Evidence 2 - Why (Non intelligent) Evolution is impossible?

[Messenger]

Evolutionists claim that mutation (and some other uncontrolled factors) do the change (if it happened) in evolving species

Every genetic mutation involving form or function observed in laboratories has either been fatal, crippling, or self-reversing
There is an overwhelming tendency of organisms to suffer, rather than benefit from mutation.
Most mutations do not transfer into other generations

Where are the fossil records for all of the unselected species?


My question is not about distinct animals, it is about fossils of species that don't fall into the line of selected evolution
for example while a fin is evolving into a leg, or a hand evolving into a wing; as claimed by evolution nature selects some/fit mutations (out of many/unfit others)

Why we did not find just a single fossil record of such un-selected species?
for example a leg facing backwards, a creature with 3 eyes, a creature with 7 fingers, and generations of them as well

You can not say it won't survive, because its (presumed) ancestor had almost no leg and it survived (to evolve)
If you said, they never existed, then evolution is very smart to foretell which animal will evolve into something beneficial  :hmm:

[bowmore]

Why we did not find just a single fossil record of such un-selected species?

Since fossils are relatively rare.

Luckily we can observe unfavourable mutations in live beings.

[curiosityandthecat]

[McQ]

Evolutionists claim that mutation (and some other uncontrolled factors) do the change (if it happened) in evolving species

Every genetic mutation involving form or function observed in laboratories has either been fatal, crippling, or self-reversing
There is an overwhelming tendency of organisms to suffer, rather than benefit from mutation.
Most mutations do not transfer into other generations

Where are the fossil records for all of the unselected species?


My question is not about distinct animals, it is about fossils of species that don't fall into the line of selected evolution
for example while a fin is evolving into a leg, or a hand evolving into a wing; as claimed by evolution nature selects some/fit mutations (out of many/unfit others)

Why we did not find just a single fossil record of such un-selected species?
for example a leg facing backwards, a creature with 3 eyes, a creature with 7 fingers, and generations of them as well
 

You can not say it won't survive, because its (presumed) ancestor had almost no leg and it survived (to evolve)
If you said, they never existed, then evolution is very smart to foretell which animal will evolve into something beneficial  :hmm:

This is exactly[/b] the reason why I no longer bother to debate this with people who believe as you do, Messenger. You truly, truly, have no idea whatsoever about evolution. From the very meaning of the theory, to the simplest, most basic biological functions, to the most complex mechanisms....you are absolutely and overwhelmingly clueless. This is not a personal attack on your overall intelligence or ability to learn, or even of your participation in the forum, but a valid statement of your ignorance of this topic (look up the word ignorance before replying that I'm flaming you, please).

You simply don't know what the hell you're talking about. Period. Yet, here you are trying to argue this theory as if you know something. You can't even properly cite references from "Answers in Genesis" or whatever other ludicrous source you're getting this information from. It is profoundly sad to see someone do this.

Willful ignorance is the most devastating example of one of the weaknesses of the human race. For all of our ability to think and reason, this one thing holds us back and hurts us more than greed, or lust, or any other fallibility.

Until you show a desire to actually discuss this topic without this willful ignorance, you are, in my opinion, no longer even worth responding to. I know people will continue to do so, and more power to them. I wish them luck in the endeavor.

On the other hand, if you do not start responding to the evidence presented to you from people who do know what they're talking about (like Squid for example), then you will be skating on thinner ice than you already are, and will face being banned from the forum completely. Do not continue this pattern of ignoring those who take the time to thoughtfully respond to you, while making nonsensical new arguments.

You've now started a second thread on this topic without replying to the valid points made to you by people who are both educated in biology and know a great deal about the topic. You don't get another chance after this.

[Tom62]

Please read the hundreds of other threads on this forum about evolution first before starting another thread about evolution. I'm fed up about that topic myself and have no intentions to respond to any illogical remarks about evolution from people who don't understand evolution;  who have no interest in understanding evolution and who are not willing to learn from people who do understand it.

[Squid]

Your basis is flawed - most mutations are neutral. A mutation does not necessarily translate into a change of the organisms phenotype - basic genetics (do some research on Hox genes and neutral theory).  You also seem to be confusing development with evolution and forgetting a basic tenet of evolution - individuals don't evolve populations do.  Also, the claim that "patterns" or organized structures and the like need a creator is baseless as well:

[Sophus]

Thanks for the laugh Messenger. Are you a buddy of youngblacksmart?

Let's hear it for Squid, who constantly enlightens the ignorant.    I don't think I would have the patience to deal with Creationists. The concept of evolution is over their head and most likely always will be.

