Posted on 09/20/2006 12:34:51 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
I'm tempted, but it seems a little off-topic for this thread. But fear not. Soon, razzle will indeed be invited to add his judgement as a scientist to answering the pressing question of which baramin these old skulls belong to, if they're not really transitional species...
To be far, speculating on his state of mind when he joined the Berkeley faculty in 1967 could be considered a personal smear.
Especially after going to liberal Harvard, then OK (at least its econ dept is, don't know about law) U of Chicago, then clerking for ultra liberal Earl Warren. Never had a law practice or served as a prosecutor.
Maybe hanging around all those leftists grossed him out and made him conservative, and maybe it inspired him to become a con artist. Who knows?
Since you seem to be quite confident that we do not have enough transistional fossils to support evolution (although it only takes one to show evolution works), you must have a good well defined idea of what a transitional fossil should look like. If you don't have a good idea of what features are necessary to define a transitional you would have no criteria with which to rule out a specific fossil as transitional.
Given your status as an authority on transitionals, could you please describe as completely as possible what features a transitional fossil should have. I will leave the choice of species to you.
As far as the Cambrian is concerned the 'explosion' took anywhere from 30 to 50 million years and there were a number of precursors to Cambrian fauna in the Precambrian (including Chordates).
In many cases, the morphological differences between archaic and modern members of a specific phylum is greater than the differences between two related phyla of the Cambrian.
If you examine the other 'explosions' of variety you will notice that they generally come after an extinction event. They replicate, in a small way, the small populations and high number of niches Cambrian organisms experienced.
One more question. What do you believe the probability is to find a specific fossil, say one belonging to the fish to reptile sequence?
That may be true, but when he speaks to science, neo-Darwinism in particular, his political views really don't figure into the equation.
The man knows nothing about science, including biology, yet feels qualified to pontificate on the validity of the evidence for evolution. This pretty much identifies him as a crank when it comes to the SToE. He should stick to the area he knows - law.
Because for one species to evolve into another some portions of it have to change. With the reptile to avian change, the respiratory system was one of those features that changed. If no features changed between the two, then the original would be no different than the result.
"...why wouldn't the reptile respiratory system (lungs for the non-biology majors) be OK for the bird.
Because flying makes different demands on the respiratory system than does running. Why would birds and reptiles share a respiratory system?
"A transitional would be a reptile with a bird's respiratory system or vice versa."
Yes, finally. A transitional, which would be different from both birds and reptiles, should exhibit some features of birds and some features of reptiles (in this case dinosaurs), and there should be some features shared by the three but not shared by any other class such as mammals. We have no way of knowing what type of respiratory system dinosaurs and the first birds had. Only their bones, and in some cases impressions of their body covering fossilized.
Before we discuss a transitional we have to recognize that at some point the transitional will be difficult to classify as either a dinosaur or a bird, it will be something in between the two.
Let's take a look at Archaeopteryx. The reason I want to examine Archy is because most creationists consider Archy to be nothing but an archaic bird. They further consider all of Archy's features to be the result of micro-evolution.
All of the Archy fossils have impressions of feathers. It is accepted, even by such sites as AiG that Archy has feathers and could fly. We find feathers on birds, so Archy falls in with birds on this level. Some dinosaurs also have feathers so Archy falls in with dinosaurs as well. One of the Archy fossils has the impression of a flight membrane much like that of a pterodactyl.
Archy has an opposable hallux (big toe) which is found in modern birds but not in dinosaurs (although some theropods (ancestors of Archy) have a reversed big toe).
At one time it was thought that only birds had a furcula , also called a wishbone, which is a midline fusion of two clavicles. No surprise but Archy has a furcula. So do a few dinosaurs, including a number of theropods. There are also a number of non-theropod dinosaurs which have wishbones but they generally post-date archy. The existence of a wishbone in non-theropod dinosaurs suggests that the formation of a wishbone was a common adaptation around the time Archy developed.
Birds have an elongated pubis and it is directed backward. This is also true of Archy. Of the dinosaurs, only the theropods have this same feature.
Like modern birds, Archy's bones are pneumatic. They have air-sacs which make them lighter but still retain strength. Some dinosaurs also have bones with air-sacs.
Let's do a recap of the avian features of Archaeopteryx. Archy has feathers, an opposable big toe, an elongated and reversed pubis, a wishbone and pneumatic bones. No other extant organism has all of these features.
All of these features add up to Archy being a member of Aves, giving us the relationship between Archy and one end of the transit.
Archy also has features of a reptile.
Archy does not have a bill, the premaxilla and maxilla are not keratinized, they are not horn-covered.
In birds, the trunk vertebrae are always fused. This is not the case with Archy.
Archy's pubic shafts are plate-like and slightly angled. Reptiles have this but birds do not.
In reptiles and to a lesser extent Archy the cerebral hemispheres are slender and elogated, something very different from modern birds whose cerebral hemispheres are short. Archy's brain occupies the midpoint between reptilian and avian brains.
