Fred Lamm said:
I did not say that I do not know what a transitional fossil is, I said that I don’t believe there are any and I don’t believe that you have shown us any.
Then please explain what you think a "transitional fossil" is. Specific to humans and other primates, what would a transitional fossil between them look like?
Australopithecus afarensis is a good case in point. You said I haven’t looked for transitional fossils so I have obliged you. First , I wanted to see how many fossils are available for study. So I read in “Human Evolution, An Illustrated Introduction” that; “Fossil evidence of the common ancestor of the African apes and humans has yet to be found, not least because the hominoid fossil record in Africa between 4.5 and 8 million years is sparse,(almost to the point of being non-existent)”. Well then just how much data is evolutionary theory for hominids based on? Well the Catalogue of Fossil Hominids says that by 1974 there were 3998 individuals. Other sources estimate the number today at over 6000. Then why did the text say the data was sparse?
Again you demonstrate that you aren't understanding the information you're reading.
The quote refers to "
the common ancestor of the African apes and humans", as in the one and only common ancestor of both groups. That's a separate question than "do transitional fossils between the two groups exist". It's like how you and your third cousins are related, and we can even trace both of your lineages back a few steps, but we can't say exactly who your common great-great grandfather was. Just because we don't know the name of your common great-great grandfather doesn't mean we can't say you're related or identify some of the people between that ancestor and you.
The answer, I found, is simple. A lot of the individuals don’t fit the theory. Take KP-271 dated at 4.5 million years old.
In other words they deliberately classify chimp and ape fossils as hominin for personal gain! You would have us believe these “scientists”, because of course, their only motives are to “enlighten” the rest of us.
KP-271 is a single bone (a lower humerus). But the lower humerus of modern humans and chimps is very similar, and we know from more complete fossils that the humerus of Australopithecines is very similar to modern humans. Later analyses (Lague and Jungers (1996)) confirmed that KP-271 anatomically fits within the range of Australopithecines.
And now the conspiracy theories come out. I wondered how long it would take.
I have asked you where the millions of transitional fossils are and you can only produce these two pitiful examples that are not even transitional. Where are the vertebrate to invertebrate transitions? There should be millions of them if your theory is true. In summary, paleontologists throw out or mislabel fossils that do not support their theory. Why would anyone believe anything they say?
Let's see if you can even say what a "transitional fossil" is first, then we'll look to see if any exist.
I do not misunderstand the point. I understand perfectly what you are saying, but you make the assumption that a designer would never use the same cytochrome c sequence in more than one animal. What is the basis for this assumption? Do you have access to God’s design handbook?
So basically no matter what evidence is found, your answer will be either "God made it that way" or "It's all a conspiracy".
Kinda makes this whole discussion pointless, doesn't it?
As is normal these days, any scientist who expresses a creationist view is branded with the label “Creationist!” and all of his work is summarily dismissed as if he did not study the same texts and pass the same tests to get his degree as you did to get yours and I might remind you that your own degree is in biology and you have no expertise in the field of paleontology either.
First, Menton
is a young-earth creationist who works for AiG, and he has absolutely no qualifications in the field of paleontology. Not only that, but the quote from him you posted was not about the specimen we are discussing.
Second....thus we rely on the work of actual paleontologists.
All the articles I read about Caudipteryx say that it had “modern feathers” not proto-feathers, and from looking at the actual fossil (not the artistic reconstruction) under the highest magnification that the resolution of the provided photos allow, I think that calling them feathers is a stretch. But , just for the sake of argument, lets say that they are feathers. What an odd place for the first feather to appear. Why did animals with just a couple of feathers in this area have a survival advantage? The problem with evolution is that it touts survival of the fittest but cannot explain arrival of the fittest. The fossil certainly does not have “feathers all over its body “ as some of the articles claim. So you still do not have an animal with scales and feathers. Wiki uses words like beak-like snout (seems to be a matter of opinion) was “probably” a swift runner. Last but not least, how are we to know that it is even genuine given the Chinese record of having faked this kind of fossil(much to the chagrin of National Geographic)?
But you still haven't answered two questions: Is Caudipteryx a transitional fossil, and what "kind" is it?
If you have evidence that the caudipteryx specimens are fake, please present it.
There is no fallacy in demanding that a hypothesis be plausible, or else I could make the statement; “cell towers evolved from metal ladders. I don’t quite know how rain and wind and forces of nature caused this, but believe me, over millions of years it happened.” Horsefeathers! You don’t want to discuss this area because it is where your theory absolutely breaks down. Evolution sound practical on the surface but when you get down to the details of just how environmental pressures could possibly cause such evolution it becomes obvious even to the simple minded that it just could not happen.
You are nevertheless guilty of the fallacy of moving the goalposts. Whether or not we can explain exactly how birds evolved from reptiles is irrelevant to the question of whether or not transitional fossils between the two groups exist.
Thank you for admitting that neither you nor any other scientist can explain the evolution of the butterfly.
Now you're being deceptive again. I did not say anything about other scientists' ability to address butterfly evolution.
You seem to claim that this fossil is a reptile to bird transition. These men say that cannot be the case. How is that deceptive? The fact that they believe birds evolved from something else is irrelevant.
Well now either you really don't understand what we're discussing, or you're being dishonest. One more time...
The mainstream view among paleontologists is that birds evolved from theropods, which are reptiles. Feduccia and a couple of others maintain that birds and theropods evolved from a common ancestor, which was still a reptile. IOW, their disagreement is over
which type of reptile birds evolved from.
Thus, your description of Feduccia is either deliberately deceptive or based in ignorance.
Please enlighten us about these “other means”.
For one, by comparative genomics. But I'm still waiting for Behe's "factual" work on irreducible complexity.
Stasis, means standing still , unchanging.
Yes, in the larger parent population.
For paleontologists it seems that both fossil gaps and no fossil gaps prove evolution. How convenient!
Except for the fact that as I pointed out, we see this type of speciation happen right before our eyes. And no one has said that "both fossil gaps and no fossil gaps prove evolution". You're guilty of the fallacy of argument via straw man.
Influenza are exposed to antibiotics. The ones that have a higher resistance survive. That’s not evolution, its selective breeding.
So now we're back to that question you wouldn't answer before. What's the difference? Is there some taxonomic line that must be crossed before you will call it "evolution"?
What amazes me River, is that with a mind as keen as yours you are so naive. You never once really question the validity of the things you were taught and dogmatically regurgitate them. I will continue to pray that God will open the eyes of your heart.
What amazes me is how the person who has been demonstrably wrong on so many things with this subject since the moment he came into this thread, has the arrogance to call anyone else "naive".
