Denial of Evolution VI.

after i searched for the piece you requested?
never again trippy.

 

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You mean the piece you cited? Since when are you doing anyone a favor by providing references upon request? I thought that was part of this forum's etiquette if not an actual rule...

 

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well, let's see how well trippy does with post 480.

 

Here are a few more for you leopold, will this suffice? Or more likely, you will fall in this camp...

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil

Creationist denial

What was that about half a wing not being useful?
Finding transitional forms never impresses creationists. If a transitional form B, between known species A and C is found, they demand "transitional forms" between A & B and B & C, a demand that is essentially unfulfillable at the individual level, such as at a parent-child case where no "transitional form" occurs. Apparently, the only thing that would satisfy them is a complete set of generation-by-generation fossils of every life-form in a direct line of descent from the first bacteria to Charles Darwin's grand-father[6] However, due to the rarity of the fossilisation process, this is unlikely to occur, although new finds are being made which add to the information provided by the fossil record.​

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http://www.transitionalfossils.com/

A few selected transitional fossils

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Apes - humans

...

Ardipithecus ramidus ~4.4 million years ago
Ardipithecus ramidus had a brain the size of a chimp's, but probably walked upright on the ground, while still able to go on all fours in the trees, where it would find its opposable big toe useful (Gibbons, 2009).
Australopithecus afarensis ~3.6 mya
Australopithecus afarensis was a more advanced walker, with nongrasping feet (White et al, 2009), but it still had the brain size of a chimpanzee (Dawkins, 2009). Probably not a direct ancestor of modern humans (Rak et al, 2007).
Australopithecus africanus ~3 mya
Similar.
Homo habilis ~2 mya?
Homo habilis had a brain about 50% bigger than a chimp's. The fossils are found with a variety of stone tools; this is the earliest human which we're sure used tools (Coyne, 2009).
Homo erectus ~1 mya
A tool-maker, Homo erectus had a brain size of about 1,000 cc, still smaller than our own (Dawkins, 2009).
Homo heidelbergensis ~0.5 mya
Homo heidelbergensis had a brain size approaching our own, and shows a mix of Homo erectus and modern human features (Coyne, 2009).


Fish - tetrapods

...

Eusthenopteron,
Panderichthys,
Tiktaalik

Eusthenopteron ~385 million years ago
A pelagic fish, Eusthenopteron is probably representative of the group from which tetrapods evolved. It had a tetrapod-like skull and spine (Prothero, 2007).
Panderichthys ~385 mya
Panderichthys had a tetrapod-like braincase and tetrapod-like teeth, and had also lost its dorsal and anal fins (Prothero, 2007).
Tiktaalik ~375 mya
Though still a water-dweller, Tiktaalik had fins that were halfway towards being feet, and ears capable of hearing in air or water (Prothero, 2007). It was capable of crawling around in very shallow water, and it had a neck, unlike fish but like tetrapods (Coyne, 2009).
Ventastega ~365 mya
The bones of Ventastega are intermediate between Tiktaalik and Acanthostega (Ahlberg et al, 2008). Sadly, the fossil is incomplete and we can't see its fins/feet.
Acanthostega ~365 mya
Possessing four definite legs, Acanthostega was presumably capable of movement over land (Coyne, 2009), though the legs were still better suited for crawling along the bottom of the water (Prothero, 2007). Its tail was still adapted for propulsion through water, and it still had gills (Ridley, 2004).
Ichthyostega ~365 mya
Slightly more like a land animal, Ichthyostega had powerful shoulders implying it did indeed use its legs to move over land, at least sometimes (Clack, 2005). Even now, the skull still closely resembled that of Eusthenopteron (Futuyma, 2005).
Pederpes ~350 mya
The foot of Pederpes "has characteristics that distinguish it from the paddle-like feet of the Devonian forms [i.e. the above animals] and resembles the feet of later, more terrestrially adapted Carboniferous forms" (Clack, 2002).
These creatures were related to the lungfish of their time, and almost certainly all had lungs themselves.

It would be a mistake to think that the first tetrapods moving on land needed limbs capable of bearing their full weight; legs sprawled to the side would be enough to move about with. One thing the above fossils seem to show is that legs first evolved for crawling over the bottom of the water; only later did their use on land become paramount.

