What do the fossils say?

[The Barbarian]

Hey I am a creationist - so there is no such thing as "impossible to deny" ;-)

Of course. There are people who deny that man walked on the moon. But no person with any sense denies things with such abundant evidence.

For instance with the above you have a series of discoveries which share characteristics to a considerable degree. But there is a variation between the discoveries of the number of bones. You associate the greater number of bones with reptiles and the single bone with mammals and give good reasons why reptiles need the extra bones.

It goes much deeper than that. It's not just that the reptilian jaw bones are connected to the stapes of the middle ear, and a rather complete series of intermediates exist, as the bones get smaller and eventually no longer connect to the jaw (although they still connect to the ear).

It's also that we see this process in mammalian fetuses, as they go from a reptilian jaw to a mammalian one. The same developmental pattern persists, only speeded up.

And, of course, there are those intermediates with both joints, something absolutely necessary if they did evolve.

At that point, it's more than a bit perverse to deny what it is.

You insert the fossil discoveries on your evolutionary tree between a more reptilian form to mammalian one in accordance with evolutionary theory and assert that these are examples of transitory forms on the way from the more reptilian to the more mammilian.

As you see, the evidence for it, is compelling. And, of course, things like conserved biological molecules, and DNA give us the same phylogeny.

And, of course, each transitional is a complete animal in its own right. Just a bit different than the earlier forms. That's how it works.

 

[mindlight]

Of course. There are people who deny that man walked on the moon. But no person with any sense denies things with such abundant evidence.

Well we are in agreement here - men did walk on the moon.

It goes much deeper than that. It's not just that the reptilian jaw bones are connected to the stapes of the middle ear, and a rather complete series of intermediates exist, as the bones get smaller and eventually no longer connect to the jaw (although they still connect to the ear).

It's also that we see this process in mammalian fetuses, as they go from a reptilian jaw to a mammalian one. The same developmental pattern persists, only speeded up.

And, of course, there are those intermediates with both joints, something absolutely necessary if they did evolve.

At that point, it's more than a bit perverse to deny what it is.

Some species may share considerable commonalities in their jaws and still be distinct.

Again how many samples are you talking about supporting each of the socalled intermediate stages? Also to what extent did commonalities extend to the rest of the organism.

God may have a particular way of doing jaws and given certain species requirement may adjust that design in certain standard ways. As yet this is not proof that we are talking about the same species at different stages and indeed the differences make all the difference.

As you see, the evidence for it, is compelling. And, of course, things like conserved biological molecules, and DNA give us the same phylogeny.

And, of course, each transitional is a complete animal in its own right. Just a bit different than the earlier forms. That's how it works.

Phenotype characteristics may similar across different species but we may still be talking about different genotypes. The interaction between the whole organism and the individual characteristics is a crucial consideration absent from your discussion at presence . The smallest differences in a genome can make all the difference. Add in the plasticity of some phenotypes in certain environments and commonalities between distinct species become possible without necessarily implying they follow the same ancestral pathways.

I share a considerable affinity with a slug when my genome is assessed. But a slug would not be capable of being so pig headed with you at such an intellectual level. The differences make all the difference.

 

[busterdog]

Of course. There are people who deny that man walked on the moon. But no person with any sense denies things with such abundant evidence.

This is why I stopped reading your posts. Bet I am not the only one.

 

[Assyrian]

Of course. There are people who deny that man walked on the moon. But no person with any sense denies things with such abundant evidence.

This is why I stopped reading your posts.

Apparently you didn't.

Bet I am not the only one.

 

[mindlight]

This is why I stopped reading your posts. Bet I am not the only one.

I don't get it. Does this mean that either you or Barbarian believe that the Apollo Missions were a hoax? Or are you objecting to the unscientific even dogmatic nature of Barbarians certainty about evolution.

 

[Assyrian]

No, he does not like the comparison of those who shut their minds to the evidence that astronauts walked on the moon, with those who close their minds to the evidence of evolution.

 

[busterdog]

Apparently you didn't.

Well, I stopped right at that line.

There just isnt a basis for dialogue here. Ridicule is unhelpful. If you cant find anything of merit in the opposition, I dont think you could possibly be looking at the issues scientifically enough.

I would add that I am pretty dogmatic myself. It is not dogmatism I am against, as others might have guessed by now. It is more the dismissive attitude. Certainly what this gentleman has to say needn't be singled out as unique. I would just say that I find critical thinking to be helpful in working through the issues, and that a dismissive attitude is pretty antagonistic to critical thinking. I have a great friend who always wants to convent me to Catholicism -- the one true Church. I avoid the issue generally, not the man, because the merits of the reformation, etc. really arent on the table for discussion.

 

[The Barbarian]

Some species may share considerable commonalities in their jaws and still be distinct.

