Links Missing or non-existing?

[blood_pardon]

If modern macro-evolution ideas are correct why arent there millions of intermideate stages discovered for every creature in existance?

[mooeypoo]

What missing stages do you mean, blood_pardon? reciting claims you've heard from knowledgeable people does not constitute a valid knowledge of the fact. The theory of evolution is not only well supported, it provides testable predictions that turn to be correct again and again. And again and again. There are no "missing links"; the suggestion is usually made by those who never really took the time to actually study the theory they're trying to refute.

 

So. I ask you -- what exactly do you deem as missing?

[CharonY]

Also each species is an intermediary one. A wrong interpretation is generally the reason for this kind of question and have been addressed over and over again. I would not be surprised if even wikipedia has a page about it somewhere (talkorigins will have one definitely).

[dttom]

I think he is asking why the millions of bridging forms during the gradual transition were not found.

If you are to find them, certainly you will not get a living creature, a fossil instead. But as you know fossil is not easy to form, so...

[ydoaPs]

If modern macro-evolution ideas are correct why arent there millions of intermideate stages discovered for every creature in existance?

There ARE! All you have to do is look around. Every creature is transitional or terminal. Evolution is about slow, cumulative change. No biologist expects a dog to give birth to a catdog; It doesn't work like that. Each generation passes along their genes, but the children are not *quite* the same genetically due to mutations(which mostly have no impact on the survival of the child).

 

Imagine, for a moment, a human chain. You hold the hand of your mother and she holds the hand of her mother ect. Each mother and child resemble each other just as much as the last. Each mother loves her child as much as her mother loved her. If you extend this chain, and then bend it backwards with first cousins facing each other, a chain of this type having you staring at a chimpanzee would be roughly only 300 miles long. Evolution isn't discrete over a large scale, but, rather, it's roughly continuous.

 

You may want to look at this Introduction to Evolutionary Biology and this Index of common creationist claims with rebuttles. That site is very good and it gives sources.

 

Evolution is just the change in allele frequency over time; it acts upon groups rather than individuals.

Edited January 21, 2010 by ydoaPs

[blood_pardon]

There ARE! All you have to do is look around. Every creature is transitional or terminal. Evolution is about slow' date=' cumulative change. No biologist expects a dog to give birth to a catdog; It doesn't work like that. Each generation passes along their genes, but the children are not *quite* the same genetically due to mutations(which mostly have no impact on the survival of the child).

 

Imagine, for a moment, a human chain. You hold the hand of your mother and she holds the hand of her mother ect. Each mother and child resemble each other just as much as the last. Each mother loves her child as much as her mother loved her. If you extend this chain, and then bend it backwards with first cousins facing each other, a chain of this type having you staring at a chimpanzee would be roughly only 300 miles long. Evolution isn't discrete over a large scale, but, rather, it's roughly continuous.

 

You may want to look at this Introduction to Evolutionary Biology and this Index of common creationist claims with rebuttles. That site is very good and it gives sources.

 

Evolution is just the change in allele frequency over time; it acts upon groups rather than individuals.[/quote']

 

I disagree, living creatures are not transtional creatures. There is no evidence to support one species transforming into a totally seperate species. These are the transitional stages Im ? in the OP.

Just like you said macroevolution is supposed to be this gradual proccess over a long period of time, if thats the case there should be hundreds of generations of dual-species transitons.

 

Charles Darwin even admitted this to be the greatest flaw of them all to his idea. " Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide than they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this not having been affected is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which may be urged against my views."

[insane_alien]

blood_pardon, every individual creature is transitional. the only time when they are not transitional is when they are the last surviving creature of the species and then they die.

 

why do you think we are not a transitional species? evolution is still at work we are what we are now, but in a few hundred thousand years we will be something else. what, well we can't say as we cannot predict the future, but we won't be strictly human.

[mooeypoo]

If you take a "snapshot" of the variety of life today, it's true that they don't *seem* to be related. Dogs don't give birth to sheep, obviously, so how can such a variety of animals all stem from the same ancestor? I can totally understand this confusion.

 

But we're not talking about a snapshot of life today. That's not evolution. Evolution doesn't work in this scale (with a few exceptions); it works over millions of years, and seeing as you stated in your other post that you don't believe the Earth existed that long, it might be even a harder thing to imagine for you than for many others.

 

Still. If instead of taking a "horizontal" snapshot and look at the variety of seemingly unrelated life forms on Earth, you look at a vertical cut over time, things look a bit different.

