The ART of evolution revisited

[npetreley]

Colin Patterson, Letter dated April 10, 1979, to Luther Sunderland, quoted in L.D. Sunderland Darwin's Enigma, p. 89.

"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it . .

"[Stephen] Gould [of Harvard] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least `show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record . . It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science; there is no way of putting them to the test."

Now where have I heard this stuff before?

 

[choccy]

You say that I should at least `show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line-there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record . . It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science; there is no way of putting them to the test.

Isn't this pretty much what Rufus, LFOD, Jerry and others told randman when he asked for his own warped version of a transitional series? You can't tell from fossils which species is the direct parent or daughter species to another species. Has anyone here claimed otherwise?

DNA evidence on the other hand............

Choccy

 

[chickenman]

shhh, don't bring that up.

if we just focus on the fossil record we can delude ourselves into thinking there isn't any evidence for evolution.

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by chickenman
shhh, don't bring that up.

if we just focus on the fossil record we can delude ourselves into thinking there isn't any evidence for evolution.

What to fear from the fossil record chicken dude?  If macro-evolution is true, shouldn't there be TONS of fossil evidence of it?

 

[WinAce]

Yes, and there is. And your point was?

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Originally posted by s0uljah
What to fear from the fossil record chicken dude?  If macro-evolution is true, shouldn't there be TONS of fossil evidence of it?

There is.

What I think Patterson is saying, however, is that we do not have enough evidence to reconstruct the exact evolutionary history of of any one species. Given the sparseness of the fossil record (compared to all creatures that ever lived), this is not at all surprising. To use a Gouldian analogy, what we have from the fossil record is usually the branches and leaves of the evolutionary tree and not the main trunk.

There is still no competing scientific theory that explains the fossil record better than evolution does.

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by WinAce
Yes, and there is. And your point was?

Show me.

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Originally posted by s0uljah
Show me.

Before we show you anything, let's make sure we all understand what needs to be shown.

Please describe what kind of fossil evidence you think that evolution and paleontology predicts we should find.

 

[Morat]

  To translate Patterson by analogy: We can't tell if a given fossil is the specific parent of another, or the aunt, uncle, or grandparents. Only that it's closely related.

  Souljah, I'm going to echo that: What features would you expect in a transitional fossil?

 

 

 

[euphoric]

Originally posted by Morat
What features would you expect in a transitional fossil? 

Well, it should obviously come with a label.  When the fossil is uncovered, there should already be a tag that details the organism's exact pedigree for at least twenty-five generations.  If it doesn't, then you can't prove that is a true transitional.

-brett

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

I would imagine that a good transitional fossil set would be one that starts at a particular species, and ends with one from another species, that supposedly evolved from the first.  In between, you would have examples of "mutants" that slowly turn into the final fossil.

P.S.

Tags are optional.

 

[npetreley]

Genetics, included, here's evolution in a nutshell:

It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science; there is no way of putting them to the test.

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Originally posted by s0uljah
I would imagine that a good transitional fossil set would be one that starts at a particular species, and ends with one from another species, that supposedly evolved from the first.  In between, you would have examples of "mutants" that slowly turn into the final fossil.

I didn't ask you to define what a transitional fossil looks like.

I asked you to describe what kind of fossil evidence you think that evolution and paleontology predicts we should find.

 

[Morat]

Souljah was responding to me, I think. Souljah, please describe what these "mutants" in between should look like.

   Specifically, should they be functional and fully-adapted species in their own right?

 

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Originally posted by npetreley
Genetics, included, here's evolution in a nutshell:

It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science; there is no way of putting them to the test.

Two problems, Nick:
1. Patterson was talking about the problem of determining an exact lineage for a species in particular, and not the problem of testing evolution in general.

2. Like all arguments from authority, you are dismissing the possibility that your authority just might be wrong.

 

[Morat]

  And, of course, Patterson is a proponent of cladistics (pattern systemetics) and back in 1979 was quietly waging war with evolutionary taxonomists (Jerry posted a nice link to this as part of the Johnson thread, since Johnson makes the same claims).

   Cladists use evolution to sort species, just not in the same was as evolutionary taxonomists. Cladists, for instance, would sort birds as a sub-group of reptiles.

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by Morat
Souljah was responding to me, I think. Souljah, please describe what these "mutants" in between should look like.

   Specifically, should they be functional and fully-adapted species in their own right?

 

Funtional?  Well, functional enough to breed and pass on their mutant genetics, yeah.

Fully adapted to what?

 

[WinAce]

... their environment?

 

[Chris†opher Paul]

Originally posted by WinAce
... their environment?

How do you define "fully?"  If they live long enough to breed, then you could say that they are adapted.

 

[WinAce]

Yeah, you could say that. And you'd probably be right, seeing as how 'unadapted' living things all die.