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“The definition of transition does NOT say exhibiting features of one form while being clearly identified as another.”

Dictionary definitions relate to popular word use. They are not to be confused with the scientific use of the terminology. I am correct in my use of the term “transitional fossils”. Let me put it this way: What would be looked for in a hypothetical “missing link”? The answer, and let’s be honest here, would be a find that exhibits a mixture of features in the earlier form and features in the later or modern form. But, with skeletal material that is only recoverable because in a specific location in a specific time, conditions were favorable to fossilization, one can not look at a fossil and say with certainty, “This is the fossil of an ancestral species (i.e., a ‘link’”). The reason for this is that the actual ancestral species may have lived in another region of the continent where conditions weren’t good for fossilization. Like the analogy I used earlier, it’s like finding a partially burned family album from 100 years ago with unlabled pictures, you might be able to tell who looks related to you, but you don’t know which pictures are of great, great grandma. Transitional fossils are still what would be predicted if evolution (common descent) was what occurred. One does not find fossil mammals in Permian deposits, one finds therapsids with some mammal-like characteristics. One does find mammmals in later deposits, starting in the later part of the Triassic. Whether any of the therapsids found were the direct ancestor of later mammals can not be known, but we can be confident that the Permian fossil of a creature that WAS ancestral to later mammals would almost certainly be identified as a therapsid.

Here is a nice explanation of “transitional fossils”:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/transitional_def.html

web.mac.com/theedonfamily/Site/The_Guide_To_Thinking_Straight.html

And now, I really am done. Finito. Out of here.

How many? Animal husbandry doesn’t count. Link me ONE.
Gene splicing doesn’t count. turning on a pre-existing retrovirus in the host’s DNA doesn’t count, either.

“Transitional forms in the fossil record are forms that have both features of earlier forms and later forms. More specifically, the transitional form has features that the earlier form has but the later form does not, and features that the later form has but the earlier form does not”

Wrong.
tran·si·tion
passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change.

The definition of transition does NOT say exhibiting features of one form while being clearly identified as another.

Transitional forms are forms that show a progression between succesive distinct identifiable forms. Simply exhibiting features that are similiar to “earlier” forms does not mean the forms are transitioning.

If you disagree:

What distinct forms are the “transitional” forms you listed half way or part way between? How can you say dogmatically that a mammal with reptile like characteristics are transitioning to/from a reptile/mammal when you can not identify the distinct form that it is transitioning to/from?

A half bird/half lizard would be a transitional form. A bird with webbed claws like a reptile does not mean the bird is evolving from reptiles. Simply having features of one form while being identified as clearly another, does not a transitional form make.
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Diversity changes through time:

“It’s not stasis, it is the fact that body plans like those found in chordates and arthopods persisted while others did not.”

Thanks for bringing up another problem with evolution. The fact that there is more diversity in the fossil record then there is alive today is counterintuitive to the theory of evolution.
Is evolution in the process of eliminating diversity? Because chordates and arthopods are alive today and an enormous collection of body plans different from these do not, predicts that evolution is not doing its job. In fact it indicates that extinction pressures win before evolution has a chance to change an organism to a plan that is conducive to it’s survival.

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Is Evolution happen suddenly or gradually?
What does the evidence say?

“Evolution as a concept or the several theories that have current support do NOT in any way infer that there is an active transition going on”

Hmmm, so evolution is not actively happening right now?

Going back to yours and Ben’s punctuated equlibrium theory, you are going as far as to say, the evolution happened nearly instantaneously at certain mass extinction events.

How can you believe that evolution happened quasi-instantaneously for pre-historic creatures (explaining why there are few fossils in comparison to the explosion of the Cambrian Era) yet we are unable to duplicate such evolution during the modern age for animals as test experiments?

How many experiments have been done to induce an animal to evolve, yet we have nothing? No evolution from one life form to another has ever been witnessed despite millions of dollars of research effort to achieve such a feat. If quasi-instantaneous evolution were possible as is implied by the “punctuated equilibrium” theory, then greater evidence of evolution could be witnessed in the laboratory if not in nature.
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“You still don’t know what you are doing or saying rfl. Give it up”

ksagnostic, I want to thank you for taking the time to discuss your scientific knowledge with me and with the “blog audience”. You are a poster that all those who agree with you should emulate for the sake of keeping intellectual discourse on this topic alive. There is a wealth of material on both sides that will continue to be vetted. May the truth win.

Two basic problems with rfl’s latest post (which indicates drastic misunderstanding of what he thinks he is arguing against).

Transitional forms in the fossil record are forms that have both features of earlier forms and later forms. More specifically, the transitional form has features that the earlier form has but the later form does not, and features that the later form has but the earlier form does not. That’s it. Evolution as a concept or the several theories that have current support do NOT in any way infer that there is an active transition going on. “Living fossils” are creatures that continue to exist with “primitive” (in this case simply meaning older) features because they have been able to successfully survive and leave offspring when other creatures with similar mix of features did not. The platypus is not some animal that failed in its transition from reptile to mammal, or is incomplete. It is a creature that has more in common with reptiles (egg laying and a cloaca instead of seperate urinary and fecal tracts) than most other fur bearing endotherms except for monotremes. Bully for the platypus.

