The only thing fossils in the geological colum present to us is that a creature that produced those fossils once lived.

The conclusion often presented as FACT...and forced fed to our children... that they are a transitional is nothing more than biased belief mixed with speculative assumption....and circular reasoning.

.....the real definition is PSUEDO-SCIENCE....AKA, evolutionism.

"The conclusion often presented as FACT...and forced fed to our children... that they are a transitional is nothing more than biased belief mixed with speculative assumption....and circular reasoning."

Wrong on all counts. I doubt you studied very much science in HS, let alone college. You're relying on a comic-book understanding of what science is. You don't have to. You could actually try to figure it out.

That would require intellectual effort. And integrity.

FF wrote:
"I doubt you studied very much science in HS, let alone college."

I not only doubt he has graduated from high school but have run some of what he's written here through some reasonably sophisticated software and it too agrees ... you are trying to talk to a child or someone doing a very good imitation of one: A troll.

Hi TFF, any chance you could edit that "fossil" link back on page 2 of God & sci. (put a hard return in near the middle) because I think that'll bring the whole page back down to a readable size.

Do you have any thoughts re: defining "fact," from that thread also?

Thanks,
~samwik

Samwik,
I am having no trouble with the readability of the pages in Mozilla. Perhaps it is your browser? What are you using to search the web?

Amaranth

Amaranth, answer is on G&S thread. Thanks ~S

Trilobyte (sorry DA):

"The only thing fossils in the geological colum present to us is that a creature that produced those fossils once lived."

Quite. The geological column also gives us some idea of when those creatures lived relative to other fossils in the geological column. This would hold true even if the earth were only 200 years old. So what happened to all those creatures that are no longer with us? Wasn't Noah supposed to take all animals onto the ark or did he miss a few? Is God not as clever as she thinks she is? Did she stuff up a bit with the creation and make creatures that couldn't survive?

TTNZ- Yes! You get it (if i may be so bold). Your theory is not refutable and is internally consistent too. Ahh, but alas, not too good in the prediction department. Still

~~samwik

Ah! but many many fossils in the column are a fair bit like those just above or just below them. Perhaps God exterminated all life and then created another lot, some of which were only slightly different to the ones she'd just exterminated.

As for predictions. I predict that in the future the upper layer of the column will contain fossils of species very similar to those that now exist on earth. How's that?

Noah was NOT suppose to take all of the animal species onto the ark.

I noticed you used the word MANY. If that is so, then the next question should be pretty easy for you.

Name one.
Please give location of where each fossil was found....or retract your statement.

YOU demand actual data from other people?

YOU - who hasn't done an honest day's research on the subject DEMAND to know something! Further, you pick something that is irrelevant and that is not easily available without some searching. If Terry responds, you will just ignore the contents of his message or assert that the peer reviewed literature is not acceptable to you.

Nevertheless I offer the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx#Fossils

Trilobyte. You wrote:

"I noticed you used the word MANY." The other fossils are exactly the same as those above or below them. Not everything needs to change at the same rate.

You carried on:

"If that is so, then the next question should be pretty easy for you." My first try using "foraminifera in geological strata" produced this:

http://www.gns.cri.nz/what/earthhist/fossils/forams.html

I'm sure that if you are really interested you can find many more examples. Foraminifera are actually used to date stages in geological strata. They change periodically through the geological column and are used to correlate the age of strata in different regions.

Of course once you have correlated the age of a particular sediment the fossils don't have to literally appear one on top of the other. This is countering in advance any criticism you might level against TFF's link.

I have always understood that Noah was supposed to take at least two of every kind but perhaps you can give us the biblical quote that shows otherwise.

terrytnewzealand, are you going to tell me a Foraminifera found on one side of the world is evolving exactly like a Foraminifera on the other side of the world?

Unless you are...your usage of the Foraminifera is a bit out to lunch.

I have always understood that Noah was supposed to take at least two of every kind but perhaps you can give us the biblical quote that shows otherwise.

You are way off topic here..but it iis you who claims that KINDS equals specie. Not me.

terrytnewzealand said:Of course once you have correlated the age of a particular sediment the fossils don't have to literally appear one on top of the other.

They should at least be pretty close.

Below are 5 so-called transitionals as presented by the evolutionist.

1. Ophiacodon, Early Permian, Texas: "skull had changed from the small low shape...this allowed for longer jaw muscles to develop."

2. Phthinosuchus (: Base of Late Permian, USSR: " strikingly similar...but with larger synapsid opneings behind the eyes.. paelontologists believe this to be intermediate in structure between pelycosaurs and Therapsids.