 

So, if you track backwards the ancestors of the horse, you do not have *any* missing links - the transition is extremely clear - to a dog-like creature 55 million years ago.

 

There are no missing links if you look at ancestry.

 

It's pretty much like looking at the international space station today and not believing that the big structure started with small screws and panels. If you take a 'snapshot', it looks static. If you track back the process, it's quite clear.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I disagree, living creatures are not transtional creatures. There is no evidence to support one species transforming into a totally seperate species. These are the transitional stages Im ? in the OP.

Just like you said macroevolution is supposed to be this gradual proccess over a long period of time, if thats the case there should be hundreds of generations of dual-species transitons.

 

Rather than trying to explain everything in one post, let me point you to a very good resource that answers this:

 

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution

[Phi for All]

There is no evidence to support one species transforming into a totally seperate species.

If you ignore Archaeopteryx, the transitional fossils recording the development of reptilian teeth to the differentiated teeth of mammals, the transformation of the reptilian stapes to the mammalian middle ear, and the thousands of other obvious pieces of evidence, then there's not much room for discussion. Claiming there is no evidence is a childish and uneducated argument.

 

Charles Darwin even admitted this to be the greatest flaw of them all to his idea.

Using Darwin, a pioneer whose work has been expanded upon exponentially over the last 150 years, as a means to show evolution is flawed is like saying electricity can't exist because Ben Franklin's kite was flawed.

 

In short, all your objections so far have been refuted many times over, but the people who insist as you do refuse to admit it. They keep saying there is no evidence, then they are shown the evidence, then they just keep saying there is no evidence.

[foodchain]

I disagree, living creatures are not transtional creatures. There is no evidence to support one species transforming into a totally seperate species. These are the transitional stages Im ? in the OP.

Just like you said macroevolution is supposed to be this gradual proccess over a long period of time, if thats the case there should be hundreds of generations of dual-species transitons.

 

Charles Darwin even admitted this to be the greatest flaw of them all to his idea. " Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide than they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this not having been affected is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections which may be urged against my views."

 

Evolution is evident and or supported on a genetic level also, which is testable empirically.

 

Modern evolutionary theory has developed more since the days of Darwin, one such example of this progress is molecular biology. Modern evolutionary studies take into account many variables to help explain evolutionary relationships. The different criteria can be from a molecular scale like genes, all the way up to ecological scale studies and even animal behavior.

 

To make the claims you have made so far would suggest a few things. One you have no mainstream science like education on the matter, or two you do have education like that on the matter but from a biased source with an agenda, or three you just have a bias about evolution with little actual understanding to any of it. I mean what is a totally separate species? Would that be an alien chemistry, or perhaps something not related to other living things currently, via chromosomes and or sexual reproduction.

[Sisyphus]

Every living creature is an intermediate step, as is every fossil ever discovered. This can't be repeated enough. However, there will always be "missing links," because we don't have a catalog of every single individual who ever lived. If I look at you and your grandfather, I'm not going to say the theory of you being related is a sham because I can't find your father.

 

But maybe we should backtrack. What is that you mean by "intermediate stages," exactly? I ask only because, in my experience, most arguments against evolution are based on misunderstandings of what evolution actually is. So what is it that you think evolution predicts we would see that we aren't seeing?

 

Or maybe even more broadly, could you briefly summarize how you think evolution is supposed to work, so we're all on the same page?

[mooeypoo]

Every living creature is an intermediate step, as is every fossil ever discovered. This can't be repeated enough.

 

Actually, Sisyphus, aren't we repeating the process by breeding horses and dogs? Some dog species are absolutely the creation of human intervention, using the principles of evolution.

[Mr Skeptic]

If modern macro-evolution ideas are correct why arent there millions of intermideate stages discovered for every creature in existance?

 

We're all intermediate species.

 

If we were specially created by God, why do the retroviruses embedded in our DNA look similar to the retroviruses embedded in primate DNA? Or even better, why would we have retroviruses embedded in our DNA in the first place?

[Edtharan]

I disagree, living creatures are not transtional creatures.

Evolution does not just stop after a period of time. It is an ongoing process. This means that every animal alive today is subject to evolution. This also means that they are transitional forms. Homo Erectus -> Homo Sapiens -> Homo Futuris (what we will become in millions of years time). Of course, we don't know what Homo Futuris will specifically look like as part of natural evolution is an element of random variation (but mostly non random selection).

