New "Missing link" for evolution!

[Xpwn3ntial]

If it's true then yessssss! Creationists can FINALLY retire.

Not really.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Actually its just a lemur. Perhaps an extinct breed of lemur but a lemure none the less.
Check out www.answersingenesis.org they wrote an article about it.

As for creationisms point of view, its very poor evidence for evolution at best. If evolution happened then the earth should be littered billions of intermediate fossils not just a fossil of a complete organism like a lemur, ape or human. After all, how many of any animal could live, breed, die & leave a fossil in 47 million years? They should be as common as rocks.

So why isn't the ground littered with fossils of all the organisms around today?

'cause they're buried.

 

[Fingerprint]

Wow, as of writing there's 13 posts and it's already religious.

Anyway, good. I really hope it's legitimate because it'd be a huge plus for science.

(See, that was a more subtle dig at religion.)

Well the theory of evolution will always be juxtaposed with religion.

Being that they contrast and contradict each other so much it'd be hard not to compare one another.

...And I know which side I'm on.

 

[iTz Br3nd3n]

I think it is a monkey...good job you found a monkey. Im not that into "Evolution". I am a Jehovah witness (partly) I guess I could believe a hint of evolution but I hate people that need to ram it down christens throats we need something to believe in and?.that belief gives us hope. Maybe you are too ignorant to have faith and hope but others aren?t.

 

[iTz Br3nd3n]

Ummmm...how so because your to ignorant to belive that we wernt created by a "Big Bang" is fine with me but you dont need to screw with people that have faith in somthing then an explosion. No it looks like a Lemur or a like weird form of monkey.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I think it is a monkey...good job you found a monkey. Im not that into "Evolution". I am a Jehovah witness (partly) I guess I could believe a hint of evolution but I hate people that need to ram it down christens throats we need something to believe in and?.that belief gives us hope. Maybe you are too ignorant to have faith and hope but others aren?t.

Evolution and the evolutionary theory do not play with faith. They're science, science works with evidence, beleiving is not important.

Ummmm...how so because your to ignorant to belive that we wernt created by a "Big Bang" is fine with me but you dont need to screw with people that have faith in somthing then an explosion. No it looks like a Lemur or a like weird form of monkey.

But you're not a paleontologist, or biological anthropologist, are you?

 

[Thanatos34]

Could somebody fucking define Creationism and ID then... :S

Unfortunatley it differs as much as religious interprattion of the EXACT words of god does.

Simple definitions as far as I can make out are :-

Creatonism God made everything himself with a clay knife and a spinning wheel. Alot of work and elbow grease.

Int Design God bodged bits together in a happy coincidence that looked like evolution but was actually god changing things.

In reality both approaches are horribly flawed in that reality is flawed and by definition God is infallible. So God is a shoddy workman if he exists.

I believe the answer to this is that man's Fall caused reality's flaw.

Hey! Poetry!

Ahhh so its our fault Gods a crap designer & hes an evil malign thug that punishes animals and plants for mans failings. What a bar steward ;D

I think he means dinosaurs.

And had I been trying to explain how the world works to a society that hadn't discovered that hygiene and still believe that there were monsters off the edge of the map I may have left out the giant lizards too.

That would make you a very poor storyteller, and would make people doubt your story. If you missed out 'the big frikken dinosaur' to quote the late great Bill Hicks what else did you neglect to mention. Does God object to red roses?, Does he like fish?, Did the unicorn and dragon turn up late for the ark and thats why they dont exist any more? Are rabbits dangerous? What arent you telling us!!! ;D

Easier and easier to answer.

1. Earth is not meant to be perfect, God did not attempt to make it so. He gave us free will, and we screwed it up, yes.
2. Dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible. Look up the last four chapters of Job.

 

[Art Axiv]

Suck on it, Christians!!!!

im ubberly offended. im catholic and i believe in creationism WITH WITH evolution. why cant they exist together? in peace and harmony bla bla bla

Because one idea is founded on scientific discovery and the other on an invisible sky man who magic'd everything into being.