3. Thrinaxodon, Early Triassic, South Africa, Antartica: "Another mammalian trend seen in the lower jaw... teeth were set into a signle bone,, the dentary, which had become larger at the expense of the smaller bones at back of jaw."

4. Cynogathus: Early Triassic, South Africa, Argentina: practically the whole lower jaw on each side was made up of a single bone, the dentary...coronoid process at back of dentary articluiated with the skull and meant the jaws could open wide.

5. Morganucodon: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, Africa, Europe, Eastern Asia: see pictures presented.

Lets trace out their travel plans....

In the first Picture, Ophiacodon packs his bags and heads north from Texas to the USSR and then becomes Phthinosuchus. I wonder how much trouble this guy had crossing the Appalachian mountains on his journey to evolve?



Then a few yers later Phthinosuchus decides to head south, passing through Pennsylvania and New Jersey...and ends up in South Africa and Antartica where it becomes Thrinaxodon.




Thrinaxodon then hangs out there for a while, evolves into Cynogathus then decides to head north again and takes a trip to East Asia.


I suppose some where on this journey Cynogathus decided to evolve into Morganucodon during the early Jurassic.

WOW....What a trip

All that time, all that distance, all that evolution....and the transitionals are spread out all over the globe... with no evolving fossils found on the way? why?
Could it be the scientist that have a faith in evolutionism...collected these fossil fragments from all over the world...picked out the ones that made sense to their theory...and lined them up?

Hiya trilobyte:
Re: the deleted thread about the human-chimp split. I don't know if you ever got to see my answer about your confusion between base pairs and genes. I think that is why the math didn't work out. There are thousands (even up to hundreds of thousands) of base pairs for a particular gene. So I think the math does about add up. Although it should, since it was through the math that they extrapolated back to determine the ~6Mya dates for the split.

I'm not a geneticist but this report details some of the methods and addresses chimps, humans and even differential rates of mutation for human liver and brain. Actually I think you would find several examples of how "off" the science is at the discussion section at the end.
http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/hartl/lab/publications/pdfs/Lemos-05-Evolution.pdf
I enjoyed it; I love anthropology.

However I'm no expert in dinosaurs either. My first guess would be to ask, are the "species" you've mentioned supposed to be related?
I'll look it over; it's a very good looking presentation.

I hope you get a chance to comment on my G&s, "facts" thread. Some of the comments have come in on other threads, but most all seem supporting. I've quoted ~5-6 people in a response to come soon (hopefully by tomorrow).
Please, I know it's not a technical matter like these threads of yours; but if you're up for a bit of philosophy and epistemology, I'd sure appreciate your take on the discussion.

Thanks, & still hopeful,
~samwik

TB wrote:
"WOW....What a trip"

I'd like to see him do it with one, just one Alaskan Brown Bear.

ROFLOL!

Let's note what happened here.

Trilobyte asks for an example of something. He gets two different responses. His response is to ignore those responses and then to stick a canned, grossly inaccurate picture of a completely different thing.

"All that time, all that distance, all that evolution....and the transitionals are spread out all over the globe... with no evolving fossils found on the way? why? "

Evolutionists don't expect to find representations of fossils everywhere. Fossilization is a rare thing. The time scales involved are in the millions of years. There's nothing to explain here. You don't understand how evolution is supposed to work and you don't care. You don't know what the evidence is and you don't want to know. You're interested in the Bible. You don't have any background in science. You don't have any interest in science. Suggest you find a new home.

That silliness you posted made no more sense the first time it was posted over on:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1406&start=30

Trilobyte. You wrote:

"Please give location of where each fossil was found....or retract your statement."

When I pointed you in the right direction you wrote:

"are you going to tell me a Foraminifera found on one side of the world is evolving exactly like a Foraminifera on the other side of the world?"

I can only presume that you neither looked at my link nor actually understand the question you asked. The foraminifera provide evidence of change over time in a single column, which is what your first question seems to require. The same foraminifera in two different regions would suggest they lived at the same time. You are very fond yourself of using the unlikeliness of any event to support your own reasoning. Are you simply following the usual fundamentalist method of debate and shifting the goalposts?

TFF. Thanks so much for that very revealing link you posted after;

"That silliness you posted made no more sense the first time it was posted over on:"

We are wasting our time but disagreement can somtimes lead to a sort of hybrid vigour.

Hey Rusty Rockets. I liked my bit about atheist priests.

I love watching you evos backpeddle.

Ah, trilobye, you're here. Who's backpeddling? Do you think my comment about atheist priests is backpeddling? Rusty Rockets felt it was best if you didn't see it.

