[D Man]

On gaps in the fossil record...

They arent in contradiction with evolution at all.

Yes, there must be some degree of graduation between one species and another, but how this happens involves more than just a series of mutations.

I'll explain.

Its a prediction of evolution that transition forms will be very rare. i.e. that we find some is proves it but that there arent many supports evolution as we understand it.

This is a composition of modern day observations of animal behaviour, fossil record data, the manner in which fossils are excavated and genetics. Needless to say, I dont really expect it to change anyones mind, but hopefully some people can ready it and be a little more knowledgable.

Here goes.

Consider species A. Species A is successfull, has a solid place in an ecological neche and has as large a population as the local ecosystem can support.

Observation of animal behaviour: when this happens, small groups break off from the larger group, or the larger group fragments into smaller sizes over a larger area so that they can more easily support themselves on whatever they eat.

Large populations also inhibit the spread of mutations, successfull or otherwise. The reason for this is ecological and statistical: if a member of species A in a large, saturated population has a mutation that gives it a 5% increased chance of survial, theres still hundreds or thousands of indiduals in competion with it, so that advanage gives little practical benefit, plus genetic changes spread more slowly though large populations.

Combine these two facts of modern biology (note I havent mentioned anything about evolution: just short-term mutations that you really have to be an idiot to deny, statistics and observable animal behaviour).

Large populations dont evolve. Or at least not quickly. However large populations fragment and physically move somewhere else. Then they also become smaller populations.

Smaller populations allow mutations to give an animal a real dis/advantage (99% of mutations are harmfull, but thats OK, there are an average of 300 per generation) over its small population bretheren, plus the small population allows that mutation, if beneficial, to become a dominant and standard characteristic quickly. Everyone say hello to species B.

THEN the new population of species B, as it becomes well adapted to its enviroment, grows. The same thing happens again. However, now we have a better adapted species: it does what species A did better than species A.

Then species B also has break-away populations. Small groups go looking for greener pastures. Species B then runs into species A, and in a few short thousand years outcompetes it.

Now think about fossils: they are very hard to make. Its unlikely. A ver small proportion of dead animals become fossils, so we only find them rarely and have a much better chance of finding them where there was once a large population.

Now think about the way we find fossils. We look around in suitable rocks until someone spots one, then we dig down. So were looking trough a long period of time in one geographical location. Say we find the place species A first lived: what we see is a long periond of time with speices A, then all of a sudden we see species B replace it! Thats because we didnt see what happened off camera (what had to happen off camera): species A evolving in a different place in a small population into species B.

So, ladies and gents, that we find transitional fossils at all is a bonus. If we didnt find any whatsoever, it still wouldnt disprove a thing. Modern evolution ('neo-darwinism': a term applied to the understanding of evolution in terms of genetics that we currently have, remember that darwin didnt know about genetics but sucessfully predicted the basics using evolution) successfully predicts the rareity or even absence of transition form fossils (because of the low populations transitional life forms occur in and the isolated places, away from the obvious fossil hunting grounds that that happened in).

[Cause]

[QUOTE=Chewy;128734]Not sure what's meant here. When organisms appeared and went extinct does not provide proof of descent. Only that they once existed and now do not.[/QUOTE]

The gun is on fire. Some people just pretend not to notice. If we dig up fossils evrywhere on the earth that are for animals millions of years old and yet have no fossils for humans or other modern animals before say 50 000 years this tell us something. Specifically their were once animals alive which are no longer nad humans are relatively knew to this world. This combined with other evidece leads to the Theory of Evolution.

Read it again. It might make more sense if you read the second half as well. Humans are x years old. The fossil record shows no existance of humans before x years. It does show a huge assortment of other creatures and creatures that bear some skeletal resembalce to that of a human. So than where did man come from. How did he appear on the earth in the last x years.


[QUOTE]In the fossil record, the progression is more like:
1 - series of ? - 358 - series of ?? 29695
The assumption is that numbers 2 through 357 just cannot be found, but must be there.[/QUOTE]

They are not required iether way. As my anology pointed out. When all numbers advance in sequence its not such a crazy thought to extropelate from this the future numbers will do so as well. As mentioned again and again fosssils are one part of many proofs of evolution

[QUOTE=Chewy;128442]I contend that it is a presumption of evidence that similarity in organisims indicates that they are descendant.QUOTE]


[QUOTE]Have to quote self since objection was not addressed. 4 limbs in 2 different organisms does not of itself indicate descent or common ancestry unless you have the presumption so. [/QUOTE]

This has been answered already. Please look up this topic further

[QUOTE]A single finely graduated chain is not documented. My contention is the lack of intermediary links in the fossil record. All kinds of organisms appear very suddenly on the geologic record and do not change. [/QUOTE]

You know this how? So the skeleton looks similiar it must have had similiar genetic make up. Now thats a huge, No thats a ridiculous error of extropalating data.

