[_ Old Earth _] Will you believe it now?

[PDoug]

What fossil records?

The transitions from fish to tetrapod, reptile to mammal, Hyracotherium to modern horse, ungulate to whale, etc.

[quote:2b311]Fossil records do not support evolution at all! Where are the fossils of transitional creatures left behind as one specie supposedly evolved into another?

We have quite a large number of them. Which of the above would you like to see first?[/quote:2b311]
Please point them out to me. And please indicate to me the numbers of fossils found. (I got my information here.)

There should be massive amounts of these fossils, yet none has conclusively been found.

You've been misled.

Please show me a credible reference that says otherwise. The above link is where I got my information.

(Also as we look around, there should be massive amounts of transitional creatures in our landscape showing e.g. part fish and part reptile traits.

Well, not fish to reptile. Reptiles evolved from other tetrapods. But we do have examples of transitional organisms like lungfish. And the fossil record has numerous examples of transitionals between fish and tetrapods. Would you like to see those first?

Okay, let me clarify: many evolutionists believe that fish evolved into amphibians, which then evolved into reptiles. As for lungfish, why is it any more different from whales or dolphins which also have lungs? Granted whales and dolphins are mammals, but the mere fact that a fish has lungs is hardly conclusive evidence that it is a transitional creature. If a lungfish was truly transitional, where are its other transitional features spanning its internal systems? Why e.g. are there no evidence of legs, eyes suitable for traversing land, excretory, circulatory, and other systems? Why aren't these complementary systems not as developed as the fish's lungs? After all, for the fish to plausibly evolve into a tetrapod, it would need a range of complementary systems that are developed about the same time.

When you supply your examples, please sight a range of features in your transitional creatures that are in flux (not just one or two features).

 

[PDoug]

Then there is the highly questionable practice of taking fossil fragments, and conjecturing from them, supposed human ancestors. These fossil fragments provide no conclusive proof whatsoever, that they belonged to the ancestors of man.

We have a large number of fossils that clearly show our evolution. Would you like to learn about that first?

Please show me in any order you please. Also please note that I don't consider e.g. fossils for 20 different types of creatures a large number. A large number of fossils would be fossils for hundreds (of different types of creatures). (I would however settle for about one hundred.) I don't think this is unreasonable given the fact that there are millions of forms of life around us.

Then there is the fact that hundreds of millions of years old fossils of creatures such as the honeybee, dragon fly, and ant, show these creatures to be virtually the same as their contemporaries.

You've been misled about that, too. For example, the earliest ant known shows exactly the transitional characteristics that show it's hymenopteran ancestry.

Please look here, which is the source of my information.

Add to this: the oldest stratum of earth having fossils, show a sudden appearance of diverse forms of life. According to this link, 'The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belonged to snails, trilobites, sponges, earthworms, jellyfish, sea hedgehogs, and other complex invertebrates. This wide mosaic of living organisms made up of such a great number of complex creatures emerged so suddenly that this miraculous event is referred to as the "Cambrian Explosion" in geological literature. '

You've been misled about that, too. Complex multicellular life is much older than the Cambrian.

This one is from the Ediacaran, millions of years before the Cambrian. We also have tracks made by multi-legged creatures, burrows, and remains of organisms with partial exoskeletons, all before the Cambrian. The Cambrian explosion coincides with the evolution of fully-armored organisms.

Actually this article refutes your information and supports mine. The article says in part:

"According to the conventional evolutionary-uniformitarian time scale of Earth history, multicellular organisms first appeared in abundance about 550 million years ago, in the "Big Bang of Evolution," the Cambrian explosion. But (again, according to the conventional time scale) a handful of odd multicellular organisms existed before the astonishing explosion of new forms in the Cambrian. These organisms, from the so- called Ediacaran fauna, named after the town of Ediacara in southern Australia where their fossil remains were discovered in 1947, are said to be 600 million years old. Figure 1 shows one well-known Ediacaran form, Dickinsonia.1

Now a novel interpretation of these puzzling fossils is generating considerable controversy within the paleontological community. Some scientists (notably the German paleontologist Adolf Seilacher and Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould) have suggested that the Ediacaran fauna--known also as the Vendozoa or Vendobionta (from the Vendian geological period in which they occur)--were "failed experiments" in the evolution of multicellular animals. Unlike the Cambrian organisms, these odd designs left no ancestors.2 But the novel interpretation, from University of Oregon paleontologist Gregory Retallack, suggests that the Ediacaran fossils weren't animals at all. Rather, they were probably lichens.3