 

What this means is that Homo Sapiens is a transitional form between Homo Erectus and Homo Futuris.

 

See the main problem, people I have talked to, have had with this stems form the fact that scientists have to name every thing. They name Homo Erectus and people think it is therefore not a transitional form, but since evolution is an ongoing process it means that any organism alive at any time is a transitional form (or terminal form if the organism does not reproduce).

 

Every single fossil ever discovered is also a transitional form (or terminal form).

 

The other main problem that people have is that they think that every single organism that ever lived has left a fossil. This is not true.

 

Not every animal that dies leaves enough remains for fossilisation. There are scavengers that will eat as much of it as they can and bacteria and other micro-organisms can destroy anything not eaten by larger scavengers. Also weathering can break down the remains and scatter them so that they don't leave any thing for fossilisation.

 

Then there is the problem of turning the remains (if any are left) into a fossil. This requires a fairly limited set of conditions for this to occur, and the vast majority of animals die in locations that do not support fossilisation.

 

If the remains have so far made it this far, we have a fossil, but then there are still things that can go on that will prevent us from ever finding it. Part of what is needed to occur to create a fossil is that it be buried. But, for us to find it, it needs to become re-exposed and if that never happens we would never find it. Also as the surface of the Earth is not static (volcanoes, earthquakes, tectonic plates, etc) can bury it so far down that it would not have been re-exposed or destroy the fossil entirely.

 

Then there is the matter of finding the fossil. If the fossil has been exposed for only a few years, weathering can destroy the fossil. Also if the fossil has not yet been exposed, then we can not know about it either. This gives us a window of only a few years (at most) between when a fossil is exposed and it is permanently destroyed for us to find it.

 

Given all this, it is amazing that we find many fossil at all. The reason for this must be that there has been a long history and that there have been many animals that have existed. In fact, because there is so much destruction of fossils, there are many species that we don't know about because all fossils of them were destroyed (or never made in the first place).

 

For every species represented in the fossil record, there could be thousands or even millions that we can never know about. And, knowing this, the fact that we can tease out from all this missing data an actual lineage of transitional forms from the fossil record is a great achievement, and also shows that there must have been many more transitional forms that we can ever know about.

[Sisyphus]

Actually, Sisyphus, aren't we repeating the process by breeding horses and dogs? Some dog species are absolutely the creation of human intervention, using the principles of evolution.

 

Yes. Why are you addressing this to me, though? I said "this can't be repeated enough," meaning it's worth saying over and over.

 

But dogs are a good example of fairly rapid evolution. Dogs split off from wolves only a few thousand years ago to fill a niche of hunting partner of humans. They're not fully a different species yet (wolves and some breeds of dog can still produce offspring), but they've obviously undergone a great deal of change in an extremely short period of time. This can partially be explained by the fact that humans intentionally use the principles of evolution to alter the breeds. Select for what you want, discard what you don't. The intent lets it be more rapid than it otherwise would be most of the time, because artificial selection is a sure thing (pick the bigger one) and natural selection is statistical (the bigger one is more likely to survive and breed).

[mooeypoo]

Yes. Why are you addressing this to me, though? I said "this can't be repeated enough," meaning it's worth saying over and over.

I misunderstood, I thought you mean the process can't be repeated. Which is partially true in the sense that the millions-of-years long process that resulted in human evolution is not something we can repeat in a lab, which make it much harder for many people to understand.

 

I agree with all that you said.

[blood_pardon]

blood_pardon' date=' every individual creature is transitional. the only time when they are not transitional is when they are the last surviving creature of the species and then they die.

why do you think we are not a transitional species? evolution is still at work we are what we are now, but in a few hundred thousand years we will be something else. what, well we can't say as we cannot predict the future, but we won't be strictly human.[/quote']

insane_alein, I disagree because Im not a believer in macro-E. You are and so the evidence that is presented appears to hold weight. I interpret the different varieites of creatures in an entirely different way than you because I dont hold to macro-E ideas to begin with. You see certain creatures and say they are in intermediate stages, I say that for the last several thousand years animals have produced after there kind and that I see no evidence for one species morphing into an entirely different one. Micro-E is the reason for all the variety we see today.

 

If you ignore Archaeopteryx, the transitional fossils recording the development of reptilian teeth to the differentiated teeth of mammals, the transformation of the reptilian stapes to the mammalian middle ear, and the thousands of other obvious pieces of evidence, then there's not much room for discussion. Claiming there is no evidence is a childish and uneducated argument.

