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LOL, yes in the early days of paleontology, they didn't have much to work with. But, hey... those were monsters and monsters always have horns and spikes and stuff.

After all, iguanadon was only the second fossil find that was deliberately excavated and examined. Back in those days, they had nothing more that gross morphology to make comparisons to known living species. The sciences have changed a great deal since then. Modern optics allow incredibly detailed looks at the bone structure, to the point of being able to judge how muscles were attached. Teeth can be examined to determine what the creature ate... not just carnivore or herbivore, but that it ate seeds from thus&such plant. I'll admit that I am skeptical about the ability of actual proteins to survive 68 million years, but if they can survive, then our science is at the point where we can find them and examine them and compare the with modern animals.

There are also many, many more fossils known now than were known just 100 years ago, including many transitional forms:

Example 1: bird-reptiles

In the case just mentioned, we have found a quite complete set of dinosaur-to-bird transitional fossils with no morphological "gaps" (Sereno 1999), represented by Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis, Ichthyornis, and Columba, among many others (Carroll 1997, pp. 306-323; Norell and Clarke 2001; Sereno 1999; Xu et al. 1999; Xu et al. 2000; Xu et al. 2002). All have the expected possible morphologies (see Figure 3.1.1 from Prediction 3.1 for a few examples), including organisms such as Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, and the famous "BPM 1 3-13" (a dromaeosaur from China now named Cryptovolans pauli; Czerkas et al. 2002 ) which are flightless bipedal dinosaurs with modern-style feathers (Chen et al. 1998 ; Qiang et al. 1998; Norell et al. 2002). Additionally, several similar flightless dinosaurs have been found covered with nascent evolutionary precursors to modern feathers (branched feather-like integument indistinguishable from the contour feathers of true birds), including Sinornithosaurus ("Bambiraptor"), Sinosauropteryx, Beipiaosaurus, Microraptor, and an unnamed dromaeosaur specimen, NGMC 91, informally called "Dave" (Ji et al. 2001). The All About Archaeopteryx FAQ gives a detailed listing of the various characters of Archaeopteryx which are intermediate between reptiles and modern birds.

The above quote comes from here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Here is a good site for learning about evolution:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

And here's one with a "missing link":
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/tiktaalik_makes_another_gap.php

The analysis of the fossil clearly positions it as an intermediate: it has a more mobile skull/neck than a fish, and although its limbs are clearly fin-like, they also have features that presage the digits of tetrapods.

The name of the aticle refers to the fact that each new fossil find that fills in a transitional gap then creates two new gaps on either side. Well, at least that is how evolution deniers like to see it.

In the end, what it really coes down to is this: the evidence supporting the claims of xians regarding Jesus are easily a thousand times better than the claims denying evolution. At least the xians have some evidence supporting Jesus. I mean, well... he was of the tribe of Judah, he was born of a woman, and he rode a donkey! That proves he was HaMesaiach, right?

I have not been able to find a single article claiming archaeopteryx as a fake dated any later than the 1984 claims made by astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle and physicist Lee Spetner. Neither is an expert in the field, and their claim was thoroughly refuted soon after it was made.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC351.html

What is an English translation of tanshemet?

Evolution does not require blind faith, nor faith of any sort. All of the evidnce supports evolution, there is no evidence that denies evolution.

Rabbi Daniel wrote:

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http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC352.html

[quot]

Response:

1. Archaeoraptor was not a scientific fraud. It was put together by the Chinese fossil hunter who discovered it. The pieces were assembled to make the fossil more marketable to collectors, not to researchers. This worker may or may not have known that the tail came from a separate fossil (Simons 2000).
2. Archaeoraptor was published in the popular press, not in peer-reviewed journals. The main author of the article about it was National Geographic's art editor, not a scientist. Nature and Science both rejected papers describing it, citing suspicions that it was doctored and illegally smuggled (Dalton 2000; Simons 2000). Normal scientific procedures worked to uphold high standards.
3. The two halves of Archaeoraptor (Yanornis martini, the body, and Microraptor zhaoianus, the tail) are valuable fossils in their own right (Rowe et al. 2001; Xu et al. 2000; Zhou et al. 2002). [/quote]

It was the scientists that discovered the fraud, and the fraud was not in archaeopteryx, but in "archaeoraptor". Oh, and it was the scientists who discovered the Piltdown Man hoax as well. Indeed, it is safe to say that if there are any frauds out there, it will be the paleontologists who discover and report them. That's just the way science works.