As for the “stasis” argument involving body plans, let me take a moment to simply laugh. It’s not stasis, it is the fact that body plans like those found in chordates and arthopods persisted while others did not. However, those basic body plans have hardly been “static”. We have whole classes of animals that don’t appear until later in the fossil record (after the Cambrian) such as the afore mentioned amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds, not to mention at least two whole new classes of fish and remarkably successful class of arthopods known we call insects.

You still don’t know what you are doing or saying rfl. Give it up.

However, some of the extinct species, particularly those of the last known fossil coelacanth, the Cretaceous genus Macropoma, closely resemble the living species.[citation needed]

Fudge much? shoots the unchanged portion of your argument. And you’re still back to the ‘let a shrew reproduce long enough and it’ll turn into a homo sapien’. Coelecanth and mammals and reptiles and amphibians were all living concurrently, especially at the end of the late Cretaceous. Modern Coelecanth are a deep sea creature, and the deep ocean doesn’t readily yield fossils as it’s subducted (why it’s deep sea) and melted before becoming volcanos.

The platypus isn’t that unique. try the echidna. there may be one other monotreme, but I’m not real sure.

You really need to do a bit of reading and a bit of thought.

I never said that ALL the forms went extinct. But you give me the grand opportunity to bring up yet another dead end for your theory The fact that some of the Cambrian Era body plans (dated by scientists at ~500 million years ago) appear today exhibiting a shocking amount of stasis (ie stagnation in regards to change). In fact they are identical.

How can it be assumed that evolution is the reason for changes of all organisms with the numerous cases of living organisms today that can be found in million year old fossils unchanged?

One such example of a living fossil is the coelacanth. A fish found in fossil form in the Devonian period (400 million years ago) was thought extinct until it’s discovery last century. The coelacanth was discovered to be identical to the one found in the fossil dated at over 400 million years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth

How does the Coelacanth survive unchanged for millions of years while other fishes living in the same ocean, eating the same food, experiencing the same environmental influences, are assumed to have been forced to morph into mammals, reptiles and birds in order to survive?

“In this case, I gave the necessary specifics. During the Permian, there are therapsid reptiles that have mammal-like characteristics (such as differentiated teeth) but also reptilian characteristics (such as post dental jaw bones, followed by mammal like reptiles that have more characteristics of mammals plus intriguing characteristics that appear to be hybrids of earlier therapsid forms but also later mammal charactersistics (such as post dental jaw bones that are much smaller and positioned close to or within the animal’s ear canal). There are also mammals that have the single lower jaw bones with no post dental jaw bones.”

Nowhere in the “specifics” listed above are is listed a descrption of a form that is transitioning from one distinct form to another. Therefore, you have contributed no examples of a trasitional forms. Do you honestly believe that reptiles with mammal-like characteristics are transitional forms?

“The fact that there were animals with characteristics of both reptiles and mammals before there were clear mammals is evidence that such a transition occured”

Obviously, the answer to my question above is “Yes”.

Therefore, you will need to confront the following logic:

If reptiles with mammal like characteristics are evidentiary of evolution from reptiles to mammals, then modern day living mammals with reptile like characteristics MUST be considered to be transitioning as well.

Back to the enigmatic platypus, BASED ON THE EVIDENCE which type of reptile is it turning from? If it is transitioning from a mammal to one less reptile like, which type of mammal is it transitioning from?

Wait, there is nothing even closely similar to the Duck-billed platypus on either the reptile or the mammal side. It is a unique animal but nevertheless, still a mammal (with the reptilian characteristic of being able to lay eggs). The same is true for the unique creatures that ksagnostic is referring to.

Therefore, ksagnostic’s “specifics” are not transitional forms and definately not evidentiary proof of evolution.

Re: Regular
DNFTT

:D

“1. How many opportunities have you had to list one during the past few days?”

I actually have referenced some. You evidently are so intent on writing your “no huh uh” response that you are not paying attention. Transitionals are a reality.

“”2)Do you even KNOW what sorts of fossils consistute the “Cambrian Explosion?’”

“Yes I do KNOW. Exactly the type of fossils that have gone extinct WITHOUT leaving any transitional forms.”

Actually, the answer is no, you don’t. Not all of the forms went extinct without leaving any transitonal forms (an almost incoherent statement, by the way). Some of the forms DO manifest body plans seen today. Later forms manifest far greater variety within those body plans, which is evidence for evolution (particularly consistent with the modern synthesis).

“‘3)Mass extinctions set the stage for massive change. Lots of organisms die out, and those few that survive account for the diversity that is seen in later forms.’”