[Kyuuketsuki]

You really, really don't understand evolution do you.

Given that this is little more than a transitional fossils denial I will simply post another of my articles for you to avoid (since that seems to be your speciality):

Transitional Species v3.0
By
Fallen Angel

Introduction
Young Earth creationists, as always attempting to disprove any theory that disputes their belief that life on Earth has evolved rather than be divinely created, dispute evolution on the basis that there should be evidence of transitional species. In fact some sites (such as "Answers In Genesis") go as far as to insist there must be "billions of transitional fossils" if evolution was correct and not merely "a handful of questionable transitions".

Discussion
In posing this supposed flaw in the fossil record creationists misunderstand one vital concept and that is that all non-current species (with the exception of the ultimate common ancestor) are transitional. Each and every species noted in the evolutionary tree are of a form that is transitional between its ancestor and its descendants.

The problem lies in the fact that once named; an animal (usually extinct) becomes regarded, as a species in itself so, where there were once two species with no transitional, there is, once the transitional is found and named, now three species with two transitional gaps. Any objective observer will realise that this process can continue ad infinitum and that no matter what explanation is offered, in the eyes of the lay critic, there will never be a satisfactory transitional filling the gap between any given species.

So what is a fossil? A fossil is, quite simply, the fossilised remains of a once living creature but how does fossilisation occur?

To allow for fossilisation the remains of a creature must be rapidly covered by (sometimes even killed by) sediments which often occurred when animals were washed into water or lived in lakes and seas as the remains would then have been rapidly covered by sediment at the bottom. This accounts for the higher frequency of fossilisation of sea-creatures and animals that may have lived close to such bodies of water. Once covered by sediment the flesh and skin of the cadaver almost always completely rotted away and, as more sediments began to build on the remaining bones over the following centuries, minerals from surrounding water began to percolate through the rock and into the porous bone structures altering the bone to a petrified state.

In some cases acidic water would dissolve the bone completely leaving a natural "mould" so that the original shape could be discerned by pouring rubber into the "mould" and extracting it and other times the "moulds" filled with natural sediments and became a perfect rock-like replica of the original skeleton. In very rare cases a carcass may have been covered in such a way that it naturally mummified  and even skin & folds in the flesh may have been preserved ... the colour, however, of these animals will likely always remain a mystery to us.

So what is a transitional fossil? As it implies a transitional fossil is one that lies, in evolutionary terms, between two species and exhibits some features of one, some of the other and possibly some features that are at a stage of development some way between the two. In an ideal world the transitional would be unearthed in a location (in terms of the geologic column) at an appropriate position between the evidence for the species it is transitional too however there is no reason why a transitional fossil must only give rise to one descendent or that it must appear to die out as soon as it has done so.

By it's very nature the fossil record is incomplete ... that is the nature of fossilisation and the rather unusual conditions required for it to occur so for creationists to ask where are the "billions of transitional fossils" in the way that they do borders upon complete stupidity.

That said there are a vast number of fossils that are regarded as being true transitionals.

De Ricqles (1983) and Horner et al. (1992) document possible cases of gradual evolution and some lineage's that show abrupt appearance or stasis. Examples are several species from the early Permian (reptiles such as Captorhinus, Protocaptorhinus, Eocaptorhinus, Romeria) and the "Montana" site (a coastal plain in the late Cretaceous) where many excellent transitional dinosaur were found including:

* Many transitional ceratopsids between Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus.
* Many transitional lambeosaurids (50 plus specimens) between Lambeosaurus and Hypacrosaurus.
* A transitional pachycephalosaurid between Stegoceras and Pachycephalosaurus.
* A transitional tyrannosaurid between Tyrannosaurus and Daspletosaurus.

These transitional animals, apparently lived over a 500,000-year period, but were known from a much larger site ("the Judith River Formation") where a 5 million-year evolutionary stasis occurred with the subsequent, and very abrupt, appearance of many new forms. Evidence indicates that climactic changes acted in such a way the sea level rose during the 500,000-year period temporarily burying the Judith River Formation under water and forcing the dinosaur populations into smaller areas such as the site in Montana. Evolution can proceed very rapidly within isolated populations and, when sea level fell again, the new forms spread out to the re-exposed Judith River landscape, thus appearing "suddenly" in the Judith River fossils, with the transitional fossils only existing in the Montana site.

