Evolution=Bad Science Fiction (lack of transitionals)

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That is, the fossil evidence that life has evolved from simple to complex forms over the ages depends on the geological ages of the specific rocks in which these fossils are found. Those rocks, however, are assigned geologic ages based on the fossil assembly which they contain. The fossils, which in turn, are arranged on the basis of their *assumed evolutionary relationships.* Therfore the main evidence for evolution is based on the assumption of evolution.

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Anybody with a masters in the sciences should no better than this (added in edit: should be "know" instead of "no"; I liked the irony so kept it in). Perhaps your degree is in a more technical field, like eletrical engineering or aeronautics (since you are a self professed airline pilot). Originally, before the discovery of radioactive isotopes, the fossils were given comparative ages, that is certain fossils were older than others. However, with the advent of radiometric dating, it is possible to give fossils concrete ages. When a fossil is found samples of igneous rock above and below the fossil are gathered. The ratios of certain elements are then measured. The ratio of elements in the igneous rocks, not other fossils in the strata, are used to date the fossil. Only in limited cases are fossils dated using the technique you talk about. And even then, the age is considered tentative until radiometric dating can be done on subsequent fossils. You might want to visit the dates and dating furom here on EvC.[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 04-30-2004]

You have yet to support a valid solution supporting evolution.All that you have provided thus far are *guesses and theory* as to why the lack is abundant.
I suggest you educate yourself a tad more on what is *fact* and what is *fiction*
Take Kent Hovind's challenge then get back to me with your results

I would appreciate a reply to message 106, if its not too much trouble.

I reject transitionals because they simply do not exist, other than in the minds of those that so desperately want them to be found ,and will drum up any and every far fetched theory to explain that lack of transionals.
The problem with evolution is that is soft unsupported psuedo-science, and outside of the spectacular hoaxes that were perpetrated to support evolution we do not have *1* solid transitional to date.
And not only did the proponents here professors fail to present affirmative arguments defending evolution, but they failed to respond to the arguments offered by their myself, a fact evident to all present! It isclear to me that their knowledge of evolution is lacking or else they had failed to do their "homework!"

But all you're saying is that there are no transitionals without demonstrating how the examples given, which are considered to be transitionals by evolutionists, aren't transitionals in your opinion. You're just repeating that there are no transitionals. Until you explain why these examples are not transitionals then we're left in the position where it looks like you've ignored the evidence which has been provided to refute your position.So I ask again - why are the examples of transitionals not actually transitionals?

Is this a parrot I detect?
Copying and pasting and then lambasting others for doing the same?
Please,you can cry a river beacause I am nobodys martyr let alone this forums.
Never has one been so deserving of that famous phrase "Get a life!" It's simply tragic that you not only allow hollow sounds to echo in that gap-filled skull that passes for your brain, but insist on babbling them to others not similarly afflicted by (Speak First, Think Later) Syndrome.

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You have yet to support a valid solution supporting evolution.All that you have provided thus far are *guesses and theory* as to why the lack is abundant.

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1 billion carrier pigeons alive at once. Zero carrier pigeon fossils. Not a guess, but evidenced by observation.Facts about fossilization:1. Fossilization is a rare event.2. Only a tiny, miniscule fraction of the Earth's sediments have been mined for fossils.3. Sediments are destroyed through the process of subduction, that is the sediments are forced into the mantle as tectonic plates collide. What fossils may have been contained in those sediments have been destroyed. This type of subduction has been observed and is ongoing today.4. Fossil dating is a reliable method and has been corroborated by other independent dating methods. The ages given to the fossils agree worldwide, irrespective of the scientist doing the measurements or the geology of the region. The oldest fossils are less complex than later fossils and they follow evolutionary assumptions as measured by morphology and genetics.5. Transitional fossils do exist. They have characteristics of species found above and below them within the fossil record. Simply stating "they are not transitionals" is equivalent to calling the sky brown. Your denial has become comical, and evidence of a closed mind.

laser has been suspended for his behavior on this forum.Any discussion of this can be taken to http://EvC Forum: laserlover suspended AND Lazarus1

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AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

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You seem to just be another Christophobic in the Christophob tree judging by the tone of your message.

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And judging by your earlier hate-filled diatribe, why shouldn't we be afraid of being attacked by Christians like you?You sound like one disturbed, facist, rage-filled individual, considering the way you like to sling around the degrading, insulting language.Is that how Christ taught you to act?

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I not only have a high triple digit IQ as well as a masters degree in the sciences.

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What field of science, and what school did you get your degree from?It's also kind of odd to get a masters degree in the sciences, unless you want to change fields. Most people either get a Bachelor's and then leave school completely or get a teaching certificate or something, or they go on to get a PhD.Do you have any publications in the professional literature?

