar qualities for thriving in that environment. Under this paradigm the fish does not become a tetrapod any more than a dinosaur becomes a bird, but the two can develop similar features because they are beneficial to that environment, hence the diversity we see in life today, which under the biblical creationism paradigm occurs in only thousands of years.

As you know, I am not formally educated as a scientist, so much of what I stated above is cited from creationist scientific research (by those who are formally educated), so I feel it appropriate to at least informally reference where I got the bulk of the material.

Sources:
Fossil Record of Tetrapods: Evidence of a Evolutionary Transition
The fossil record of ‘early’ tetrapods: evidence of a major evolutionary transition? - creation.com

Best regards and God bless!

 

[Job 33:6]

@NobleMouse

What you need to factor into the equation, is that tetrapods came after fish, and dinosaur like birds, after theropods with feathers.

You can claim that their morphological similarities exist simply because that is the way God made them. But the sequence is what is significant.

The rest of your post just appears to be opinion based, so I will let it go.

 

[NobleMouse]

You speak as if tiktaalik is a single specimen. Several specimen have been discovered (at least 10 individual tiktaaliks). They have robust shoulder bones, and wrist bones that rotate, with flat heads with eyes on top like an alligator. Their skulls are also unfused from the rest of their body.

I recognize multiple specimens exist. The pelvis of Tiktaalik is significantly different in structure to even in the earliest known tetrapods, so "robust" is relative and the jury is still out for many as to whether Tiktaalik actually could actually walk in the same sense as an aligator.

These certainly are not fish. And by trying to debate the point, all you are doing is justifying its place as a mixture and transitional between the two. The only reason we are able to even have this dispute is because tiktaalik is both fish and non fish, in one body.

Jennifer Clack has been cited as stating:
"There remains a large morphological gap between them and digits as seen in, for example, Acanthostega: if the digits evolved from these distal bones, the process must have involved considerable developmental repatterning. …"

and

"Of course, there are still major gaps in the fossil record. In particular we have almost no information about the step between Tiktaalik and the earliest tetrapods, when the anatomy underwent the most drastic changes, or about what happened in the following Early Carboniferous period, after the end of the Devonian, when tetrapods became fully terrestrial."

Source:
Tiktaalik roseae--a fishy 'missing link' - creation.com

I understand that for you the matter is settled, but just pointing out that even among the leading scientists in the study of Tiktaalik they admit much is unknown, the gap has not been filled. So, just as a lay observer, I propose we as Christians remain cautious to not go running through the streets proclaiming something as absolutely irrefutable when it may be a little premature to do so.

Peace and best regards -

 

[NobleMouse]

@NobleMouse

What you need to factor into the equation, is that tetrapods came after fish, and dinosaur like birds, after theropods with feathers.

You can claim that their morphological similarities exist simply because that is the way God made them. But the sequence is what is significant.

The rest of your post just appears to be opinion based, so I will let it go.

Timing of what came after what is only found in the Bible. Otherwise is based upon geological assumptions (uniformitarianism), correct?

Rest of what I wrote in post #121 was largely citations from creationist scientists with little added of my lay opinions. I understand you do not agree with the conclusions of their research, which is fine.

 

[Job 33:6]

@NobleMouse

You brought up the pelvis, but i wasnt talking about the pelvis with my use of "robust". The rest of your post is just talk.

 

[Job 33:6]

Tiktaaliks bones are certainly robust.

 

[Job 33:6]

Timing of what came after what is only found in the Bible. Otherwise is based upon geological assumptions (uniformitarianism), correct?

Rest of what I wrote in post #121 was largely citations from creationist scientists with little added of my lay opinions. I understand you do not agree with the conclusions of their research, which is fine.

See my posts, Old Earth Geology Parts 1 and 2 to better understand geologic time.

 

[The Barbarian]

es, and I didn't mean to infer that Gould nor PE suggests there are absolutely no intermediate forms, but rather to suggest that PE is the response in reaction to the apparent lack of supposed transitional fossils under the conventional paradigm. Under the conventional paradigm there are fossils labeled as transitional fossils, just less than originally expected back in the 19th century.

No. If you read Darwin's book, you'll see that he was rather pessimistic about finding transitional fossils. By that time, it was realized that fossilization was rather rare, and the likelihood of finding lot of transitional forms was considered to be rather low.