“False.”

Uhm nope. And your subsequent comments indicate that you didn’t even understand what I said. Since you don’t even understand what I am saying, you clearly don’t have the knowledge to label what I say “false”.

“There is a much greater diversity of organisms in the Cambrian fossil collection than the same type of organism that we have found alive today. The trend as clearly revealed in the fossil record is to less diversity due to extinction.”

Wrong, evidently you didn’t understand what I wrote just previous to the part of my post you are responding to. You just inserted creationist talking point about diversity without bothering to really pay attention to what I said.

I wrote:

“Do you know that there are no amphibians, no reptiles, mammals or birds. The chordates are represented mostly by animals that would not be recognized as fish, and a type of jawless fish that does not resemble anything we see today or even anything after the Ordovician. ”

Followed by:

“Mass extinctions set the stage for massive change. Lots of organisms die out, and those few that survive account for the diversity that is seen in later forms.”

The vertebrate chordate form in the Cambrian is ONLY represented by the jawless fishes. The later variety of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds are all representatives of the vertebrate chordate form. Other types of basic body plans did not survive the Cambrian, but those that did accounted for a great deal of later diversity that did not exist within the form during the Cambrian.

“‘For example, in the Permian Era you see mammal like reptiles.’”

“ksagnostic makes first attempt at listing a transition form without giving any specifics.”

In this case, I gave the necessary specifics. During the Permian, there are therapsid reptiles that have mammal-like characteristics (such as differentiated teeth) but also reptilian characteristics (such as post dental jaw bones, followed by mammal like reptiles that have more characteristics of mammals plus intriguing characteristics that appear to be hybrids of earlier therapsid forms but also later mammal charactersistics (such as post dental jaw bones that are much smaller and positioned close to or within the animal’s ear canal). There are also mammals that have the single lower jaw bones with no post dental jaw bones.

As for the platypus, there is no reason why some animals might not survive with primitive characteristics if they don’t inhibit the animal’s survival. Genetic and blood protein evidence supports the hypothesis of an early divergence from other mammals (later divergence from marsupials and placentals). As for “which reptile”, hardly necessary for providing evidence of evolution. The fact that there were animals with characteristics of both reptiles and mammals before there were clear mammals is evidence that such a transition occured.

“Or what about Archeaopteryx? Proven bird that was purported to be a reptile because of webbed claws?”

Not even close. Where did you get that one?

“A reptile having mammal like characteristics or a mammal having reptile like characteristics or a bird with reptile like characteristics does NOT make it a transitional form.”

And so, rfl defines “transitional form” out of existence. Neat trick. It’s the equivalent of squeezing your eyes shut and holding your fingers over your ears and saying over and over, “there are no transitional forms”.

As for outlander’s linking to Worldnut Daily and the advertising site for Stein’s propoganda…

well, that’s what it is. Propoganda. If you want to challenge a dominant scientific theory, you have to do it with science. The ID movement is not scientific, it is an assault on the very methodological naturalistic basis of science, and is clearly designed to support theistic creationism. Dawkin’s atheism is, contrary to what Dawkins himself may say, beside the point. Dawkins recently debated Francis Collins, a geneticist and avowed Christian. Neither is a creationist. And when it comes to explaining diversity, even though Collins sees an intelligent author to the universe, he still accepts evolution as the explanation to life’s diversity. Thus, atheism is NOT a necessary underpinning of belief in evolution. Methodological naturalism does not presuppose metaphysical naturalism.

I really need to get to work. So, I will have to concede the last word on this topic. But, I do not concede the argument. Reality is plain. There is a reason why creationists and ID supporters spend so much time attacking the “evidence of evolutionists” (BTW, “evolutionists” a suspect term). It’s because evolution is evidence based, and they have the evidence.

There is no coherent ID theory. ID arose only after “scientific creationism” was identified in the courts as an attempt to attack evolution and support biblical creationism in science class. ID replaced god with an unidentified “creator”, but there is no question as to where this creator comes from. The Wedge Document dissiminated by the Discovery Institute clearly identifies their purpose and strategy. Curious, it doesn’t look like they wanted to plead thheir case within the scientific establishment from the very beginning.

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html

Reference Capn’s digression AWAY from the evidence. This is the texbook response by an evolutionist when confronted with irrefutable evidence that highly disproves their theory.

Evolution is based on evidence? Yeah right, stay on the evidence if you want us to believe that.

That Evolution is the “best” answer right now. It doesn’t matter if it is true, how many lies it is based on, how many assumptions are made… it is the “best”

Hardly science at all.

No scientific model is perfect. The big b*ng model of the origin of the universe for example has some unexplained questions too, which is where the idea of “dark matter” is postulated to try to explain the problem of observed gravitation.

Simply pointing out weaknesses in the model in no way refutes it. Refutation would require a competing model, which you evolution deniers aren’t even close to.

Until you have got that, you have got nothing.