Anti-evolution, pro science conservatives

Let me ask this Ha Ha- what are their evidneces for even the earliest so called relationships? Let’s go back in hte graph to the procaryotes and eucaryotes- Are you aware that it was taught for many years that these were both related and that the Eucaryotes evolved from the Procaryotes, and htat scientists saaid (And schools taught- and sadly still teach) that we can ‘see evoltuion in action’ as the Procaryotes evolve into Eucaryotes’ but later HAD to admit htiws was a lie when it was exposed as they bald faced lie that it was? Biolgy itself exposed this lie, but science and schools KEPT IT FROM THE PUBLIC UNTIL pressure became too great and htey HAD to admit that it was NOTHING but a symbiotic relationship between the two and NOT Macroevolution as they intentionally and falsely claiemd and taught!

IF they can’t even describe the simplest earliest examples, which SHOULD be a much simpler thing to do biologically IF there is common descent- concidering that there is far less biolgoical mass to sift and correlate and claissify and study, then what makes oyu think that they can accurately clasify the later, much more biologicaLLY complex systems without any supoporting evidence and be correct?

Firtst of asll- you are aware that some hwere foud in the same supposed timelines, right?

I have to say, the claims you post do lead me to some interesting reading. Here is someone's account of trying to find where that often-repeated claim originated. The best he could do is a book from 1935 by someone who apparently believed that one fossil is as old as another, and that since there are Equus fossils out there, they must be as old as Eophippus fossils. If you have another primary source for the idea that different fossils were found in the same timelines, I hope you post it.

what are their evidneces for even the earliest so called relationships? Let’s go back in hte graph to the procaryotes and eucaryotes- Are you aware that it was taught for many years that these were both related and that the Eucaryotes evolved from the Procaryote....Biolgy itself exposed this lie, but science and schools KEPT IT FROM THE PUBLIC UNTIL pressure became too great and htey HAD to admit that it was NOTHING but a symbiotic relationship between the two and NOT Macroevolution as they intentionally and falsely claiemd and taught!

I frankly don't have a strong background in cell-level biology, so I can't really address this. A little poking around makes it look like they still teach that Eucs evolved from Procs:

"One important landmark along this evolutionary road occurred about 1.5 billion years ago, when there was a transition from small cells with relatively simple internal structures - the so-called procaryotic cells, which include the various types of bacteria - to a flourishing of larger and radically more complex eucaryotic cells such as are found in higher animals and plants." From Molecular Biology of the Cell, 4th edition, 2002.

"Eucaryotic cells appear to have arisen from procaryotic cells, specifically out of the Archaea." From The Origin, Evolution and Classification of Microbial Life, Kenneth Todar, University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Bacteriology, 2005.

Still deceiving the public, I guess. Maybe more of that pressure is needed. (From where or whom did that pressure come, anyway?)

[[”Eucaryotic cells appear to have arisen from procaryotic cells, specifically out of the Archaea.” From The Origin, Evolution and Classification of Microbial Life, Kenneth Todar, University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Bacteriology, 2005.

Still deceiving the public, I guess. Maybe more of that pressure is needed. (From where or whom did that pressure come, anyway?)]]

Yes, still deceiving- Procaryotic cells invade the host and ingage in symbiotic relationships- symbiotic relationships- no matter the amount of adaption to hte invasion the host may go through, are not examples of Macroevolution.

[[I frankly don’t have a strong background in cell-level biology, so I can’t really address this. A little poking around makes it look like they still teach that Eucs evolved from Procs:]]

I’ve looked into the matter carefully, and it was admitted to be nothign more than symbiotic relationship between the two species- yet sadly, the current common data still falsely claim it to be an example of macroevolution.

[[The best he could do is a book from 1935 by someone who apparently believed that one fossil is as old as another, and that since there are Equus fossils out there, they must be as old as Eophippus fossils.]

Talkorigins is known for misleading and itnentional ommissions- Nowhere did I see the fella claim that all bones are the same age- He simply said modern bones have been foudn with older ones which obviously would sufggest they were aroudn at same time

I find it quite amusing that the telkorigin writing criticises the finding of ‘just five teeth’ in another instance and insinuates that onme can’t reasonably conclude a species was found when a great deal of macroevolutionary ‘evidence’ is based on nothign but bone fragments and indeed on nothign more than a few teeth as well.