So how does that explain the fetus of mammals starting out with reptilian jaws and ears, and ending up with them reworked to mammalian form? How does that explain Diarthrognathus, with both jaw joints?

Again how many samples are you talking about supporting each of the socalled intermediate stages?

Here's a few, of many:

Also to what extent did commonalities extend to the rest of the organism.

Good question. At the same time, teeth were differentiating. Reptiles have pretty much one kind of tooth. Mostly for crushing, stabbing, or holding. The kill, and they swallow. But the advanced therapsids were getting different sorts of teeth, including those for masticating food into smaller, more digestable particles, which permits more efficient use of prey.

At the same time, a small shelf of bone in the upper jaw enlarged to form a secondary palate, allowing the animal to chew and breathe, which was a great help in mastication.

And at the same time, cervical ribs were reduced or lost, and a more efficient breathing mechanism evolved. With more calories coming in from better digestion, it was no longer an extravagance to have endothermy.

At the same time we start to see evidence of hair, useful only to endotherms.

God may have a particular way of doing jaws and given certain species requirement may adjust that design in certain standard ways. As yet this is not proof that we are talking about the same species at different stages and indeed the differences make all the difference.

As you see, the evidence is much greater and deeper than you imagined.

Barbarian observes:
As you see, the evidence for it, is compelling. And, of course, things like conserved biological molecules, and DNA give us the same phylogeny.

​

And, of course, each transitional is a complete animal in its own right. Just a bit different than the earlier forms. That's how it works.

Phenotype characteristics may similar across different species but we may still be talking about different genotypes.

As you might know, evolving genotypes is how it works.

The interaction between the whole organism and the individual characteristics is a crucial consideration absent from your discussion at presence .

Pleased to offer a little more detail. An entire suite of adaptations evolved because one made the other more effective. Co-evolution.

The smallest differences in a genome can make all the difference. Add in the plasticity of some phenotypes in certain environments and commonalities between distinct species become possible without necessarily implying they follow the same ancestral pathways.

As you see, it's not just transitional organisms. It's molecular biology, genetics, and many other things that demonstrate the reptilian ancestry of mammals.

I share a considerable affinity with a slug when my genome is assessed.

But not nearly as much as you share with a crocodile or a bird. For reasons you just learned.

But a slug would not be capable of being so pig headed with you at such an intellectual level.

Well, you know how ignorant barbarians can be...

The differences make all the difference.

But the apomorphies show common ancestry.

 

[MiserableSinner]

@gluadys & Mallon: There is no principle preventing genes which express phenotype X in organism Y from being laterally transferred to organism Z and then expressing phenotype X in organism Z.

Utterly phenomenal. I'm going to quibble about a few technical details in a bit but first I must say that I'm always very happy to see someone moving beyond naive Popperian falsificationism. Have you ever heard of the Duhem-Quine thesis? It sounds amazingly like what you're talking about here, sans a few key concepts (notably that of the auxiliary hypothesis). Also see the wonderful Asimov article The Relativity of Wrong.

No, but it just seems pretty obvious that you can't "apply" Popper retroactively to a theory that's already been well established.

W/re to the rest of your post, I think you are making the same mistake as the others. If we observed a lot of chimeras, I suppose that would more or less falsify evolution. However, we are talking about the observation of a single chimera. That would not be sufficient to overturn anything, because it would be an oddity, a rarity, an exception. And we already have mechanisms that could believably result in a chimera, although we would hardly expect them to be popping out chimeras left and right. That's precisely the point. Evolution is sufficiently robust to account for the odd chimera.

 

[gluadys]

@gluadys & Mallon: There is no principle preventing genes which express phenotype X in organism Y from being laterally transferred to organism Z and then expressing phenotype X in organism Z.

Perhaps, if the organisms in question are bacteria. But genes do not work in isolation, but within a genetic environment where their expression is regulated by other genes, promoters, transcription factors, etc. The Pax6 gene laterally (although artificially) transferred from a mouse to a butterfly produced eye tissue, but for a compound insect eye, not a camera mammalian eye. OTOH a gene laterally (and again artificially) transferred from a glowing jellyfish to a rabbit produced a glowing rabbit.
http://oddanimals.com/unusualanimals/glowinthedarkrabbit.html

Finally, let's re-iterate that such animals are not chimeras. The butterfly is entirely a butterfly, not part mouse and the rabbit is entirely a rabbit, not part jellyfish.

 

[mindlight]

So how does that explain the fetus of mammals starting out with reptilian jaws and ears, and ending up with them reworked to mammalian form? How does that explain Diarthrognathus, with both jaw joints?

I am not sure I need to necessarily accept the distinctions made between reptiles and mammals being an absolute boundary definining the one from the other. Given that, I do not have explain the existence of so-called mammalian and reptilian characteristics in the fetal development of or final configuration of a distinctive species.

Here's a few, of many:

18 is not that many.