In birds, the head connects to the neck from the bottom, hereas in reptiles the head connects to the neck at the rear of the head.
Archy has teeth. Modern birds do not have teeth. (although it has been shown that teeth can be turned on in birds by manipulating the correct gene)
Archy's nostrils are at a distance from his eyes and separated from the eyes by a large preorbital fenestra which is a feature of reptiles but not of birds.
Over all the head of Archy is reptilian much more than it is avian and in fact has features diagnostic to reptiles and dinosaurs.
In birds the centre of the cervical vertebrae are saddle shaped. In some dinosaurs and in Archy, the center of the same vertebrae are disk shaped.
Archy has a long boney tail with no pygostyle. Modern birds have tail vertebrae fused into a pygostyle.
Unlike modern birds, Archy has slender ribs without braces in between them.
The joint between the pelvis and the femur is the same as we find in dinosaurs but not in birds.
In birds the metacarpals are fused with the distal carpals, in reptiles and Archy the metacarpals, except the third, are free, as is the wrist.
Because this post is getting fairly long I'll stop here and mention only that there a number of other features Archy has that reptiles also have but birds do not. If the *number* of features was our only consideration then Archy would be classified as a dinosaur(reptile) not a bird.
Although we can't compare respiratory systems between Archy, birds and reptiles because Archy's soft tissues did not fossilize, there are many other features which did leave evidence which bridge the gap. Archaeopteryx meets your criterion of shared features, it is both a dinosaur and a bird, yet is something difficult to classify as either.
For more information on Archy visit this site
"Or is the punctuated equilibrium (magic evolution) thing at work again.
Punctuated Equilibrium was not intended to explain transitions between distant taxonomic groups but transitions between two closely related species. In other words, it was an answer to why we *do* find transitional fossils between dinosaurs and birds but *do not* find transitional fossils between two groups as closely related as zebras and horses.
See, if you just use common sense, you'll see that darwinism is bunk.
Common sense tells me that a transitional, depending on where it lies between two disparate species will have features of both, as well as diagnostic features of each, just as common descent tell me you will have some features of your father which your oldest child does not have and you will have some features in common with your oldest child that your father does not have and all three of you will share other features.
pertinent current poll:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/poll
There have always been some people who like living in filthy caves and being afraid of thunder and lightning.
Archaeopteryx is not an imaginary creature, its existence, and its morphological features are written in stone.
Are you implying that all of those transitionals would leave fossils, that all of those fossils would patiently wait for humans to develop sciences interested in fossils before exposing themselves to the elements and that all these fossils would be in areas where humans can find them?
Since you have a good idea of how many should be found, perhaps you could answer a few questions for me?
What conditions are necessary for an organism to fossilize? (to help your research, the science is called taphonomy)
What is the probability that a member of a given species will satisfy all of the conditions necessary for fossilization? (this calculation will be rather complex considering the conditions necessary)
What is the probability that the fossil would not be uncovered before the 19th century? (Remember that fossils have been forming and uncovered for more than 500 million years)
What is the probability that the fossil will be in an area where humans are actively looking for fossils?
What is the probability that the fossil is in an area where no humans are actively looking for fossils but where an untrained but observant human could stumble upon them.
What is the probability that all fossils that can be uncovered have been uncovered?
"The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than the present animal species and their remains should be found all over the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin explained: "If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains."
He then went on to convincingly explain why we should not expect to find many fossils.
Scientists then went on to find many of the fossils Darwin was concerned about all those years ago.
You do realize that Darwin published OoS 147 years ago. I hope you also realize that we have unearthed literally tons of fossils since that time? Including transitionals.
"It wouldn't be so bad if you fascists were not trying to shut down any and all questions is school about your faith."
I take it you have exhausted any scientific argument you believe you had and that is why you are now resorting to ad hominem attacks.
yeah, yeah, yeah, you just have tons of transitional fossils and facts to prove your religion, just tons and tons. As long as you keep thinking that, we can no longer have a good discussion. As Savage said, liberalism is a mental disease, common sense is not the cure apparently.
The Colin Patterson quote was taken from a secret taping by a creationist (I have to question the ethics of that creationist) of a talk by Patterson in 1981 at the Museum of Natural History in NY, then transcribed and spread without context throughout the creationist community. Let me quote some of Patterson's words regarding your gem of a quote.