The "missing link" ER1470 ("Lucy" or Australopithecus afarensis) was found by two independent anthropologists i.e. Donald Johanson (Hadar region, Ethiopia) and Mary Leakey (Laetolil, Tanzania). Lucy's obstetrics demonstrate that she would have been able to give birth to a baby no larger than a newborn male chimp or orang-utan and that that new baby's brain would have comprised around 10% of its total weight. Other facets of Lucy's structure (such as her hind limbs being adapted for walking whilst her toes were longer and more curved, her fingers longer and better adapted for grasping branches and trunks), arguably a direct or close ancestor of mankind indicate her transitional nature in comparison to modern man.

Archaeopteryx, the transitional fossil oft claimed by creationists to be a forgery, is another transitional between reptile and bird ... the German specimen, for example, has feathers and dinosaur like teeth. Independent investigators have verified the authenticity of several specimens of the fossil, in response to creationist allegations of forgery, and other investigators have found other specimens of the same fossil organism.

There are excellent skeletons of extinct animals showing transition from primitive fish to bony fish, from fish to amphibian (the first four-legged creatures walked on the ocean bottom, not on land), from amphibian to reptile, from reptile to mammal, from reptile to bird and even from land animal to whale (fossil whales have been found with four legs & whales today still have skeletal components that can be identified as parts of hind legs deep in their flesh whilst their front legs have evolved into flippers).

One, particularly well-defined fossil sequence of transitions documents the evolution of apelike creatures through 6 or more intermediate forms to modern day humans.

The horse, perhaps the oldest known transitional sequence, starts some 55 million years ago with the terrier-sized Eohippus. Eohippus had four toes in front and three in back and, for technical reasons, has since been renamed Hyracotherium. From Eohippus a lineage descended through at least 14 steps, each step being represented by successfully competing animals, right through to the modern horse ( the pony-sized creature designated as Equus) genus to which all modern horses belong.

Conclusion
Creationists believe that gaps in the fossil record "show fundamental biological discontinuities, while evolutionary biologists think they are the inevitable result of chance fossilisations, chance discoveries, and immigration events" (Hunt, 1997)
It must be admitted that there are gaps in the fossil record, enough to keep scientists in business for many decades (perhaps centuries) to come, and that most fossil types are extremely rare. Fossilisation, in relative terms, is a rare event as the animal to be fossilised must die in circumstances that bury it in sediment before scavengers or environment can destroy it and then that area must be subject to whatever processes are necessary to lift and expose the remains adequately enough for scientists to be made aware of its existence.

Even though there are gaps the fossil record does demonstrate to us the following:
* An obvious tendency for successively higher and more recent fossil finds to resemble modern species more closely i.e. a temporal - morphological correlation that is highly noticeable and appears to point toward an origin of all vertebrates from a common ancestor.
* Many chains or branches of genera that appear to connect primitive genera with modern radically different genera and by which major evolutionary change can be traced.
* Large numbers of species-to-species transitions that (often) cross genus & (sometimes) family lines and often result in significant adaptation.
* A lot of gaps. For stratigraphic reasons there must always be gaps and no current evolutionary model predicts or requires a complete fossil record and no rational person expects that the fossil record will ever be close to complete.

It is also worth noting that it is possible to argue that all species are transitional, that humans and other "end-branch" species are not transitional as they have not yet evolved into whatever species they one day will do.

So, to claim that there are no transitional fossils is not a valid interpretation of the available evidence it is, quite simply, wrong. To claim that the gaps in the fossil record are sufficient to disprove evolution simply demonstrates an extreme ignorance of what science is and a wilful disregard of the awesome levels of evidence supporting the theory of evolution.

References
"Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ", Kathleen Hunt (1997)
"Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ (Part 2c)", Kathleen Hunt (1997)
 "5 Major Misconceptions About Evolution", Mark Isaak (1998)
"It's a bird, it's a dinosaur - it's both", Paul Reger (1999)
"How Science Responds When Creationists Criticize Evolution", Boyce Rensberger (1997)
"The Natural History Book Of Dinosaurs" Tim Gardom & Angela Milner (1993)

I know you want to avoid this so go on ... have fun because you know I am going to enjoy hounding you for it  

Kyu

[Squid]

What Messenger must understand is that evolution is not the same as development.  Each organism that reaches developmental maturity is “fully formed” so to speak.  Therefore the request for an organism with “half a leg” is misguided by a misunderstanding of evolution.  This is one of the many points that people who reject evolution seem to be misinformed upon.  So, please, understand that no scientist is claiming nor did Darwin or Wallace claim that we should find an organism with “half a leg” or the like.

