New discoveries of 'missing links.'

[Dan From Smithville]

That wasn't responsive to my question. Fossils are dead individuals, not populations. And individuals do not evolve: populations do. So, it seems you want thousands of individual fossils showing every step of a transition.

Is that correct?

I believe that is correct. Creationists want an unimaginably high standard for that which they reject anyway and an non-existent standard for that which they want to believe. It is creationist dualism.

 

[Astrophile]

Interesting tale, but I do not see how it is relevant.

Perhaps I was being a bit frivolous. The point that I was trying to make was that one can convict a person of a crime on indirect evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, without needing eye-witnesses or a video record of a person committing the crime. In the same way, indirect evidence such as DNA, anatomical similarities and differences, biogeography and embryology is enough to establish the reality of evolution without the need of either a continuous fossil record or observations of a transition between species over thousands of generations.

 

[YoursTrue]

That wasn't responsive to my question. Fossils are dead individuals, not populations. And individuals do not evolve: populations do. So, it seems you want thousands of individual fossils showing every step of a transition.

Is that correct?

I don't need every step. It would be nice though to prove a case. Frankly, I see no micro steps. What I see is the presumption that a land crawling animal emerged from a fish. Yes, there are fish that walk on land. This does not prove Darwin's theory. If I were on a jury, I'd have to say no it doesn't prove the theory of evolution.

 

[YoursTrue]

Perhaps I was being a bit frivolous. The point that I was trying to make was that one can convict a person of a crime on indirect evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, without needing eye-witnesses or a video record of a person committing the crime. In the same way, indirect evidence such as DNA, anatomical similarities and differences, biogeography and embryology is enough to establish the reality of evolution without the need of either a continuous fossil record or observations of a transition between species over thousands of generations.

I got your point. I answered in my previous post about the micro steps. I don't need a video recording but it would be nice.

 

[YoursTrue]

That wasn't responsive to my question. Fossils are dead individuals, not populations. And individuals do not evolve: populations do. So, it seems you want thousands of individual fossils showing every step of a transition.

Is that correct?

Not really, although I'd like to see something like that even with fossils. Now I'll have to look into realism of populations evolving one form to another, not things like breeds of dogs or cats. There are lots of things I can't logically grasp so I agree I'm stepping beyond my parameter here, although listening to talk about coronavirus by a microbiologist I began wishing I had become a scientist. Maybe some fortunate day.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Not really, although I'd like to see something like that even with fossils. Now I'll have to look into realism of populations evolving one form to another, not things like breeds of dogs or cats. There are lots of things I can't logically grasp so I agree I'm stepping beyond my parameter here, although listening to talk about coronavirus by a microbiologist I began wishing I had become a scientist. Maybe some fortunate day.

Breeds of dogs and cats exist through the action of people using the principles of nature (evolution and genetics) to breed dogs and cats with traits we find desirable. Wheat, corn, soybeans, squash, chickens, pigs, cattle and a host of other organisms of agricultural importance have been bred using the same principles. Outside of agriculture, corn as we know it does not exist.

 

[YoursTrue]

That wasn't responsive to my question. Fossils are dead individuals, not populations. And individuals do not evolve: populations do. So, it seems you want thousands of individual fossils showing every step of a transition.

Is that correct?

Allow me to say this, please -- (I don't want fossils "showing every step of a transition," although it would be nice to prove more about this, leaving less room for doubt) the ideas about how Neanderthal man looks have greatly changed over the years. Please explain how scientists can discern or figure DNA in a Neanderthal. Discover magazine said, "Neanderthals were our evolutionary cousins, sharing about 99.8 percent of our genetic code,..." So what did they examine in a "Neanderthal" man to get to this statistic?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Allow me to say this, please -- (I don't want fossils "showing every step of a transition," although it would be nice to prove more about this, leaving less room for doubt) the ideas about how Neanderthal man looks have greatly changed over the years. Please explain how scientists can discern or figure DNA in a Neanderthal. Discover magazine said, "Neanderthals were our evolutionary cousins, sharing about 99.8 percent of our genetic code,..." So what did they examine in a "Neanderthal" man to get to this statistic?

Femur bones. The DNA extracted from them actually.

 

[Polymath257]

I don't need every step. It would be nice though to prove a case. Frankly, I see no micro steps. What I see is the presumption that a land crawling animal emerged from a fish. Yes, there are fish that walk on land. This does not prove Darwin's theory. If I were on a jury, I'd have to say no it doesn't prove the theory of evolution.

When we give you micro steps, you complain that they don't 'change kinds'. And when we give you macro steps (in the fossils), you complain that you don't see the micro steps. To get the micro steps in the fossils would require thousands on fossils in each line of descent.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Give me one substantial piece of evidence showing the transition in small, very small increments, from one form to another. I don't mean a fossil of a dinosaur with feathers. That's evidently a dinosaur bone with feathers. I mean a fossil of a dinosaur gradually moving (and I mean g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y) moving from that shape to the next strata and then to birds. Not fossils. Which lead to conjecture. But actual movement beyond bones.

Your question doesn't make all that much sense because fossils don't gradually move or evolve. But I think I get the gist of what you're asking.
First, remember that other posters have pointed out to you several times that every person who is born has acquired somewhere between 70-150 new genetic mutations, compared to their parents. That's where you get some of the gradual changes you are asking about.