But one sentence from the talk was accurately reproduced, and was perhaps quoted more than any other. The sentence was a rhetorical question; I quote it from a creationist source (Johnson 1991, p.10): 'Can you tell me anything about evolution, any one thing that is true?'1
In 1981, I knew of no sensible answer to the question, but in the ensuing decade I came to believe that there were two things I knew about evolution. First, that transitions [purines, adenine (A) and guanine (G), mutating to purines, e.g., A --> G; or pyrimidines, cytosine (C) and thymine (T), mutating to pyrimidines, e.g., T --> C] are more frequently fixed than transversions [where a purine mutates to a pyrimidine, or vice versa] and second, that at the level of DNA, the great majority of substitutions take place despite natural selection rather than because of it. 2"I therefore believe I was mistaken in thinking that I knew something about molecular evolution," he writes. "Instead, I know (or have learned) something about the properties of molecular data, and those properties are amongst the things that must be explained by evolutionary theory."3
It is obvious from his quotes that he was not in any way suggesting we know nothing about evolution but that he *at that time* had questions about his understanding of molecular evolution.
The understanding of molecular evolution has come a long way from 1994 and even further from 1981.
Now let's look at your other quote.
"Sir Karl Popper ("darwinism is not really a scientific theory because natural selection is an all-purpose explanation which can account for anything and which therefore explains nothing")"
From the same publication as your quote:
And yet, the theory is invaluable. I do not see how, without it, our knowledge could have grown as it has done since Darwin. In trying to explain experiments with bacteria which become adapted to, say, penicillin, it is quite clear that we are greatly helped by the theory of natural selection. Although it is metaphysical, it sheds much light upon very concrete and very practical researches. It allows us to study adaptation to a new environment (such as a penicillin-infested environment) in a rational way: it suggests the existence of a mechanism of adaptation, and it allows us even to study in detail the mechanism at work. And it is the only theory so far which does all that. 4
It appears here that although Popper considered Darwinism to be a metaphysical theory (which he considers a proper and important part of science) based on a tautology he also considered it to be useful and worthwhile.
His claim that specifically natural selection is a tautology (he did not make that claim for anything else in the SToE0 was based on his misunderstanding of 'survival of the fittest'.
When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory - that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, and by the decoded genetic code. This is an immensely impressive and powerful theory. The claim that it completely explains evolution is of course a bold claim, and very far from being established. All scientific theories are conjectures, even those that have successfully passed many severe and varied tests. The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested, and so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one single organism.[emphasis mine]However, Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenon known as 'industrial melanism', we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry.
The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology [see CA500]. A tautology like 'All tables are tables' is not, of course, testable; nor has it any explanatory power. It is therefore most surprising to hear that some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave most offspring leave most offspring. C. H. Waddington says somewhere (and he defends this view in other places) that 'Natural selection . . . turns out ... to be a tautology' ..4 However, he attributes at the same place to the theory an 'enormous power. ... of explanation'. Since the explanatory power of a tautology is obviously zero, something must be wrong here.
Yet similar passages can be found in the works of such great Darwinists as Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and George Gaylord Simpson; and others.
I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological', and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems.
I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection.5
His mistaken interpretation of 'survival of the fittest' is a common one based on the idea that fitness is unspecified and is therefore defined as 'those that survive'. This misunderstanding is why it is no longer used and has been supplanted by the term 'natural selection'. The fitness criteria in a given environment can be specified and is not simply 'those that survive.
Now we come to the point of your comment, that Patterson and Popper were coerced to change their stories. This is absurd on the face of it. Patterson did not need to change his statement since his voiced concern was a rhetorical question about molecular evolution. Many scientists question their knowledge level in respect to the area they are researching. However this is not to say that they have no knowledge, nor is it to say they have less knowledge than others in their field, nor is it to say that they do not have vastly more knowledge than those outside their fields. What it does mean is that those scientists recognize that their level of understanding is but a small portion of what knowledge is necessary to fully understand the process.
As far as Popper is concerned his change of mind had nothing to do with external coercion but an improved understanding of how scientists in the fields of evolution view and work with natural selection.
There is nothing 'Nazi' about their corrections to their previous comments, and unless you can come up with some concrete evidence that they were coerced your opinion really has no value.
Notes:
1. Colin Patterson, "Null or minimal models," in Models in Phylogeny Reconstruction, eds. R.W. Scotland, D.J. Siebert, and D.M. Williams, Systematics Association Special Volume No. 52 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 173-92; p. 174.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Popper, Karl. 1976. Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography Glasgow: Fontana/Collins.
5.Popper, Karl. 1978. Natural selection and the emergence of mind. Dialectica 32: 339-355
You have absolutely no idea of what constitutes a transitional fossil and I'm supposed to take your word on the matter?
You have brought absolutely nothing but your opinion to the table so we haven't been having a discussion at all. Until you can supply more than just unfounded assertions the discussion will remain as one sided as it has been so far with me providing everything of value.
It is my opinion, an opinion based on my observations of your posts and their lack of substance, that you have no desire for a discussion but are using these threads to spread your completely biased, scientifically null, and comprehension free opinion.
You haven't even attempted to describe your idea of transitionals let alone define it fully. Your entire argument so far has been 'no it isn't, no it isn't, no it isn't'. My 10 year old grandson understands this isn't an argument, why can't you?
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