Dinosaurs - birds

Anchiornis ~155 million years ago
Although many feathered dinosaurs are known, Anchiornis is the first to be found that probably predates Archaeopteryx. The feathers were "not obviously flight-adapted" (Hu et al, 2009).
Archaeopteryx ~145 mya
The famous Archaeopteryx had feathers and was probably capable of at least gliding, but it also had dinosaur-like teeth, claws, and a long bony tail. Its skeleton was "almost identical to that of some theropod dinosaurs" (Coyne, 2009). Precisely how closely related it is to the main line of bird evolution remains the subject of controversy (Xu et al, 2011).
Confuciusornis ~125 mya
Confuciusornis had a bird-like tail and a pygostyle, which is a feature of modern birds. It retained dinosaur-like claws (Prothero, 2007). It had strong shoulder bones, but was probably not capable of true flapping flight (Senter, 2006). It may have glided. It is the earliest known bird with a toothless beak, but other lineages continued to have teeth for a long time.
Sinornis ~110 mya?
Sinornis "still had teeth, an unfused tarsometatarsus, and an unfused pelvis" (Prothero, 2007) but resembled modern birds in other ways, with reduced vertebrae, a flexible wishbone, a shoulder joint adapted for flying, and hand bones fused into a carpometacarpus (Prothero, 2007).
Vorona ~80 mya?
The legs of Vorona are all that we have (Benton, 2005), but they show a combination of bird characteristics and maniraptoran (dinosaur) characteristics (Forster et al, 1996).
Ichthyornis ~80 mya
A strong flyer, Ichthyornis was very nearly a modern bird (Prothero, 2007), and yet it still had teeth.

...

Synapsids - mammals

...

Archaeothyris ~305 million years ago
Mostly lizard-like. However Archaeothyris is one of the earliest known synapsids; a group defined by possession of a single temporal fenestra (Ridley, 2004).
Dimetrodon ~280 mya
Dimetrodon had specialised canine teeth (Prothero, 2008) akin to those of modern mammals.

Lycaenops
© Dmitry Bogdanov

Lycaenops ~260 mya
More mammal-like, especially in how it held its limbs: closer to its body like modern mammals, rather than sprawled to the side like Dimetrodon (Prothero, 2007). It still had a great many "primitive" features, such as ribs in the lumbar area (Prothero, 2007).
Thrinaxodon ~245 mya
Had the beginning of a secondary palate in its skull (Prothero, 2007); in modern mammals, this allows eating and breathing at the same time, and is a sign of a more active lifestyle (Ridley, 2004). Its more advanced skull also allowed it to chew its food; and indeed it had premolars and molars with which to do so (Prothero, 2007). The skeleton was not yet fully mammal-like, but it had lost those lumbar ribs.
Probainognathus ~225 mya?
Probainognathus still possessed a reptile-like jaw articulation (Macdonald et al 2009) but also had "the initiation of the articulation which was later to become the more highly developed glenoid-condyle articulation of the mammal" (Romer, 1969). It had a well developed zygomatic arch (Macdonald et al 2009). However, its braincase was very unlike that of modern mammals (Romer, 1969).
Diarthrognathus ~210 mya?
The fascinating Diarthrognathus had a jaw that contained both the old reptile-like joint as well as the new mammalian joint (Prothero, 2007).
This is merely a small selection of fossils which could be named as transitional synapsids. Wikipedia has an impressive list of therapsids, a subset of the synapsids.

Land mammals - whales and dolphins

Indohyus ~48 million years ago
Although only a cousin species of the ancestor of whales, Indohyus had bones denser than normal mammals, indicating it was partially aquatic: heavy bones are good ballast (Thewissen et al, 2009). Its ears shared a feature with modern whales: a thickened wall of bone which assists in underwater hearing; non-cetaceans don't have this (Thewissen et al, 2009).