I find it equally amusing, and intellectually dishonest for hte talkorigin writer to do his own reasearch and intimate that Rimmer ‘could have’ gotten his source from the same books- the writer is making a case out of nothign but unknowns about hte actual situation or references that rimmer used or didn’t use after the fact. It seems incredible to me that the writer can make his case without knowing the actual sources rimmer used, and do so with such selfproffessed authority to do so. Sorry- but your talk origin link is nothign but a biased assinine example of pompous guesswork passed off as an authoritive refutation.

Just got the latest ‘scientific American’ from my neighbor (he always sends them over as a joke), and there are two articles I ‘can’t wait’ to read titled ‘Hidden Natural Laws?” (this aught to be rich- now Macroevoltuionists can hide behind the idea of ‘hidden natural laws’) and “Unseen Dimensions?”

I guess Macroevolutionists are reading the writing on the wall and predicting that they will have to appeal to more supernaturalism in light of their biologically impossible macroevoltuionary scenarios.

The second magazine looks liek the typical “Man-caused global warmign will doom us all” alarmism “Su8per Hurricanes” “Warmer Water” blah blah blah- (Is ‘Scientific American’ a ‘peer reviewed’ magazine publication? If so- WOW~!)

I’ve looked into the matter carefully, and it was admitted to be nothign more than symbiotic relationship between the two species

Do you have a source for that? Or for the idea that eucaryotes have been around as long as procaryotes?

Nowhere did I see the fella claim that all bones are the same age- He simply said modern bones have been foudn with older ones

Who, Rimmer? In the excerpt, he talks about all the different sizes and shapes of horses around today, and then says "The fossil forms, which were probably equally contemporaneous..." [emphasis mine] In other words, he just makes up the idea that the fossil forms all lived at the same time. Later he says, "How can you show the evolution of a four-toed, rodent-like animal, the size of a cat, into the horse, that weighs a ton, if there was a true horse eating grass side by side with the Eohippus that was just starting in to evolve into a horse thirty million years later?" There's no basis given for thinking a "true horse" was eating grass side by side with Eohippus, except that there are fossils of both.

Okay, so if it isn't Rimmer's book, what is the source for your claim that modern horse bones have been found mixed in with fossil horse bones? You posted a link to a Web site, which references a book by Hitchings, who neglects to give a source for the claim. The TalkOrigins writer spends a lot of time following the trail and finds it leads to Rimmer's book. If you think that's just pompous guesswork, then tell us what the source really was.

[[if there was a true horse eating grass side by side with the Eohippus that was just starting in to evolve into a horse thirty million years later?”]]

Wow- And you know htis rock badger was ‘evolving into a horse’ how again? Seems to me you accept that a species was ‘evolving’ with no evidence to support htis claim, yet when bones are foudn alongside those same rock badgers, you and talkorigins find it necessary to attack the character and itnegrity of Rimmer? as I said- ask him- he wrote what he wrote, and second guessing him or doubting him without any proof that he was lyign or stretchign hte truth isn’t a vald refutation.

[[There’s no basis given for thinking a “true horse” was eating grass side by side with Eohippus, except that there are fossils of both]]

Hmmm- so we should throw out all paleantologists finds because after all, they’re just fossils- I see

[[The TalkOrigins writer spends a lot of time following the trail and finds it leads to Rimmer’s book]

No- he doesn’t find that- He ASSUMES it must have- Assuming is soemthign Macroevolutionists excell at apparently, and by golly, their assumptions are gospel apparently.

[[If you think that’s just pompous guesswork]]

Yes I do! TO had no evidnece or direct quotes from Rimmer, yet TO felt ‘compelled’ to give his OPINIONS that lacked any factually verifiable evidnece- in other words, He is compeltely guessing after the fact. TO writer didn’t like bones being foudn alongside rockbadger bones, and in an attempt to wave it all away (per usual) he has opined with nothign but assumptions and unverifiable guesses.

[[and finds it leads to Rimmer’s book.]

I guess you missed hte part where the TO writer said ‘he thinks’ it led there- with no evidence or statements from rimmer to back it up- we have only a person’s word who incidently desperately needs to refute the modern horse bones with old bones find-

[[Hitching cites this book elsewhere in “The Neck of the Giraffe”, but not in reference to this particular assertion. But this must have been Hitching’s source,]]

And

[[Could this be the essence of Rimmer’s claim? Not that fossils of Hyracotherium had been found in the same geological layers as Equus, but simply that there were fossils of Equus?]]

