New "Missing link" for evolution!

[Tattaglia]

Ah, the Internet. The one place where a religion-based flame war can erupt within a page.

*falls asleep by the fire, cradling the Web in hands*

 

[Kinguendo]

Also, if i asked alot of Christians today what they thought about the christians during the crusades murdering muslims do you really think they would be full of regret? REALLY?

I don't think they would regret it. But that's only because they didn't murder Muslims. People in their region at one point in time did, but they did not. So they shouldn't have to feel guilty over it.

I definitely do not think most Christians would support the murder of the Muslims. You seem to have the idea that everyone in a religion wants other people to die just because they have a different religion.

Really? You dont think religions want the other religions to die? The Bible, the apocolypse everyone who isnt christian... DIES... painfully by the sounds of it. The Kuran, alot of people blowing themselves up in the name of allah alot recently... wonder if that has anything to do with the Kuran? Also, there are alot of ignorant christians... especially in America, havent you heard people going on about Muslims and stuff like that? Hell just look at the republicans saying that Obama is a Muslim... Clearly they think something is wrong with that.

 

[ShadowStar42]

It's really scary to see how many people think a scientific theory is some kind of wild guess.

Also: Go, team! Another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

I agree, but none of those people have posted in this thread so what's your point? I also thing its scary how many people think that they can prove a negative or that here to fore unprovable theories are in fact proven.

 

[ShadowStar42]

You know what? This only proves my point that all debates involving religion accomplish nothing.

This entire thread, my own arguments included, has degraded into a mindless squabble between two opposing forces. Any points that could have been made in this thread have been crushed under a layer of hatred and ignorance. We are all to attached to our own beliefs to truly consider what the other side is saying.

Nothing can come from this thread. The original subject of this thread was a fossil, yet all of the discussion has been shifted upon the debate between religion and science. I don't see the focus shifting back to the original subject.

But we may actually prove the existence or non-existence of god here. I'm not sure about anyone else here, but my purpose isn't to come to a conclusion but to come in contact with new ideas and learn from them. I would like it if people as a response to my statements take a more open view to opposing ideas, but I don't expect it.

 

[murphy7801]

i wonder how the monkey died since most fossils get preserved so well by dieing in normally a painful way

 

[scotth266]

Shnip!

I for one take the stance that the writers messed it up, and thus we have something incorrect. So he could still be right, maybe. Also, nothing is quantifiable! Death to numbers!

I'm actually curious as to the more scientific things behind this discovery: like how the fossil was found, how deep it was, what it was incased in, yadda yadda yadda. I'm just boring like that

Also, what are they going to name it? Like a real name that everyone can say, not the scientific one.

Snip.

I'm trying both revive the old subject and intelligently discuss the new one at the same time. It is HARD

Maybe it is also pointless to attempt such an action. Sadly, I bet that this thread will be locked due to the religion-flaming, which is a pity due to the real scientific discussion that could be going on.

 

[Skeleon]

I agree, but none of those people have posted in this thread so what's your point? I also thing its scary how many people think that they can prove a negative or that here to fore unprovable theories are in fact proven.

Actually, they have, somewhere on the earlier pages.
If you really need me to, I'll look them up, but I'd rather not. Just look for the guy who posted a definition of the word "theory" (without scientific context) for example.
As for "proven theories", evolution is the currently best supported theory in the scientific world. Therefore, it (currently) is the truth.
That's the beautiful thing with science, should something better (i.e. supported with more evidence) come along, it'd be replaced.

Anyway, normally I enjoy taking part in this kind of thread, but the discussion has been going on for 7 pages before I saw it, I won't seriously take part in it now.

 

[Cowabungaa]

It's really scary to see how many people think a scientific theory is some kind of wild guess.

Also: Go, team! Another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

I agree, but none of those people have posted in this thread so what's your point? I also thing its scary how many people think that they can prove a negative or that here to fore unprovable theories are in fact proven.

True, but it's a little more complicated than that. Science revolves around falsification, the ability for a hypothesis to be proven wrong by experimentation and testing against the data. If a hypothesis can't be falsified, it's not scientific. A hypothesis has to have the ability to be proven wrong so that the hypothesis can be modified and science can make another step forward.

PS: Hope this doesn't sound too confusing, it's getting late here.

 

[rokema]

I just believe religion is to keep people in place so they don't do bad shit.
And I luv dinosaurs.

 

[ShadowStar42]

Really? You dont think religions want the other religions to die? The Bible, the apocolypse everyone who isnt christian... DIES... painfully by the sounds of it. The Kuran, alot of people blowing themselves up in the name of allah alot recently... wonder if that has anything to do with the Kuran? Also, there are alot of ignorant christians... especially in America, havent you heard people going on about Muslims and stuff like that? Hell just look at the republicans saying that Obama is a Muslim... Clearly they think something is wrong with that.