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That is, the fossil evidence that life has evolved from simple to complex forms over the ages depends on the geological ages of the specific rocks in which these fossils are found. Those rocks, however, are assigned geologic ages based on the fossil assembly which they contain. The fossils, which in turn, are arranged on the basis of their *assumed evolutionary relationships.* Therfore the main evidence for evolution is based on the assumption of evolution.

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Wrong.The geologic column was known long before Evolution was thought up.Creationists in the 1800's identified it.I'd link to some historically relevant websites if I thought you's actually read them, but I don't think there's much hope of that.

Well I see that denial is well entrenched.I can see that suspension was deserved.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

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I'm curious, do your ears flap when you say things this stupid? It's ironic that someone who doesn't like me should spend all that time wondering about me.

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I spend hardly any time wondering, but I do pay casual attention. Reading your posts is like watching a train wreck.My ears only flap when I want them to.

Wow, I go to school for a day and come back and you guys have another five pages of posts!
Hey RAZD, your post about whales looks really good, but right now I hardly have time to work on the human transitionals, much less whales, too. I want to debate you about that, but can you save it for when we're done with human-ape stuff? Thanks.About laser, I don't even know what to say, just that I'm sorry about it, guys About the dots and lines analogy:
Ned writes:

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There are lines. We don't see the actual movement (as we would in a motion picture). But we have "time stamps" on the "dots".

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This is what I'm saying, we have dots, but no lines. Also, I maintain (see my post about the hominids) that there are extremely few reliable dots (I do not agree that they are reliable, I am only ceding their existence for right now because I am swamped), not enough to prove that there was a line. We are not talking about being able to see the line, I am talking about having evidence of the line. I am not accepting the validity of the remaining three "dots," just conceding it for now because I think three is little enough.

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Each one has some connection to ones before and to ones after.

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Again, I maintain that the evidence is shaky enough that there is little evidence for this. There are animals varying in complexity, and it would make sense that there would be similarities between some animals. Basically I'm relying on my other post for now.RAZD, about messeage 100, "A minor correction", you said:

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minor correction:

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while RAZDs thread about http://EvC Forum: Differential Dispersal Of Introduced Species - An Aspect of Punctuated Equilibrium>Differential Dispersal Of Introduced Species (Re: Aspect of Punctuated Equilibrium) does a good job of showing that when one group of creatures is better adapted than another group of creatures, the former group rapidly (hundreds of years) replaces the inferior group.

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My topic says nothing about replacing the "inferior group"

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First, I accept correction, that was not the premise your post argued(proved?), you were talking about the rapid expansion of a better adapted organism. However, you said:

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Now getting down to the point where sightings are rare and they are expected to die out soon -- the last count only found two birds. One of the reasons for the decline is competition with the European Starlings: the decline started in the 1930's and that was about when the Starlings showed up.

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It is not total extinction, but it is pretty close. For two other species, you said at least that the new species were damaging native species. You mentioned 3 out of seven species which were damaging the existing organisms.
Also, I reread some of that post and you said:

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Any one of these would have appeared "suddenly" and "without any transitions" in the fossil record.

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I think I disagree with that, and I am willing to debate you on that later, but right now I am tied up with this transitional stuff.
About aforesaid transitional stuff,Loudmouth, thanks for going through my whole post in detail, I appreciate it
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My intention was to show that there are ape to human transitional fossils, which I think I have done.

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Mark24(in post 74) puts forth this definition of a transitional form:

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A transitional is a form that possesses character states that are part way between two separate taxa, &/or a mix of discrete characters between two taxa.

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"Search | Britannica>Taxa" is an extremely broad term, referring to anything from kingdoms to subspecies. Mark24, if you or anybody else who knows more about this than me could offer a more specific definition about what we are debating, I would appreciate it. (The definition is perfectly valid, it is just that the debate needs to be more specific)
You said:

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Far from zero. Go to this webpage and this webapge for transitional species between us and our common ancestor with new world apes. Just in case you don't click on the links above, here is a parial list of the transitional species:

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You claimed that it was a list of transitional species, you should have been more specific.

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It is admittedly close to the splitting of the hominid and new world apes, but it does have features that appear only in the hominid line. Therefore, it can't be classified strictly as a monkey skull because it does have hominid features.

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First, I should have better defined the technical terms I used, so that the less-intelligent readers could understand.
Monkey-skull
1. Skull of a primate.
Usage: Used in place of other, equally technical verbiage when an author is tired of typing long species names and is being lazy.
Note: Usage of this phrase is rapidly diminishing, and it is now considered archaic and unused.
I should have made more clear that I was not asserting that it was the skull of a monkey. Anyway, my point was not the type of skull, only that we have such a small part of the animal that we can know very little about it. I do understand that we can get some knowledge from it, just not much.