Good question. At the same time, teeth were differentiating. Reptiles have pretty much one kind of tooth. Mostly for crushing, stabbing, or holding. The kill, and they swallow. But the advanced therapsids were getting different sorts of teeth, including those for masticating food into smaller, more digestable particles, which permits more efficient use of prey.

At the same time, a small shelf of bone in the upper jaw enlarged to form a secondary palate, allowing the animal to chew and breathe, which was a great help in mastication.

And at the same time, cervical ribs were reduced or lost, and a more efficient breathing mechanism evolved. With more calories coming in from better digestion, it was no longer an extravagance to have endothermy.

At the same time we start to see evidence of hair, useful only to endotherms.



As you see, the evidence is much greater and deeper than you imagined.

Barbarian observes:
As you see, the evidence for it, is compelling. And, of course, things like conserved biological molecules, and DNA give us the same phylogeny.

​

And, of course, each transitional is a complete animal in its own right. Just a bit different than the earlier forms. That's how it works.


As you might know, evolving genotypes is how it works.



Pleased to offer a little more detail. An entire suite of adaptations evolved because one made the other more effective. Co-evolution.



As you see, it's not just transitional organisms. It's molecular biology, genetics, and many other things that demonstrate the reptilian ancestry of mammals.



But not nearly as much as you share with a crocodile or a bird. For reasons you just learned

Well, you know how ignorant barbarians can be...

But the apomorphies show common ancestry
.

Sorry I am going to stay pig headed on that lot.

The categorisation of species characteristics is valuable and interesting but the suggestion that each of these distinct discoveries are stopping points from one type to the other seems an add on to me. The evidence is not compelling to me.
you show the advantages of having one configuration over another not that the species are themselves in transition in the sequence from the one form to the other

 

[gluadys]

I am not sure I need to necessarily accept the distinctions made between reptiles and mammals being an absolute boundary definining the one from the other. Given that, I do not have explain the existence of so-called mammalian and reptilian characteristics in the fetal development of or final configuration of a distinctive species.

No absolute boundary between reptile and mammal! I don't think one can accommodate that within any version of special creation. No absolute boundary suggests they are part of one created kind---which means one common ancestor for all mammals and a good many fossil reptiles.

No problem in an evolutionary perspective, but that's a big macro-evolutionary pill to swallow in any creationist or ID perspective.

18 is not that many.

Is that a typo. Only 8 are shown. But that is only a sampling out of many others in this sequence.

I remember lucaspa used to have an image of 6 snails in his signature. Someone thought it wasn't very impressive. But those 6 were a sampling of more than 2,000. I don't remember the number in the reptile-mammal transition, but it is a lot more than 8.

The categorisation of species characteristics is valuable and interesting but the suggestion that each of these distinct discoveries are stopping points from one type to the other seems an add on to me. The evidence is not compelling to me.

The point is not that the evidence proves a transition, but that a transition explains the evidence. And that the evidence is predicted by the theory. Without a theory of evolutionary transition, what sense could we make of this chronological sequence of fossils?

you show the advantages of having one configuration over another not that the species are themselves in transition in the sequence from the one form to the other

Every fossil is the remnant of a unique individual. Of course, an individual is not "in transition". This objection is like saying that because each drop of water only moves vertically, a wave does not move horizontally across a pond. You can't see an evolutionary transition by focusing on one fossil at a time any more than you can see a wave by focusing on only one drop of water at a time.

 

[Assyrian]

That sound sooooo Zen
Beautiful illustration glaudys.

 

[shernren]

Unfortunately water waves are one of those few freaky waves in nature where individual water particles actually do move back and forth instead of just up and down.

It's still a valid point for most transverse waves though.

[/nitpick]

Yeah, pretty well explained.

 

[MiserableSinner]

The point is not that the evidence proves a transition, but that a transition explains the evidence.

Thank you.

 

[gluadys]

Thank you.

And making sense of evidence is what science is about.

I take it you agree that without the theory of evolution we have no coherent way of making sense of the distribution of fossil characteristics. At least none that allows us to predict what sort of fossils we will find in specific strata/time ranges.

Furthermore, all of fossil evidence is only one portion of the evidence for common descent, and it fits with the other evidence for common descent.

 

[mindlight]

No absolute boundary between reptile and mammal! I don't think one can accommodate that within any version of special creation. No absolute boundary suggests they are part of one created kind---which means one common ancestor for all mammals and a good many fossil reptiles.

No problem in an evolutionary perspective, but that's a big macro-evolutionary pill to swallow in any creationist or ID perspective.ä

Oh please - thats not what I meant at all. I mean that what people have come to define as the category reptile, and what people have come to define as the category mammal is the inflexible thing here. I can believe God made creatures according to their types and still think there were some rather odd looking ones in the mix. If indeed it can categorically be proven that these two bits of jaw bone belong together anyway.