Thinking that your ideas are correct and wanted those who disagree with you to die are two different things, I really hope you see that because otherwise you are a very scary person being that you disagree with more than 90% of the planet. Religious are not personal entities (a point I believe you made not to long ago) the don't want or hate anything. Are there people who happen to be Christian who want Muslims to die? Yes. There are atheists people who want them to die too. While I'm sure neither of us has any real data on the subject I can tell you that all, not even most but all of the Christians I've met while whom I've discussed the Crusades (which is quite a few, I'm a Christian who loves playing Devil's advocate) has expressed shame or disownment of the Crusades.

 

[FredFredburgur]

I'm not trying to start anything but like what is so big about finding just one fossil that might be a missing link, what if it was a genetically wrong member of it's species that is just horribly mutated, and yes mutations are part of evolution and if one that is so horribly mutated wanted to pass on it's genes it would have to find a similar one to mate with, and the chances of that happening aren't too high, can someone please help clear stuff up with me?

Mutations usually don't lead to large changes in a creature. Usually they either have a very small effect or no effect at all.

So a random rodent would not be born with a mutation that gave it thumbs and allowed it to walk on two legs. Mutations introduce genetic variation into a species in very minor ways. The idea is that these small changes in genetic variation and the assortment of genes through sexual reproduction leads to changes in a population. Combine this with mechanisms such as natural selection, and the result is evolution.

Okay, so then why do we only need one missing link to say this species became this one? Wouldn't we need one for each mutation?

 

[Trace2010]

Neato! Well, evolution gets a boost that it drastically needed.

lol? drastically needed?

To my understanding, evolutionary theory was filled with holes, this being one of them. If stuff like this keeps being found, evolution might be accepted as law and not theory. That's what I meant.

I think you don't quite understand what is needed to differentiate law and theory. In this case "the theory of evolution" it is NOT that it isn't proven nor that it is that it doesn't exist. Instead it is that it is regarded as a process that takes A LOT OF YEARS and very specific conditions in order to happen and therefore cannot be recreated for a "scientific study" to prove it a fact... Do you understand the difference?
The thing would be a fact if it could be recreated. Which it cannot be. How can you recreate an "evolution experiment", selective mating over a couple of hundred years? who would fund that?

AL GORE!!!!

 

[ShadowStar42]

True, but it's a little more complicated than that. Science revolves around falsification, the ability for a hypothesis to be proven wrong by experimentation and testing against the data. If a hypothesis can't be falsified, it's not scientific. A hypothesis has to have the ability to be proven wrong so that the hypothesis can be modified and science can make another step forward.

PS: Hope this doesn't sound too confusing, it's getting late here.

Which is exactly the point of the seperation of micro and macro evolution. Microevolution has been proven to occur, most people agree with this, but macroevolution occurs over such long periods of time that is can't be tested with current resources, so it doesn't meet the standard of something you can call someone ignorant for not believing in.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Shnip!

I for one take the stance that the writers messed it up, and thus we have something incorrect. So he could still be right, maybe. Also, nothing is quantifiable! Death to numbers!

Aaa but his stance is that the earth is created in 6X24 (not 7 ofcourse, the last day was the resting day, silly me) because he beleives that that is what the Bible tells him. Yea maybe the writers screwed up, but that's not the point here, the point is what he says: the earth is created in 6X24 hours. That hypothesis is stomped flat by all kinds of evidence regarding planetary formation. But yes, he could still be right, you can't eliminate the possibility of magic, that earth just POOFED right there, it't not a falsible hypothesis. Technically it could be right, but it's not researchable by scientific means, therefore scientifically worthless.

I'm actually curious as to the more scientific things behind this discovery: like how the fossil was found, how deep it was, what it was incased in, yadda yadda yadda. I'm just boring like that

Same here, what I am astounded about is the amazing amount of detail of this fossil. You can see the prints of the fur. They were even able to reconstruct this animal's last meal, even it's stomach contents were fossilised! Fantastic really. Still, I was more impressed by Tiktaalik than by this fossil. But that's obvious, Tiktaalik represents a much more important event in evolutionary history: the transition from sea to land.

Also, what are they going to name it? Like a real name that everyone can say, not the scientific one.

Isn't there an abstract available from the article? Must be.

Maybe it is also pointless to attempt such an action. Sadly, I bet that this thread will be locked due to the religion-flaming, which is a pity due to the real scientific discussion that could be going on.

Give me 10CC of detrohoxifloride and 50 watts NOW! Ok....CLEAR!!! Damn....CLEAR!!! I can hear a pulse!

Which is exactly the point of the seperation of micro and macro evolution. Microevolution has been proven to occur, most people agree with this, but macroevolution occurs over such long periods of time that is can't be tested with current resources, so it doesn't meet the standard of something you can call someone ignorant for not believing in.

