Proof... and lack of proof

Originally posted by dj2becker
All people that are so quick to quote from the Talk.Origin website need to read this article:

http://www.trueorigin.org/to_deception.asp

Could you please take your hysterics somewhere else? I'm raising a particular point, to RatX, about transitional fossils. I'm not just quoting from TO. Unlike you, my posts do not consist merely of the regurgitation of crap from the web.

Originally posted by bbarr
If you are interested in transitional fossils, here is a good link:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

If the examples given on this site don't qualify, on your view, as transitional fossils, then perhaps you mean something different by the term "transitional fossil" than TOE crowd does. If so, could you clarify what a fossil would have to be like, on your view, in order to qualify as transitional?

Cheers.

Thanks for the link, however, it didn't answer my questions...

The "transitionary creatures" listed are fully-functional creatures that have been re-arranged to the "Origin tree". I do agree that some animals do share similarities (like some birds have teeth or claws - but are not vestigial), but these aren't proof of one species developing into another.

If TOE hypothesizes that fish evolved into frogs, at least some transitionary life-forms should have existed (a creature that had fins with stubs, and others where those stubs have already started to become legs - and all the other changs in the creature of course, including gills to lungs etc - all changes should be included). What we see, however, are fully-functional creatures that share some similarities.

Tens of millions of fossils have been unearthed and over 250,000 distinct species have been defined. We don't find lizards with pieces of feathers forming on scales, no organisms have only retina casings - they have eyeballs or don't. Even if we consider punctuated equilibrium, an abundance of true transitional fossils should still be present.

The renouned paleontologist, George Gaylord (ok...) Simpson observed, when talking about the proposed progression of animals: "The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases, the break is so sharp and the gap so large, that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed."

If one considers Darwinian evolution (which overcomes the problem of survival for the inadequately functional transitional creatures of punctuated equilibrium), why, as Darwin wondered, do we have such defined species, and not all of nature in confusion?

Looking forward to your answer...

Originally posted by RatX
Thanks for the link, however, it didn't answer my questions...

The "transitionary creatures" listed are fully-functional creatures that have been re-arranged to the "Origin tree". I do agree that some animals do share similarities (like some birds have teeth or claws - but are not vestigial), but these aren't proof of one species developing into ...[text shortened]... e such defined species, and not all of nature in confusion?

Looking forward to your answer...

I don't know why it matters that the fossils found are of creatures that, while living, were "fully functional". I'm not even sure what "fully funtional" means in this context, other than that they lived to a certain age. Would you expect to find in the fossil record abundant evidence of creatures that were not "fully functional"? If so, why?

There are transitional fossils from fish to amphibians. The Ichthyostega is one such transitional creatures. You can read all about this in E.H. Colbert's excellent work Evolution of the Vertebrates.

I'm not sure why you think that it is necessary for evolutionary theory that there be a fossil record showing the complete and gradual transition from one species to another. Evolutionary theory doesn't predict that there will be such a record, since some creatures won't leave fossils behind as easily as others, and since only a minute fraction of creatures leave fossils behind anyway, and since some environments simply aren't such that the formation of fossils readily occurs. What is interesting is that nothing found in the fossil record is inconsistent with evolutionary theory and, further, that Darwinian histories often predict successfully what sorts of transitional fossils we will find.

Why would you expect to find lizards with pieces of feathers forming on scales or creatures with only retina casings? Do you think that any gradual trasition from scales to feathers must have a mid-way point where you see scales with pieces of feathers forming on them? You seem to be just speculating on what you think transitional forms would have to be like, and then you chide evolutionary theory because the fossil record doesn't confirm your speculations. But, why on Earth should we think that your speculations concerning what transitional forms would have to be like are accurate?

Yes, I'm familiar with the quote. Morris and his cronies trot out this chestnut all the time. Rarely mentioned by the Creationists is the passage of Simpson's that just precedes the one you quote:

"Among the exmples are many in which, beyond the slightest doubt, a species or genus has been gradually transformed into another. Such gradual transformation is also fairly well is also fairly well exemplified for subfamilies and occasionally for families, as the groups are commonly ranked". (1953, pg. 360)

In the text, for the next 16 pages, Simpson goes on to describe some of these examples and summarize the character of the fossil record and chart the evolution of the mammalian orders.