[_ Old Earth _] Dr. Morris

[JM]

Asked why,

* Transitional fossils are lacking
* There are gaps between invertebrate-vertebrate
* There are gaps between fish-amphibian
* There are gaps between amphibian-reptile
* There are gaps between reptile-bird
* There are gaps between reptile-mammal
* There are no fossil ancestors of plants
* There are gaps between land mammals and whales

Can someone help me out?

 

[Novum]

First, it takes a very specific set of circumstances for a living thing to become fossilized. Fossilization is a very rare occasion.

Partly because of the above and partly because of the nature of fossils in general, there will always be gaps. If we have fossils A and C and discover a transitional fossil B, we now have "gaps" between fossils A and B and fossils B and C. It is therefore more than a little disingenuous to view fossil gaps as "bad".

 

[ArtGuy]

* There are gaps between invertebrate-vertebrate

We have fossils of primitive fish with no jaws and external skeletons, or soft bones. They evolved into the cartilege-skeletoned sharks we know today.

* There are gaps between fish-amphibian

We have lobe-finned fish, with bony fins that could be used to drag themselves along. We also have lung-fish, which were basically fish that could breathe outside the water.

* There are gaps between amphibian-reptile

The early reptiles were basically just amphibians with amniotic eggs.

* There are gaps between reptile-bird

Archeopterix? It's pretty much the most stunning example of a "transitional" fossil we have, and we've found many of them. Going back earlier than that is problematic, because the very first birds were likely very small pre-birds who flew from tree to tree in forests. The small size of the animals coupled with the high acidity of forest soil makes it difficult to find good fossils.

* There are gaps between reptile-mammal

Actually, there aren't many gaps at all between reptile and mammal, as this transition is the most heavily documented there is. You can trace obvious reptiles on a per-family basis step by step until you get to obvious mammals, with no gaps beyond the family level. You can often even trace it down to the genus level.

* There are gaps between land mammals and whales

Up until a few years ago, yes. But recently a huge string of finds has filled in the gap to an almost per-family basis, as with reptile->mammal transitions. We have, indeed, found whale fossils that have legs, as was predicted.

Can someone help me out?

Hope that helped. Here's the link where I got all that information - they have exhaustive listings of the key transitional species that have been found, if you want to check it out.

Really, 30 seconds with Google and you could've found this yourself. That's all I did.

 

[jive]

First, it takes a very specific set of circumstances for a living thing to become fossilized. Fossilization is a very rare occasion.

Partly because of the above and partly because of the nature of fossils in general, there will always be gaps. If we have fossils A and C and discover a transitional fossil B, we now have "gaps" between fossils A and B and fossils B and C. It is therefore more than a little disingenuous to view fossil gaps as "bad".

can you prove that the gaps exist because of that?
can you prove thats why the gaps exist and not because the missing link fossiles never existed?
or do you just believe thats why?
see there....its ok to have faith in something you cant prove. :wink:

 

[Novum]

can you prove that the gaps exist because of that?
can you prove thats why the gaps exist and not because the missing link fossiles never existed?
or do you just believe thats why?

In some instances, scientists have searched for a missing link that did not exist in the past. In these cases, theories have been adjusted and new data models introduced to bring our understanding of the past more in line with what fossils we've found. The vast majority of the time, however, and as ArtGuy noted above, we are able to predict missing links and actually find fossils that verify our claims.

see there....its ok to have faith in something you cant prove. :wink:

I'm not so sure I agree, for most claims. But that's another discussion.

 

[reznwerks]

questions

Jive , look at the back posts in Christianity and Science and you will see that all of your questions have been answered and some very recently. You may have missed them. Secondly do you really think that Science hasn't been confronted to the issues raised by you and others? Do you really think that ID'rs somehow have secret information that somehow is not getting to the desk of some scientist who is looking to make a name for himself? Could you imagine the fame and fortune that awaits the man that can stand science on its ear? Did you ever ask why it is that ID'r and YEC'rs have never had a science article published in any notable scientific journal?

 

[ArtGuy]

Hey, JM. Have you read the responses to your questions? Are you going to respond? Or was this just a hit-and-run?

 

[jive]

Re: questions

Jive , look at the back posts in Christianity and Science and you will see that all of your questions have been answered and some very recently. You may have missed them. Secondly do you really think that Science hasn't been confronted to the issues raised by you and others? Do you really think that ID'rs somehow have secret information that somehow is not getting to the desk of some scientist who is looking to make a name for himself? Could you imagine the fame and fortune that awaits the man that can stand science on its ear? Did you ever ask why it is that ID'r and YEC'rs have never had a science article published in any notable scientific journal?

what are you talking about???? all my questions?? there was only one question and it was based on the OP.
i dont even know what a idr or a yecr is.
but if they are answers to the OP questions where are they?
i would like to check them out.
answers to questions are one thing, but can the answer be proven?

 

[ArtGuy]

Re: questions

answers to questions are one thing, but can the answer be proven?

They can be proven to the same extent that anything in the world can be proven.

 

[jive]

Re: questions

answers to questions are one thing, but can the answer be proven?

They can be proven to the same extent that anything in the world can be proven.

what does that even mean?? ill have you know this is not doing me any favors. could you quit being silly artguy? :D

 

[saltiness]

Novum answered your question, Jive. And you did not respond to him.

 

[reznwerks]

Re: questions

Jive , look at the back posts in Christianity and Science and you will see that all of your questions have been answered and some very recently. You may have missed them. Secondly do you really think that Science hasn't been confronted to the issues raised by you and others? Do you really think that ID'rs somehow have secret information that somehow is not getting to the desk of some scientist who is looking to make a name for himself? Could you imagine the fame and fortune that awaits the man that can stand science on its ear? Did you ever ask why it is that ID'r and YEC'rs have never had a science article published in any notable scientific journal?

what are you talking about???? all my questions?? there was only one question and it was based on the OP.

Any question you might have has already been answered. You may have to search the posts in this section or review the following links below.
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
i dont even know what a idr or a yecr is.
YEC = Young earth creationist ///// ID = Intelligent Design
but if they are answers to the OP questions where are they?
i would like to check them out.
answers to questions are one thing, but can the answer be proven?
The answers can always be proven. Some may not like the results but that is what science is.

 

[ArtGuy]

Re: questions

answers to questions are one thing, but can the answer be proven?

They can be proven to the same extent that anything in the world can be proven.

what does that even mean??

It's technically impossible to prove, beyond all doubt, any claim that can be made. You can simply come up with some highly unlikely, but technically possible, explanation. For example, we're pretty sure that, 60 years ago, there was a great war involving dozens of nations in which millions were killed. However, it's possible that God simply created the universe yesterday, along with the illusion of millions of years of past history, just to fool us all. He could have created all memories, and all evidence, necessary to perpetuate this falsehood, and nobody would ever know the difference. It's also possible that there was a massive conspiracy amongst powerful people to make it look as if there was actually a war, when in reality there wasn't, and millions of people were brainwashed to make them believe otherwise.

Both of these theories are absurd, of course, and no sane person would believe them in light of the much more plausible explanation that there actually was a World War II. However, it's technically possible that one of those theories is correct, no matter how unlikely it may be. Thus while we can be pretty darned sure that WWII happened, we cannot say that it is 100% unequivocably certain that it did. It is only, say, 99.9999999999% certain.

Such is the case with evolution. It is 99.9999999999% likely that either evolution, or something exceedingly close to it, happened, based on the evidence that has been gathered in its favor. We are as sure of it as is possible. We are roughly as sure of it as we are that Einstein's theories of relativity are true, or that Newton provided excellent first-order approximations of the laws of motion.