**Here Barber reads the mind of Rimmer- telling us what the deceased man was thinking and ‘Really meant to say’ (which incidently was NEVER mentioend by Rimmer at all)- very impressive Barber- you’ve missed your calling- you should have been a psychic mindreader of deceased people- not a writer on TO**

and

[[but even though it seems to be the basis for Rimmer’s outline of horse evolution, it makes no reference to either Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis.]] **Even htough it SEEMS? Barber? Is it or isn’t it? Forget the ‘it seems’ and ‘I thinks’ - either you have the verifiable facts or not- which is it?

[[And this would seem to be all the examples of Equus nevadensis that are available.]] **Hmmmm- you SEEM to use hte word SEEM a lot Barber- if you’re goign to attack someone’s credibility- how abotu writing facts next time instead of pure speculations and assumptions, eh? Your credibility is quickly shrinking here sir.**

[[ and so it would seem that my first guess about Rimmer’s claim was correct.]] **And it would SEEM that you used findings that SEEMED to fit to base your validating you GUESS about Rimmer on- Yup- this is gettign to be quite hte authoritive piece of investigation here Barber!**

[[But Rimmer was unaware that this shows nothing of the kind, and instead here veals a profound misunderstanding of geology.]] **Barber bases this latest accusation on the fact that ‘there [MAY] be nothing about the teeth that warrants them being placed in a separate species [emphasis mine]- there wasn’t even consensus at the time apparently, but Barber, being the seer into past events that he is, is able to inform his readers with a definitive statement, that Rimmer had a “PROFOUND” misunderstanding abotu geology**

[[But it is now over 65 years since Rimmer wrote these words, and in that time the techniques of scientific investigation have grown in ways unimagined in Rimmer’s day.]]

Yes, they have grown in such a way as to now be able to wave hte hand and make all refuting Macroevolution damaging evidence quetly dissappear so that noone ever questions the validity of the hypothesis

And htere you have it folks- the difinitive, authoritive debunking of modern horse bones found amoung ‘ancient’ rock badger bones- all is well again (IF you find “IT SEEMS” solid enough evidence to work off of- it SEEMS Barber certainly does so, and would like everyoen else to as well)

Sorry- but for reasons such as these, and many many more as laid out on Trueorigins site- I wouldn’t trust TO as far as I could throw it!

Look, this all started because you made a claim about horse fossils. All this bluster about TalkOrigins is just a distraction from the fact that you apparently can’t back it up. They at least made an effort to find out the basis for the claim—you haven’t even bothered to do that. I’m not going to get sidetracked into a discussion of TO’s credibility, because it’s not relevant. If you come back with an alternate source that can be checked, I’ll look at it. Otherwise, I’m done with this thread.

[[Look, this all started because you made a claim about horse fossils. All this bluster about TalkOrigins is just a distraction from the fact that you apparently can’t back it up.]]

I backed it up just fine by showing how deceiving TO is- regardless of his ‘intentions’-, he failed by engaging in nothign more than further assumptions as I pointed out

[[I’m not going to get sidetracked into a discussion of TO’s credibility, because it’s not relevant.]]

I’f you’re goign to cite TO as your reference, and hteir article is nothign but fluff and bias and a character assasination because the evidence conflicts with his belief in horse evolution, then I’m sorry- but it IS relevent.

Horse fossils were found, TO tries to downplay it with assumptions, by telling us what Rimmer must have thought and doen- and he shows no evidence to support his claim- only assumptions- I’m sorry, but TO’s credibility is on the line here because it was you who brought it up in the first place- if you can hsow horse bones were not found- then fine- but for Barnes to suggest that they weren’t old without any proof, and to accuse Rimmer of grossly misunderstanding geology without any proof that Rimmer did, is nothign but a baseless mischaracterization and a petty character attack that has NO evidence to back the accusation up with. The end amen brother Ben.

Ha ha-

By "kind" I mean kind as in back on the farm. If you can show me that one animal actually did, unquestionably, (which means during my lifetime, in this case) descend from another, then I will consider myself to know that those two animals and all that's between them will be the same kind. If they look like the same kind to me (but they are non interbreedable and I didn't see them descend from the same granddaddy) then I will consider myself to believe them to be the same kind. If they can breed and produce viable offspring, they are almost certainly the same kind. Lack of inter-fertility does not however (by my definition of kind) disprove kindness: It is clear that if one species gets separated into two different geographically isolated regions for long enough, they will no longer be able to interbreed -- but they were still the same kind to begin with and are (by my definition) the same kind to end with.(and always will be the same kind.)