Roman-Catholic church made a statement that they accept evolution and that it is not against the teachings of the church. The statement was somewhere in the beginning of the year.

 

[Thanatos34]

I think it is a monkey...good job you found a monkey. Im not that into "Evolution". I am a Jehovah witness (partly) I guess I could believe a hint of evolution but I hate people that need to ram it down christens throats we need something to believe in and?.that belief gives us hope. Maybe you are too ignorant to have faith and hope but others aren?t.

Evolution and the evolutionary theory do not play with faith. They're science, science works with evidence, beleiving is not important.

Ummmm...how so because your to ignorant to belive that we wernt created by a "Big Bang" is fine with me but you dont need to screw with people that have faith in somthing then an explosion. No it looks like a Lemur or a like weird form of monkey.

But you're not a paleontologist, or biological anthropologist, are you?

Not true at all.

Once a certain paradigm has been accepted, then it becomes less and less likely that scientists will see something as contradicting their theory. They may even go so far as to say that something supports their theory which does not.

They see what they want to see. If I watch a movie that has cursewords and male nudity in it, I may not really see these things, because I really don't care about them. However, if I watch it with my girlfriend, I suddenly become hyper-sensitive to these things, and I realize there is a lot of these two things in the movie, which I never really recognized before.

In the same manner, a scientist that is sent out to find something, will only find something that he wants to see.

So it is a perfectly valid question to ask what exactly makes it a missing link, my biology professor had not heard about this, and he could not tell from looking at the picture what made it different than a certain species of lemur.

Now, just to make something clear, I do believe in evolution, I just think we tend to take every last fossil, that would simply be a new species, as a missing link immediately, without taking time to really study it first, out of a desire to say, "Ha! We've proved it this time!"

 

[Thanatos34]

Suck on it, Christians!!!!

im ubberly offended. im catholic and i believe in creationism WITH WITH evolution. why cant they exist together? in peace and harmony bla bla bla

Because one idea is founded on scientific discovery and the other on an invisible sky man who magic'd everything into being.

Roman-Catholic church made a statement that they accept evolution and that it is not against the teachings of the church. The statement was somewhere in the beginning of the year.

Wasn't it more like, evolution is not necessarily anti-Christian? I don't think they went so far as to adopt it as the official position of the Catholic Church.

 

[Art Axiv]

Suck on it, Christians!!!!

im ubberly offended. im catholic and i believe in creationism WITH WITH evolution. why cant they exist together? in peace and harmony bla bla bla

Because one idea is founded on scientific discovery and the other on an invisible sky man who magic'd everything into being.

Roman-Catholic church made a statement that they accept evolution and that it is not against the teachings of the church. The statement was somewhere in the beginning of the year.

Wasn't it more like, evolution is not necessarily anti-Christian? I don't think they went so far as to adopt it as the official position of the Catholic Church.

They made an announcment at my local church that, as I wrote, does not conflict with the christian belief. Apparently a letter from Rome.

 

[PureChaos]

if God made beings which then evolved to be able to survive better, does that mean he made them wrong? if he intended them to evolve, why would he make things ill-equipped then let them battle it out for survival?

 

[Thanatos34]

Sorry but there was plenty of proof of evolution before they found this.

Macro evolution(evolution between above the level so species) and Creationism are in the same boat when it comes to teaching them for one serious reason. Neither is provable or testable.

Archaeopterix (can't remember spelling) was much more significant as it showed where reptiles evolved to birds (I presume that is what you mean by macro evolution), much better than one mammal turning to another mammal.

The thing is that evolution is really so simple there really isn't any need to proove it further. We can see it happening in bacteria and other micro-organisms. Anybody who denies it is happening might as well deny gravity exists, I mean it's equally obvious.