But the imperfection in the geological record largely results from another and more important cause than any of the foregoing; namely, from the several formations being separated from each other by wide intervals of time. This doctrine has been emphatically admitted by many geologists and palaeontologists, who, like E. Forbes, entirely disbelieve in the change of species. When we see the formations tabulated in written works, or when we follow them in nature, it is difficult to avoid believing that they are closely consecutive. But we know, for instance, from Sir R. Murchison's great work on Russia, what wide gaps there are in that country between the superimposed formations; so it is in North America, and in many other parts of the world.
Charles Darwin The Origin of Species
Chapter X: On the Imperfection of the Geological Record

Darwin was aware that we frequently have no record of long stretches of time over vast areas, and living things from those times, in those areas will not be recorded as fossils.

We're getting a lot better at figuring out where to look, but much of the life that once existed, will never be found as fossils. But that is primarily at the species level, since higher taxa take longer to evolved and transitionals there are much more abundant. Let's try an experiment.

You give me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, and I'll see if I can find a transitional. You can do several of those, if you like. You're on.

 

[dcalling]

Did you see my post about tiktaalik?

You have one fish that looks like have some legs. How do you explain the lack of any gradual transitions? They all jump, no matter how you think they evolved from one to the other. All the finer gradual transitions can't be all destroyed can they?

That is why those are not real scientific evidence, you need repeatable, verifiable tests to be able to change a hypothesis to theory.

 

[Job 33:6]

You have one fish that looks like have some legs.

Well, to be fair it is more than just one fish with legs. So the question becomes, how many transitional fossils is it that you would need to see, to believe? 5? 10? 100? 1,000?

If you give a realistic answer with respect to how many fossils actually exist in the world, perhaps we could list more to meet that bar.

Really tiktaalik alone is enough of a testament, because it was only found based on predictions of evolution. The scientists who found it, literally got on a helicopter and flew out to a remote place in canada, seemingly random, but perfectly sensible, traversed their target formation 10 feet down to shallow marine layers, and then after all that, found tiktaalik. A testament to the predictive power of the fossil succession.

You have to understand too that, all of life is in succession.

There are sequences like these, everywhere.

There are even transitionals in plants, vasclural, flowering, seeded etc.

Arthropod transitionals, worms, mollusks, reptiles like turtles, snakes, reptile to mammal transitionals etc.

The list goes on and on. I just pick tiktaalik because it is commonly known and easy to talk about.

 

[Job 33:6]

How do you explain the lack of any gradual transitions? They all jump, no matter how you think they evolved from one to the other. All the finer gradual transitions can't be all destroyed can they?

And you asked, why is there a lack of gradual transitions?

Did you know that in existence, there are no more than maybe 10-15 T-rex skeletons? An animal that existed over millions of years, dominated on multiple continents, and was, as far as we know, an alpha predator in the time of dinosaurs, yet I can count the total number of them with my hands and toes. Why is that?

The answer is that, as others here have mentioned, fossilization is a rare process. If bacteria consume a dead animal, bones are exposed and do not fossilize. Any form of scavenging, defeats the fossilization process. This is why tar pits are a good source of fossils, animals are rapidly buried in an anoxic environment.

You also have recycling of the earth in plate tectonics. Slabs of land sink hundreds of kilometers into the earth where they melt into magma, heat up and rise back to the surface where they erupt from volcanoes. The earth recycles itself and recycles fossils too. Rock metamorphism destroys fossils.

Erosional forces (wind, water, ice) displace fossils and expose them to elements that destroy them as well. Strong waves tumble fossils and break them up and destroy them.

You also need permineralization, the minerals that create the fossil, need to be present in the bones of the skeleton for it to fossilize. You cant have dissolution or acidic fluids dissolving your chemical composition either.

So there are many many factors that need to align for bones to fossilize. And not only that but the rock record itself needs to be preserved to maintain the fossils within it.

This is why fossils at large are rare, and transitional fossils are no different in their rarity due to these factors. This is why billions of fossils do not exist, and we are left with only a handfull of T rex specimen.

 

[Job 33:6]

That is why those are not real scientific evidence, you need repeatable, verifiable tests to be able to change a hypothesis to theory.

Here is the repeatable, verifiable test...