Rabbi Daniel wrote:

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True.
There are so many frauds out there, it is hard to keep them all straight.

Glad I was able to bring it to your attention.

This article seems to be from a source less biased than the one you use.
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca...t/NHR/archaeopteryx.html

"So, in the end, what is Archaeopteryx ? Was it a theropod dinosaur or a bird? Could it fly or not? Is it a crucial missing-link or a bizarre offshoot? A legitimate fossil or an artful hoax? The answers to these questions are far from complete but I'll bet that Archaeopteryx will continue to provoke curiosity and debate for a long time to come yet."

That's some evidence!

But that ending quote seems to have far more to do with finding a good ending to the essay than with an real controversy. As the article points out, Hoyle, et al were soundly refuted the first time they tried to claim fraud, and the second attempt was even worse.

Others might be deterred but Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have replied with Archaeopteryx, The Primordial Bird a book published in London by Christopher Davis in 1987. In it they repeat their claims in addition to advancing the notion that evolution proceeds in sudden fits and starts as a result of genetic storms of viruses carried to the earth from outer space. "Egads," you might think "where is the line between science and science fiction?" Molecular biologist have reacted with embarrassment to these mystical outpourings and have replied that there exists not an iota of evidence to support these wild theories. In a review of the book in New Scientist (10 September, 1987) Beverly Halstead writes;

"This contribution [is] one of the most despicable pieces of writing it has ever been my misfortune to read. It displays utter contempt for minimal standards of scholarship ... [and] will remain for a long time a stain on the reputation of both authors."

Space viruses? Yeah, there is a hypothesis that life on Earth got its start from genetic material that came from elsewhere in space (thus setting up the recursive question of where did it originate?) but even with my background as a long time reader of sci-fi, I have never heard anyone propose repeated mutenagenic showers of space viruses.

Now, this does still leave the question of the exact placement of archaeopteryx within the phylogenic tree somewhat up in the air. Was it a dinosaur, a bird, or a transitional species part way between the two? The only real answer will come if we get incredibly lucky with more fossil finds and firm up the family tree. Or if we invent a time machine and go back and visit that time period and collect specimens...

Rabbi Daniel wrote:

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"But that ending quote seems to have far more to do with finding a good ending to the essay than with an real controversy."

When I first saw this I thought you were being very selective in what you felt the article was about.

Then when I read your ending,

"Was it a dinosaur, a bird, or a transitional species part way between the two?
So you did read the whole article and saw fit to end it the very same way.
That makes sense.

in conclusion, seems that everyone will agree that the archaeopteryx is not what everyone else says it is.

So I can say it again, that's some evidence!

You continue, [and here's where the denial comes in,]
"The only real answer will come if we get incredibly lucky with more fossil finds and firm up the family tree.

With the MILLIONS of species in the world and the MILLIONS of fossils already dug up... if we get lucky and find one more...?

That's like saying, "If congress gives GM just $10 more, that'll pull them out of it."

Sort of.

Millions of fossils? Well, sort of... if we count all the samples of trillobites and other such critters. The problem is that we only have seven specimins of archaeopteryx. I don't know the exact numbers, but currently, we only have a couple of thousand different species represented in the fossils, covering the whole of life on Earth (except the real early stuff...) and too many of those are things like the trillobites. The transition from dinosaur to bird would have covered many species. We would need at least a dozen species to just get the broad strokes. To get the full picture would need as many as a hundred different species from across 50 million years. It is unlikely that all of those species left fossils.

Thanks to world wars 1 & 2, I can't find records of my great- great- grandparents on my mother's side. Does that mean they never existed? Or does it just mean that the records themselves no longer exist?

Rabbi Daniel wrote:

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There you go!
Who needs evidence to say the evidence existed!

