Posted on 10/15/2005 3:44:16 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
A paleontologist testified in the Dover school board trial about how fossils connect species.
The ancestor of the whale and its first cousin the hippopotamus walked the Earth for 40 million years, munching on plants, before dying out in the ice ages.
Known as the anthracotheres, it became extinct 50 to 60 million years ago, but not before its evolutionary tree diverged — the whale forging into the oceans, the hippopotamus to the African swamps.
Kevin Padian, a University of California-Berkeley paleontologist, told the story of the whale’s journey, along with the travels of its closest living relative, in U.S. Middle District Court Friday to illustrate how the fossil record connects us to our past.
In the First Amendment lawsuit over Dover Area High School’s intelligent design policy, Padian was the plaintiffs’ final science expert to testify. The defense will begin to present its side Monday.
Padian’s testimony was essentially a response to intelligent-design proponents’ claims that paleontology does not account for missing links and the fossil record belies evolutionary theory.
“The problem is that there are no clear transitional fossils linking land mammals to whales,” the pro-intelligent-design textbook “Of Pandas and People” states.
“How many intermediates do you need to suggest relationships?” Padian wondered.
He pointed to numerous transitional fossils as he traced the lineage of the whale to its early ancestors, a group of cloven-hoofed mammals of a group named cetartiodactyla, illustrating the gradual changes of features along the way.
“We think the transitions are pretty good,” he said.
One of Padian’s concerns with intelligent design — the idea that life’s complexities demand an intelligent designer — is that it shuts down the search for answers, he said. “It worries me that students would be told that you can’t get from A to B with natural causes,” he said.
One of the complaints of 11 parents suing the school district is that, after Dover biology students are told about intelligent design, they are referred to “Pandas,” which is housed in the high school library.
While the connection between the whale and hippopotamus is recent, Padian said some of the fossils linking whales to land-dwelling mammals go back to the Civil War but were ignored by the authors of “Pandas.”
The curator of Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology and author of the “Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs” also testified to the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.
“Pandas” states, “Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agent, with their distinctive features already intact — fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.”
But Padian, at times affectionately, showed numerous pictures and diagrams of different reptiles evolving from ones possessing scales to ones possessing feathers.
Of a fossil of an archaeopteryx found in the 1860s, Padian said, “Now this is a beautiful critter.”
He also criticized the book’s assertions on homology — the study of similar characteristics of living organisms used to explain their relationships to other organisms.
As he cross-examined Padian, Dover’s attorney Robert Muise brought up one of science’s most ardent evolutionists in raising questions about the fossil record.
Muise asked Padian about the late Stephen Jay Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium, the idea that rather than Darwin’s characterization of evolution as slow and gradual change, it may be better described as taking place in fits and starts.
Gould offered the idea as an explanation for the patterns found in the fossil record, which shows abrupt appearances of new species, followed by long stagnant periods with little change.
While “Pandas” argues that intelligent-design proponents consider punctuated equilibrium unprovable, Padian said Gould offered the theory as an explanation to gaps in the fossil record.
“Is natural selection responsible for punctuated equilibrium?” Muise asked at one point.
“That’s a great question,” Padian said. While it may raise questions about the mechanism of evolution, he answered, it doesn’t contradict the idea of common descent.
What are you trying to say?
I am saying that I agree with your previous post.
Ok. It's late. Thank you.
I won't bother you again with such trivial inquiries, afterall, what's the point....considering...
I'm sorry...my leaders?
This is a waste of time. Maybe posters such as Cornelis have more patience to deal with this nonsense. I certainly don't, and I've reached my limit for now...
Sorry for being so 'amorphous'. The threads can get confusing after a while. You are correct in that most people look for the simplest solution, and there is evidence of that in architectural systems engineering.
Behe and company.
The poster I was responding to was you. It was in response to your claim* that evolutionists complain when asked for 'proof'. In an earlier post (#109) I explained why that happens.
*"And yet, you, like most other evolutionists, would most likely protest (and that's being kind) when asked for proof. "
To answer your current question, yes I do consider common descent to be 'off the table'. There are enough affirming data points to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that common descent is unassailable. You will notice that my use of the word 'prove' (likewise the word proof) assumes a somewhat less than 100% assurance level. Creationists on the other hand ,when they ask for proof expect a single data point that gives a 100% assurance level.
This difference in definition is why evolutionists keep pounding the idea that scientific theories are not proved, they know what the creationists are expecting and that the expectation is due to a misunderstanding.
Scientific 'proof' is a convergence of multiple data points to a conclusion of high probability. Creationist 'proof' is a single data point that has a probability of 1.
No content. Lost the debate, tuck your tail between your legs and RUN!!!
He didn't seem to notice that I provided the information he asked for. But then reading isn't a strong point for evolution critics.
LW: Religion is the opiate of the masses. - Karl Marx
As I understand it, Marx's thought was subtly different from what you imply. He thought that religion was a kind of self-medication by man against the indifference and brutality of worldy existence. It is (according to him) an opiate because it deadens the pain.
There are many here on FR that do not find God and Evolution to be "mutually exclusive"..
Thanks, Ed. I agree. Marx was quite a bit in left field. LOL
Yes, dead serious. I mean, if you guys had any proof, it might explain why most of America doesn't believe you.. er, did he say that right...
There is a difference between having evidence and having evidence that supports your case. When the evidence can be read to support just about anything until you start spinning it... then it isn't evidence for your position, it is merely incidental.
I remember when "annual rings" in ice cores were "evidence" for evolution. Then it turned out there was nothing annual about the rings in those cores. The evidence for "annual" was actually evidence for warmer/colder periods - nothing more. Anyone wanting to look into this need only study up on "Glacier Girl". So "annual rings" were once "evidence" for long periods of time - or so we were told - with no proof of this mind you.. just a "theory". But then there's nothing stopping one from postulating multiple postulates as support for another postulate and leaving no proof or solid grounding for any or all of it. Evos say, I think, therefore it is so. Some of us out here require a bit more proof than that before buying a car or a laundry soap.. what moron thought they could sell this claptrap on less...
I don't think so. Gravity is a property of matter. It is "omnipresent". Evolution, if it exists as the Dawkins crowd describes it, only exists on planet earth.(although there are those in desperate search for it elsewhere)
You're clouding the issue. The search for extraterrestrial life has nothing to do with evolution, or with this discussion.
Evolution was not created by humans. Evolution is a feature of the natural world, and existed before humans recognized it as such. It is a property of life no less than gravity is a property of matter.
Link please ...
That's a good way to put that.
Does anybody else remember this?? What would ice cores have to do with biological evolution?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.