i have a question involving intermittent species...
Offline the question came to me in a debate and i really had no solid answer. i know that there are types of creatures that show a "middle" development if you will, yet i cannot name any of them and i have no knowledge of them. if someone here could provide me with a example of this, or better yet a library of these examples, i would be very grateful.
the argument came up in a debate about how evolution is wrong. the Theist that i am debating at my school is not a very smart man but has memorized a lot of rhetoric. and this happens to be one of them.
oh and if this is already posted some place that i didn't see, then i am sorry. feel free to delete this thread.
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Dr. Richard Dawkins
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well i found what i was looking for and it only took me ten mins. feel free to delete.
THANKS,
CamelSpider
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Dr. Richard Dawkins
Care to post what you found for the rest of us?
here you go .....sorry i didn't think about it at the time. i was too busy writing up a rebuttal.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/link/evolution.html (this one is just for fun....)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
i originally found the first wiki site on another post here on RRS.
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Dr. Richard Dawkins
I take it you mean transitional fossils? I was a little confused by the intermittent species.
Not an evolutionary expert, but from what I do understand about this topic the time frame we can observe in order for evolution to take place is way too short. Darwin's finches in the Galapagos showed signs of micro-evolution. There is so much evidence for micro-evolution that even the most ardent creationist cannot dispute it. The term macro-evolution is a little confusing for someone not in the scientific community. The theory goes that physical boundaries such as mountains play a great deal in keeping certain genetic variance in play. If enough small changes occur in a given species over time then new sub-species can form. This can go on for thousands or millions of years so the chances of new species arising is not surprising. The changing of scales of reptiles into feathers is an example of how one species can turn into another over a period of time. Scientists have found that by witholding a certain amino acid in a reptile egg, the scales turn into feathers. It isn't hard to imagine that the presence of feathers as opposed to scales can be largely responsible for evolution.
The theory of evolution is not perfect, but explains things much better than creationism. My big question for the theist is where do they put such discoveries as the neanderthal? The bible is not a science book and anyone that says it is must be deluded. If someone claims that the well-documented existence of another similiar human species is unimportant then one has to wonder why god would make such an oddity. I have heard a lot of the alternate theories of their existence, but like all extraordinary claims it requires extraordinary evidence.
I have debated creationists too and know how frustrating it can be. They get frustrated that I won't take what they say on faith and I get frustrated when they refuse to listen to what scientists say. A friend of mine told me recently that there are dinosaurs living in Borneo still. He sent me a link to Kent Hovind's website showing said claim. I explored the site some more and found an article from an 1858 newspaper claiming that a living pteradactyl had been found in a cave while digging a tunnel. The story went on to state that the creature stumbled out toward the men and then turned into dust. I brought this to his attention and he seemed to believe this as well. I mean, how can a living dinosaur just turn into a cloud of dust? Oh wait, it is bullshit that's how.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
Probably the most common error that creationists make is in their understanding of the term "transitional species." To be precise about it, every organism that has ever lived has been a transitional organism. Selection doesn't turn off and on. It's always working. There are two inherent problems with the idea of transitional fossils.
1) The very term 'species' is kind of arbitrary. While we know, for instance, that Homo sapien is a different species than Homo erectus, there was never a time when a Homo erectus mother looked at her baby and thought, "Gee whiz! That thing ain't Homo erectus! It's a new species!" Species only get differentiated after the fact. As they are changing, nobody notices because the changes are so miniscule.
2) Most creationists don't consider all the evolutionary dead ends. Imagine a tree with ten branches on it. Each branch comes from the same trunk, and represents a mutation within a species. Each one might well continue to branch off, eventually forming its own species. However, many of them will eventually die out. When we find a pre-human fossil of a human-like ancestor, we can't be sure that it comes from our exact branch. Fossils are extremely rare, and due to environmental conditions at the time of its extinction, we might miss entire branches. As a result, there are a lot of fossils that appear to be very similar to another species, but it's very difficult to know for certain.
Like damn near everything else about evolution, creationists are simply ignorant of this. As a general rule, I won't even discuss evolution with a creationist until they can adequately demonstrate knowledge of recombination and crossover, and then explain the basics of mutation and how it differs from either recombination or crossover. Interestingly, I hardly ever have to debate.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
well yes i did mean Transitional species/fossil. and as far as the resources i found all it took was to land a copy of all this on his desk and watch in amazement as he kept flipping pages trying to find a hole in it. the only thing he could say after all this was "well why are there no other apes that have human traits?" all i could give him is the Bonobos (spelling?). but i think that it is kind of futile to try to make someone understand that they are wrong and that evolution was thought up by Darwin not Satan...
...is there any hope for this world?
thanks anyways for all the help in the follow up...
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Dr. Richard Dawkins
really?......hmmm i would really enjoy reading something on this if you can remember a link or source....
that is just great...again a good read if you are so inclined.
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Dr. Richard Dawkins