Pakicetus and Ambulocetus
© Sharon Mooney, based on images from National Geographic (see details)

Pakicetus ~52 mya
Perhaps the actual ancestor, Pakicetus was probably semi-aquatic; like Indohyus, it had dense bones for ballast (Thewissen et al, 2009). Its body was "wolf-like" but the skull had eye sockets adapted for looking upwards, presumably at objects floating above it (Thewissen et al, 2009). Although initially known from just a skull, many more bones were found later (Thewissen et al, 2001).
Ambulocetus ~50 mya
With a streamlined, elongated skull and reduced limbs, Ambulocetus probably spent most of its time in shallow water. Its reduced limbs meant it could only waddle on land (Coyne, 2009). It resembled a crocodile in some ways.
Rodhocetus ~45 mya
The nostrils of Rodhocetus have started to move backwards (towards the blowhole position) and the skeleton indicates a much stronger swimmer (Coyne, 2009). On land it would struggle, moving "somewhat like a modern eared seal or sea lion" (Gingerich et al, 2001). Its teeth were simpler than its predecessors (Futuyma, 2005), a trend that continued to the present.
Maiacetus ~47 mya
Seems similar to Rodhocetus. One fossil was found with what appeared to be a foetus, in a position indicating head-first birth (Gingerich et al, 2009) unlike modern whales. However this is disputed; the "foetus" might just be a partially digested meal (Thewissen and McLellan, 2009).
Basilosaurus ~40 mya
The whale-like, fully aquatic Basilosaurus had almost lost its (tiny) hindlimbs, but they had not yet vanished entirely (Prothero, 2007).
Dorudon ~40 mya
Also fully aquatic, Dorudon also had tiny hind limbs, which "barely projected from the body" (Futuyma, 2005).
Aetiocetus ~25 mya
The blowhole in Aetiocetus is about halfway to its position in modern whales on top of the head. Aetiocetus also represents the transition from toothed whales to the filter-feeding baleen whales, being similar to baleen whales in most respects, but possessing teeth (Van Valen, 1968).

...

Protohorses - horses
Least horse-like at the top. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

...

Hyracotherium ~60 million years ago
A cousin species of the ancestor of horses. The forelimb of Hyracotherium had four toes (Raven et al, 2008).
Protorohippus ~50 mya
Bigger. The forelimb had four toes.
Mesohippus ~35 mya
Bigger. The forelimb had three toes (Raven et al, 2008).
Miohippus ~35 mya
The skull and snout of Miohippus are becoming more horse-like (Prothero, 2007).
Parahippus ~23 mya
The skeleton of Parahippus was more adapted to long-distance running, for escaping predators in an open environment (Evans, 1992). About this time, grasslands were becoming common in North America, where horses evolved (Raven et al, 2008). They would later die out in America (Dawkins, 2009).
Merychippus ~17 mya
With bigger teeth, Merychippus was more adapted to the grazing lifestyle of modern horses. Earlier species were likely browsers that ate leaves, but Merychippus could also eat grass (Raven et al, 2008).
Pliohippus ~12 mya
Pliohippus still had three toes, but only the central toe touched the ground; the others being too small. This was probably not a direct ancestor of modern horses.
Dinohippus ~5 mya
Some specimens of Dinohippus have three toes; but some have one, like modern horses (Florida Museum of Natural History).
There are a large number of other fossil species that could be mentioned. There are reasonable pages on horse evolution at Tufts University and Wikipedia.

Miscellaneous

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Aardonyx, a proto-sauropod dinosaur that, though bipedal, could probably also walk on all fours (Yates et al, 2009). Contrary to what you might expect, in this case bipeds evolved to become quadrupeds.
Amphistium, an early flatfish, with eyes intermediate in position between an ordinary fish and a modern flatfish (Friedman, 2008).
Claudiosaurus, an early relative of marine reptiles like plesiosaurs, but the limbs are not very specialised for swimming (Prothero, 2007).
Darwinopterus, a pterosaur, has the advanced skull and neck of the Pterodactyloidea group, but other traits (e.g. its long tail) are like the primitive Rhamphorhynchoid group (Lu et al, 2009).
Enaliarctos, an early seal, but with more primitive skull and feet (Prothero, 2007).
Eocaecilia, an early caecilian, but with limbs (Jenkins and Walsh, 1993).
Gerobatrachus, a transitional fossil between frogs and salamanders (Anderson et al, 2008).
Haikouella, perhaps the earliest known chordate (Coyne, 2009).
Najash, an early snake. Had two hind limbs (Apesteguia and Hussam, 2006).
Odontochelys, an early turtle with "half a shell" and a long tail (Dawkins, 2009).
Pezosiren, an early manatee, but with legs rather than flippers (Prothero, 2007).
Protosuchus, a crocodile precursor but "smaller and much more lightly built" than modern crocodiles (Prothero, 2007).
Seymouria, a "mosaic of primitive tetrapod [i.e. amphibian] and advanced amniote [i.e. reptile] characters" (Prothero, 2007).
Sphecomyrma, an early ant, with primitive features (Coyne, 2009).
Triadobatrachus, an early frog, but with more vertebrae, and possessing ribs, which modern frogs don't have (Benton, 2005).​

-------------------------------------

Enjoy...