 

I don't believe there are thousands of intermediate fossils. All fossils found are of one species type. Archaeopteryx is a bird, not an intermediate. Its not childish to disagree with modern macro-E trends and I have just as much education available to me as you do.

 

Evolution is evident and or supported on a genetic level also' date=' which is testable empirically.

Modern evolutionary theory has developed more since the days of Darwin, one such example of this progress is molecular biology. Modern evolutionary studies take into account many variables to help explain evolutionary relationships. The different criteria can be from a molecular scale like genes, all the way up to ecological scale studies and even animal behavior.

 

To make the claims you have made so far would suggest a few things. One you have no mainstream science like education on the matter, or two you do have education like that on the matter but from a biased source with an agenda, or three you just have a bias about evolution with little actual understanding to any of it. I mean what is a totally separate species? Would that be an alien chemistry, or perhaps something not related to other living things currently, via chromosomes and or sexual reproduction.[/quote']

 

Observing similarities in genetics, behavior, and everything in between does not provide evidence for this idea that one species can morph into an entirely seperate one.

You asked me to give you an example of two seperate species: reptile and mammal.

 

 

 

Every living creature is an intermediate step' date=' as is every fossil ever discovered. This can't be repeated enough........

But maybe we should backtrack. What is that you mean by "intermediate stages," exactly? I ask only because, in my experience, most arguments against evolution are based on misunderstandings of what evolution actually is. So what is it that you think evolution predicts we would see that we aren't seeing?

Or maybe even more broadly, could you briefly summarize how you think evolution is supposed to work, so we're all on the same page?[/quote']

 

I disagree every living creature isnt an intermediate step and I think it has been repeated enough.

 

Macro-E is this idea that one species can transform into an entirely seperate one. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html#what

By intermediate stages I mean creatures that are half/half and there should be billions of fossils like this.

 

 

We're all intermediate species.

If we were specially created by God' date=' why do the retroviruses embedded in our DNA look similar to the retroviruses embedded in primate DNA? Or even better, why would we have retroviruses embedded in our DNA in the first place?[/quote']

 

No we're not intermediate species. Im not saying that I can understand how God reasons. this is a science forum and such speculations are usually frowned upon.

 

Evolution does not just stop after a period of time. It is an ongoing process. This means that every animal alive today is subject to evolution.

 

I agree that every creature is subject to micro-E but disagree with macro-E ideas.

 

 

The other main problem that people have is that they think that every single organism that ever lived has left a fossil. This is not true....(and what follows)

 

These are good points but with the supposed billions of years of life this earth

has sustained, there should be large numbers of fossils discovered.

 

Lets take it at face value, low amount of fossils, even LOWER amount of "transitional fossils" that all equals no evidence.

[mooeypoo]

blood_pardon, science isn't about belief, though, it's about evidence. YOu might not believe in "macro evolution", but your lack of belief does not negate the massive amount of evidence that are supporting it.

 

You should really read the links we posted... at least see if there's any claim in there that isn't answered, or that you have a specific problem with. Talkorigin has extensive answers with sources and citations to most of the points you're raising.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I agree that every creature is subject to micro-E but disagree with macro-E ideas.

What is stopping microevolution from ever-so-gradually changing a species to look completely different on a macro level? Small changes accumulate.

 

These are good points but with the supposed billions of years of life this earth has sustained, there should be large numbers of fossils discovered.

 

Lets take it at face value, low amount of fossils, even LOWER amount of "transitional fossils" that all equals no evidence.

Think about how big the Earth is. Think about how much area that was once dry land is now under water or inaccessible. Then think about how much of it we've actually dug holes in looking for fossils.

 

It's a tiny proportion. We've barely looked at any of the Earth. Fossil formation is rare enough, and we just haven't looked hard enough yet.

[Kyrisch]

I don't believe there are thousands of intermediate fossils. All fossils found are of one species type. Archaeopteryx is a bird, not an intermediate. Its not childish to disagree with modern macro-E trends and I have just as much education available to me as you do.

 

blood, intermediate species are still 'one species type'. Macroevolution is NOT about one species 'changing' into a completely different species, but rather small changes accumulating until two populations of a species reach the point where they no longer can interbreed, or do not due to behavioral sexual isolation. Intermediate species are not half and half; if anything, they're 99% and 1%.

