Tracing the whale’s trail [Evolution trial, daily thread for 15 Oct]

York Daily Record [Penna] ^ | 15 October 2005 | LAURI LEBO

[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.

[phantomworker]

Apparently you don't know the difference between proof and evidence.

It seems to me that...and without any direct indictment of intent...there are valid semantical complaints on both sides of this issue.

What do you mean by that? What are the semantical complaints on both sides of the issue? :)

[AndrewC]

You're clouding the issue. The search for extraterrestrial life has nothing to do with evolution, or with this discussion.

No I am not. You equated evolution and gravity. I'm pointing out that they are nowhere near the same. We have evidence of universal gravity. We have no such evidence for "evolution" in terms of biology.

[phantomworker]

I remember when "annual rings" in ice cores were "evidence" for evolution.

Does anybody else remember this?? What would ice cores have to do with biological evolution?

Good question... LOL Maybe instead of ice cores, it is a reference to annual rings on a tree? ROFL Is that evidence for evolution of trees? /sarc

[js1138]

Ice cores are just another way of getting information about past climates. Like evrything else they have gone through a long process of debugging.

[phantomworker]

You're clouding the issue. The search for extraterrestrial life has nothing to do with evolution, or with this discussion.

No I am not. You equated evolution and gravity. I'm pointing out that they are nowhere near the same. We have evidence of universal gravity. We have no such evidence for "evolution" in terms of biology.

This is hilarious. ET phone home? LOL (Sorry)

Evolution is a process. Gravity is a force.

[phantomworker]

Ice cores are just another way of getting information about past climates. Like evrything else they have gone through a long process of debugging.

What is Microsoft's newest operating system called? Longhorn? Vista? Ice cores? I think it has gone through a lot of debugging already, but hackers are finding a lot of bugs. LOL

Microsoft's operating systems have evolved into even worse systems than ever. I liked the original DOS operating system the best. /sarc

[Quark2005]

We have evidence of universal gravity. We have no such evidence for "evolution" in terms of biology.

These two concepts are a little more similar than one might think - we certainly haven't verified the constancy of the gravitational constant for every star, planet, comet, etc. in the universe; in fact, in many cases, we assume it to be true to determine the mass, trajectory, etc. of unknown objects. And it works. Someone opposed to the "theory of gravity" could (wrongly) argue that this is "circular reasoning" or that "gravity hasn't been universally measured" or that "there are gaps in the theory of gravity".

[AndrewC]

And it works

Isn't that the test. Now where is ET?

[LogicWings]

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.

Can't consider anything that might upset one's pre-conceived notions.

[Quark2005]

Ice cores are just another way of getting information about past climates. Like evrything else they have gone through a long process of debugging.

I think I got that much - I'm just (once again) wondering why someone is equating a totally unrelated geological concept to evolution. I guess the geology community is getting paid under the table to produce an old age of the earth so the Dirty Darwinians can have the time scale they need to establish their pet theory...

(Head shaking)

[Quark2005]

Isn't that the test. Now where is ET?

I'm not sure I understand what ET has to do with either the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution. (And I don't think I'm alone here...)

[AndrewC]

I'm not sure I understand what ET has to do with either the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution

Uhh, this comment.

like evolution and gravity. Even before we had words for them, they were a natural feature of the universe.

Show me the evidence for the "natural feature of the universe" quality of "evolution".(BTW you brought up ET, I just replied in kind)

[Havoc]

The Lost Squadron is a WWII flight that ditched in Greenland back during the war. 50 years later, a group went to Greenland to bring back one of the airplanes, a P38 lightning. When they found her, she was situated under some 250 feet of ice and snow pack - hundreds of layers down beneath the surface. Core sampling would have dated this plane back into the 17-1800s. It would have literally made a WWII fighter a cousin of the Spanish plate fleet. Of course, since we know better than that due to common sense, one must only ask what if we didn't. Then what would the story be? "Ancient remains of a flying machine of some sort were found today in Greenland. It must have evolved from a Spanish Brigand. News at 11!" Then we'd be treated to hearsay about what some are muttering and how it can't be a flying machine because we know people back then just weren't that smar: t.. so it must be some huge religious fetish.. that's it. They must have had orgies on these things because there are pictures of half naked women painted on the rear side of them near the priest's holy throne. They guess that the priest sat in the back and watched while others danced around a large open pit to the rear of this thing; but, we've thusfar found no evidence of that.. One scientist told us, candidly, that this is likely a fetish; but, he whispered that it's a highly advanced fetish. He would not, however, go into detail and was cut short of descriptives by his collegues who had also seen the religious object first hand. Access may be forthcoming later when it is determined whether the orgy platforms to either side of the priest's throne are stable enough to be considered safe for others to be around. To quote 12Monkeys, "Science isn't exactly an exact science with these bozos." And it's evidence for whatever they think it's evidence for - until common sense catches up...

[Havoc]

What would ice cores have to do with timelines. Age evidence, maybe.. oh doooooo tell.

[phantomworker]

We have evidence of universal gravity. We have no such evidence for "evolution" in terms of biology.

What about Einstein's theory of relativity in relation to gravity?

There is clear evidence of evolution. Consider the human body. We no longer need our appendix or our little toes because we don't need to hang from trees anymore. LOL. Through evolution, these appendices are disappearing. And what is the thing about opposable thumbs that makes humans superior to other animals?

[RunningWolf]

If that was your point then you misstated it. You said Religion destroyed human beings. I pointed out that man is what does the evil in whatever the name (and it has many names). You are focused on organized religion. To me that was incomplete and faulty logic (whatever the side).

My play on your screen name because of this was not intended as an insult, maybe poked a little fun. If it seemed an insult to you, look at the things been said to me first on these threads and you will see that my word play on your screen name would not register. Just come back at me and say wolf cant bark or something, I don't know, another evo calls me wolfie.

See it is man that does the evil, say to go along with your religious inference (for sake of argument), some men will do the evil thinking they are doing the will, others simply hijack religion for their own selfish motives.

But if logic has wings, he will know that man can and will do this with all things if it is in his heart to do that, the sciences are not immune from this, the rational mind is not immune from this.

Wolf

[AndrewC]

Whoops, noticed that it wasn't you that brought up ET. I didn't buy the program for this contest and I got the cast of characters wrong. Phantomworker made the ET reference.

[LogicWings]

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.

A distinction without a difference. The masses didn't make up religion to medicate themselves. It was crammed down their throats upon pain of death.

If the self medication prevented the rabble from revolting, so much the better for the ruling classes. Religion has long been both the anesthetic and the tyrant, as so many have recognized, ala Voltaire.

[phantomworker]

Yes, it was me that brought up ET. Tomorrow I have to go out to NM near Roswell and Area 51 on business for a week. If I run into ET, I'll ask him the question about evolution and how it relates to gravity and let you know. :)

[WildTurkey]

You didn't link to your source.