If you don't have records of your great, grand, grandparents- a process repeated over 6 billion times in the world- today alone- [then of course you can multiply that by 5000 years of recorded human history]- so of course fossils never found of a conjectured theory never proved regarding a process never seen- they also exist!

What a shame I just have a meager, religiously trained mind and not that sharp, analytical, scientifically honed, thinking machine that you've been blessed with.

Hey, show me how I can prove Elvis IS alive and that there are little green men on mars and the moon is made of cheese?
Please, please, please.....

"Blessed"-- yes, but also nurtured through a whole bunch of schooling in the sciences. But that does bring up a major difference between us. As you said, your mind is religiously trained. Ultimately, that is accepting an argument based on appeal to authority: you accept the Torah as the final authority on its subject. As a scientifically trained mind, I expect to see independant confirmation or testable evidence. For the past 150 years, the Theory of Evolution has stood up to all of the testable evidence anyone has been able to find.

I don't know the names of my great- great- grandparents. I don't know the name of the ancestor of the archaeopteryx. I don't know the name(s) of the decendant(s) of archaeopteryx, if it had any. At this point, who knows, it could have been an evolutionary dead end, in which case, we need to find the correct ancestor to modern birds. That is why I am saying that we need to get lucky and find more fossils of just the right type, from the right time and from the right place.

That is getting easier to do. Armed with the knowledge of geology and paleontology, scientists are now able to predict where fossils of a certain age might be found. Key word is "might". It takes a lot of luck for any given critter to end up as a fossil. There are many species that live in places where it is very unlikely that they will ever be fossilized. In some cases, an animal might get fossilized only to have the rock later exposed to weather and destroyed. Or they might end up buried far too deep for us to find them. Or someone built a hotel on the site.

Consider this: how many sparrows, squirrels, crows and pigeons are there today, living in cities or in the countryside, and how many of them will end up becoming fossils? In 50 million years, would a paleontologist be able to identifiy a single bird species that is currently living? What if, by some fluke, they were able to locate 3 fossils of Bald Eagles, and only one of a pigeon. Would it be correct to say that eagles were three times as common as pigeons? Modern day paleontologists know better than to make such a statement; they would look at the characteristics of each bird and conclude that the conditions that eagles lived in were more conducive for the formation of fossils.

Rabbi Daniel wrote:

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"As you said, your mind is religiously trained. Ultimately, that is accepting an argument based on appeal to authority: you accept the Torah as the final authority on its subject. As a scientifically trained mind, I expect to see independant confirmation or testable evidence. For the past 150 years, the Theory of Evolution has stood up to all of the testable evidence anyone has been able to find."

Hellllooooooooo?
Anybody home?

Curtains closed. Lights went out.


"Modern day paleontologists know better than to make such a statement; they would look at the characteristics of each bird and conclude that..."

This attempt of an argument is even emptier than your last, which I didn't know was possible.

50 million years from now, paleontologists would have NO IDEA if there were or weren't three times as many eagles as pigeons. So what you say is correct. They would say whatever they want!!
They shoot the arrow and then paint the bulls eye around it.
[Like a guy with three teeth and two bones who draws a lizard with a horn.]

You are the believer of a very blind faith and your last two posts just proved it. PROVED it.
I know when your faith has been blown out of the water it takes time for that to settle in. To adjustments to your new reality.
Go ahead.
Take all the time you need.

Nothing in the real world can be proved with absolute certainty. However, high degrees of certainty can be reached. In the case of evolution, we have huge amounts of data from diverse fields. Extensive evidence exists in all of the following different forms (Theobald 2004). Each new piece of evidence tests the rest.

