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.
That's simply hilarious. Thanks for posting that.
Maybe he meant "annular" which doesn't make any sense either, but that's never stopped a Creationist.
He is basing his whole argument on some numbers posted on a creo site that have no basis. No scientists every dated the it using the methods he claims. There is NO data, no analysis, no there there. Typical creo argument. Make up something and then claim the other side is false because the info you made up does not support the other side. He admits the info comes from Mr. Hovind and I have posted a lengthy post from someone that has analyzed mr. Hovinds dishonesty.
OUCHIES
this ought to be in the List O'Links
It's very queer.
It's a weekend thing. Monday is another day, another news story, another mod.
but you got an Annual Prime out of it
This thread has been moved to the Blogger Forum?
Very interesting..... while this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1502296/posts
a moronic vanity by a newbie, remains in the news forum.
Go figure....
Maybe on Monday, by which time this thread will be totally dead, the regular mods will restore it to to the News/Activism forum. Until then, it's like accidentally showing up at Disney World on one of their alternate lifestyle days. Everything is out of sync.
The data that comes from Mt. St. Helens has been twisted by creationists to seemingly apply to the Grand Canyon. However on close scrutiny, using analytic procedures developed by geology, the similarities are artificial.
Before you go using the trench cut through loose aggregate at Mt. St. Helens as a comparator to the canyon cut through age old rock, you might want to examine the signs of age independent of any dating techniques in the strata of the canyon.
Your mention of polystrata fossils is equally misinformed. Not only has that creationist abuse of reality been dealt with on logical rounds, the process of building strata around organisms is observed occurring today (Ironically enough, including at Mt. St. Helens). As mentioned here
I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the coal formation problem you mention (I do hope you aren't going Ed Conrad on us) and bleeding but I'm sure you could give a little more information.
well, I went and replied.
I refuse to waste any time trying to figure out what the author of the initial question had in mind.
2. Trees have annual rings....
If you have difficulty comprehending and keeping distinct these two sources of information, it does not surprise me that you are susceptible to the fallacies put forth by the YEC crowd.
And...
Maybe he meant "annular" which doesn't make any sense either, but that's never stopped a Creationist.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
There you both sit, at the computer, and only a few keystrokes away from verifying whether or not what you claim here is true.
I googled ice core+annual rings, and clicked on the very first entry, and guess what I found:
"The upper parts of ice cores are dated by counting annual rings, as with tree rings; by indentification of annual layering scientists can ascertain the age of ice at a particular band." source
You are assuming that science uses ice cores the same way your creationist sources say they do. You are also assuming that the amateurs that found the planes knew what they are doing and that science took them seriously.
You do a lot of assuming here.
I think before you use this argument of the putative science screw up in ice core dating you should show how science actually uses/used them and then show why that is/was in error. Then you need to show, if the process has been corrected, why it has an impact on the current efficacy of science.
Precisely my point: that thread is a mindless, bizarro-world vanity post written by some sort of anti-evolution/anti-homo obsessed newbie.
Why that remains in the News forum, whilst a legitimate news article on a topical issue relevant to conservatives, such as this thread, gets relegated to "Bloggers & Personal" is beyond me.
I think the regular mods take Sunday off, and give their passwords to their kids. Switching threads around from forum to forum seems like harmless fun.
RunningWolf isn't interested in actually engaging in discussion. He's just here to trash anyone who accepts the theory of evolution, to the point of outright lying about their position.
I flat-out guarantee you that was an error in data entry, made by an "earth sciences 767" student.
1. in all other instances on that page, the term is LAYERS or BANDS
2. having seen ice-cores (and rock cores), and having used the type of drill used to acquire them, I can tell you with 100% certainty that such cores are solid cylinders, having no annular or toroidal characteristics, and are thus not able to be accurately described as having "rings" of any sort.
TRY. AGAIN.
This would be a great time to remind the loyal followers of the Grand Master at DarwinCentral™ that there is an Official Proscription against FEEDING the TROLLS!
It wastes JR's precious bandwith, and just gives attention to cretinous jerks who are here only to disrupt legitimate discourse on topical issues of concern to FR members and lurkers alike.
SO PLEASE DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!
[This message sponored by the Pasta Institute of America, dedicated to helping more Americans to be Touched by His Noodly Appendage.....]
How are annual rings determined? Colour? Density? Type of snow? Amount of ice? Thickness or existence of ice crust?
How about types of pollen, types of leaves, insect carcases, evidence of melt/refreeze,... You know, things that are specific to local seasonal changes independent of the ice.
Perhaps not just one data point is used but a number of data points are used to identify the dividing line between annual rings.
Who cares? It's Sunday at FreeRepublic. News is blog, and blog is news. Anything goes! The regular mods are away. We've been shifted to the blogger forum. Chaos reigns. Wheeeeeee!
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.