Transitional Fossils and the Theory of Evolution in relation to Genesis Accounts

[Techno2000]

fictions / fantasies / falsehoods / fables / fibs/ lies / deceptions…Yes, we should want truth and facts.

And details…

 

[stoplooklisten]

Haeckel was wrong. The developing embryo does not recapitulate phylogeny. A quick web search gave me this page , which explains Haeckel’s error, and includes some photographs that cover a similar area to Haeckel’s drawings.

@rossum, thank you for the candid admission. Thank you for the helpful link from Miller and Levine (with both photographs and newer drawings). I think that the photos and drawings do not demonstrate phylogenesis but I was glad to review them.

 

[Buzzard3]

I too can quote Gould: > Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether though design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. – S J Gould “Evolution as Fact and Theory” Discover Magazine May 1981.

Yet Gould also says:
“… we must understand that [in the fossil record] nothing happens most of the time – and we don’t because our stories don’t admit this theme … The Burgess Shale teaches us that, for the history of basic anatomical designs, almost everything happened in the geological moment [ie, the Cambrian explosion], just before, and almost nothing in more than 500 million years since.” (S.J. Gould, A Web of Tales , Natural History, Oct 1988, pp.16-23)

and …
“Three billion years of unicellularity, followed by five millions years of intense creativity [the Cambrian explosion] and then capped by more than 500 million years of variation on set anatomical themes can scarcely read as a predictable, inexorable or continuous trend towards progress or increasing complexity [as predicted by Darwinian theory] … even the most cautious opinion holds that 500 million subsequent years of opportunity have not expanded the Cambrian range, achieved in just five million years. The Cambrian explosion was the most remarkable and puzzling event in the history of life” (S.J. Gould, The Evolution of Life on the Earth, Scientific America, Vol. 271, No.4, October 1994, p.67)

And here is an interesting quote from his mate, Niles Eldredge:
“No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces, yields zig-zags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change – over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that’s how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist, looking to learn something about evolution.” (Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory, p.95)

 

[Buzzard3]

It is an interesting new discovery, no more embarrassing than the discovery of Coelacanths or Wollemi pine. We do not have every fossil and we already know we do not have every fossil. Sometimes we find a fossil from earlier than any fossil previously found. Science adjusts the dates in the textbooks and carries on.

How has science adjusted to the fact that four different fully-formed vertebrates have been found in the same strata level as invertebrate chordates, meaning it can no longer be claimed that the former evolved from the latter … and that vertebrates appear in the fossil record without and evidence of evolutionary antecedents?

Perhaps science has adjusted by sticking its head in the sand - for example, claiming that the sudden appearance of fully-formed vertebrates in the fossil record without any evidence of evolutionary antecedent is not an embarrassment to Darwinian evolution.

 

[Buzzard3]

He was talking about gill slits not gills. Gill slits are also known as pharyngeal arches, and are not gills. In fish they develop into the adult’s gills; in tetrapods they do not. Your lying source was relying on its audience’s ignorance of biology to make its point.

Gill slits are an eternal opening in the body … this is what Dobzhansky was referring to - an eternal feature - which turned out to be nothing more than folds of human skin. As I understand it, pharyngeal arches extend from one side of the foetus to the other - to refer to them simply as “gill slits” would seem to be very unprofessional.

Furthermore, Dobzhanksky’s very use of the term, “gill slits” gives the game away. He called them “gill slits” - as opposed to ‘pharynegeal arches’ - because he regarded them as remnants of fish gills and evidence that humans evolved from fish. As he says in the quote you provided: “Of course, at no stage of its development is a human embryo a fish, nor does it ever have functioning gills. But why should it have unmistakable gill slits unless its remote ancestors did respire with the aid of gills?”

 

[rossum]

How has science adjusted to the fact that four different fully-formed vertebrates have been found in the same strata level as invertebrate chordates, meaning it can no longer be claimed that the former evolved from the latter

How has America adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans alive today when many Americans claim descent from Europeans? We are descended from Coelacanths, which is why there was so much interest when they were found not to be extinct.

The parent clade can continue while the child clade is also alive. Or do you deny that some Americans are descended from Europeans?

Your understanding of biology is not good here.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Buzzard3:

How has science adjusted to the fact that four different fully-formed vertebrates have been found in the same strata level as invertebrate chordates, meaning it can no longer be claimed that the former evolved from the latter

How has America adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans alive today when many Americans claim descent from Europeans?

Language has evolved, but how does this explain vertebrate!

 

[rossum]

Language has evolved, but how does this explain vertebrate!