The fact that my car's lug nut fell of and got run over by a hundred and 50 loaded trucks and no longer fits onto my car's lug doesn't prove that it's now a different kind of nut -- it's just lost some of it's geometrical information.)

I realize that my definition of kind doesn't mesh perfectly with yours. I also realize that it's not perfect. For example, by genetic engineering if by no other means, a cat could be turned into any other kind (by my definition) or any creature that has never before existed, just like a computer program can be rewritten to become something entirely different. But my definition of kind has served me well for all practical purposes. Hopefully that answers your question.

You said the horse skeletons appeared to you to be variations within a species or genus--or whatever you meant by "kind"--and compared the variation to different kinds of dogs. My question, which I guess I didn't express very well, is how then do you account for the fact that these variations succeed each other in the fossil record?

I thought you would have known this (or maybe I don't understand your question) but intentional dog breeding has produced sort of a ring species, if I may speak loosely, where each of the different varieties have been preserved. But if, instead of wanting different varieties, dog breeders had only wanted the tiniest dog, we would have only the teacup poodle and all the other intermediate species would exist only as fossils. Same thing with the horses -- had selective pressure preserved some of each the many different intermediate species along the way, we would still have living specimens of many of the intermediate stages. Think of two trees growing: In the case of dogs, lots and lots of branches were allowed to grow. But in the case of horses, only one branch was left on, (or only a few) and so even though it could have had more branches, they got cut off and it doesn't have more branches -- but there's no reason to think that it couldn't have, just like the dogs. (I imagine it would have taken somewhat more generations since selective pressures may not have been as strong as those exercised by dog breeders. Maybe 10 times as long, but I highly doubt a hundred or thousand times as long.)

If they're just variations like dogs, how come there aren't any fox-sized horses running around now?

There are! Or very nearly! There are whole clubs relating to the raising of miniature horses!

Beech Island, SC Check this one out! Notice that these people riding and leading these horses are small children. Also notice that many of these small horses have well grown out mains, tails, and forelocks. (They aren't born with hair like that. And besides you wouldn't want to by riding a baby horse anyway. They don't obey very well. Not sure if you know much about horsemanship, but horses are trained for several years before being ridden by casual riders -- especially by children (I'm certainly no horse trainer, but I've watched horse trainers training and I've ridden horses and that one milk cow we had. I'm telling you, that cow was level headed -- nothing spooked her. And the looks from the people in passing cars was totally worth it.))

Anyway, just search google for miniature horse and you'll find plenty of info about them.

This is my favorite, because it's pretty extensive and has nice pictures. You'll find fish showing up about halfway down the orange-red group at the top left, near the label "450 m yrs." Mammal-y things show up a few branchings above that, in the same group.

Thanks very much! Exactly what I was looking for!

I did venture to go to the website that hosted it, and, well, it looks like the fellow's sort of a funny religious thing or something, I couldn't quite tell. Unless that's a website for a strange movie. Anyway, I guess if we have to go to a religious website to get good scientific documents so be it :-)(To be honest, I sort of expected a university or something. I hope this chart is accurate.)

Thanks again,

-Jesse

had selective pressure preserved some of each the many different intermediate species along the way, we would still have living specimens of many of the intermediate stages.

But it didn't, so the intermediate stages went extinct. Isn't that pretty much the definition of evolution?

Think of two trees growing: In the case of dogs, lots and lots of branches were allowed to grow. But in the case of horses, only one branch was left on, (or only a few) and so even though it could have had more branches, they got cut off and it doesn't have more branches -- but there's no reason to think that it couldn't have, just like the dogs.

Right. In the case of horses, environmental changes did the branch trimming--again, pretty much the definition of evolution. I don't think you're suggesting that humans made the decisions about which branches of the horse to keep, are you?

I did venture to go to the website that hosted it, and, well, it looks like the fellow's sort of a funny religious thing or something, I couldn't quite tell.

That's funny. I just found it by doing a Google image search for "evolution tree"--I had no idea what the rest of the site was about. I'm glad you like it. There are a bunch of other versions on the same results page, so you can see if there's one you like better, and see how well they all agree. If you really want to get into it, check out the Tree of Life Web Project, where you can click branches to move up and down the tree. I find it a little confusing, but it's certainly extensive.

And I think I get what you mean about "kind." But that's the funny thing about common ancestry. Here's the context around that quote I posted earlier about why Eohippus is grouped with the horses:

"Matthew (1926) pointed out, but latter students mostly ignored, the fact that eohippus was not a horse, that it is about as good an ancestor for Rhinoceros as for Equus. In effect, there was no family Equidae when eohippus lived. The family and all its distinctive characters developed gradually as time went on. Eohippus is referred to the Equidae because we happen to have more complete lines back to it from later members of this family than from other families."