 

Hmmm . . .
strange that up until 1983 there were so few that these scientists had to reach the conclusion they did and now they seem to be finding LOTS of them.

all throughout this thread it has been stated over and over how rare they are, how difficult to find them.
now all of a sudden they seem to be falling out of the sky.

do ANY of you see a problem with this?

of course nothing says these are the supposed transitional fossils that the scientists were missing.

for the previous 170 some years these fossils were missing, now they are being found left and right.
uh, huh.

 

Wow. So now there are too many? Unbelievable. Why do I waste my time... *sigh*

 

james
which one of your mods edited this post?
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...ution-exsist&p=2716879&viewfull=1#post2716879

 

it isn't mine trippy, this stuff came from a respected source.
these people conclude NO for a reason.
the fossils did not exist.

yes, i've heard of this "huge deposit" of bones.

edit
i never mentioned ANYTHING about a conspiracy.
it's telling it appears that way to you.

 

Right. Since then, a secret cabal of rogue paleontologists have conspired to create the missing links from Plaster of Paris. Bwahaha....

 

leopold

Yes, insufficient information. They were wrong.

Some of them had already been found, some had been misplaced and a great big boatload of them have been found since then. Plus there have been whole, new branches of science developed since then that gives us much more information on things like DNA that the scientists in 1983 knew nothing about. They were wrong in their conclusions, the paper is as obsolete as Newton.

Do you doubt that, too? Denial is not a river in Egypt. Creationist.

Strange how whole huge new sites and things like ground probing radar will increase productivity in just a few decades. The problem I see is your ignorance, incredulity and general lack of...wit. Your the one stuck in 1983.

Creationist think, there are no scientific findings that are etched in stone(dogma), that is the province of religions. They are all subject to change given new evidence and new understandings, they are all subject to falsification, they could all become obsolete overnight.

Don't give anyone the idea, it seems quite appropriate given your behavior.

Grumpy

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It's easier if you write [POST=2716879]this post from over 2 years ago misinterpreting completely a news article on a 1980 scientific conference[/POST].

Also, what evidence do you have that it was edited after your adding of the source over 2 years ago?

What part of this do you claim was edited? Do you have any evidence of this than your own faulty human memory?

But it is irrelevant that you claim your post was edited, since [POST=2716892]the very next post[/POST] double-discredits your news coverage with a quote from the purported author of the source and the paper that was presented at the 1980 conference. You therefore made no true observation and your post and any editing of it was irrelevant in 1980, 2001, 2011 or today. A news article is not peer-reviewed scientific research and a purported quote lacks the authority of stating an authors opinion that his own writings have. Here is the relevant rebuttal:

http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/another_creationist_out_of_context_quote.htm

// Edit:

The main idea is that stasis in the fossil record of phenotypes is real and is a trivial prediction of a static fitness landscape with a persistent, isolated broad peak. But this does not mean that small changes unrelated to the fitness would not accumulate even to the point of speciation -- just that later population resembled former populations in the characteristics that made the former population successful at the local fitness peak. A change in the fitness landscape (climate change, introduction of a competitor, etc) would "puncture" the period of phenotype stasis at the broad peak of the fitness function (aka. equilibrium).

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VIIA1bPunctuated.shtml

 

dr. ayala and his quote is entirely irrelevant to this discussion and my request.
the discussion is about the conclusion reached by the conference of 50 scientists and my request has NOTHING to do with dr. ayala.

 

Hi,

Here I present remark. 1st being, that big bang is somewhat of a dated phrase. One knows viewing biology that stuff doesn't really !bang.

Things merge and mix, elementally for greater beauty (here beauty being utilized as a subjective noun). People's flaw is bang, not !natures <*>