• All life shows a fundamental unity in the mechanisms of replication, heritability, catalysis, and metabolism.
• Common descent predicts a nested hierarchy pattern, or groups within groups. We see just such an arrangement in a unique, consistent, well-defined hierarchy, the so-called tree of life.
• Different lines of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life. We get essentially the same results whether we look at morphological, biochemical, or genetic traits.
• Fossil animals fit in the same tree of life. We find several cases of transitional forms in the fossil record.
• The fossils appear in a chronological order, showing change consistent with common descent over hundreds of millions of years and inconsistent with sudden creation.
• Many organisms show rudimentary, vestigial characters, such as sightless eyes or wings useless for flight.
• Atavisms sometimes occur. An atavism is the reappearance of a character present in a distant ancestor but lost in the organism's immediate ancestors. We only see atavisms consistent with organisms' evolutionary histories.
• Ontogeny (embryology and developmental biology) gives information about the historical pathway of an organism's evolution. For example, as embryos whales and many snakes develop hind limbs that are reabsorbed before birth.
• The distribution of species is consistent with their evolutionary history. For example, marsupials are mostly limited to Australia, and the exceptions are explained by continental drift. Remote islands often have species groups that are highly diverse in habits and general appearance but closely related genetically. Squirrel diversity coincides with tectonic and sea level changes (Mercer and Roth 2003). Such consistency still holds when the distribution of fossil species is included.
• Evolution predicts that new structures are adapted from other structures that already exist, and thus similarity in structures should reflect evolutionary history rather than function. We see this frequently. For example, human hands, bat wings, horse legs, whale flippers, and mole forelimbs all have similar bone structure despite their different functions.
• The same principle applies on a molecular level. Humans share a large percentage of their genes, probably more than 70 percent, with a fruit fly or a nematode worm.
• When two organisms evolve the same function independently, different structures are often recruited. For example, wings of birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects all have different structures. Gliding has been implemented in many additional ways. Again, this applies on a molecular level, too.
• The constraints of evolutionary history sometimes lead to suboptimal structures and functions. For example, the human throat and respiratory system make it impossible to breathe and swallow at the same time and make us susceptible to choking.
• Suboptimality appears also on the molecular level. For example, much DNA is nonfunctional.
• Some nonfunctional DNA, such as certain transposons, pseudogenes, and endogenous viruses, show a pattern of inheritance indicating common ancestry.
• Speciation has been observed.
• The day-to-day aspects of evolution -- heritable genetic change, morphological variation and change, functional change, and natural selection -- are seen to occur at rates consistent with common descent.

Furthermore, the different lines of evidence are consistent; they all point to the same big picture. For example, evidence from gene duplications in the yeast genome shows that its ability to ferment glucose evolved about eighty million years ago. Fossil evidence shows that fermentable fruits became prominent about the same time. Genetic evidence for major change around that time also is found in fruiting plants and fruit flies (Benner et al. 2002).

The evidence is extensive and consistent, and it points unambiguously to evolution, including common descent, change over time, and adaptation influenced by natural selection. It would be preposterous to refer to these as anything other than facts.

From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA202.html
"The evidence is extensive and consistent, and it points unambiguously to evolution, including common descent, change over time, and adaptation influenced by natural selection. It would be preposterous to refer to these as anything other than facts."


I do believe you ned to go back and reread what I posted...

Rabbi Daniel wrote:

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I'd also say it's easier to believe in creation because there's substance to the story. Integrity. To it and the people who propagate it.
I think blind faith is very difficult.

But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe blind faith is as easy as opening your mouth and letting anything fall out.

Which reminds me, your theory of dinosaurs dying in the flood was tossed out at the beginning of this thread.

You tell me, is it easier to have blind faith that your particular cretion myth is the one true myth out of all the creation myths on this planet than it is to actually look at the libraries full of information proving that life evolved over 3.5 billion years?

Okay, that is a trick question. If the truth was easier, there would be no creationists left. The fact is, there is so much evidence supporting evolution that no one scientific discipline contains all of it. Physics teaches us about radeoactive decay, giving us one family of tools which we can use for dating fossils. Geology teaches about the layers of rock, how those layers are formed, and what kinds of rock might contain fossils. Biology actually has a couple of independant fields of study, including genetics. All of these fields, and all the others that I didn't mention interlock and provide overlapping lines of evidence. I have a life away from these type of boards. Much as I would like to, I simply don't have the time necessary to teach all of the science that supports the Theory of Evolution. I can give guidance, I can point to good websites that have information that can help you learn the truth about evolution. I just can't sit here and type in several hundred books worth of information. I really wish that I could just give you everything that you need but the best I can do is point out where the information is.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01
The UCBerkley website has some very good and readable pages talking about evolution. This particular page gives several of the lines of evidence supporting it.