[QUOTE]Some disappear just as suddenly as they arrived. In the very beggining, it was expressed that Darwinian theory espouses microevolution. Since microevolution finds little, if no, support in the geologic record, macroevolution is proposed. By sweeping away microevolution, evolution must now take bigger and bigger leaps. ie. All of a sudden a 2 cylinder engine appeared out of nowhere WITH all the necessary infrastructure for it to operate.[/QUOTE]

Darwin was the first man to propose speciation consider he discovered ofer ten diffrent species of finch. Thats macro evolution by its definition.

No one sweeps away micro evolution. Its observable


[QUOTE]You raised an interesting subject. The ostrich. Hollow wings in a flightless bird. The hollow wings are intrinsically connected to the respiratory system. Air passes through the hollow wings as part of the respiratory system. If an ostrich were to have solid bones, more would have to change than just the solid bones. Thus the analogy of the 1 cylinder to 2 cylinder engine. (Which could have been given more explanation, I suppose.) More than the obvious structural change would have to have taken place simultaneously since other biological functions are intrinsically linked. Incidentally, the ostrich is one of the fastest land animals since it can flap its wings and run taking strides up to 4.5m and reach speeds of 65km/hr. Hate to weigh the poor ostrich down by giving him solid bones.[/QUOTE]

Once again I ask you to replace your fasle creationist understanding of vestigial structure with that of sciences. A birds wings function are to fly. Might they find use on a penguin for balance, or in an ostrich to help make larger leaps yes. But remeber that leaping is not flying

[The Rope]

Cause;128566 said:

This anology is pointless. Analogies are just that and in this case its a very poor one

Cause;128757 said:

They are not required iether way. As my anology pointed out. When all numbers advance in sequence its not such a crazy thought to extropelate from this the future numbers will do so as well. As mentioned again and again fosssils are one part of many proofs of evolution

If analogies are pointless, why did you use one? You call creationist reasoning contradictory?

As to wings on a bird - An ostrich is a "bird", no? All birds have wings, no? Does the existence of wings decide whether a bird is a bird? How do you know the only purpose of wings is for flying? They do seem to be useful for birds who don't fly...

And how does a blind force of nature know that wings will give an organism the ability to fly? How does that same blind force of nature know that an organism needs to fly to survive? Or is that coincidence that managed to work, an so continued through the generations?

Please, use wikipedia again. I like reading from dictionaries that can be changed by anyone for any reason (illustration given by Stephen Colbert as to the unreliability of WikiPedia, i wish i could remember the episode number/name). But of course, I'm sure you have a perfectly good rebuttal to that statement to prove that yet again, i don't know what i'm talking about.

[Cause]

The Rope;128860 said:

If analogies are pointless, why did you use one? You call creationist reasoning contradictory?

This anolagy is pointless. Keyword this. Is analogy was a poor one and If I may say so showed a poor understanding of the mechanism of evolution. It was not a personal attack I felt. It is just hopeless to compare a car to the most advanced machine in the world life for anything beyond the most rudimentary connections

Quote

As to wings on a bird - An ostrich is a "bird", no? All birds have wings, no? Does the existence of wings decide whether a bird is a bird? How do you know the only purpose of wings is for flying? They do seem to be useful for birds who don't fly.

How do we know a birds wings are for flying? Well cut them off and a bird cant fly. Once again see the scientific definition of vestigial organs. An anatomical system which has lost all or most of its original purpose through evolution.

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And how does a blind force of nature know that wings will give an organism the ability to fly? How does that same blind force of nature know that an organism needs to fly to survive? Or is that coincidence that managed to work, an so continued through the generations?

This question is so ignorant of the outlined mechanism of evolution that Im offended you will think Im personally attacking you. However you must call things as they are. Nature does not give animals wings so they can fly. It does not now the animal needs wings to survive. But if after millenia of mutation an animal finds itself with folds of skin from its torso to its hands and dsicovers that when it jumps off high branches it can glide and this saves it from predators while its land based kin die off suddenly its genes are all thats left to be passed on and all future rats from this will become bats.