Just because we find a creature that has reptilian and mammalian characteristics in its own fetal development or a mixture in its final configuration does not prove a transition between the two. What it does is say there is a unique species which has some characteristics which people have come to define as reptilian and some characteristics which people have come to define as Mammalian. It says nothing about common ancestors, transitions or evolution.

Is that a typo. Only 8 are shown. But that is only a sampling out of many others in this sequence.

I remember lucaspa used to have an image of 6 snails in his signature. Someone thought it wasn't very impressive. But those 6 were a sampling of more than 2,000. I don't remember the number in the reptile-mammal transition, but it is a lot more than 8.

No I simply cannot count - I am a creationist afterall ;-)

But the point is that the fossil sample total is rather small relative to the potential number of variations withín individual species. There is nothing conclusive here because the sample will always be too small and explicable in terms of variations within a species, distinct species or just bones fragments from different animals thrown together by accident.

The point is not that the evidence proves a transition, but that a transition explains the evidence. And that the evidence is predicted by the theory. Without a theory of evolutionary transition, what sense could we make of this chronological sequence of fossils?

Well I am at a point right now where I do not have to make sense of everything I see. Particularly where there is no sense to be found or at least articulated. I see what you see and do not accept the theory that you say must explain what I see. The link between the theory and the evidence is one of faith. My own explanation in terms of the flood also leaves me with a massive amount of mystery because the unique conditions of the flood have never been duplicated and given Gods rainbow promise, never to repeat a world wide flood, - never will be either. It was a unique , supernatural and from a rational point of point chaotic set of circumstances which a human model of understanding is not going to bottle and sell to me in a simple and inaccurate naturalistic explanatory theory. I think the honest response here is we simply do not know.

Every fossil is the remnant of a unique individual. Of course, an individual is not "in transition". This objection is like saying that because each drop of water only moves vertically, a wave does not move horizontally across a pond. You can't see an evolutionary transition by focusing on one fossil at a time any more than you can see a wave by focusing on only one drop of water at a time.

Hey are we talking about waves moving in this or that direction - up or down? Or we talking about the calm after the storm - can you say either way. The historical natural progression is what is disputed here - it need not exist at all in my view. You show me water drops and talk about waves - where is the provable link.

 

[The Barbarian]

I am not sure I need to necessarily accept the distinctions made between reptiles and mammals being an absolute boundary definining the one from the other.

You do, if you want to argue that mammals aren't descended from reptiles.

I do not have explain the existence of so-called mammalian and reptilian characteristics in the fetal development of or final configuration of a distinctive species.

You do, if you want to credibly deny what it says about common descent.

Barbarian on transitionals, Here's a few, of many:

​

18 is not that many.

As I said, a few of many.


Barbarian observes:
Good question. At the same time, teeth were differentiating. Reptiles have pretty much one kind of tooth. Mostly for crushing, stabbing, or holding. The kill, and they swallow. But the advanced therapsids were getting different sorts of teeth, including those for masticating food into smaller, more digestable particles, which permits more efficient use of prey.

​

At the same time, a small shelf of bone in the upper jaw enlarged to form a secondary palate, allowing the animal to chew and breathe, which was a great help in mastication.

​

And at the same time, cervical ribs were reduced or lost, and a more efficient breathing mechanism evolved. With more calories coming in from better digestion, it was no longer an extravagance to have endothermy.

At the same time we start to see evidence of hair, useful only to endotherms.


As you see, the evidence is much greater and deeper than you imagined.

​

Barbarian observes:

As you see, the evidence for it, is compelling. And, of course, things like conserved biological molecules, and DNA give us the same phylogeny.
And, of course, each transitional is a complete animal in its own right. Just a bit different than the earlier forms. That's how it works.

Sorry I am going to stay pig headed on that lot.

Not a problem. You role is Simplicio, not Sagredo.

The categorisation of species characteristics is valuable and interesting but the suggestion that each of these distinct discoveries are stopping points from one type to the other seems an add on to me.

No stopping point, just a few places along the way where we happened to get some information on what the process was doing at that time.

The evidence is not compelling to me.

Religious objections usually trump evidence for people. It's not for you, but for the people watching who are still willing to look at the evidence with an open mind.

 

[The Barbarian]

Hey are we talking about waves moving in this or that direction - up or down?

The particles in water waves do both. They move up and down, and back and forth. Essentially, they describe circles, with the radius of the circle equal to the amplitude of the wave.

 

[Drekkan85]

Mindlight - since you're a creationist can we get a definition that most creationists can agree on for two terms?

Information and kind. What's a kind (or type). A species? A family? A phyla? Where's the line? Is the elephant mouse a rodent kind or an elephant kind (hint, it's more closely related, genetically, to the elephant but looks a lot more like a mouse... at least I think I'm picking the right animal here).