In other words, Eohippus is called an early horse because we have a better chain of fossils leading from it to horses. If we had more fossils leading from it to rhinoceroses, it'd be called an early rhinoceros; and if I'd posted photos of that chain of fossils, you might say that they all looked like the same kind. Or maybe you wouldn't--maybe you'd still think that first one looked more like a horse. But to Simpson, anyway, it wasn't at all clear what "kind" of animal, in your sense, Eohippus was.

How about these (not to scale):

How about these, to scale:

----

This one wouldn't inline

----

Micro-evolution in short time periods can produce some very drastic changes.

-Jesse

But it didn't, so the intermediate stages went extinct. Isn't that pretty much the definition of evolution?

It depends on your definition of evolution. I don't see what gong extinct has to do with evolution. But generally evolution means change. If we're talking micro evolution, then yes, the teacup poodle coming from a wolf like dog is evolution, regardless of whether it's a ring species (like dogs) or a one-branched species (like horses.)

But if we're talking about speciation by evolution or macro-evolution as some call it, then no, the teacup descending from the wolf is not evolution. They are all the same kind by my definition of kind, and they are even the same species by your definition of species. Most dogs can interbreed, especially if they are near enough the same size to make things work. I'm not sure I'd expect a great dane and a teacup poodle to make things work on their own -- but probably with A.I. (Artificial Insemination is used commonly with horses and cattle in some situations.) they'd probably still give fertile offspring. (But the daddy better be the small one.) Problem is the mom would probably slurp up all the puppies with the placenta, without knowing it. (I've you've never seen a live mammal birth, and something I said doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll explain.)

I realize that dogs are really more then just a ring species, more like a multi-dimensional species. If someone has a better term for the situation, let me know.

Right. In the case of horses, environmental changes did the branch trimming--again, pretty much the definition of evolution. I don't think you're suggesting that humans made the decisions about which branches of the horse to keep, are you?

I'm not suggesting that humans made decisions about early horse branches. But again, it depends on what kind of evolution you're talking about. If you're talking about microevolution, then whenever your dog has or sires puppies, the puppies will not be exact dna duplicates of just either parent. There will be slight change. There's evolution! So if one generation is micro-evolution, then 100 generations has to also be at least micro evolution. But if you're talking about macro-evolution, then no, going from one horse like animal to another horse like animal, or going from a wolf to a teacup poodle, these are not the definition of macroevolution. Macroevolution would honestly be when a chimpanzee descended from a graptolite (gradually over enough generations of course), or some other total change that was unquestionably between way different kinds. I'd just say that macroevolution is when one species evolves to the point where it can no longer interbreed with another branch, at which they become two species. But this method of thinking isn't always right because there are cases where two species were one species. And the fact that their gene codes have drifted enough to cause the internal match-checksumming to work doesn't mean anything other then that -- it doesn't prove that they descended from a different kind.

By the way -- in the case of a bona fide open-ring species -- is it one species or two species? (Like all the way around a mountain the bunnies breed except the one side with a sheer cliff where nothing lives.)

Either way, there seems to me to be a problem: Either two of the same species cannot produce offspring, or two different species are almost identical and can produce offspring. Here's where my definition of kind comes in real handy -- they were the same kind before and they are still the same kind.

What sort of evolution were you talking about?

So you can see that to me, it is clearly apparent that a given kind changes over many generations, and can go in just one (few) direction (like the horse) or in many directions (like the dog) -- so I would expect each kind of animal to have a random variation as extreme as that demonstrated by the varieties dogs.

But what I don't see is these groups of kinds being linked together by finely divided incremental skeletons.

Thanks,

-Jesse

(Said Fichori) The naturalistic method of saying, 'we cannot explain it naturally, so we will just make up some conjecture and call it fact' does not have a very good track record either and is not empirical science.

(Said atlaw)Of course, this cute caricature of science is nonsense. But you know that.

Actually, my inquiry into the big bang so far is looking like the big bang is rather close to conjecture.

But I think Fichori has a valid point here. The philosophy on which science is run does dogmatically reject as untrue any evidence that infers a super-natural first cause.

If it were proved that no such super-natural first cause existed, then science's dogma would be harmless and uneeded. But such a fact is not known: It is possible that there is was a super natural first cause. Thus science dogmatically rejects something that is a possibility.