I shall quote myself about macro-evolution because I'm lazy:
You're misunderstanding 'macro-evolution', macro-evolution is not something you prove, it's not a theory, it's not an explanation for some observed data. No, macro-evolution is a name fór the data. Macro-evolution is nothing more than the evolutionary history of life on earth. It's just a fancy name for nothing more than a timescale of collected data: this fossil is this old, this one is this old, this species lived back then, this one lives now, this one lived before that, etc etc etc. That is why 'macro-evolution' is called the fact of evolution, it's nothing more than a collection of stuff we found. Macro-evolution is the thing we're trying to explain with evolutional theory. The theory of evolution tries to explain how all that macro-evolutionary changed happened. That it happened is a fact, everyone can see that. We can all see the fact that millions of years ago, certain animals lived that don't live anymore, and we can all see the fact that right now certain animals live that did not live a long time ago: something has changed over the millions of years. That change is sometimes called macro-evolution.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Edit: sorry, double post.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Snip.

Snip.

Problem is: his viewpoints are not valid, whatever he beleives himself, they're not. Sure he's wording it properly, without any odd bashing or anything, he's a polite fellow and that's indeed very good, but that makes it not less nonsenical. It's simply not true that the earth was created in 7X24 hours. He puts it nice, but that doesn't make him rational, his viewpoints can tell us that, since those viewpoints are not rational at all, and some of them are probably flat out wrong.

Who defines rational? Who defines right and wrong?

How can beings who claim to have evolved from random chance at an amino acide rave, live no longer than pennies over a century (at the very very best), and have a recorded history of around 8,000 years claim to know anything of a world and universe that they claim is billions of years old? Look at the misconceptions disproved over our own history, look at the inadequate "rational" capacity of our alleged biological "ancestors", given that, if we really evolve, and continue to do so, eventually the scope of our knowledge will be obsolete. A humbling fact evolutionists should learn to accept since it is based on what they believe. As a Christian, I already accept that I can't possibly understand everything that God has done.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I'm not trying to start anything but like what is so big about finding just one fossil that might be a missing link, what if it was a genetically wrong member of it's species that is just horribly mutated, and yes mutations are part of evolution and if one that is so horribly mutated wanted to pass on it's genes it would have to find a similar one to mate with, and the chances of that happening aren't too high, can someone please help clear stuff up with me?

Mutations usually don't lead to large changes in a creature. Usually they either have a very small effect or no effect at all.

So a random rodent would not be born with a mutation that gave it thumbs and allowed it to walk on two legs. Mutations introduce genetic variation into a species in very minor ways. The idea is that these small changes in genetic variation and the assortment of genes through sexual reproduction leads to changes in a population. Combine this with mechanisms such as natural selection, and the result is evolution.

Okay, so then why do we only need one missing link to say this species became this one? Wouldn't we need one for each mutation?

Well the reason this species is significant is because of homologous structures. You can see that this creature has many homologous structures. You can see homology in structures found in both are close ancestors and distant ones. For this reason, it could represent a creature that falls in between the different species.

Of course it does not give us the exact representation of how we evolved from lower life forms into advanced ones, but it helps in establishing a representation of the intermediate creatures.

Of course the discovery of similar creatures would help to support the idea that this creature is a missing link. However, the possibility that it could be a missing link is significant itself.

This is another reason why this thread bothered me. People automatically said this creature was the missing link when not enough research has been done to confirm this.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

It's not 100% proven that humans evolved from monkeys, which is what I meant. I apologize for not making that clearer.

What makes you say that? If it'd help you understand, we wouldn't have evolved from modern monkeys - we'd share a common "ancestor." It's not like monkeys didn't evolve too.

 

[ShadowStar42]

I shall quote myself about macro-evolution because I'm lazy:
You're misunderstanding 'macro-evolution', macro-evolution is not something you prove, it's not a theory, it's not an explanation for some observed data. No, macro-evolution is a name fór the data. Macro-evolution is nothing more than the evolutionary history of life on earth. It's just a fancy name for nothing more than a timescale of collected data: this fossil is this old, this one is this old, this species lived back then, this one lives now, this one lived before that, etc etc etc. That is why 'macro-evolution' is called the fact of evolution, it's nothing more than a collection of stuff we found. Macro-evolution is the thing we're trying to explain with evolutional theory. The theory of evolution tries to explain how all that macro-evolutionary changed happened. That it happened is a fact, everyone can see that. We can all see the fact that millions of years ago, certain animals lived that don't live anymore, and we can all see the fact that right now certain animals live that did not live a long time ago: something has changed over the millions of years. That change is sometimes called macro-evolution.

Ok, we're working on different definitions, but my fundamental point remains the same. A rational intelligent person can look at all the evidence involved and come to the conclusion that while small changes occur over time they do not (either at all or at least without directed influence) add up to the necessary large change to explain the origin of the varying species on Earth. Therefore, attacking someone for not accepting the theory of evolution in its entirety is simply a display of the attackers ignorance.

 

[ShadowStar42]

It's not 100% proven that humans evolved from monkeys, which is what I meant. I apologize for not making that clearer.

What makes you say that?

That it's not 100% proven I would assume. In fact it's not even generally accepted. As to the larger argument he's making, see the parallel discussion regarding micro/macro evolution.