But you want dinosaurs to birds? Birds are dinosaurs. Like how humans are mammals. Take a look:

The origin of birds
Dinobuzz: Dinosaur-Bird Relationships
Nine links in the transition from dinosaurs to birds
Are Birds Dinosaurs? | Live Science
How Birds Evolved From Dinosaurs | Quanta Magazine

 

[SkepticThinker]

Sorry to disagree, but no, it's not a bogus argument. However, for me to explain it is not something we will necessarily agree on, and I shall desist. As I have often said, I did not always believe in God as outlined in the Bible.

Of course it is.

For starters, the Bible has changed over the centuries.
And secondly, even if the Bible hadn't changed one iota in all that time, the fact that some old book exists that has never changed doesn't make what is written in that book true.

So yeah, it's a bogus argument.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I got your point. I answered in my previous post about the micro steps. I don't need a video recording but it would be nice.

Do you understand that humans have used artificial selection to breed dogs, cattle, chickens, lettuce, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, etc., etc., etc.?
Do you understand that artificial selection is the same process as natural selection, with the only difference being that in artificial selection it is humans doing the selecting while in natural selection it is natural forces doing the selecting?

So if artificial selection works (and it definitely does), why do you think natural selection doesn't work to produce the wide variety of living organisms that exist on earth?

Do you need a video recording of the first human who decided to start breeding dogs and then of all humans who ever bred dogs in order to understand that all the dogs we see today exist due to the process of artificial selection that human beings have been carrying out for centuries?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Allow me to say this, please -- (I don't want fossils "showing every step of a transition," although it would be nice to prove more about this, leaving less room for doubt) the ideas about how Neanderthal man looks have greatly changed over the years. Please explain how scientists can discern or figure DNA in a Neanderthal. Discover magazine said, "Neanderthals were our evolutionary cousins, sharing about 99.8 percent of our genetic code,..." So what did they examine in a "Neanderthal" man to get to this statistic?

I've answered this question no less than 3 times to date, complete with evidence.
Why are you still asking it??????

 

[Polymath257]

I've answered this question no less than 3 times to date, complete with evidence.
Why are you still asking it??????

It almost seems like he thinks that DNA cannot be extracted from recent fossils. I'm not sure why, though.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It almost seems like he thinks that DNA cannot be extracted from recent fossils. I'm not sure why, though.

I'm not sure either, given that I've provided information about it numerous times, in response to the exact same question that's been asked multiple times.

 

[shunyadragon]

I'm not talking about redactions, but the Bible does say that the earth is spherical, while other ancient cultures had beliefs like it was an egg on a turtle's back. But the Bible does not promote such beliefs, and while Isaiah or the other Bible writers did not have a telescope or Newton and Einstein to talk to, it is written and does not waver, that the earth hangs on nothing -- that it is round or spherical.
Isaiah 40:22 - It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
It is consistent in its analogies, not wavering in description or analysis. (We can't 'see' gravity...these writers spoke in the language they knew, from inspiration by God.)

The circle of the earth in the perspective of ancient cultures is not necessarily a sphere. Many ancient drawings depicted the earth as curved circular planet on pillars and not a sphere.

 

[shunyadragon]

I don't need every step. It would be nice though to prove a case. Frankly, I see no micro steps. What I see is the presumption that a land crawling animal emerged from a fish. Yes, there are fish that walk on land. This does not prove Darwin's theory. If I were on a jury, I'd have to say no it doesn't prove the theory of evolution.

Misdirected lack of knowledge of science and a religious agenda. Again . . . there is no such thing as proof in science. In math they prove theorems, in courts of Law, proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, and in philosophy where proof of an argument are only true for those that accept the assumptions.. Fortunately a jury does not determine the falsification of theories and hypothesis, nor is the Theory of Evolution proven like all science. .

Fortunately the evidence defines the relationships over time in evolution, and a religious agenda.

 

[YoursTrue]

When we give you micro steps, you complain that they don't 'change kinds'. And when we give you macro steps (in the fossils), you complain that you don't see the micro steps. To get the micro steps in the fossils would require thousands on fossils in each line of descent.

Each line of descent? Do you really know what came from what in the line of descent? It all supposedly started with a unicell. How many unicells came about, do you know? Then from that, after supposedly billions of years, plants and animals came. You can look at fossils galore, but they don't show (prove) that the lines of descent emerged from a unicell burgeoning to plants and animals after billions of years. Or millions, however. You haven't shown me micro steps. You havent shown me macro steps, far more far fetched than 'micro' steps.

 

[YoursTrue]

Misdirected lack of knowledge of science and a religious agenda. Again . . . there is no such thing as proof in science. In math they prove theorems, in courts of Law, proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, and in philosophy where proof of an argument are only true for those that accept the assumptions.. Fortunately a jury does not determine the falsification of theories and hypothesis, nor is the Theory of Evolution proven like all science. .

Fortunately the evidence defines the relationships over time in evolution, and a religious agenda.

They only SAY that a jury should prove beyond a reasonable doubt. And yet beyond the so-called reasonable doubt some have erroneously been accused and convicted.

 

[YoursTrue]

Misdirected lack of knowledge of science and a religious agenda. Again . . . there is no such thing as proof in science. In math they prove theorems, in courts of Law, proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, and in philosophy where proof of an argument are only true for those that accept the assumptions.. Fortunately a jury does not determine the falsification of theories and hypothesis, nor is the Theory of Evolution proven like all science. .

Fortunately the evidence defines the relationships over time in evolution, and a religious agenda.

You give no convincing reply, and then shluff it off by saying I'm uneducated. That's what the Pharisee/teachers did to some back in the days of Jesus when he was alive on the earth.