Now, can such phenotypic traits such as legs disappear over time in a lineage? Yes.  We can see this occurring in modern day skinks which gives us insight into the relationship between quadrapedal lizards and snakes.  Take the Alberts Burrowing Skink for example:



For burrowing reptiles, having large limbs can be a hindrance and therefore because of their ecology, having smaller legs seems to be advantageous and therefore their legs have dwindled in size over time and most likely will eventually be gone as has happened to the ancestors of modern snakes.  And in grass dwelling creatures, an elongated form with miniaturized limbs aids in gliding locomotion (Gans, 1975).

So, is this shown in the fossil record? Yes, it is.  One example is the specimen of lizard (Adriosaurus microbrachis) which is about 95 million years old. This specimen shows, “complete loss of the manus and zeugopodium in association with elongation of the axial skeleton” (Palci and Caldwell, 2007). The significance of this find would be that it would fit the laymanistic concept of a “transitional” specimen from “lizard” to “snake”.

A similar find was reported in April of 2006 of an Upper Cretaceous serpent with functional hindlimbs as well as a sacrum supporting its pelvic girdle whereas these have been lacking in other specimens which more closely resemble modern snakes (Apesteguia and Zaher, 2006).

This image is of A. microbrachis and shows the pectoral girdle and cervical vertebrae:



This is a drawing of what the specimen would have most likely resembled, notice the reduction in size of the forelimbs â€" which is also shown in the photograph of the fossil specimen above:



This is a photo take directly from the article on the specimen N. rionegrina:



Therefore, as you can see, selective pressures can work to select for smaller limbs or it can work to select for maximal body size as was a prominent trend in many dinosaur species.  Also, you can see that the skinks have fully developed limbs even though they are very small â€" yet they are functional.  Once they reach the point to where they no longer function then they become vestigial as are the hind limbs found in whales.  However, sometimes a case arises where the hindlimbs actually form apart from the musculature and vestigial bone structure of the pelvis and the structure of the terrestrial limbs into “flippers” (Andrews, 1921):



This is what is known as an atavism, as noted by Bejder & Hall (2002) in their review:

Limblessness is polygenic, involving genes with pleiotropic effects... Surprisingly,  genes involved in limb development also function on other developing systems, such as the jaws, teeth, and genitalia...  We might therefore expect genes associated with limb bud development to be retained after limb buds are lost, providing the potential for partial or even complete reappearance of limb elements; recall that condensation can be present even when the skeletal element is not.  An atavism is the reappearance of an ancestral character in an individual within a descendant population (pp. 452).

This is not simple some trumped up hypothesis that atavisms are reappearances of ancestral characteristics.  This has been reproduced in the lab as well.  In 2006, an article in Current Biology detailed a chicken mutant which grew archosaurian type teeth, closely resembling those of modern alligators (Harris, Hasso, Ferguson & Fallon, 2006).

So, as you can see there is a difference between what you’re arguing and what evolutionary biology shows us.   This is the exact problem that fuels the whole “controversy” over evolution â€" simple misunderstanding of evolution by people who think they understand it and then refuse to learn otherwise â€" willful ignorance.  Such attitudes are only serving to hurt us as a nation.

References:

Andrews, R. (1921). A remarkable case of external hind limbs in a humpback whale. American Museum Novitates (No. 9). New York: The American Museum of Natural History.

Apesteguia, S. and Zaher, H. (2006). A Cretaceous terrestrial snake with robust hindlimbs and a sacrum. Nature, 440, 1037-1040.

Berger-Dell’mour, H. (1985). The lizard genus Tetradactylus: A model case of an evolutionary process. In K. Schuchmann (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on African vertebrates: Systematics, phylogeny and evolutionary ecology (pp. 495-510).  Bonn, Germany:  Selbstverlag. 495-510.

Gans, C. (1975). Tetrapod limblessness:  Evolution and functional corollaries.  American Zoologist, 15, 455-467.

Harris, M., Hasso, S., Ferguson, M. & Fallon, J. (2006). The development of archosaurian first-generation teeth in a chicken mutant.  Current Biology, 16, 371-377.

Palci, A. and Caldwell, M. (2007). Vestigial forelimbs and axial elongation in a 95 million-year-old non-snake squamate. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 27(1), 1-7.

[Will]

Wonderful posts, Kyu and Squid. Thoroughly enjoyable.

[Asmodean]

I think we have enough votes to pass sentence, no?  

Messenger, you just don't get it.

[Messenger]

This is not a personal attack on your overall intelligence or ability to learn, or even of your participation in the forum, but a valid statement of your ignorance of this topic (look up the word ignorance before replying that I'm flaming you, please). .

