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.
I'm sure you don't sparky. Evolution needs millions of years. Your dating methodologies tend to be propped up by these annual rings and by "annual" sedimentation propositions and the like. I just picked something out of the blue to pick on. Happened to be an age related thing. How you can miss the idea that "annual" rings in ice and snow pack could have anything to do with a plane buried under ice and snowpack, well.. no I guess it doesn't surprise me...'
"Come on Khan. I'm laughing at the superior intellect." Oops, was that me?
You need to get out more. You might try some encyclopedias for starters. Groliers is pretty lame and it even made it in there. So if the lamers have gotten up to date, one wonders where you been..
To make evos think they are intelligent? :)
You were asked for a link and you gave a link to the Lost Squadron Museum. That was a false link. I don't have to show which creo site you pasted from. Just show us your link and we can all be happy.
So, what is its function. tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc ....
Ok. Show me. I am waiting tic toc tic toc tic toc ...
well.., put up your link to then.. sigh
It's past your bed time ...
OK. But you have to make some kind of argument. Like. Side A has this statement or position and this is why it is incorrect. You just go around saying that Side A is incorrect because some creo site says so.
Hi Nancy...
as you must know the appendix is a tube of which
one end is closed and the opens into the cecum,
that is the beginning of the large intestine.
The appendix occurs in men and in othe animals:
higher apes, wombats, some rodents and a few
lower mammals.
And now for your question: the appendix
has no known physiological function but probably
represents a degenerated portion of the cecum
that, in ancestral forms, aided in cellulose
digestion. It is believed that the appendix will
gradually disappear in human beings as our
diet do not includes cellulose no more.
In the other animals, the appendix is much larger
and provides a pouch off the main intestinal
tract, in which cellulose can be trapped and
be subjected to prolonged digestion.
And thanks for asking NEWTON!
Mabel
(Dr.Mabel Rodrigues)
Psst. Hey sparky, can you tell us why the uber intelligence is so distracted with the number of feet of snow instead of the rings? I mean, I went there for giggles cause you guys seemed to know where you were going; but, guess we gotta bring you back to the point - "annual rings" was the topic. In 48 years how many "annual rings" should exist between Glacier Girl and the surface if your "facts" about annual rings are correct. Can we say, oh, 48 maybe? 48 years = 48 annual rings. I mean, afterall, annual does mean every year, right. Instead we have hundreds of rings. That isn't a factor of how many feet of snow falls a year - it's a factor of warming and cooling cycles and what type of snow and compaction there is in specific years.. data you don't have for what you'd call "ancient times" Data which has to exist to prove to people who don't know about WWII in 2000 years that Glacier Girl wasn't running recon over the 1700s plate fleets. Hello...
"In the past, the appendix was often routinely removed and discarded during other abdominal surgeries to prevent any possibility of a later attack of appendicitis; the appendix is now spared in case it is needed later for reconstructive surgery if the urinary bladder is removed. In such surgery, a section of the intestine is formed into a replacement bladder, and the appendix is used to re-create a 'sphincter muscle' so that the patient remains continent (able to retain urine). In addition, the appendix has been successfully fashioned into a makeshift replacement for a diseased ureter, allowing urine to flow from the kidneys to the bladder. As a result, the appendix, once regarded as a nonfunctional tissue, is now regarded as an important 'back-up' that can be used in a variety of reconstructive surgical techniques. It is no longer routinely removed and discarded if it is healthy.
What's the matter, can't put up the link. Is the man making you embarrassed?
It was you that diverted to number of feet. I quickly conceded the 5 1/2 feet to end the discussion since I knew you only did that to try to distract us and now you say I was distracted by it. You are so dishonest.
Please. First show what the position you want to argue is. What scientist said anything about "annual rings" and the Glacier Girl related to dating and evolution. Start with something. I can't argue a point unless I know what point I should be arguing.
Words from a guy that NEVER links his info, puts out infor in such a disjointed manner that no one can understand what he is trying to say.
ps: A guy that also puts up false links and pastes from creo sites and won't give them the credit.
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