Retallack rests his case on some strange features of the Ediacaran fossils. "An outstanding anomaly of Ediacaran fossil," he notes, "is the surprising relief of their impressions in quartz-rich sandstones buried to depths of about 5 km [kilometers]." If the fossils were soft-bodied animals, however, as they are usually interpreted, one wouldn't expect such relief--the fossils should have been squashed quite flat by the weight of sediment overlying them. But Ediacaran fossils, Retallack observes, "were as compaction resistant as some kinds of fossil tree trunks!" If the Ediacaran forms were not animals, therefore, but lichens composed of sturdy molecules like chitin, their resistance to compaction would be much easier to explain.4

Furthermore, Ediacaran organisms could be quite large: up to 1 meter across, in some instances. Retallack argues that this large size is compatible with a sessile (permanently attached) organism which gained its nutrition via symbiosis with photosynthetic organisms. (The "animal" interpretation of the forms, on the other hand, had no good explanation for how the organisms fed.) And other evidence for the lichen interpretation can be found in the growth patterns and microscopic structure of the fossils."

Therefore contrary to what you assert, fossils do not support evolution, instead, they support creation.

You've got a lot of homework to do. Suffice to say the people who told you this stuff were not being honest with you. Where would you like to start?

I doubt it. But please show me the information you were volunteering to show me.

 

[keebs]

I do not buy keebs' suggestion that creatures' bodies are generally tolerant enough, so that no other physiological changes are needed as a result of a new feature.

BUT PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES DO OCCUR! You just aren't understanding the fact that most of them do not occur on the genetic level, and the ones that do are almost always affected by the mutated gene.

One other thing: given the fact that mutations are random, the chances that a beneficial mutation that just so happens to prove helpful to the snakes in this situation, is very, very small. It seems as if there would have to be many, many beneficial mutations before one was discovered, that was useful to the snake in this situation.

I've already been over this with you...quite spewing up the same refuted garbage...

What fossil records? Fossil records do not support evolution at all! Where are the fossils of transitional creatures left behind as one specie supposedly evolved into another?

Every fossil we find of an organism that isn't currently living is a transitional fossil of some kind. Fossilization is a rare process, and so is finding intermediary fossils. In order to show every single trait that is gained before speciation occurs then we must find every single living organism at that time, and that won't happen (for obvious reasons). We have sufficient intermediary fossils to show common descent, you just need to open your eyes.

(Also as we look around, there should be massive amounts of transitional creatures in our landscape showing e.g. part fish and part reptile traits. However none of these creatures can be found.)

What do you call a frog? What do you call a salamander? These are all modern day relatives to the organisms you are describing (and we do have fossil records). Heck, we've even found fossils of whales with legs.

Please point them out to me. And please indicate to me the numbers of fossils found. (I got my information here.)

Evolution deceit is a bunch of bull. I can point out many, many places on the website where the other obviously shows his lack of knowledge in the evolutionary sciences...starting with his frequent use of a strawman theory of evolution. For some good info on the fossils go here: http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/c.bkgrnd.html

Please show me a credible reference that says otherwise. The above link is where I got my information.

Yep, and that link may be why you don't understand evolution...

As for lungfish, why is it any more different from whales or dolphins which also have lungs?

Simple, lungfish are relatives of an intermediary of the fish and land reptiles, while whales and dolphins are evolved from land reptiles.

 

[keebs]

Actually this article refutes your information and supports mine.

Even the first sentence of your article is wrong. Multicellular organisms existed before the Cambrian period...heck, we've even found fossil evidence of worms from before the Cambrian explosion. Seeing as how the first sentence is wrong, I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the article.

 

[Barbarian]

There's a ton of misinformation from our muslim friend and his website, but I'll start with a big one:

Chitin is found in all sorts of animal exoskeletons, particularly of segmented worms and arthropids. Which is just what you'd expect from arthropod ancestors. Plants do not have chitin. (fungi have chitin, but they are in their own kingdom, and are genetically closer to animals than plants)

A more detailed list of factual errors will follow.

 

[sheseala]

I'm just poking in here to say that there are critters that have both mammilian and reptillian features.

 

[Barbarian]

Here's your chance...

Barbarian offers to demonstrate transitional fossils:

Please show me in any order you please. Also please note that I don't consider e.g. fossils for 20 different types of creatures a large number.

I can show you more than that for humans alone. Let's do them first. What would you consider to be the defining characteristics of a transitional fossil, particularly a human one? What do you think defines an ape fossil, and what defines a human fossil? Do that, and we will begin.

A large number of fossils would be fossils for hundreds (of different types of creatures). (I would however settle for about one hundred.) I don't think this is unreasonable given the fact that there are millions of forms of life around us.