Anyway what were these "kinds" that Noah took onto the ark? It's definitely not off topic. The kinds Noah took on board and the timing of the event should be readily discernable in the geological column. Of course we cannot discuss the subject rationally unless we can agree what a kind is. Is it nearer to a genus than a species? nearer to an order than a genus? a class than an order? Perhaps it is a phylum. I'm sure you have no wish to clear the matter up though. It would mean the goalposts were firmly set in place.

Reading this more thoroughly, I wanted to address the good question that it raises, but not over on G&s. Hope that's okay.

Posted by RicS:

"G'day all,

I gotta ask this. What's a transitional fossil?

If we start with a horse like creature with a longer than normal neck but in order to compete those in that species with longer than normal necks have a significant advantage and you end up with a giraffe, isn't every animal in that sequence just a representation of a species that existed at a particular point in time? My vague memory of evolutionary biology is of a tiny little creature that over about 40 million years ended up the modern horse. Where's the transition? Are not every single creature in that progression just an animal that either fitted its environment and was fairly successful or had to adapt and change. But all of those creatures survived and slowly changed otherwise we wouldn't have the hores. And back to the giraffe and those with short necks. What happens to them? Perhaps they ended up with their own specialisation or the long necked versions may have removed sufficient numbers to allow the short neck ones to continue on their merry way.

Or is the argument that evolution happens in spurts and the change from the longer horse like creature to a giraffe took not that many generations? In that case the chances of a fossil existing of any animal that was not either the earlier creature or the giraffe would be very small indeed.

To me I thought the theory of evolution includes that every creature on earth is evolving in some way. Some types of sharks may not have changed much in 100 million years or so but they still have made some changes and what is to say that many other types of species have not evolved from the basic species during that period, eventually being different enough so that they no longer could mate with the original species and continued off on their own, changing out of all recognition to the original shark, which because it wasn't a bad fit for its environment in the first place also managed to remain in existence during all that time.

This is not an area that I have much knowledge except the Science channels, the occasional article and what I learned at school so my musings may not be all that perfect but this idea of a "transitional fossil" seems a bit strange to me.


Richard"

--------------------

ANYWAY, I answered this over on God & science thinking I was on this fossil thread. I gave a humerous (I thought, if not valid) answer without reading the post; just based on the definition of the word "transitional."

But reading this closer, it looks like a good question. I'm not as good an evo-biologist as I am a physicist, but I think both mechanism operate. I think there are several genetic mechanisms that allow for "quantum" mutations (if I may) where a structure will double or triple its expression; or be expressed in a different context (physically or chemically) of the organism. You wouldn't expect transitional fossils in that case.

Then there are the more common variability mechanisms, which (given ideal conditions for making fossils) would leave a continuous record for us to find. --and I didn't want to talk much about fossils!


~~samwik

Samwik. Quote:

'I think there are several genetic mechanisms that allow for "quantum" mutations (if I may) where a structure will double or triple its expression; or be expressed in a different context (physically or chemically) of the organism. You wouldn't expect transitional fossils in that case.'

The problem with quantum leaps is you end up virtually having to assume a single individual can breed with itself and produce a new species. Many explanations for how evolution works finish up with the same problem. The idea is so ridiculous that years ago I began to wonder why it persists. I believe it comes from a combination of Industrial Revolution "survival of the fittest" and stories from The Old Testament.

Most geneticists accept that each gene has its own evolutionary history. In other words collections of genes move through a species by migration and interbreeding. A scientist in the Out of Asia post suggests it will take a long time before the idea is generally accepted though.

However we know recessive genes can spread through a population without showing up until inbreeding occurrs. I make the speculative assumption that the rapid spread of double recessive genes through a population can explain many absences of transitional fossils.

TB wrote: "I love watching you evos backpeddle."

TB is delusional. You change the subject from what you asked of US, and then you can't even get IT right.

terrytnewzealand ...If you want to discuss "KINDS"...start a new thread.

This topic is about fossils, or the lack of... in-b-tweeners.

terry posted:
I can only presume that you neither looked at my link nor actually understand the question you asked. The foraminifera provide evidence of change over time in a single column,

I read the article and did not see that.

Perhaps you could cut and paste that portion. From what i understand there is no single column that describes what you are talking about.

Trilobyte try this:

"Foraminifera are ideal subjects for testing various aspects of evolutionary theory, because large populations of individuals, whose characteristics can be measured and treated statistically, can be obtained from closely spaced rock samples at carefully selected localities to provide an evolutionary time series. It is then possible to show how distribution of a particular characteristic changes over time within successive populations."

And this:

"During the late 1930s and early 1940s Finlay and J. Marwick, a macropaleontologist, collaborated to produce the scheme of fossil zones comprising New Zealand's Cenozoic Series and Stages. Their scheme is still used today, albeit with considerable refinement, for the biostratigraphic classification of New Zealand strata."