[mooeypoo]

I am sorry, I have to interject again with a drip of reason here. blood_pardon, how are we going to have a decent debate about the evidence (or lack thereof) of evolution if you don't seem to be willing to go by evidence, and instead prefer to stick to claiming you don't believe anything? We don't just put forth claims, we back them up with links and evidence; if you have a specific problem with such links or evidence, then please argue against them, but if you keep claiming that you just don't believe X is X when we just showed you proof for it, then there won't be much of a common language in this debate, will there?

 

Here is (again, from the same site that has answers to the majority of the claims you've raised) a good resource for transitional vertebrate fossils: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

 

 

We're obviously willing to listen to your concerns, but have the least bit of intellectual honesty to - at the very least - look and examine the evidence we give you.

 

 

~moo

[Mr Skeptic]

insane_alein, I disagree because Im not a believer in macro-E. You are and so the evidence that is presented appears to hold weight. I interpret the different varieites of creatures in an entirely different way than you because I dont hold to macro-E ideas to begin with. You see certain creatures and say they are in intermediate stages, I say that for the last several thousand years animals have produced after there kind and that I see no evidence for one species morphing into an entirely different one. Micro-E is the reason for all the variety we see today.

 

But how then can you explain the similarity of retroviruses in our DNA and the DNA of other primates, if we are not genetically related? Are you saying that God put retroviruses in our DNA and also put similar ones in other primate's DNA? If so, why would you believe what such a deceptive God would have to say?

 

And what exactly is the difference between macroevolution and microevolution? Keep in mind that "species" is an arbitrary concept created by man, and the boundaries of what are and are not different species are frequently blurred -- as would be expected by evolutionists but not by proponents of design.

[blood_pardon]

What is stopping microevolution from ever-so-gradually changing a species to look completely different on a macro level? Small changes accumulate.

That's what I've been hearing but the problem is there isn't sufficient evidence.

Think about how big the Earth is. Think about how much area that was once dry land is now under water or inaccessible. Then think about how much of it we've actually dug holes in looking for fossils.

It's a tiny proportion. We've barely looked at any of the Earth. Fossil formation is rare enough' date=' and we just haven't looked hard enough yet.[/quote']

This is a good point but if there is so little evidence why is it taught in our public schools and universities as a fact? We have been hearing this argument "we havent looked hard enough" for over a hundred years its beating a dead horse I think, but carry on.

 

blood, intermediate species are still 'one species type'. Macroevolution is NOT about one species 'changing' into a completely different species, but rather small changes accumulating until two populations of a species reach the point where they no longer can interbreed, or do not due to behavioral sexual isolation. Intermediate species are not half and half; if anything, they're 99% and 1%.

 

I agree that a half/half creature wouldnt be expected, I stand corrected. However, I still think macro-E IS about one species transforming into a seperate one, and that although these changes are gradual there ought to be countless speciman with bizarre and obvious features showing these transitions. I dont think the process could have been so subtle that it would go un-noticed in the creatures.

 

 

But how then can you explain the similarity of retroviruses in our DNA and the DNA of other primates, if we are not genetically related? Are you saying that God put retroviruses in our DNA and also put similar ones in other primate's DNA? If so, why would you believe what such a deceptive God would have to say?And what exactly is the difference between macroevolution and microevolution? Keep in mind that "species" is an arbitrary concept created by man, and the boundaries of what are and are not different species are frequently blurred -- as would be expected by evolutionists but not by proponents of design.

 

I would say our DNA is similar because we are similar. Primates have fingers and thumbs, they stand on two legs upright, they have a face similar to humans, so in my mind it would makes sense for humans and primates to have close genetic codes.

Micro-E is the idea that small changes do occur within a species, Macro-E is the idea that all creatures descended from the same living organizm and that the small changes that occur accumulate to cause different species.

[insane_alien]

blood_pardon, i suggest you visit a library. one with an extensive science section. then go look up some of the books or journals on evolutionary biology.

 

if you wanted all the evidence FOR evolution, then you are going to be out of luck, because in order to read all of it as it was presented, it would take longer than your lifetime. infact, there is so much new evidence FOR evolution coming in that you'd never be able to keep up with all of it. even if you looked in a subset of the evidence, say genetics, you still wouldn't be able to keep up.

 

saying 'there's so little evidence for it' is like standing next to everest and saying 'don't see the big deal, its only a 2inch high mole hill.