transitional fossils

Originally posted by amannion
Like most things in life - other than religious thought of course - yes, it changes as new information comes to light ....

Your forgetting reality, how something happened does not change
because we come up with new ways to describe what we think occured
either no matter how simple our train of thought.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Your forgetting reality, how something happened does not change
because we come up with new ways to describe what we think occured
either no matter how simple our train of thought.
Kelly

Reality may not change, but our understandings of reality most definitely do.

The Earth always travels around the Sun - that's reality. But our understanding of that process clearly has changed significantly.

Originally posted by amannion
Reality may not change, but our understandings of reality most definitely do.

The Earth always travels around the Sun - that's reality. But our understanding of that process clearly has changed significantly.

No one is saying otherwise, but simply saying religious thought may
not change, does not automatically mean the subject it is speaking to
is wrong for that reason. We can without a doubt say that what we
think is true today may not be what we think is true tomorrow, and with
that simply because we change our minds does not mean we are
getting it right today, and religion is getting it wrong, just for the
reason of changing views due to our understanding changing.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
No one is saying otherwise, but simply saying religious thought may
not change, does not automatically mean the subject it is speaking to
is wrong for that reason. We can without a doubt say that what we
think is true today may not be what we think is true tomorrow, and with
that simply because we change our minds does not mean we are
getting it right ...[text shortened]... tting it wrong, just for the
reason of changing views due to our understanding changing.
Kelly

No, of course not, but science is built on the notion of constant change - seeking the best solutions, the best explanations, for any particular phenomenon.
Religion is not. Religion is based on dogmatic principles which are, for the most part, antagonistic to the notion of change.

It's like an asymptotic curve getting closer and closer to some particular limit - science has built in processes that gradually allow it to near the limit; religion does not.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Since the word science is being applied to this interpretation some people put this process on par with physics and so on.

Are you claiming that it is not on a par with physics? What other 'sciences' are you throwing in as well? Which 'sciences' are not 'on par' and which aren't?
Can you give any reasons for such a claim (other than 'the Bible says something else'😉.
Don't forget also that you are the first to throw out results in physics if they involve dating something older than you are happy with.

"You take the evidence and make a conclusion that fits it"

How on earth did Kelly Jay manage to take such a statement and forward it in a negative light?

Originally posted by amannion
No, of course not, but science is built on the notion of constant change - seeking the best solutions, the best explanations, for any particular phenomenon.
Religion is not. Religion is based on dogmatic principles which are, for the most part, antagonistic to the notion of change.

It's like an asymptotic curve getting closer and closer to some particu ...[text shortened]... - science has built in processes that gradually allow it to near the limit; religion does not.

I agree up to a point, religion is more concern about us changing and
cares little about the on going change around us. Science does bring
about outstanding solutions towards many of our issues in life, but
that does not mean everything we call science is as solid as everything
else we call science even though the methods might be the same,
they do not guarantee the same ability to acquire good results. Such
as science in the realm of physics is in my opinion much better than
science when it comes to fossils and all that is applied to them.
Kelly

Originally posted by doodinthemood
"You take the evidence and make a conclusion that fits it"

How on earth did Kelly Jay manage to take such a statement and forward it in a negative light?

When you apply that towards fossils all you are doing is connecting
the dots and calling it science, getting agreements about fossils in
no way means the agreement is correct you cannot 'prove' that wrong
it can only be accepted and rejected. That quite different than what
we do in math or other realms of science.
Kelly

Originally posted by twhitehead
Are you claiming that it is not on a par with physics? What other 'sciences' are you throwing in as well? Which 'sciences' are not 'on par' and which aren't?
Can you give any reasons for such a claim (other than 'the Bible says something else'😉.
Don't forget also that you are the first to throw out results in physics if they involve dating something older than you are happy with.

Have you seen me say it is true, because "the Bible says so" when
I'm making a point in this discussion, when I want someone to accept
something as true, have I appealed to scripture as an authority wiith
you or someone else here? The only time I think I have used that is
either when I'm discussing scripture, or when someone says, it is true
because we have science. If you want to discuss this try sticking with
the words and points I am making not the ones you aquire by reading
my mind.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
When you apply that towards fossils all you are doing is connecting
the dots and calling it science, getting agreements about fossils in
no way means the agreement is correct you cannot 'prove' that wrong
it can only be accepted and rejected. That quite different than what
we do in math or other realms of science.
Kelly

If we only had about 4 fossils, you'd be right.

This argument has never made much sense to me.

In an evolutionary sense, all fossils are transitional. Every species we've ever discovered is a transitional species; it represents one point on a long and fluid evolutionary timeline. Whenever we discover an organism that represents a transition between two other species - like Homo Habilis being a transition between Australopithecus and Homo Sapiens - that transitional organism is still a species unto itself. There's no distinct moment when a species enters transition; it's a long, continuous, gradual process. The changes only appear to be sudden and dramatic to us, looking at different fossilized snapshots millions of years apart.

Originally posted by darthmix
This argument has never made much sense to me.

In an evolutionary sense, all fossils are transitional. Every species we've ever discovered is a transitional species; it represents one point on a long and fluid evolutionary timeline. Whenever we discover an organism that represents a transition between two other species - like Homo Habilis being a transit ...[text shortened]... sudden and dramatic to us, looking at different fossilized snapshots millions of years apart.

It's mainly because definitions of the word "species" are inadequate to deal with evolution, since species definitions assume species are relatively static, whilst evolution is algorithmic and continuous.

I guess I agree with that. The "transitional fossils" rap has always seemed like a semantic error rather than an actual critique of evolutionary theory.

I mean, creationists will say "Well, where are the fossils showing the transition between homo habilis and homo sapiens?" We have those; they're another species, called homo ergaster. "But where are the transitional fossils between homo ergaster and homo sapiens?" We have those too; they're called homo heidelbergensis. "But where are the fossils showing the transition between those two?"

...and so on, to infinity. We have tons of transitional fossils; they're all transitional. It doesn't matter how many we find. Each one we find will be considered its own species, and then creationists will be claiming we don't have fossils showing the transition. It's an idiotic argument.

Originally posted by darthmix
I guess I agree with that. The "transitional fossils" rap has always seemed like a semantic error rather than an actual critique of evolutionary theory.

Oh, it is. It's playing with words, trying to create a controversy which doesn't exist.

Of course, it's far easier to create a (false) controversy than to stop one, even if it is demonstrably false.

Speaking of transitional fossils, does any one think McCain has a chance this coming election?

BTW: McCain says that there are no missing links. He has first hand knonwledge of this!!