More Strong Evidence for Evolution: Anatomical Vestiges

[CrusaderFrank]

This "fish grew lungs" explanation has not made any sense since I first heard it in 6th grade.

Do people just believe everything they're told?

 

[alang1216]

Pardon? You can prove a relationship between fossils without the need for fossils?

Yes, it is called anatomy, genetics, etc.

Sure, if you already believe there was continuity then of course you'll "see" the tree. But that's putting the cart before the horse. The record itself does not prove continuity, take any branch you like and go and check, we've never seen any evidence of continuity. If we are led by the evidence (rather than a prior belief) then we must - if we are honest - say that there's no evidence of continuity, so why do you insist on saying there was?

I said I don't know because I do not know what happened, what I am quite confident of though is that these specimens do not demonstrate continuity that's all I can say, the continuity is an interpretation of the data that's all it is. It could be true, it could be that there was indeed continuity but as things stand today there's no empirical basis to the claim.

Well you'd need lots of specimens to show continuity, the two endpoints of the branch and a multitude of specimens that show gradual changes from the start to the end specimen. They all show discontinuity. A continuity would be literally thousands of specimens differing minutely over spans of many millions of years, the remnants of the millions of generations that must have existed, but I know of no such record.

If there was continuity then we have a very very selective preservation and the same selectivity in every part of the world where we find examples of given specimens. Look at the Cambrian, why are there so few "snapshots" wherever we look? we find trilobites all over the world yet more or less the same narrow selectivity in what was preserved.

Please show me the best example you can of continuity between to two disparate morphologies, let me see what you have.

You want fossil continuity from a geologic record that is extremely discontinuous?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Yes, it is called anatomy, genetics, etc.

We were talking about the fossil record though, are you now agreeing with me, that the fossil record itself does not show continuity?

You want fossil continuity from a geologic record that is extremely discontinuous?

I don't want anything except for you to admit the fossil record shows no continuity and you've just admitted that so I think we're now on the same page.

 

[ding]

There's no fossil evidence that there were any prior arthropods, that's why I think that. Claims without evidence are referred to as conjecture, not fact.

Why couldn't it be that there were no hard shells before that to fossilize and leave a fossil record?

 

[ding]

You want fossil continuity from a geologic record that is extremely discontinuous?

Why can't discontinuities be evidence in and of itself?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

OK, let's say that some fish "randomly mutated" perfectly working lungs that allowed the mutant to breath above and below water...you now have to believe that during its short lifetime it met another "randomly mutated" fish with perfectly working lungs that allowed the mutant to breath above and below water...and mated?

Do you see how silly this is?

 

[alang1216]

We were talking about the fossil record though, are you now agreeing with me, that the fossil record itself does not show continuity?

I don't want anything except for you to admit the fossil record shows no continuity and you've just admitted that so I think we're now on the same page.

The fossil record shows NO discontinuity, it agrees with ALL the other evidence.

 

[alang1216]

OK, let's say that some fish "randomly mutated" perfectly working lungs that allowed the mutant to breath above and below water...you now have to believe that during its short lifetime it met another "randomly mutated" fish with perfectly working lungs that allowed the mutant to breath above and below water...and mated?

Do you see how silly this is?

Very silly and not at all what the science says.

 

[alang1216]

Why can't discontinuities be evidence in and of itself?

I think Sagan said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[ding]

I think Sagan said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Then Sagan was an idiot. Absence of trilobites is evidence that they didn't have hard shells before they appeared in the fossil record because there was nothing to fossilize.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Very silly and not at all what the science says.

Maybe you can explain it all?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Why couldn't it be that there were no hard shells before that to fossilize and leave a fossil record?

Two thing to bear in mind.

1. The hard shells on trilobites must have evolved too, so we'd not expect the first appearance of that trait to be the complex formation we see in a trilobite, there must have been countless generations from the first trace of shelly material to something as sophisticated as a trilobite.

2. In many places were we find trilobites and other Cambrian beasts, we also find fossils of tiny delicate organisms like small jellyfish even embryos and so on, so we know that fossilization was taking place before the first appearance of these animals.

e.g.

Chengjiang Fossil Site

A hilly 512 ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang’s fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and ...

whc.unesco.org

The property displays excellent quality of fossil preservation including the soft and hard tissues of animals with hard skeletons, along with a wide array of organisms that were entirely soft-bodied, and therefore relatively unrepresented in the fossil record. Almost all of the soft-bodied species are unknown elsewhere. Fine-scale detailed preservation includes features as the alimentary systems of animals, for example of the arthropod Naraoia, and the delicate gills of the enigmatic Yunnanozoon. The sediments of Chengjiang provide what are currently the oldest known fossil chordates, the phylum to which all vertebrates belong.

This record found at this site (and there some others) flies in the face of the empirical expectations of Darwinism, there's no credible trace of the evolutionary record of Cambrian animals and no credible explanation as to why...

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

The fossil record shows NO discontinuity, it agrees with ALL the other evidence.

Yet you said this in post 145:

This is called a paradox, a self contradictory claim, a fallacy you claim the record is continuous and discontinuous...

 

[alang1216]

Then Sagan was an idiot. Absence of trilobites is evidence that they didn't have hard shells before they appeared in the fossil record because there was nothing to fossilize.

He was not. Absence of trilobites is NOT evidence that they didn't have hard shells before they appeared in the fossil record. That is a possibility but there are other possibilities.

 

[alang1216]

Yet you said this in post 145:

View attachment 1058528

This is called a paradox, a self contradictory claim a fallacy.

Only to those that don't know the difference between the fossil record and the geologic record.

 

[alang1216]

Maybe you can explain it all?

Yes I can.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Yes I can.

Tell me how fish have lungs and not gills

 

[alang1216]

Two thing to bear in mind.

1. The hard shells on trilobites must have evolved too, so we'd not expect the first appearance of that trait to be the complex formation we see in a trilobite, there must have been countless generations from the first trace of shelly material to something as sophisticated as a trilobite.

2. In many places were we find trilobites and other Cambrian beasts, we also find fossils of tiny delicate organisms like small jellyfish even embryos and so on, so we know that fossilization was taking place before the first appearance of these animals.

e.g.

Chengjiang Fossil Site

A hilly 512 ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang’s fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and ...

whc.unesco.org

This record found at this site (and there some others) flies in the face of the empirical expectations of Darwinism, there's no credible trace of the evolutionary record of Cambrian animals and no credible explanation as to why...

Don't forget, the Cambrian lasted 55 million years and we have a little more than 50 fossil sites around the world. A very long period, a very long time ago, with few examples.

Even if the Cambrian is an example of creationism, are there other such examples or is this the only one you know of?

 

[alang1216]

Tell me how fish have lungs and not gills

In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

So fish breath water with their imaginary lungs? Water, air, it's all the same

JFC Frank, did you never watch a Nat Geo movie in 3rd grade?

Are you serious right now? You don't know that there are fish with lungs?