Go to home depot, buy yourself a 10-12 ounce mallet, go on ebay and buy yourself a rock splitter, and go out...anywhere. And dig up fossils. And if you find, even one fossil, that morphologically contradicts phylogenetic trees of genetics or the fossil record, then you will have defeated the theory.

Theres the test. Or, if you want to test the theory in a way which supports it, publish your fossil findings, and with every publication, you will demonstrate that the fossil succession and transitional fossils are real, and do in fact exist.

Theres the prediction, the test, the conclusions, and the transition from the hypothesis of evolution, to the theory of evolution, all in one.

 

[dcalling]

Well, you can't deny that you found x number of animal A, y number of animal B and etc.
They are different but you find a way to order them in likeness.

However you can't argue it one way and say it is defint prove and ignore the other facts, that you have multiple copies of spec X, but 0 copies of X' X'' X''' that shows very gradual change.

And that is why this is not science, it is purely speculative, I can argue from the same set of data that God create X, reused part of X to create Y, then later Z, like legos.

Well, to be fair it is more than just one fish with legs. So the question becomes, how many transitional fossils is it that you would need to see, to believe? 5? 10? 100? 1,000?

If you give a realistic answer with respect to how many fossils actually exist in the world, perhaps we could list more to meet that bar.

Really tiktaalik alone is enough of a testament, because it was only found based on predictions of evolution. The scientists who found it, literally got on a helicopter and flew out to a remote place in canada, seemingly random, but perfectly sensible, traversed their target formation 10 feet down to shallow marine layers, and then after all that, found tiktaalik. A testament to the predictive power of the fossil succession.

You have to understand too that, all of life is in succession.

There are sequences like these, everywhere.

There are even transitionals in plants, vasclural, flowering, seeded etc.

Arthropod transitionals, worms, mollusks, reptiles like turtles, snakes, reptile to mammal transitionals etc.

The list goes on and on. I just pick tiktaalik because it is commonly known and easy to talk about.

 

[dcalling]

Here is the repeatable, verifiable test...

Go to home depot, buy yourself a 10-12 ounce mallet, go on ebay and buy yourself a rock splitter, and go out...anywhere. And dig up fossils. And if you find, even one fossil, that morphologically contradicts phylogenetic trees of genetics or the fossil record, then you will have defeated the theory.

Theres the test. Or, if you want to test the theory in a way which supports it, publish your fossil findings, and with every publication, you will demonstrate that the fossil succession and transitional fossils are real, and do in fact exist.

Theres the prediction, the test, the conclusions, and the transition from the hypothesis of evolution, to the theory of evolution, all in one.

That is not the repeatable test, you keep observing facts that have no definitive meaning, see my post above.

A repeatable, verifiable test in this will be, modify existing DNA strands to match an assumed ancestor, and test under what natural condition could the mutations occur.

Or even something like this will greatly imporve your case, find a bacteria, and test it in labs and see how many generations could the mutations change the bacteria so significatly (i.e. maybe became multi-celled). We have a long term e-coli test, with 66k generations, they showed most of the variants that can occur in nature, and the only thing that keeps going are so called "fitness". If that experiment get something really different, we can call that a repeatable test.

 

[Job 33:6]

Well, you can't deny that you found x number of animal A, y number of animal B and etc.
They are different but you find a way to order them in likeness.

However you can't argue it one way and say it is defint prove and ignore the other facts, that you have multiple copies of spec X, but 0 copies of X' X'' X''' that shows very gradual change.

And that is why this is not science, it is purely speculative, I can argue from the same set of data that God create X, reused part of X to create Y, then later Z, like legos.

They key is that, you have to pose the question. If evolution were true, what would the succession of fossils look like? And the truth is, if evolution were true (hypothetically), it would indeed look just as it is.

Alone, the fossil succession is not proof of biological evolution. But it is a piece of the puzzle. If fish did indeed evolve to become amphibians, tiktaalik is what we would theoretically find. If evolution were not true, we theoretically would be able to find things like...rabbits in the cambrian, as the common phrase goes. But, there are no rabbits in the cambrian.

So the succession, gives the appearance that evolution has occurred. Once this is recognized, then we can discuss things like, genetics, or paleogeography, or comparative anatomy etc.

 

[Job 33:6]

That is not the repeatable test, you keep observing facts that have no definitive meaning, see my post above.

A repeatable, verifiable test in this will be, modify existing DNA strands to match an assumed ancestor, and test under what natural condition could the mutations occur.