Vertebrates evolved from chordates. There are still non-vertebrate chordates living today: Lancelets. The ancestral species does not automatically die out when a new species evolves. Sometimes it will do so, but not always. There will be some varying degree of overlap.

All that Buzzard has shown is that new fossils have shown a different degree of overlap. He then reads too much into the new discovery.

 

[o_mlly]

How has America adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans alive today when many Americans claim descent from Europeans?

How have American human beings adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans human beings alive today when many American human beings claim descent from European human beings?

Quite well, thank you.

 

[rossum]

Quite well, thank you.

Which is exactly how science adjusts to a new early fossil being found. We do not assume that the current earliest chordate fossil is actually the earliest chordate species. There may be earlier chordates whose fossils we have not found yet.

 

[Freddy]

rossum:

How has America adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans alive today when many Americans claim descent from Europeans?

How have American human beings adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans human beings alive today when many American human beings claim descent from European human beings?

Quite well, thank you.

Did you work out an answer to how long that large gap was you mentioned upstream? A few years? A few thousand? Millions?

 

[o_mlly]

o_mlly:

How have American human beings adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans human beings alive today when many American human beings claim descent from European human beings ?

Quite well, thank you.

Did you work out an answer to how long that large gap was … ?

Of course. Paternally, 3 generations. Maternally, 4 generations. Did you miss one of those meds again?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

o_mlly:

How have American human beings adjusted to the fact that there are still Europeans human beings alive today when many American human beings claim descent from European human beings ?

Quite well, thank you.

Did you work out an answer to how long that large gap was … ?

Of course. Paternally, 3 generations. Maternally, 4 generations. Did you miss one of those meds again?

No. This gap:

rossum:

Demonstrably false. There is a large gap between the first land animal fossils and the much later earliest bird fossils.

UNDemonstrably false. There is a large gap between the first land animal fossils that we have found so far and the much later earliest bird fossils.

How long is the ‘large gap’ do you think? I’ve asked a few times…

 

[o_mlly]

How long is the ‘large gap’ do you think? I’ve asked a few times…

I know, I know … it’s only Thursday. The important “gap” is just one more day and you can get back to your suds. In the intervening hours, as I previously directed you, go to the source for the answer to your question:

Demonstrably false. There is a large gap between the first land animal fossils and the much later earliest bird fossils.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

How long is the ‘large gap’ do you think? I’ve asked a few times…

I know, I know … it’s only Thursday. The important “gap” is just one more day and you can get back to your suds. In the intervening hours, as I previously directed you, go to the source for the answer to your question:

Demonstrably false. There is a large gap between the first land animal fossils and the much later earliest bird fossils.

But you corrected rossum:

There is a large gap between the first land animal fossils that we have found so far and the much later earliest bird fossils.

So how big do you think is the ‘large gap’ between the first land animal fossils found so far and the ‘much later’ earliest bird fossils?

A few years? A few million?

 

[o_mlly]

But you corrected rossum:

Nope. I corrected an error in his logic, not his fact claim.

 

[rossum]

Nope. I corrected an error in his logic, not his fact claim.

My scientific logic was correct. We cannot assume the existence of undiscovered evidence. We work with what evidence is available. When the evidence changes then science changes.

Is Christianity logically invalid because there might be more books of the Bible to be discovered in some archaeological dig? You cannot be sure that you have the complete text. Even in what you have, there are questions about which, if any, of the possible endings of Mark are valid.

 

[o_mlly]

My scientific logic was correct. We cannot assume the existence of undiscovered evidence.

Nope. All science is provisional. We may not assume that what has been observed is all that ever will be observed. My edit, “that we have found so far”, clarified exactly this point.

 

[Freddy]

rossum:

My scientific logic was correct. We cannot assume the existence of undiscovered evidence.

Nope. All science is provisional. We may not assume that what has been observed is all that ever will be observed. My edit, “that we have found so far”, clarified exactly this point.

Indeed. You thought to correct the point about fossils ‘found so far’. That point literally makes no sense without referencing the gap between the two types of fossils.

Rossum says it’s large. You quoted him without challenging that point. Which, as I said, would be nonsensical to do in the context of the claim. So…a reasonable question: How long do you think that gap is?

 

[o_mlly]

Rossum says it’s large. You quoted him without challenging that point. Which, as I said, would be nonsensical to do in the context of the claim. So…a reasonable question: How long do you think that gap is?

? What are you trying to say? It appears you didn’t wait until Friday this week to imbibe.
Let me try to extract something reasonable.

You write:
“Rossum says it’s large. You quoted him without challenging that point.” Good. I didn’t question his “large”. So ask Rossum what is “large” and you’ll have an answer to the question that is driving you to …