Macro Evolution is said to occur over eons, it is not provable. Archeopteryx is not proof of macro evolution, which is where most of the Creationism vs. Evolution arguments are set. No one is stupid enough to say that Micro Evolution doesn't occur becasue it is provable and observable. If you don't know the terms then I'm sure Wikipedia can help you out.

Err, let's not use bad examples to convince creationists, eh? Archaeopteryx, or however the hell you spell that bloody thing, was as much of a fraud as Nebraska Man.

Fraud? Why? It was claimed to be but they proved that wrong. From wikipedia:

"Authenticity

Beginning in 1985, a group including astronomer Fred Hoyle and physicist Lee Spetner published a series of papers claiming that the feathers on the Berlin and London specimens of Archaeopteryx were forged.[44][45][46][47] Their claims were repudiated by Alan J. Charig and others at the British Museum (Natural History). Most of their evidence for a forgery was based on unfamiliarity with the processes of lithification; for example, they proposed that based on the difference in texture associated with the feathers, feather impressions were applied to a thin layer of cement, without realizing that feathers themselves would have caused a textural difference. They also expressed disbelief that slabs would split so smoothly, or that one half of a slab containing fossils would have good preservation, but not the counterslab. These, though, are common properties of Solnhofen fossils because the dead animals would fall onto hardened surfaces which would form a natural plane for the future slabs to split along, leaving the bulk of the fossil on one side and little on the other. They also misinterpreted the fossils, claiming that the tail was forged as one large feather, when this is visibly not the case. In addition, they claimed that the other specimens of Archaeopteryx known at the time did not have feathers, which is untrue; the Maxberg and Eichstätt specimens have obvious feathers. Finally, the motives they suggested for a forgery are not strong, and contradictory; one is that Richard Owen wanted to forge evidence in support of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is unlikely given Owen's views toward Darwin and his theory. The other is that Owen wanted to set a trap for Darwin, hoping the latter would support the fossils so Owen could discredit him with the forgery; this is unlikely because Owen himself wrote a detailed paper on the London specimen, so such an action would certainly backfire.

Charig et al.. pointed to the presence of hairline cracks in the slabs running through both rock and fossil impressions, and mineral growth over the slabs that had occurred before discovery and preparation, as evidence that the feathers were original. Spetner et al.. then attempted to show that the cracks would have naturally propagated through their postulated cement layer, but neglected to account for the fact that the cracks were old and had been filled with calcite, and thus were not able to propagate. They also attempted to show the presence of cement on the London specimen through X-ray spectroscopy, and did find something that was not rock. However, it was not cement, either, and is most probably from a fragment of silicone rubber left behind when molds were made of the specimen. Their suggestions have not been taken seriously by paleontologists, as their evidence was largely based on misunderstandings of geology, and they never discussed the other feather-bearing specimens, which have increased in number since then."

Search it if you don't believe me.

I was completely unaware of any actual scientific refutation of it being a fraud. Thanks, I'll look into it.

 

[Thanatos34]

if God made beings which then evolved to be able to survive better, does that mean he made them wrong? if he intended them to evolve, why would he make things ill-equipped then let them battle it out for survival?

Because of the Natural Laws which He put in place, Earth's climate was going to change, thus the animals had to be able to adapt to it when it did so. It's a rather simple argument.

 

[PureChaos]

if God made beings which then evolved to be able to survive better, does that mean he made them wrong? if he intended them to evolve, why would he make things ill-equipped then let them battle it out for survival?

Because of the Natural Laws which He put in place, Earth's climate was going to change, thus the animals had to be able to adapt to it when it did so. It's a rather simple argument.

they aren't natural laws if someone put them there

 

[Art Axiv]

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/02/vatican-backs-darwin-dumps-cre.html

Here, this is what i was reffering to.

 

[mdk31]

Good grief, so many people dying to disprove God's existence.