There are many more than a hundred. There are certainly over a hundred specimens of hominine fossils.

Then there is the fact that hundreds of millions of years old fossils of creatures such as the honeybee, dragon fly, and ant, show these creatures to be virtually the same as their contemporaries.

Barbarian observes:
You've been misled about that, too. For example, the earliest ant known shows exactly the transitional characteristics that show it's hymenopteran ancestry.

Please look here, which is the source of my information.

I looked. At first I thought he was joking, but he seems to be serious. The modern ant is quite antlike. But the fossil in amber is more wasplike than antlike, haveing antennae of a wasp, and a thickened petiole. It does have two nodes on the petiole, which only ants have, and I happen to know this specimen has metaplural glands, although you wouldn't know by looking. In short, it's intermediate between a genuine ant and more primitive hymentopterans.

The modern honeybee is clearly Apis, but the fossil "bee" looks like a hornet.

The dragonfly fossil is too poorly reproduced to say what it is. However, the first known odonota were considerably different than modern ones. There are also transitionals between the dragonflies and other insects:

"The Protodonata were a group of large to gigantic predatory flying insects, with wingspans of 12 to 75 cm. Like dragonflies, to which they were related, they had long narrow bodies, huge eyes, and strong jaws and spiny legs for grasping prey. The wing veination is extremely primitive, with all the main veins except one (the Rs vein) having separate origins at the base of the wing, and the cubito-anal area represented by a single vein. The characteristic structure of the true Odonata (dragonfly) wing are not developed. There was also a dense reticulation of cross-veins.

The Protodonata were transitional between the Palaeodictyoptera and the Odontata. Almost certainly the larvae were aquatic and carnivorous (like modern dragonfly larvae), and fed on small aquatic vertebrates (fish, and amphibia) or larger invertebrates. It is likely that the adults frequented open spaces where they had room to maneuver, and may well have spread to upland environments. Only a few families and genera are known; this appears to have been a small group, or alternatively to have frequented areas where they would not have easily fossilized."
http://www.palaeos.com/Invertebrates/Ar ... onata.html

Contrary to your muslim website's assertion, dragonflies and damselflies continued to evolve significantly through the Permian.

Add to this: the oldest stratum of earth having fossils, show a sudden appearance of diverse forms of life. According to this link, 'The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belonged to snails, trilobites, sponges, earthworms, jellyfish, sea hedgehogs, and other complex invertebrates. This wide mosaic of living organisms made up of such a great number of complex creatures emerged so suddenly that this miraculous event is referred to as the "Cambrian Explosion" in geological literature. '

Barbarian observes:
You've been misled about that, too. Complex multicellular life is much older than the Cambrian.

(spriggina, a wormlike organism from the Ediacaran)

This one is from the Ediacaran, millions of years before the Cambrian. We also have tracks made by multi-legged creatures, burrows, and remains of organisms with partial exoskeletons, all before the Cambrian. The Cambrian explosion coincides with the evolution of fully-armored organisms.

Actually this article refutes your information and supports mine.

Nope. It gives lie to the assertion that complex forms appeared suddenly in the Cambrian. That's a complete falsehood. The assertion that the organisms were plants being protected by chitin was rather odd, since plants don't have chitin. Chitin is a molecule found in animals like insects and other arthropods and in fungi, which are genetically closer to animals than plants.
http://www.psrc.usm.edu/macrog/sea/chitin.htm

Besides, it's wrong anyway. Soft-bodied organisms fossilize well where the sediment is silty and slow.
http://www.fossilmall.com/Fossil_Archiv ... darian.htm

Not much there is, softer than a jellyfish.

Therefore contrary to what you assert, fossils do not support evolution, instead, they support creation.

You've got a lot of homework to do. Suffice to say the people who told you this stuff were not being honest with you. Where would you like to start?

I doubt it. But please show me the information you were volunteering to show me.

Here's your first challenge:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html

After you answer the above questions on what a transistional is, (in terms of human evolution), take a look at some hominine skulls and tell us which ones you think are human, and which are not. Notice that even "creation experts" can't agree, because the transition from one to another is so slight.

Then, after you decide where you stand on this, we'll go on and look at some more evidence.

 

[PDoug]

Please bear with me. I'm still trying to brush up on basic genetics.

 

[keebs]

This may help: http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~whitlock/bio ... Notes.html

 

[PDoug]

Thanks. The web site looks interesting. FYI, I'm primarily using this web page and this web page. On a light note, given the sheer complexity and the sophistication of the functioning of organisms on the molecular level, aren't you at least inclined to believe that such an arrangement did not come about by accident?