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Not that you aren't an upstanding guy, but why should I take your word for it. However, the fragmentary nature of the skeleton isn't enough to solidify this fossil into any certain line. However, the armbones found do indicate that the owner could have been both arboreal and bipedality. More fossils are needed though.

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What I meant by "not a link" was that it was the start of the chain, not part of the chain itself. You said that more fossils are needed, and that is a big point I was trying to make. There is not enough evidence for us to know but little about these species.

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Hmm, talkorigins seems to indicate differently: "The find consisted of fossils from 17 individuals. Most remains are teeth, but there is also a partial lower jaw of a child, a partial cranium base, and partial arm bone from 2 individuals."

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There are skull fragments and a lower jaw, more than what you indicated. This is enough to indicate it's transitional nature between apes and humans, but not enough to solidly indicate a certain lineage.

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I sincerely apologize about that, I accidentally omitted some data, and the omission was of the nature to strengthen my case. It was completely unintentional, and I will be more careful in the future. Sorry
Anyway, you said it wasn't enough to assure a certain lineage, only that it was enough to assure that it was transitional.

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And this is where you make a mistake in how you view evolution. It is not a refutation of evolution for the parent species to remain unchanged while the offshoot of the species does change. A possible scenario is that a small pocket of A. afarensis was isolated and evolved in this small area, later dispersing into the larger population. This only had to happen once, and would result in a population of A. afarensis living along side their daughter species. In the fossil record we would see a new species along side the old species, A. afarensis.

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I was not attempting to refute evolution with my post, I was only trying to show that there are few transitional forms that might be reliable, but that the majority are unsuported. Evolution cannot be proven wrong by a lack of fossils. It can only be proven unlikely. Even it there were no fossils, evolution would still not pe proven wrong. Only unlikely. And that is what I am trying to do is show that it is unlikely, and that creation is more likely.
About A. afarensis living aside A. africanus...
Once a subspecies had a small advantageous change, it would be be in the same ecological niche as the unimproved subspecies, and they would be in direct competition for things such as food. According to natural selection, the improved subspecies would survive, the other would be driven to extinction (or at least small numbers), and the new subspecies would be the new norm. As RAZD's post about differential dispersion shows, natural selection is lighting fast(it would be slower with smaller changes than there were with the birds, but it would have still have been fast), so no, we would not expect a species to live aside its ancestor. Not because mother-daughter species would necessarily be in conflict, but during the transition from one to another, the slightly improved would be pushing everything less adapted out of existence.

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Nonetheless, this skull is neither fully ape-like nor fully human. Exactly what we would expect if humans evolved from an ape like ancestor. And again, the fragmentary nature of the fossil may not allow us to place this skull into a precise lineage, but it's characteristics support human evolution.

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Neither is the skull fully in one peice. My point with this one is that it was heavily damaged, and found in two peices. You admit that it is impossible to fit it into a precise lineage. Sort of like how Ned was talking about the evolutionary "bush"? We maybe don't have the exact species that evolved into us, but we have some that are pretty close?(correct me if I'm wrong). In which case these would NOT be transitional forms, only indirect evidence for the existence of transitional forms.

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And again, there is nothing wrong with the two species living side by side at the same time. Evolution isn't a ladder, but a bush. There is no reason why two branches can't be around at the same time. Secondly, why would the brain size trend have to keep going toward the human size? There is nothing wrong with brain size taking a step back here or there. Again, evolution isn't a ladder that has to progress ever upwards. However, according to talkorigins A. afarensis ranged from 375cc to 500cc, A. africanus ranged between 420cc and 500cc. They are still in the same range.

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Look at talk.origins Prominent Hominid Fossils>here. They claim to have found two fossils, the largest one with a cranium of about "485." For them to say that A. africanus is guesswork. However, the sizes are very close, so I'll give you that one. Also, that was not meant to show that A. africanus couldn't have evolved from A. aferensis, only that it is not nearly as strong a link as it is portrayed as. About the bush, I already talked about it.

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Not a strong link, but still shows characteristics of both apes and humans.

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Not a strong link, that was my point.
[qoute]
I really don't have a problem throwing this one in with A. boisei either. [/quote] We agree on this one.

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So you want to see changes through the evolutionary pathways, but then cite differences as a problem. Strange indeed.

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I was not citing it as a problem. I was saying that there was a large enough gap that more transitionals would be needed to show evolution in between A. africanus and A. robustus, because of the large differences in the skull. But that does not matter anyway, because A. robustus is considered a subspecies of A. boisie, which is not used as a human ancestor anymore.