It is not a personal attack because you don't know me, it is a defense for your blind belief (Evolution)

Period. Yet, here you are trying to argue this theory as if you know something. You can't even properly cite references from "Answers in Genesis" or whatever other ludicrous source you're getting this information from.

there is no source, because I'm the original source  

You've now started a second thread on this topic without replying to the valid points made to you by people who are both educated in biology and know a great deal about the topic.

These are two separate topics, I'll respond to each

[Messenger]

You really, really don't understand evolution do you.

Given that this is little more than a transitional fossils denial I will simply post another of my articles for you to avoid (since that seems to be your speciality):
 know you want to avoid this so go on ... have fun because you know I am going to enjoy hounding you for it  
Kyu

Thanks, but you are answering an unasked question

[Messenger]

Therefore the request for an organism with “half a leg” is misguided by a misunderstanding of evolution.  This is one of the many points that people who reject evolution seem to be misinformed upon.  

Again you are evading the question by talking about another subject.
I did not ask for a half leg at all
If you claim that fins evolve into legs, then there will be stage of fin, fin that look like leg say by 10% then by 20% then ....... a leg
A fin that looks like a leg by 10% is less than a fin and close to a leg
As Evolution is un-controlled then there must be many other mutations that did not work (unfit or unselected) over generations, then nature selected our fin with 10% leg as it is fitter!

For example if you claim that human hand with 5 fingers is the best for nature, How nature could predict while/before evolving that 5 will be the best
Your only option is to say, there were things with 2,3, 6,7 fingers and those with 5 survived better

Those what I'm asking for and those that you can never find and you can not deny as well, this is your problem  

[Squid]

There is no prediction, no predestined goal - your thinking is backwards.  What we see in nature is the result of selection not a prelude of things yet to come in some goal-oriented way.

You want terrestrial transitions - case example T. roseae.  This specimen represents a crucial link between terrestrial tetrapods and fish. Tiktaalik is a sarcopterygian fish from the Devonian period. It is important in the fish to tetrapod lineage because, as Daeschler, Shubin and Jenkins (2006) state:

…[Tiktaalik roseae] represents an intermediate between fish with fins and tetrapods with limbs, and provides unique insights into how and in what order important tetrapod characters arose (pp. 757)

It represents a specimen linking earlier specimens such as Panderichthys and Elpistostege to the later specimens such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Since most people understand concepts better with visual stimulation, here’s a picture:

Picture 1 shows T. roseae’s position within the lineage:



And another example of why this specimen is important:



And another:



These specimens like T. roseae are called transitional in the sense that they connect two important transitional periods in evolution such as the transition to terrestrial vertebrates.

The other examples I gave in the previous post also show a similar gradual selection upon a particular morphology.  

But, what you seem to want is a specimen which is "deformed" or the like which was not beneficial to the selection of that phenotype.  If this is what exactly your wanting then your wanting what is referred to as a pathological specimen.  Then how about a pathological Psittacosaurus with a shorter and stouter fibula which was concluded that the dinosaur could have been impeded but still able to walk (Lu, Kobayashi, Lee & Ji, 2007).  Also pathological dinosaurian eggs have been found from in situ clutches (Jackson, Garrido, Schmitt, Chiappe, Dingus & Loope, 2004).  Or how about an Allosaurus with odd spur formations upon some ribs, bone growth on the 13th dorsal vertebrae amongst other items listed upon this specimen (some abnormalities were determined to be from trauma) (Hanna, 2002).  Or specimens of sauropods with fused vertebrae (Rothschild & Berman, 1991).

References:

Hanna, R. (2002). Multiple Injury and Infection in a Sub-Adult Theropod Dinosaur Allosaurus fragilis with Comparisons to Allosaur Pathology in the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry Collection.  Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 22, 79-90.

Jackson, F., Garrido, A., Schmitt, J., Chiappe, L., Dingus, L. & Loope, D. (2004). Abnormal, multilayered Titanosaur (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) eggs from in situ clutches at the Auca Mahuevo locality, Neuquen Province, Argentina.  Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 24, 913-922.

Lu, J., Kobayashi, Y., Lee, Y. & Ji, Q. (2007). A new Psittacosaurus (Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) specimen from the Yixian Formation of western Liaoning, China: the first pathological psittacosaurid.  Cretaceous Research, 28, 272-276.

Rothschild, B. & Berman, D. (1991). Fusion of caudal vertebrae in Late Jurassic Sauropods. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 11, 29-36.