 

[keebs]

Thanks. The web site looks interesting. FYI, I'm primarily using this web page and this web page.

Ahhhh...wikipedia...I...love...wikipedia :-D

On a light note, given the sheer complexity and the sophistication of the functioning of organisms on the molecular level, aren't you at least inclined to believe that such an arrangement did not come about by accident?

Not at all...I tend to shy away from supernatural concepts such as God. I find this process much more likely:

Inorganic catalyst + heat -> proteinoid
Proteinoid + water -> protocells
Protocells -> cellular life

And on down the chain of time and variation until you reach what we see today.

 

[Highlander]

There's another example that's fairly recent. The diamondback rattler - renowned for it's warning rattles before striking. The rattler is now losing it's rattle. Obviously the rattle has made it more easily found and killed or captured-which has led to fewer and fewer decendents whose rattles are vigorous. More and more western diamondbacks are being born that have lesser rattles and less instinct to rattle as a warning. Leaving mankind in a worse position as he wanders through rattler territory, without that warning, they are more likely to be struck by the venomnous snake.

 

[Barbarian]

The good news is that the rattler, which needs its venom for hunting prey, often does not inject venom when biting a large animal to defend itself.

More often than not, people bitten don't get a shot of venom.

Not something I'd care to risk, though.

 

[PDoug]

I do not buy keebs' suggestion that creatures' bodies are generally tolerant enough, so that no other physiological changes are needed as a result of a new feature.

BUT PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES DO OCCUR! You just aren't understanding the fact that most of them do not occur on the genetic level, and the ones that do are almost always affected by the mutated gene.

It is one thing to say that the environment can influence a trait like obesity, it is another thing to try and say that the environment can shape compensatory biological changes across the snake's various internal systems. In as much as the environment has virtually no influence on a person's eye color, the environment cannot conceivably spur (directly) a reduction in the overall metabolic activity of the snake (while maintaining the snake's approximate level of fitness), in response to the snake's head getting smaller.

One other thing: given the fact that mutations are random, the chances that a beneficial mutation that just so happens to prove helpful to the snakes in this situation, is very, very small. It seems as if there would have to be many, many beneficial mutations before one was discovered, that was useful to the snake in this situation.

I've already been over this with you...quite spewing up the same refuted garbage...

I don't recall you going over this with me.

If e.g. a snake has a ball park number of 20,000 genes, given the fact that in complex organisms, most traits are each affected by a number of genes, you would actually need mutations affecting hundreds of genes, taking place at roughly the same time, in order for the snake to evolve a smaller head, along with supporting physiological changes throughout its body. This is impossible to take place over the course of 70 years.

What fossil records? Fossil records do not support evolution at all! Where are the fossils of transitional creatures left behind as one specie supposedly evolved into another?

Every fossil we find of an organism that isn't currently living is a transitional fossil of some kind. Fossilization is a rare process, and so is finding intermediary fossils. In order to show every single trait that is gained before speciation occurs then we must find every single living organism at that time, and that won't happen (for obvious reasons). We have sufficient intermediary fossils to show common descent, you just need to open your eyes.

It is baseless for you to assert that every fossil that is found is that of a transitional creature. Finding fossils of extinct creatures like the ones listed on the web page you are taken to by this link, hardly means that the creatures are transitional. When you add to this, the fact that no complex transitional creature can be found around us, you see that evolutionists have resorted to conjecture when they look at fossils, and interpreted them in ways that support their theory.

 

[reznwerks]

fossil

[this link, hardly means that the creatures are transitional. When you add to this, the fact that no complex transitional creature can be found around us, you see that evolutionists have resorted to conjecture when they look at fossils, and interpret them in ways that support their theory.

How would you know you were looking at a complex transitional creature in existance today without peering into the future to know what it would turn out to be? It should come as no surprise to you that predicting the future is a difficult process. Making the statement you did was obviously done so without thinking or just repeating what one heard or read.

 

[PDoug]

(Also as we look around, there should be massive amounts of transitional creatures in our landscape showing e.g. part fish and part reptile traits. However none of these creatures can be found.)

What do you call a frog? What do you call a salamander? These are all modern day relatives to the organisms you are describing (and we do have fossil records). Heck, we've even found fossils of whales with legs.

They are amphibians, plain and simple. Where are all the creatures showing fine gradations between amphibians and reptiles, or between fish and amphibians? As for fossils of whales with legs: this is yet another example of evolutionists conjecturing from inconclusive evidence, that creatures did in fact evolve. As this article shows, the fossil record for the purported whale with legs is fragmentary and anything but conclusive.