Or even something like this will greatly imporve your case, find a bacteria, and test it in labs and see how many generations could the mutations change the bacteria so significatly (i.e. maybe became multi-celled). We have a long term e-coli test, with 66k generations, they showed most of the variants that can occur in nature, and the only thing that keeps going are so called "fitness". If that experiment get something really different, we can call that a repeatable test.

Not every scientist is a geneticist, so you cant ask a paleontologist to modify DNA strands. Different sciences will have ways of testing their own science.

And one way to test the existence of the fossil succession, is to find outliers in the succession, such as mammals pre existing reptiles, or birds pre dating reptiles. Or in the case of tiktaalik, amphibians that predate fish. This is how you test the theory via paleontology.

And you could indeed disprove biological evolution using the fossil succession, if evolution were untrue. I've tried, and I've come up short, as have the rest of us who are geologists and paleontologists who do this for a living.

 

[Job 33:6]

But to go back a bit, people said that transitional fossils did not exist. I provided a transitional fossil, and instead of accepting it as it is, instead people decided to change from talking about paleontology to talking about genetics.

But transitional fossils are something of paleontology. There is no "genetics" in paleontology, so when asking the question of if transitional fossils exist, it is one that is answered without discussion about genetics, from the stance of paleontology.

In this case, the discussion is settled, and indeed, from a paleontological position, transitional fossils do exist.

And if a person cannot accept that a transitional fossil is transitional because they think that God simply created things in an order that looks transitional (but in reality is not), then the question of if transitionals exist, is a mute point.

There is no point in asking the question, if there is no answer that can be given.

 

[Job 33:6]

Further,

If you ask the question "do transitional fossils exist?", it could only be answered by paleontologists. And could only be answered by examining fossils. So, when the fossils are given, you cant just say..."well, I cant accept that they are transitional because I dont know what their DNA was like".

Then what is the point of even asking if transitionals exist?

 

[dcalling]

They key is that, you have to pose the question. If evolution were true, what would the succession of fossils look like? And the truth is, if evolution were true (hypothetically), it would indeed look just as it is.

Alone, the fossil succession is not proof of biological evolution. But it is a piece of the puzzle. If fish did indeed evolve to become amphibians, tiktaalik is what we would theoretically find. If evolution were not true, we theoretically would be able to find things like...rabbits in the cambrian, as the common phrase goes. But, there are no rabbits in the cambrian.

So the succession, gives the appearance that evolution has occurred. Once this is recognized, then we can discuss things like, genetics, or paleogeography, or comparative anatomy etc.

The thing is, this is all speculative, i.e. only a piece of puzzle, but if you tweak it toward evolution, I can tweak to creation as well, and it definitely suit creation better, since in programming, we use the libraries/coding styles all the time, and you can definitely see how new projects uses old codes. It is very clear to me that God created different things in different stages, and you might not find rabbits at certain stages.

 

[dcalling]

Not every scientist is a geneticist, so you cant ask a paleontologist to modify DNA strands. Different sciences will have ways of testing their own science.

And one way to test the existence of the fossil succession, is to find outliers in the succession, such as mammals pre existing reptiles, or birds pre dating reptiles. Or in the case of tiktaalik, amphibians that predate fish. This is how you test the theory via paleontology.

And you could indeed disprove biological evolution using the fossil succession, if evolution were untrue. I've tried, and I've come up short, as have the rest of us who are geologists and paleontologists who do this for a living.
......
Then what is the point of even asking if transitionals exist?

Again, it is all speculative, I could argue that God created all those in steps, and keep reusing the existing libraries. And if you look at how complex the cells are, it is defintly a case for creation, we humans have not created a machine that could keep reproducing itself yet, they all need humans to go between, that will give you some idea of how complex life is, a single cell is much more complex than your pc (hardware + software, since the cell not only can move, it can code itself to reproduce). The fossile record future proves that, as the fossiles all "jump", and no fine gradual changes has been found to date.

I would say if we want go with the science route, we have to go all the way using scientific methods, i.e. repeatable, verifiable tests, instead of pseudo science, i.e. looks like it, must be. I can't count how many times our business side come over and tell the engineers how simple something should be, but only the engineers knows all that simple stuff have to be coded using existing frameworks, sometimes a seeming simple request can be real hard to implement.