Some pictures of a strange squid, looks like something out of The Abyss. This was sent to me by Art, he's getting the FF piece, Deadpool and a few others.
Also a new transitional turtle fossil was found, it only has the bottom part of the shell. Read the article if you're interested. And they say there are no transitional fossils;)
Happy Turkey day everyone, it's grey here, no sun, ugh.
Best,
Brett
Grey here too. Happy dino day as well! I read about that turtle, it looks awesome! It'll be neat to get some transitional fossils finally in one of those groups we hardly have any in. :)
ReplyDeleteGood pics! The dogs look happy. :)
-Erin
Hi Erin,
ReplyDeleteThe sun finally came out and it got up to at least 75 here. We just got a tiny bit of rain.
When I saw the turtle I was really surprised. I'm not that familiar with their fossils but this one was quite welcome with that half shell;)
I hope the dogs are happy, all they have to do is eat sleep and play;)
Best,
Brett
The neat thing about these transitional fossils is when one is found scientists are quick to herald it as FINALLY a transitional fossil has been found for such and such. At least they are momentary honest that we don't have hundred and hundreds of these things filling museums back rooms.
ReplyDeleteNow is it a transitional fossil? It is way too early to say. It has to be shown to be part of a chain and not a new species which appeared out of nowhere. The tricky part is showing the lineage, and currently they can't; there is no fossil that this transitioned from and there is no fossil it transitioned to. At best it can be said it falls somewhere between some yet unnamed lizard and a modern day soft-shell sea turtle. But we don't know yet, let's wait and let scientists do there work before we start jumping to conclusions.
As Brett mentioned in another post they've recently realigned the evolutionary tree for dogs, and they will probably do so a dozen more times within the next ten years. It is incredibly presumptuous to unshakably say a fossil is transitional when we have a difficult enough time ordering living species successfully, let alone dead remains.
Still a cool find if it turns out only to be a new animal which appeared out of nowhere and died off.
Steve
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYes they do have hundreds and hundreds of transitional fossils. Most of the fossils in the museums are in the back and are not on display. We have the last part of mans evolution, we just need more more from the beginning (but we have multiple possible ancestors found.) They just don't have very many turtle fossils period. In fact the last I remember hearing about them they weren't sure they were anapsids or diapsids. And they're ALWAYS upfront about the fact that the fossil record is spotty and we will never know everything. When we do find a transitional fossil like this it's a big deal because it fills in information, in fact the way this turtle shell is, is almost exactly like it's developmental stage when in the egg (the bottom of the shell develops first.) But we do have steps in transitional forms all over the place we have fish with legs, we have whales with legs, we have dinosaurs with wings. Basically you're telling me you won't be happy until we find one species turning into the other in real life, when this might not occur in out lifetime, or we might miss it and call it a new species, but we have TONS of horse fossils that clearly show there evolution. This animal is clearly a turtle, it just doesn't have a back shell yet. You can't call it a lizard since it' not one.
As for dogs, we know they came from a wolf or wolf like species. And the interrelations of dogs are murky because of humans interbreeding them with each other for at least 35,000 years. Dogs are VERY adaptable and change/evolve very quickly, more so than most other animals.
Best,
Brett
Maybe we mean different things when we say “transitional fossils.” Wikipedia currently has this definition:
ReplyDelete” According to modern evolutionary theory, all populations of organisms are in transition. Therefore, a "transitional form" is a human construct of a selected form that vividly represents a particular evolutionary stage, as recognized in hindsight. Contemporary "transitional" forms may be called "living fossils", but on a cladogram representing the historical divergences of life-forms, a "transitional fossil" will represent an organism at the point where individual lineages (clades) diverge.”
Unfortunately if the contemporary understanding of transitional fossil is that all forms are currently transitional you arrive at an un-disprovable unscientific definition for transitional form.
Fortunately some evolutionists are honest enough to be more interested in solid science rather than drawing unfounded conclusions:
“Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt sure they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing and seem likely to remain so.” [E.R. Leach (evolutionist); Nature 293:19, 1981]
Well-known proponentsof evolution (and a fierce opponent of Creationism), Steven Jay Gould admits:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms is the trade secret of paleontology ... The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’” [S.J. Gould (evolutionist); Natural History 86:14 (1977)]
Of course it is true that Gould eventually started to contradict himself when he was chastised by other evolutionists for not helping them present a solid front.
Most evolutionists subscribe to the view of Transitional fossils presented in talk origins’s Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
I don’t want to misrepresent what you believe Brett, but would you find you agree with many of Kathleen Hunt’s statements?
-Steve
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteYes I agree with Talk Origins as that's were the evidence lies. We are all transitional forms. Gould was wrong, as we do see changes. Our own species is much more gracile then it was 30,000 years ago. Our cranial capacity has been reduced, fine tuning itself. I don't see the problem with some things changing quickly to fill an empty niche and other taking longer to eventually replace another species or even their 'parent' species.
When most people think of transitional fossils they think only of the big ones, not all the ones leading up to it.
I think that answered what you were saying.
Brett
Yes, that helps.
ReplyDeleteMany evolutionists don't agree with the talkorigins-Kathleen Hunt method of identifying transitional forms which do not clearly relate to an existing lineage. I would agree with those who hold to a more traditional view of transitional forms; it must appear in the proper sedimentary sequence and it must be shown to relate to a lineage it is descending from and a new lineage it is transitioning into. Unfortunately for evolutionists, this is not the case with almost all known "transitional" fossils. The fossil record does not support this hypothesis. So I prefer to go with the facts rather than the unproven and pretty much disproven view presented in the talkorigins piece.
This of course leads to the Punctuated Equilibrium possibility, but we also know that Evolution could not happen fast enough to account for the variety of species or variations we see in the fossil record.
The embryology angle is mentioned in many of the articles I find on the web about this shell less turtle, but I thought the importance of embryology had been pretty much down played from an evolutionary standpoint since Haeckel's diagrams were shown to be fakes. Heck even very similar species of frogs follow completely different embriotic development.
Oh well, I imagine I've gone on longer and dug deeper than most care to read about.
-Steve
Oy Steve,
ReplyDeleteWere do you come up with this stuff? Talk origins is linked to by most of the evolutionary an developmental biologists o the web. It had NOT been disproven, a couple of ID guys (or even evolution dissenters) disagreeing with this interpretation of evolution DO NOT mean it's wrong. Please stop listening to the ID guys, they are full of crap. Perhaps once they actually produce some evidence that that stands up to the scientific process people will actually start to listen to them.
I'm not sure if PE is a feasible theory anymore. The idea might have died with Gould. I haven't heard much about it. And yes evolution can happen fast enough, you go from a land animal to a whale in only 10 million years. Stop stating things are facts when they are not.
As for the embryology, just because something might have been wrong (the jury is still out on this) in the past doesn't mean it hasn't been reexamined and proven to be viable. In fact they have a whole branch of biology that specializes in it.
Brett