Quote

Please, use wikipedia again. I like reading from dictionaries that can be changed by anyone for any reason (illustration given by Stephen Colbert as to the unreliability of WikiPedia, i wish i could remember the episode number/name). But of course, I'm sure you have a perfectly good rebuttal to that statement to prove that yet again, i don't know what i'm talking about.

Do you imagine I never read it? Do you imagine I cant judge wheather its an acceptable resource at the time. I would never hand in wiki for my science paper but for an internet debate I feel it is fine. I can try find for you free science papers but I fear you will become so bored after the first paragraph and forgive me but be unable to understand them. I can barely understand them. They can be like reading another language if you are not familiar with the teachings of the field.

P.S I saw the stephen colbert show you refer to I believe. The one with elephants. Great stuff. That man is a genius.

[The Rope]

A couple of those points you disputed seem to me to be a matter of semantics. But thats a waste of time to post about - semantics aren't really facts, just language.
Anyway... i have nothing to say (proabably caus i'm tired).... Except I appreciate your growing politeness, it makes me less defensive and more logical (if only marginally).

Actually, ithink i'll edit my last post to embolden the wording i was emphasizing.

[Valgard]

I just want to add a few words about the lack of transitory fossils found in the world. As has been well described above by Dman, the numbers of the intermediate species is very small so there is a much lower chance of one becoming fossilised. Also the current theory is, rather than many 10’s of thousands of years for new species to evolve it is more likely that an event happens such as a meteor striking the earth or sudden climate change e.g. the proposed end to the Devonian period where 90% of all life forms perished. This opens up new niches that previously would have been occupied by a specialist organism e.g. sabre tooth tiger, which could have out competed another less specialised organism in this particular niche, but was to specialised to adapt to the changing circumstances and so goes extinct. The new niche is filled probably by a number of species all competing for the resources. The most successful organism will survive best filling this particular niche and so it will reproduce and pass on the characteristics to its offspring. Over the next 2-3 thousand years or so this process will be reproduced until an equilibrium is reached and a creature that is as well adapted to its environment is now in existence, it may in fact look nothing like its predecessors. So there is only 2000 odd years for these transitory organisms to be become fossilised, this is why they are so unusual to be discovered.

Also I cannot understand why people insist on evolution in micro-organisms being called microevolution for me it is like macroevolution, whilst the changes may outwardly appear to be much smaller than for larger organisms, but the changes in genetic data are much greater and so in fact the species are much more different. E.g. a chimpanzee and a human share 99% of our genetic material and are different species (same genus but different species), whilst Burkholderia cepacia and Burholderia pseudomalliei (the first is an onion rot causing organism that also causes severe complications in cystic fibrosis patients, the second is an animal pathogen that is a feared biological weapon for humans as well) their genetic material diverges by up to 30% depending on strain type (if people wish I can dig out the papers I have on this subject but I will warn people they are exceptionally dull and complicated). These are two organisms from the same genus that are hugely divergent in action and their genetic information. Whilst chimps and humans have much more in common with each other yet we are saying that macroevolution brought about the divergence into chimp and human.

Bacteria also support the argument in the first paragraph. This has been observed that organisms that were highly adapted to invading humans, for example Streptococcus pneumoniae possibly the greatest killer in Western Europe before the advent of penicillin, it was the main causative again of pneumonia. Treating this organism has added 10 years to the average life expectancy of the population. Once it was treated new organisms (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Haempohilus influenzae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus) that were resistant to the antibiotics used started to be isolated from pneumonia patient, but the new organisms were not as virulent they were not so able to cause the disease. Over the next 40 odd years newer antibiotics were released and the new organisms were contained, but always new resistances were found and now there a completely resistant organisms in hospitals. These are still less virulent that S. pneumoniae was, but now the new organisms are far more virulent than they used to be and the competition between them and the antibiotics we treat patients with will create organisms better and better adapted to surviving in the new antibiotic filled human lung. This fits in with the model I proposed above the dominant species in a particular niche was removed by a change in circumstances and several new species rose to fill its position and they are adapting to survive more effectively in the niche till they have out competed any other organisms that attempt to fill the same niche. Once this has occurred then mutations are not desirable and so will rarely be selected for as the majority of mutations are negative not positive.

This for me is the perfect example of macroevolution in action and this is occurring as we speak in hospitals across the world.