But that doesn't mean that scientists don't try to figure things out anyway -- so then there's the big bang. It's taught in schools and universities across this country as being true. Well I might ask why teach something that's so shaky as if it's known to be true? Well, comes the answer, we haven't got any better ideas.

So herein arises a serious problem: The real answer may be "Well, we haven't got any better ideas that don't infer a super-natural first cause."

No matter how convincing the evidence might be that there was a super-natural first cause, it would be dogmatically rejected due to it not being a purely natural process, and the next-best qualified explanation will be taught, no matter how far-out.

Now my point here is not that there is lots of such evidence (I've made that point in previous posts) but that the system has a certain flaw, that is a serious one. And like any tool, the better we understand it and its flaws, the better we can use it and not be caught off guard by its flaws.

One question often asked of creationists by evolutionists is "Well how come your research doesn't show up in the peer reviewed scientific journals?" -- good question -- but it doesn't matter how good the research is, how accurate or anything else -- if it infers a super-natural first cause, regardless of whether the evidence supports it -- it will be refused. Not because it is wrong or poorly done -- but for the simple reason that it's defined as not science because it infers a super-natural first cause. See 293

There really is a dogma and a bias here: "Science" does reject something that is a possibility, regardless of evidence, and this is a terrible state of affairs. If evidence supports the existence of supernatural things as being part of life, then so be it. There is no honest need to dogmatically rule out non-natural means.

-Jesse

Courtesy ping to Fichori, Coyoteman

This is my favorite, because it's pretty extensive and has nice pictures. You'll find fish showing up about halfway down the orange-red group at the top left, near the label "450 m yrs." Mammal-y things show up a few branchings above that, in the same group.

I guess there are lots of things missing from this chart. It's pretty and all, but I was hoping for something that showed everything, at least relating to animals.

Coyote, you work with actual bones and stuff, right? Surely there are some great giant charts which show the tree of life including all the transitional fossil species. I guess, working in the electronics design field, where a schematic diagram will show each and every part and how they connect, even if there are thousands of them, I'm used to having information in a usable comprehensive format.

I noticed that many intermediate species are left out.

I too found the Tree of Life Web project a little confusing, and a lot of intermediate species were non-clickable, and some of the pages say they haven't been updated since 1995, and said things like "Temporary page" so I'm not sure what's happening there.

But real scientists must have available to them a great chart or tree diagram or something that has all the documented intermediate species listed in order. With all this talk of mountains of evidence, I'd have expected someone to come forward and say "Well here. Here's a chart with pictures of all the extinct intermediate species we've found, see for yourself that they follow a logical evolutionary path.." if, of course, such evidence is in evidence.

I would be most grateful to understand how this information is actually stored and cataloged. Thanks,

-Jesse

Here is a chart showing humans and their ancestors.

Source

Thanks, Coyote! Any chance you could explain to me why the skulls seem to be front-views and side views? I'm assuming that the vertical scale is time.

Thanks,

-Jesse

Thanks, Coyote! Any chance you could explain to me why the skulls seem to be front-views and side views? I'm assuming that the vertical scale is time.

No idea of why the various views were selected.

The vertical is time.

It is hard finding good representations of these things, as most journal articles dealing with the subject use text or mathematics rather than graphics. In evolutionary studies, many of the comparative articles in the past 20 years have relied on statistics for comparisons, particularly multivariate statistics. That does not make for very sexy graphics.

Also, what would the authoritative source be for learning more about these different finds, hopefully available via the web?

I would like to be able to read where the bones were found, read the dimensions, and see photos of the actual bones and know which part were found and which part were filled with plaster. I'd also like to know how many of each species were found, and where. I did search for Afarensis and found a photo of a skull that was about half plaster and had been reconstructed from fragments. But I'm assuming that other bones were also found.

I could just go search google, but I might come across a site which wasn't accurate or whatever -- so I might as well start out in the right place.

Thanks, -Jesse

No idea of why the various views were selected.
The vertical is time. It is hard finding good representations of these things, as most journal articles dealing with the subject use text or mathematics rather than graphics. In evolutionary studies, many of the comparative articles in the past 20 years have relied on statistics for comparisons, particularly multivariate statistics. That does not make for very sexy graphics.

Well I don't need it in graphic form. Any form will do, as long as it contains the information of which species descended from which, and as long as I can then go look up each one and find out all about what was found.

We do know which species descended from which species, right?

Thanks,

-Jesse