New "Missing link" for evolution!

[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?

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.

Alrigt that makes sense, thank you for helping.

 

[ShadowStar42]

This has been fun but I'm out for now, I'll definitely pop back in later though.

 

[Cowabungaa]

[
Who defines rational? Who defines right and wrong?

Reality does. Well at least for those last 2 things. Fact is, those things either happend that way or they did not. No matter what someone beleives, something happened and no one can change that: it's already history. The earth already originated somehow, before humans even existed, our opinions are completely irrelivant.

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.

You're now posting a lot of misconceptions yourself about the evolutionary history of life on earth, and the theory of evolution who tries to explain that history. You begin with random chance: this is not true. bio-chemistry is no dice game, if a certain reaction happens under certain circumstances, that reaction will happen again under the same circumstances. Our recorded history is also much longer then 8.000 years, we just found a Venus statue wich was about 40.000 years old.
But yes, it is true that our scope of knowledge becomes obsolete, and it will probably continue to do so for a very long time. That's how science works, we explain some stuff, then we discover some things who turn other things upside down, and we try to explain that, etc etc etc. No one says that we can't be wrong right now, fact is that right the modern evolutionary theory is the best explanation for how the evolutionary history of life on earth happened. And right now there is also considerable proof that the universe is billions of years old. No one says that proof can't be disproven, that proof is continiously being tested against new scientific data, untill the hypothesis topples over and has to be edited or scrapped all together.

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.

First of all, defintions are very important in scientific discussions. Afterall, is it the same defintion as the one used by the science we're talking about? Why would ours be better?
Anyway, yes that's indeed possible, ofcourse it is, and attack someone for that reason isn't just ignorant, it's plain rude and unneccesary. For a proper discussion it's important to explain the reasons why both parties came to different conclusions: what caused the difference in those conclusions. And ultimatly: wich conclusion is the correct one?
But again: it is also very important to distinct between the fact of evolution, alias evolutionary history alias macro-evolution, and the theory of evolution, alias...euhhh, nothing I guess.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Therefore, attacking someone for not accepting the theory of evolution in its entirety is simply a display of the attackers ignorance.

If what you present is less plausible then it's entirely reasonable to explain why evolution "works" better. If you don't want your opinions taken seriously, don't share them.

 

[scotth266]

SNIPPERS!

Meh, to each his own with regards to the religious thing. I already stated my views above, I just wanted to say that it was sort of unecessary to call him out for having his own beliefs. Even if they might be scientifically inplausible, since there is no way to prove or disprove God, I say let the folks believe what they want without being told they're wrong.

I would like a link to this Titallak thing you mentioned (not gonna bother trying to spell it). It sounds fascinating.

Also, DAMN! I didn't realize there was that much to this fossil, I only glossed over the article for the main bits. That's neat stuff.

I would like to name it if it hasn't been already! I will call it Sir Lizardfingers!

And don't tell anyone that the thread is back on-topic... they might swoop in like bats lit on fire. I've got to include those in my evil lair... robot bats... on... fire... there we go!

 

[ShadowStar42]

Therefore, attacking someone for not accepting the theory of evolution in its entirety is simply a display of the attackers ignorance.

If what you present is less plausible then it's entirely reasonable to explain why evolution "works" better. If you don't want your opinions taken seriously, don't share them.

Sorry, one more. No one has taken offense to people saying evolution makes more sense or 'works' better. People have taken issue with the attacks made against people who disagree.

 

[tyzzni]

meaning no disrespect they can't exist together because Catholicism says humans came first and science has already proved that wrong. But evolution can't exist if humans and animals were all created at once. :/

Sorry, no. The bible puts humans down last. In fact taken as a allegory the story of Genesis (well one of them and the more acknowledged one) the bible lays down in very simple terms the process of evolution fairly well. Vegetation -> Fish -> Lower animals -> Mammals -> Man.

not according to my priest. but I dont wanna fight I just want to tell you according to the bible God created every single animal and person so evolution would be completely pointless

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Even if they might be scientifically inplausible, since there is no way to prove or disprove God, I say let the folks believe what they want without being told they're wrong.