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Not all of the species I listed are going to be in the direct human lineage. Many of these species could probably be considered cousin species, or sidebranches that went extinct later on. Again, evolution is a bush . . .

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So this one isn't a transitional form either. However, we can imagine what this guy's ancestor looked like, and that ancestor could have been the transitional form. If we trace all the sidebranches back, we get to the points where they connect, and those points are the transitional forms.

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Not all of the species I listed are going to be in the direct human lineage. Many of these species could probably be considered cousin species, or sidebranches that went extinct later on. Again, evolution is a bush . . .

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Again, not a transitional form. This is merely the descendant of one of the transitional forms.

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A. africanus could have survived in areas not yet occupied by H. habilis. I don't see a problem here.

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I talked about this earlier. The A. africanus and H. habilis as postulated by evolutionists might have been able to live together. However, the forms between the two would have occupied similar enough ecological niches that along the way from A. africanus to H. habilis, the slightly improved would have driven out of existence the older.

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Again, there is no reason why brain size could have gone in the other direction here and there.

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True. But it does slightly weaken the connection. You are right though, it isn't very good evidence.

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And the reason for your incredulity? Why couldn't there have been sudden increases in brain size? Also, earlier H. erectus skulls had a 900cc capacity, which is closer to H. georgicus. The increase could have been due to mutations of the gene for myosin heavy chain in the jaw.

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There is a substantial difference between the size of the skull of H. erectus and H. georgicus. This is a very big gap, and distinct "dots." To prove evolution to have occured between the two, you need to show evidence for it.

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Can you say KNM-ER 3733? There is a second discovery which actually may support ergaster being included with erectus. No matter, the "monkey-head" is nothing like any monkey ever known, so this is quite a stretch. It is very close to H. erectus, not anything like a monkey skull.

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Again, I used monkey-head to mean primate skull, I should have used more precise wording Ok, so you agree that it should be included with H. erectus. That is fine with me.

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Conceded. Perhaps this species should be lumped with another transitional species. This still doesn't refute the presence of transitional fossils though.

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You concede this one. Good enough for me

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I did include sister species that were not in the direct human lineage

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Yes you did, and you represented them as transitionals in the direct human lineage, which you shouldn't have done. They are indirect, suggestive evidence only. With the sister species removed from the list, as well as the ones you conceded are "weak" or "need more fossils" or "not a solid lineage..." removed from the list, I have (correct me if I leave anything out):
Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Australopithecus africanus
Homo habilis
Homo georgicus
Homo erectusThese are all you have left, and I think I have argued somewhat convincingly for the non-validity of most of the rest. None of it is very in depth, though, because there is so much to cover.

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I would agree that some fossils could be lumped into one species instead of separate species, but this misses my point, that transitional fossils are there.

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According to definition of a transitional, the one about a transitional being as little as a species with some characteristics of another species, a banana is transitional between you and an orange. How? All three have SKIN!! (this was very exaggerated, but makes a point. The definition of a "transitional is so vague that it is impossible to deny the existence of transitionals. What I deny is the existence of transitionals that actually demonstrate that change took place). With "transitionals" being so vague, it is not the presence of transitionals that is important, it is whether or not the transitionals are any good.

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However, it wasn't my intention that everyone go through every single species... ...At this point, we should probably pick out just a few points and focus on those.

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Please! That would be great. But when you post something like a list of evidence, I have to go through all of it, or it looks like I'm avoiding your arguments. So in the future, could you keep your posts a little more focused? Thanks. Anyway, I'll let you call which point to debate now, I'm flexibleBy the way, I have a lot of homework over the weekend and into next week, so I probably won't be on here for a couple days at least. I am not running away from whatever arguments you have, I'm just going to be busy. I wanted to clear that up in advance

That's not what Ned is saying, and that's not true. We do have the lines, if by "lines" we mean "what takes us from one dot to another." The "lines" are the evolutionary mechanism - natural selection and random mutation.The lines aren't in the fossil record, though. It's nonsensical to expect to find a fossil of a mechanism, of course, just like it would be nonsensical to find a "fossil" of moving heat, or light. What we find are the results of the mechanism.The dots are in the very ground we walk on. The lines have been confirmed by experiment and observation. Put them together, and you have more than enough support for the theory of evolution.Are you willing to connect the dots, or not?

I accept that ned was saying that there are lines. What I am saying is that the "lines" formed by imagining them are not enough. Just because we can imagine how the past happened does not mean the past happened that way, we need more evidence. Anyway, what did you think of the rest of my post, where I show that there are a lot less dots than you think?