As for lungfish, why is it any more different from whales or dolphins which also have lungs?

Simple, lungfish are relatives of an intermediary of the fish and land reptiles, while whales and dolphins are evolved from land reptiles.

Conjecture, conjecture, conjecture: that is what evolutionists use to support much of their theory. As I indicated before, these so-called transitional creatures do not show system wide transitional states - indicating that they are merely underwater creatures with lungs.

 

[PDoug]

Actually this article refutes your information and supports mine.

Even the first sentence of your article is wrong. Multicellular organisms existed before the Cambrian period...heck, we've even found fossil evidence of worms from before the Cambrian explosion. Seeing as how the first sentence is wrong, I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the article.

You cannot reasonably dismiss an entire piece based on a single sentence. It is true that under the section of the web page titled, "Life Emerged on Earth Suddenly and in Complex Forms", there is the following sentence:

"When terrestrial strata and the fossil record are examined, it is to be seen that all living organisms appeared simultaneously."

However 4 paragraphs down in the section there is also the following sentence:

"These complex invertebrates emerged suddenly and completely without having any link or any transitional form between them and the unicellular organisms, which were the only life forms on earth prior to them."

Therefore the author of the piece is well aware that it is believed that there were creatures existing before the Cambrian Explosion. You can debate with him whether these creatures were unicellular or multicellular, but that is another matter. Besides, the point of the overall article is that there is a huge disconnect between the relatively simple life forms present before the Cambrian period, and the massive amounts of complex life that appeared during that period, which cannot be explained by evolution. There is no conclusive proof of transitional creatures bridging the two sets of creatures, and the geometry of any supposed speciation, in both suddenness and breath, are inconsistent with the model of evolution.

 

[keebs]

In as much as the environment has virtually no influence on a person's eye color, the environment cannot conceivably spur (directly) a reduction in the overall metabolic activity of the snake

Yes it can. A mere change in the length of daylight can change your metabolic rate.

(while maintaining the snake's approximate level of fitness), in response to the snake's head getting smaller.

If the snake's head gets smaller and it is advantageous then the snake's level of fitness should not and will not stay the same.

If e.g. a snake has a ball park number of 20,000 genes, given the fact that in complex organisms, most traits are each affected by a number of genes, you would actually need mutations affecting hundreds of genes, taking place at roughly the same time, in order for the snake to evolve a smaller head, along with supporting physiological changes throughout its body. This is impossible to take place over the course of 70 years.

Yes, I didn't go over this with you. The fact that certain genes are linked to multiple functions and traits plus the bodies plasticity allow a high amount of room for this.

It is baseless for you to assert that every fossil that is found is that of a transitional creature.

You're right, I should've said unproceded extinct species.

They are amphibians, plain and simple. Where are all the creatures showing fine gradations between amphibians and reptiles, or between fish and amphibians? As for fossils of whales with legs: this is yet another example of evolutionists conjecturing from inconclusive evidence, that creatures did in fact evolve. As this article shows, the fossil record for the purported whale with legs is fragmentary and anything but conclusive.

Exactly...amphibians were the link between land dwelling creatures with lungs and water dwelling creatures with gills. As for your article, I knew it was the AiG article before I even clicked on it. AiG is not a reputable source. What ever happened to good, peer-reviewed papers?

these so-called transitional creatures do not show system wide transitional states

See above.

You cannot reasonably dismiss an entire piece based on a single sentence.

I can and I did. If the first sentence is wrong there is no reason to suspect the rest of the article is anymore accurate.

Besides, the point of the overall article is that there is a huge disconnect between the relatively simple life forms present before the Cambrian period, and the massive amounts of complex life that appeared during that period, which cannot be explained by evolution.

It can be perfectly explained by an enviromental catalyst. Or, if you are inclined towards punctuated equilibrium (which I'm not), you could say this event is not only explained, but fits in perfectly with evolutionary theory.

 

[Pale^Rider**]

There's another example that's fairly recent. The diamondback rattler - renowned for it's warning rattles before striking. The rattler is now losing it's rattle. Obviously the rattle has made it more easily found and killed or captured-which has led to fewer and fewer decendents whose rattles are vigorous. More and more western diamondbacks are being born that have lesser rattles and less instinct to rattle as a warning. Leaving mankind in a worse position as he wanders through rattler territory, without that warning, they are more likely to be struck by the venomnous snake.

Diamond back rattlers and for that matter all rattlers are not born with "rattles" in the plural......they are born with one small rattle-like scab and then they get a new rattle for every time they shed their skins.....normally twice per year where I live. Thus, the amount of the rattles on the rattler.....the older the snake......