I could be a jerk and say the same thing about leprechauns and the invisible pink unicorn - but, okay, I'm a jerk. Just because you can't prove or disprove something, it isn't necessarally a good enough reason to take it seriously. I'm not trying to mock you. I'm just saying that isn't good logic.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

Grow up, all of you.

This is off-topic discussion, not off-topic scream-at-each-other-with-either-insufferable-smugness-or-religious-dogma.

Those of you saying "THIS'LL SHUT CREATIONISTS UP! UNDENIABLE PROOF LOLOLOLOLOL" are just sparking flames.

Those of you saying "THIS DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING, EVOLUTION IS JUST A THEORY ANYWAY" are just sparking flames.

When ignorance clashes with more ignorance, everybody walks away more closed-minded and are certainly none the wiser.

DISCUSS, NOT DEBATE.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

When ignorance clashes with more ignorance, everybody walks away more closed-minded and are certainly none the wiser.

DISCUSS, NOT DEBATE.

Debate, ideally, is how we challenge our beliefs. Telling someone not to debate - to not share and question their viewpoints - is demanding ignorance. If you disagree with someone, and can clearly explain why, that is an amazing ability.

You aren't contributing anything to the discussion with your post. You're just adding flame to the fire.

 

[scotth266]

Even if they might be scientifically inplausible, since there is no way to prove or disprove God, I say let the folks believe what they want without being told they're wrong.

I could be a jerk and say the same thing about leprechauns and the invisible pink unicorn - but, okay, I'm a jerk. Just because you can't prove or disprove something, it isn't necessarally a good enough reason to take it seriously. I'm not trying to mock you. I'm just saying that isn't good logic.

It's not good logic to say that one can have their own belief without fear of it being ripped to shreds? I'm ok with people discussing things, but not just calling people wrong, as SOD assault has stated.

 

[Cowabungaa]

SNIPPERS!

Meh, to each his own with regards to the religious thing. I already stated my views above, I just wanted to say that it was sort of unecessary to call him out for having his own beliefs. Even if they might be scientifically inplausible, since there is no way to prove or disprove God, I say let the folks believe what they want without being told they're wrong.

That's indeed true, it's not disprovable, nor provable, it has nothing to do with science. Indeed to each his own, beleive what you wan't, I don't controll people's minds. I only get a little bit annoyed when people spread their beleives like they're actually real. They're opinions, opinions do not equal truth, especially when we're talking about cold, hard reality. If someone thinks his or her opinion equals reality, show it.

I would like a link to this Titallak thing you mentioned (not gonna bother trying to spell it). It sounds fascinating.

Here ya go, Tiktaalik's own homepage (not Wikipedia ) [http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/].

Also, DAMN! I didn't realize there was that much to this fossil, I only glossed over the article for the main bits. That's neat stuff.

I would like to name it if it hasn't been already! I will call it Sir Lizardfingers!

And don't tell anyone that the thread is back on-topic... they might swoop in like bats lit on fire. I've got to include those in my evil lair... robot bats... on... fire... there we go!

Lizardfingers? But...but...it's a monkey, with opposable thumbs! Lizards don't have those. If they would've, they would've run the planet by now. A T-Rex with opposable thumbs...o dear heavens.
Robot bats on fire sound like an excellent idea. Don't forget that they have to make horrible, thundering and screeching noises, plus they have to be big.

 

[RavingLibDem]

sorry to lower the tone, and for not reading 8 pages of posting in case this joke has been made before, and for anyone who doesn't know premier league football, but wait for the punchline....









I thought we'd discovered it when he signed for Man Utd!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA





that's Wayne Rooney btw

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

When ignorance clashes with more ignorance, everybody walks away more closed-minded and are certainly none the wiser.

DISCUSS, NOT DEBATE.

Debate, ideally, is how we challenge our beliefs. Telling someone not to debate - to not share and question their viewpoints - is demanding ignorance.

You aren't contributing anything to the discussion with your post. You're just adding flame to the fire.

But this is not an ideal place for a debate of any sort.

Debating is fine when it's not done anonymously, but online, it turns into a childish slapfight where points are not conceded, but are instead either ignored, attacked, dismissed or challenged with bullshit.