It's really not up to atheists to disprove your god's existence, anymore than it is up to those who don't believe in santa claus to disprove his existence. Theists make the assertion that their god exists; therefore, the onus is on them to provide evidence.

-actually, under Standard Rules of Debate, Creationism is a widely held theory. Because it is a widely held theory, it does not need to be proven. It must be disproven. The Pythagorean Thoerum operates similarly.(by definition, the Pythagorean Theorum can never be proven.)

Both belief systems require faith I just place my faith in creationism.

How, pray tell, does accepting that evolution occurs require faith? The evidence is there, mountains of it. No faith required. Creationism, on the other hand...


Edit: Also, guaranteed way to instantly create a huge thread: Mention evolution, creationism, or religion. >_<

There is actually some evidence as to the validity of creationism. Whether or not it's conclusive is the issue. For example, some animals evolved A LOT of beneficial mutant traits in a VERY shot period of time- some people argue that this is suppporting evidence that evolution is guided by a Creator, since it is mathematically improbable that so many beneficial mutations would occur in a such a short period of time.

Which animals? Sources please?

For example, the infamous "dinosaurs became birds" theory- it has been reasoned that if a meteor really did wipe out the dinosaurs, than it would have wiped out the tortoises and crocodiles that shared the same living space.

By whom? What data did they use to support this conclusion?

And of course, the necessary mutations for dinosaurs to become birds, happening all so rapidly, would have been somewhat unlikely...

Rapidly? Haha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

even so, an atheist would argue that even if dinosaurs became birds, it would still prove nothing. Ultimately, there is a difference between supporting evidence, and CONCLUSIVE supporting evidence, which is also the difference between a theory and a fact.

Right, science isn't in the business of proofs, that's left to mathematicians. Science is concerned with gathering evidence and devising laws and theories that explain and incorporate all the available evidence, while contradicting none of it.

Also, a theory isn't a hunch or a guess. I really wish people would take the time to learn what "theory" means in science.

First off, I apologize for not being able to name more sources. I've heard of a few, but can't name any others off hand.

Secondly, I didn't claim that the "dinosaurs became birds theory" Grant advocated in the original Jurassic park was the origin of birds, I simply said some people believe that dinosaurs became birds.

Thirdly, as for what a theory is:

1. First you observe a phenomemon

2. then you propose a hypothesis for it's nature

3. then you do testing. if you have INCONCLUSIVE supporting evidence, it becomes a theory.

4. If you have CONCLUSIVE supporting evidence, it becomes a law, fact, or principle.

EDIT: It's worth noting that even laws, (the Law of Entropy, for example) are considered to be *possibly* wrong, due to the inherently subjective nature of perception. Hence, some people argue that "theory" is the highest state one can obtain-despite the tendency of common textbooks to use the phrase "law" which admittedly doesn't necessarily make such usage correct.

Fail. A theory is a well-supported model of how something happens that explains all available facts. A theory does not "grow up" into a law. A law explains what happens. A theory explains how it happens.

 

[murphy7801]

oh this still going just let this thread die hardly really about the monkey any more

 

[Cowabungaa]

*snip*

Well technically, all new species you discover is a missing link, all are new pieces in the giant jigsaw that is the evolutionary history of life. But do remember that this fossil was found 2 years ago, and that it's been studied intensly for 2 years before publishing a paper about it and announcing the find worlwide. It's pretty easy for us or even a biology teacher to just say "O it's another species of lemur" by just looking over the pictures. Ofcourse it's normal to ask what makes this a "missing link", but you'll only get a proper answer from the people who found this little monkey and researched it. Only they can tell why they named this thing a missing link. That's always something I find strange, people asking questions is good, I don't blaim them for that. But rarely I hear stories from skeptical people who asked those questions to the actual researchers.

 

[BentNeatly]

im no paleontologist... but that thing on its foot is reminiscent of like a raptor or some thing. But again, I have not the slightest clue what I'm talking about.