If there was no variation within a particular column there would be no way they could correlate across columns.

This;

"High resolution biostratigraphy, which involves identification of closely spaced bioevents, often in conjunction with various quantitative techniques, is a major research direction"

I'm sure that's enough for you to digest for now.

Anyway, back to these "types".

Trilobyte. Quote;

"terrytnewzealand ...If you want to discuss "KINDS"...start a new thread. This topic is about fossils, or the lack of... in-b-tweeners."

There should be fossils of all your "kinds" in the geological column. Therefore should be no trouble for you to tell us when and where they lived.

Just where are these "closely spaced rock samples at carefully selected localities"

In your head.

Please stop being a troll.

trilobyte:
Quit taking everything everyone says as an "ad hom" attack. You're like the boy crying wolf. I could censor you for your ad hom attacks. I suggest you quit making them yourself if you expect me to act on your complaints.

Amaranth
Moderator

What? re: previous posts?
sorry, wrong thread.
~never mind....

Trilobye. Quote:

'Just where are these "closely spaced rock samples at carefully selected localities"'

There are many places in NZ that have complete profiles through the Late Cretaceous through the Early Tertiary. I presume the "carefully selected sites" included sites in some of those regions.

I can't believe you are so obtuse as to not understand why the sites are "carefully selected." It would hardly be worth their while to look at very shallow profiles. They would learn nothing from them during the early stages of their investigation.

If you are really serious about knowing where the actual sites are why don't you ask them? You should be easily able to find a contact for them on the net. I'll do it for you if you wish. I have found that scientists in NZ are more than happy to share their information. We live in a small country.

Besides you still haven't explained the "kinds" that you refer to so often.

Trilobyte. I just went back to my link to foraminifera. Towards the end there are a whole series of names you can click on and emaill them. Why don't you try to do your own research on the subject?

samwik asks:
"What happened to the previous posts?"

Can't answer that one but lets be honest here. TB's posts are pure troll with zero science value. They are the parroting of fundamentalism by a teenage boy who cares not one iota about fact.

If this entire thread were dropped, my posts included, I would drink a toast to the good sense and health of the moderators.

TNZ wrote:
"I can't believe you are so obtuse as to not understand"

Why?

Does a tiger change its stripes?
Does a leopard change its spots?
Has TB even once evidenced actually reading and/or thinking about anything anyone has posted?
Has TB even once posted a link to anything relating to real science?

He is a teenage troll: Believe it.

Trilobyte. I've done your research for you. Not NZ but USA. I'm sure you'll appreciate my effort.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/

Quote from the link:

"First, as I have noted before, the concept quite prevalent among some Christians that the geologic column does not exist is quite wrong. Morris and Parker (1987, p. 163) write:
Now, the geologic column is an idea, not an actual series of rock layers. Nowhere do we find the complete sequence.
They are wrong. You just saw the whole column piled up in one place where one oil well can drill through it. Not only that, the entire geologic column is found in 25 other basins around the world, piled up in proper order. These basins are:


The Ghadames Basin in Libya
The Beni Mellal Basin in Morrocco
The Tunisian Basin in Tunisia
The Oman Interior Basin in Oman
The Western Desert Basin in Egypt
The Adana Basin in Turkey
The Iskenderun Basin in Turkey
The Moesian Platform in Bulgaria
The Carpathian Basin in Poland
The Baltic Basin in the USSR
The Yeniseiy-Khatanga Basin in the USSR
The Farah Basin in Afghanistan
The Helmand Basin in Afghanistan
The Yazd-Kerman-Tabas Basin in Iran
The Manhai-Subei Basin in China
The Jiuxi Basin China
The Tung t'in - Yuan Shui Basin China
The Tarim Basin China
The Szechwan Basin China
The Yukon-Porcupine Province Alaska
The Williston Basin in North Dakota
The Tampico Embayment Mexico
The Bogata Basin Colombia
The Bonaparte Basin, Australia
The Beaufort Sea Basin/McKenzie River Delta"

I don't quite know where you are tryig to go with your list as I never asked for it.

What I was looking for is a place where the Foraminifera were in adjacent rock strata at the same location.

Trilobyte, your question was:

"Just where are these "closely spaced rock samples at carefully selected localities"

Did you mean adjacent as in side by side or on top of each other? I presumed you meant on top of each other because what would be the point of showing that the same foraminifera were found two feet from each other in a northerly direction? The list above provides places of the second type. They demonstrate change over time, which is what you seemed to be questioning.

It seems to me that TNZ was responding to your question:

"Just where are these 'closely spaced rock samples at carefully selected localities'"

TNZ, perhaps you should read the following link.
http://www.trueorigin.org/geocolumn.asp