 

[scotth266]

Robot bats on fire sound like an excellent idea. Don't forget that they have to make horrible, thundering and screeching noises, plus they have to be big.

Of course. What kind of mad scientist do you take me for! The kind that makes silent, tiny flaming robot bats?!? I take offense!

And thanks for the link.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Snip.

Reality does. Well at least for those last 2 things. Fact is, those things either happend that way or they did not. No matter what someone beleives, something happened and no one can change that: it's already history. The earth already originated somehow, before humans even existed, our opinions are completely irrelivant.

Reality as defined by who? Yes, currently, Earth and humans exist. I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying, how can anyone pretend to know anything about who that happened? There are bones, you've found a new set, that doesn't mean you're right or creationism is wrong.

snip

You're now posting a lot of misconceptions yourself about the evolutionary history of life on earth, and the theory of evolution who tries to explain that history. You begin with random chance: this is not true. bio-chemistry is no dice game, if a certain reaction happens under certain circumstances, that reaction will happen again under the same circumstances. Our recorded history is also much longer then 8.000 years, we just found a Venus statue wich was about 40.000 years old.[/quote]
Life and current biology I don't disagree with. Has anyone been able to re-create the origin of life? The best I've heard is a bunch of amino acids came together and made primitive DNA, and then decided to replicate. How did they come together in that exact configuration? Why did it start self-replicating?

The equivalent of today's naked barbie is hardly what I would describe as recorded history. I meant recorded history as history where someone sat down and wrote it down intelligibly, civilization, if you will. That sort of recorded history. If my definition is wrong, so be it.

But yes, it is true that our scope of knowledge becomes obsolete, and it will probably continue to do so for a very long time. That's how science works, we explain some stuff, then we discover some things who turn other things upside down, and we try to explain that, etc etc etc. No one says that we can't be wrong right now, fact is that right the modern evolutionary theory is the best explanation for how the evolutionary history of life on earth happened. And right now there is also considerable proof that the universe is billions of years old. No one says that proof can't be disproven, that proof is continiously being tested against new scientific data, untill the hypothesis topples over and has to be edited or scrapped all together.

Odd, because a lot of what I've been reading here is "I'm right, you're wrong".

Considerable proof? Like what? People have stared at rocks and elements and nucliei and other suches for the past 8,000 years tops, even less on the recent stuff. It's all based on how things are now and assumptions based our limited scope. You can't prove anything that someone wasn't there to witness and record. My opinion is that humanity is too high on itself. Some things are just unkowable. Does that make you wrong? Not necessarily. Does that mean you are undeniably right? You'll never know, unless you had been there. You can't know everything, accept it and move on.

 

[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?

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.

How would you explain early hominid fossils if you didn't believe that humans and other primates shared a common ancestor? We didn't, strictly speaking, evolve from modern primates - but primates have a lot of common traits, physically and genetically. How would you explain this without a common ancestry?

Common ancestry is the simplest solution. Adding a willful creator 1) complicates things and 2) it contradicts fossil evidence. Why would we have progressively human-like primates of apparently progressively modern origin? Now, a lack of a plausible alternative explanation isn't proof that evolution's true - but it's the most plausible explanation we have - and the most useful.

 

[Cowabungaa]

When ignorance clashes with more ignorance, everybody walks away more closed-minded and are certainly none the wiser.

DISCUSS, NOT DEBATE.

Debate, ideally, is how we challenge our beliefs. Telling someone not to debate - to not share and question their viewpoints - is demanding ignorance.

You aren't contributing anything to the discussion with your post. You're just adding flame to the fire.

But this is not an ideal place for a debate of any sort.

Debating is fine when it's not done anonymously, but online, it turns into a childish slapfight where points are not conceded, but are instead either ignored, attacked, dismissed or challenged with bullshit.

Aaa that can be a self-furfilling prophesy my friend ;-) Afterall, anyone who participates in the discussion/debate has the power to change said discussion/debate. It's not impossible, it's just a matter of finding the correct people who all have the same goal: discuss they're opinions, explain them, challenge them, let them be challenged by others and not be offended by that and if you're willing to listen and change your own opinion in the light of new information, thén you can have a fruitfull debate. I think there are some people here willing to do that, they'll probably bob up along the way. In the meantime, just do not pay any attention at the bitchslapping, just ignore it, if you pay any attention to it you're making it worse

Reality as defined by who? Yes, currently, Earth and humans exist. I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying, how can anyone pretend to know anything about who that happened? There are bones, you've found a new set, that doesn't mean you're right or creationism is wrong.