[Dolorous Menhir]

It seems to me that Doughboy has his standards of evidence the wrong way round. He is extremely quick to dismiss scientific evidence as not meeting his exacting standards, but at the same time will readily absorb and repeat anything the Bible says, no matter how ridiculous. A more reasonable standard would involve the reverse of the two stances.

I would just like to reiterate that the Bible is not scientifically accurate in every respect, as he has claimed several times.

[stone monkey]

The Rope;128860 said:

And how does a blind force of nature know that wings will give an organism the ability to fly? How does that same blind force of nature know that an organism needs to fly to survive? Or is that coincidence that managed to work, an so continued through the generations?

Okay, there's someone with no idea whatsoever of how Natural Selection works.

In simple terms:

Natural Selection works on individuals.

The competitors that an organism has are, for the most part, the other members of it's own species.

Random mutation happens in the DNA of each organism - this is as a direct consequence of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as applied to Information, it's inescapable.

Most mutations make no difference - this is partly because DNA has fantastic amounts of redundancy "built" into it and also because the genetic code itself has a certain amount of error checking within it; another consequence of evolution actually, as the organisms whose DNA didn't were at a massive disadvantage against those who did and thus no longer exist; for the reason for this, see my next point.

The vast majority of the rest of mutations are bad for the organism - they leave it at some kind of disadvantage ie. they make it worse at the business of surviving and reproducing than its peers. Which means that if you're an organism that's very prone to mutations this leaves you at a disadvantage when compared with those who aren't (except in some rather specialised cases, that is)

Only a very small proportion of mutations give an organism some sort of advantage and that advantage leads to the organism leaving a higher number of descendents than its competitors. Which, of course, means that organisms that can mutate are at an advantage, in a changing environment, compared to ones that don't.

It doesn't matter what the mechanism of the advantage actually is, it only matters that it's useful. Evolution doesn't know in advance.

For example: one of the theories about the evolution of flight in insects - who have been at it way longer than birds - is that their wings didn't evolve for flight, they evolved as solar heaters. The larger surface area provided by the proto-wing allowed a given insect to heat to an efficient operating temperature faster than its confreres. This would, very obviously, mean there would be an advantage to having bigger solar panels, so each generation the panels get bigger (as the guys who have the smaller ones are less likely to survive) until suddenly physics takes over and you've got flying insects (when you're small and light your major problem is actually staying on the ground and big flappy things don't help you with that)

[Dolorous Menhir]

Well, Stone Monkey, that's what happens when people try to judge something they don't understand. They come to the wrong conclusions.

[Cause]

I actually still dont see the problem

[D Man]

FYI:

The first fuction of feathers was insulation: they evolved as such from scales to assists in reptile/dinosaur thermal regulation, it being an advantage over scaly skin and helping maintain a higher body temperature and a more active animal.

The first function of wings was gliding and assisted jumping.

Thats one of the great things about nature: it doesnt care what somethings supposed to be for. If something confers any sort of advantage to an animal, it gets used, and the same thing can be used for different things, like the first legs were flippers with wrists and bats wings are arms with elongated fingers: nature is remarkably opportunistic about physiologies!

[Cause]

Which I will point out still fits the true meaning of vestigial organs. If wings are meant for flying and are used for leaping than their original purpose is iether totally or mostly gone. If the wing is actually meant for gliding but today is used ofr flying than its purpose has still changed. If they were used for insulation but than for gliding the original purpose has changed. Another word for change used here is evolution. And thats why vestigial organs are considered a contributing fact to the theory of evolution

[caladanbrood]

D Man;129097 said:

The first function of wings was gliding and assisted jumping.

Apologies if I'm being dumb, but isn't that... flying?

[Dolorous Menhir]

caladanbrood;129124 said:

Apologies if I'm being dumb, but isn't that... flying?

No, it's an intermediate step between jumping and flying.

[caladanbrood]

Well, ok, flying low then... still flying.

[Dolorous Menhir]

caladanbrood;129131 said:

Well, ok, flying low then... still flying.

Think of it as jumping --> gliding/flapping --> flying.

It's not hard to imagine a progression of jumping longer and longer distances, with webbed hands becoming webbed arms becoming wings, getting stronger over time until capable of flight.

[Cause]

Flight is the creation of lift. Gliding is the controll of descent

[D Man]

Flying is maneouvering in the air and generating more lift than your weight.

Gliding is delayed falling.

Edit: cause: gliding generates lift as well. Just not very much.

Gliding is mostly increasing drag.