Posted on 07/09/2006 4:41:41 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Actually the opposite is true.
The fossil record shows large jumps in morphological change with very little of the gradual species to species change. (although there is at least one very good bivalve species to species sequence, and gradual change of extant species is ubiquitous)
It was this gradual (gradual in distance between steps not gradual in time) change that PE was developed to explain. The idea behind PE is that a species can stay more or less stable for extended periods of time and then under pressure rapidly experience substantial morphological change. This would mean that due to the rarity of fossilization, fossils showing this rapid change would necessarily be missing.
As an exercise someone out there might calculate the probability of discovering the fossil of a specific species.
It must be pointed out that even Darwin suspected that rates of change would vary during a species' lifetime.
Note: Gradual change is not synonymous with an even change rate but of the accumulation of numerous small morphological changes. The main mechanism of change is selection which is never consistent. This means that the rate of organismal change will vary at a rate similar to environmental change.
funny... I don't recall any scientist saying that creationists' efforts undermine the theory.
Instead, they correctly note that those efforts undermine the scientific literacy of the populace.
newsies... can't they ever get the facts straight?
Google "Ellen Craswell" & "Washington" & "Governor". Washington is not a GOP state, but her getting the nomination was a political disaster.
Maybe it's a ages old, worldwide conspiracy!! /Creationist mode
What? And take all the fun out of it?
I am perpetually appalled by the slovenly reportage in professional dailies. I had higher standards as a high school newsie than these "professionals" display.
Different species of plankton - ie a species to species transition, which is what you asked for.
and evolution of horses into horses or whales into whales doesn't do much for the the argument about the "origin of species"
Again they are different species of horse and different species of whale which imply species to species evolution (ie macroevolution).
because Darwin argued that species developed by chance through trial and error, with the less capable versions of the predecessor species simply becoming extinct through "survival of the fittest." Now, logic would suggest that this process would create infinitely more examples of the losers than of the winners in this game of random chance evolution -- but, alas, there is no record of that infinite numbers of less capable iterations anywhere. Very strange.
The losers tend to die before they can reproduce, wheras the winners reproduce so making more copies of themselves. Therefore over time there will be more winners than losers represented in the fossil record. Also losers would tend to be indistinguishable from the winners in the fossil record.
But, the big problem, of course, is the Cambrian Period, where over just a few million years, countless new species appeared on earth with no record at all of anything preceding them from which they could have "evolved."
The vast majority of species on earth appeared long after the cambrian. All species of plants, trees, mammals, reptiles, jawed fish, birds, insects for example, of which there is plenty of evidence of evolution over the time of their existance. So I find the appearance of small aquatic, and relatively simple creatures in the cambrian over a few millions of years to be sometimes over-exagerated as a problem for the theory.
What kind of question is that?
It's a useful question, because it reveals whether it's worth taking the time to respond to the questioner.
Some people can't argue the scientific aspects, but that doesn't stop them from tossing in their invective. They add nothing of interest to the threads and learn nothing of value from them.
JCEccles is the hardest working one.
He asked it of an evo. Thought it was strange.
"Proofs" are not used in science. Just evidence.
Troll pretending to have a scientific education placemarker
Why do you say Piltdown Man is a fraud?
"Why do you say Piltdown Man is a fraud?"
Hell, even the most rabid evolutionists acknowledged it to be a fraud over 50 years ago.
"Proofs" are not used in science. Just evidence."
The ultimate sanctuary of the liberal, semantics.
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