Reality by itself is not defined. Reality just is.
But how anyone can 'pretend', well ofcourse they're not pretending. The nice thing about history, is that we can find traces of history today: ancient fossilised creatures, species who no longer exist. It's a giant jigsaw puzzle, this new discovery for example is another piece. This discovery is a part of history we did not know about, and it indeed says nothing about a theory being right or wrong. This fossil by itself is just a new piece of data. But what it does, is fit neatly in some of the predictions of modern evolutionary theory, and it also falls neatly in the astablished pattern we discovered in the history of life on earth.

Life and current biology I don't disagree with. Has anyone been able to re-create the origin of life? The best I've heard is a bunch of amino acids came together and made primitive DNA, and then decided to replicate. How did they come together in that exact configuration? Why did it start self-replicating?

No we can't do that yet, research on the origin on life on earth is very young, we don't know a lot about that. But pleaes, do remember a very important thing: the evolutionary theory has nothing to do with the origin of life on earth, evolutionary theory only deals with the development of life on earth. It's a very common misconception.

The equivalent of today's naked barbie is hardly what I would describe as recorded history. I meant recorded history as history where someone sat down and wrote it down intelligibly, civilization, if you will. That sort of recorded history. If my definition is wrong, so be it.

Hmm yes by that definition it's about 8.000 years I think, not sure when writing was first developed.

Odd, because a lot of what I've been reading here is "I'm right, you're wrong".

O don't pay attention to them, they have nothing to do with the scientific proces ;-) Unless one of them is actually a scientist working on the subject.

Considerable proof? Like what? People have stared at rocks and elements and nucliei and other suches for the past 8,000 years tops, even less on the recent stuff. It's all based on how things are now and assumptions based our limited scope. You can't prove anything that someone wasn't there to witness and record. My opinion is that humanity is too high on itself. Some things are just unkowable. Does that make you wrong? Not necessarily. Does that mean you are undeniably right? You'll never know, unless you had been there. You can't know everything, accept it and move on.

No that's not true, as I said before, history leaves traces of itself in the modern world. We can find the remains of creatures long before humans existed, we know that they existed, afterall we found their remains. But ofcourse there is always the possibility that a giant pink pixy all magically poofed those fossils in the earth, fact it that such a hypothesis is scientifically worthless, it can't be falscified. Therefore nothing in science is 100%, never, since there are always options that can't be proven nor disproven but nonetheless can be true. But that's not the point, the point is that we can sketch an image of history using data that history gave us.


PS: Damn you guys, you're keeping me up! Damn this way too interesting subject, even though I've gone through this spiel more a then a dozen times on a dozen different forums in 2-3 different languages! But I will return tommorow! *flaps his cape, makes a woosh sound, and goes off*

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

When ignorance clashes with more ignorance, everybody walks away more closed-minded and are certainly none the wiser.

DISCUSS, NOT DEBATE.

Debate, ideally, is how we challenge our beliefs. Telling someone not to debate - to not share and question their viewpoints - is demanding ignorance.

You aren't contributing anything to the discussion with your post. You're just adding flame to the fire.

But this is not an ideal place for a debate of any sort.

Debating is fine when it's not done anonymously, but online, it turns into a childish slapfight where points are not conceded, but are instead either ignored, attacked, dismissed or challenged with bullshit.

Then you feel that there's no point of discussing anything online when you disagree with anyone. What are you doing here?

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Life and current biology I don't disagree with. Has anyone been able to re-create the origin of life? The best I've heard is a bunch of amino acids came together and made primitive DNA, and then decided to replicate. How did they come together in that exact configuration? Why did it start self-replicating?

Well, it would have had infinite time, infinite space, and near infinite matter. We're just at some random, arbitrary point in the universe - it's a biiiiiiiiiig universe. Doesn't seem that implausible. Near infinite improbability isn't insurmountable when you have infinite time and resources.