Explaining the terminology used in Evolutionary Sciences

[ecco]

Now lets explore the language used here.....The heading says "indications of interactions" not evidence for them. And "some scientists have interpreted" what they see in this fossil.....others interpret differently.....supposedly the scientists all have the necessary qualifications to assess what they are seeing? Why the disagreement? Why is exploring these hypotheses leading to different interpretations?....because they are trying to squeeze a conclusion out of their evidence that supports their theory...even if they disagree with each other....as long as their conclusions prop up their theory, what does it matter?

You're funny. Do you really understand what you, yourself just wrote?

Why is exploring these hypotheses leading to different interpretations?....because they are trying to squeeze a conclusion out of their evidence that supports their theory...even if they disagree with each other....as long as their conclusions prop up their theory,

​

Other Fundie Creos would read what you read and scream about how evilution can't be right - look at all the disagreement!!! You look at it and see people trying to prop up a theory.

I also think it is very telling that, these days, fundie creos like you now have to pick on little differences of opinion to scream - it cain't be right!


Here's the part you need to completely ignore...

Researchers examine ammonite fossils, as well as mosasaur fossils and the behaviors of limpets, in order to explore these hypotheses.
​

The keywords here are "explore" and "hypotheses". They don't know the details of what put the marks on the ammoniote fossils. They do know there are ammonite fossils. They do know that there were mosasaurs and limpets back then. They even know how long ago "back then" was. That's more than we know 50 years ago. Unlike religion, science continues to advance mankind's knowledge.

Mankind didn't learn about these things by knocking on doors and trying to convince people to join their religious cult. Mankind wouldn't have learned about these things had Charlie Russel's prophecies come true.

 

[ecco]

I am not buying it.

You can't. Your religious indoctrination prevents that.

ETA:

I put in the work to show you why I can't accept the theory of evolution as established factual science.

What work? Copy and pasting and saying "it just cain't be"? That work? See above comment re: religious indoctrination.

 

[ecco]

And you shouldn't have to rely on denying reality in order to support your objection to evolution.

Yeah, she really does.

 

[Audie]

Yeah, she really does.

There really isnt any choice though, is there?

Deny reality or have all of one's religion shattered.
revealed as the bitter lie it is.

 

[ecco]

I'm equally fascinated by all the people who regularly line up to try to explain the most basic concepts of science to her over, and over, and over, and over, and over.....

Ditto.

 

[Audie]

Ditto.

Well,I aint in that line.

 

[Deeje]

I asked you to explain it in your own words to show that you personally understand how it works. Not copy and paste a website.

Can you explain what natural selection is, in your own words?

You think my own words would explain it better?

Taking the Peppered Moth as an example of natural selection driving adaptive change, those moths with darker colouring survived better when coal fire pollution darkened the bark on the trees that the moths called home. Natural selection caused a shift to the darker coloured moths, so that they dominated the population. Predators ate more of the lighter coloured ones. The darker ones remained and reproduced. When the pollution problem was addressed, and the trees recovered their natural colour, the reverse took place and the moths also returned to their natural colour. This is adaptation....a natural mechanism that is inbuilt in all creatures. Seeing that, and then assuming that an amoeba can morph itself into a dinosaur are not exactly equivalents IMV. Adaptive change does not alter the structure of creature, which remains true to its kind, regardless of whatever changes natural selection led to.

The Galapagos finches did not stray outside of their family. They were just new varieties of finches. The tortoises and the iguanas were still readily identifiable as varieties of their own taxa. The changes produced by adaption will never alter that.

For God's sake, Deeje! I've explained this to you OVER and OVER!

What God is this???? It is for God's sake that I believe what I do.
The deceptions promoted by science are not obvious to the general population. Science is not my religion. If it is yours, then that is your choice. You can "explain" all you wish.....I am not buying it. You guys count on the fact that science can't be wrong...that you can trust it......sorry, I will trust the Creator because he has never given me cause to doubt him. Science can change its mind on everything that begins with a hypothesis. You do understand that a hypothesis is just an idea? Unless you can prove that the idea is fact...it remains just an unprovable idea. But when you present that idea as proven fact...and teach children this as if it is indisputable truth, that is when we have a problem.

Evolution DOES NOT "take a creature and make it into "something else"". Furthermore, you cannot even DEFINE "something else". Whenever asked, you are completely unable to define exactly what would qualify as "something else".

Oh, but I have. All you need to do is produce the solid, scientifically supported evidence that a single celled organism can become something other than a single celled organism. Evolution says that all life came from this common ancestor.....show us how it happened. The flaw in evolutionary science starts with this assumption. Then it builds on this assumption by its own interpretation of its gathered evidence until it has an elaborate and impressive edifice that has no real foundation. You all apparently can't see this. It's a special kind of blindness IMO.

Evolution is produced by variation on the previous generation, not by producing something other than that which produced it.

That categorically, demonstrably is not, nor ever has been, any claim made by evolutionary theory.

OK...so explain how the original single cells, the foundation of all life, (whose origen is still a mystery to you) produced something other than that which produced it. You do understand how contradictory your statement is? Can bacteria that exists today become anything other than bacteria, regardless of any adaptive change? If it can't become anything other than bacteria, then how did that original single cell change from something microscopic into something the size of a three story building? I am all ears.

Honestly, Deeje, you inability to learn this simple fact about evolution is getting beyond ridiculous now. It'd be like me repeatedly telling you that Bible says Jesus was born in Jamaica.

And the evolutionists insistence on their own untenable position despite the fact that it has no substantiated foundation, just make me wonder how intelligent evolutionists really are.

All the evolution diagrams you see have those vertices lines that lead to nowhere in the beginning. How do you build on something so flimsy? How can you have such confidence in their conclusions when they are not built on anything but assumptions about what "might have" taken place all those millions of years ago, when no one was there to observe any of it......except the Creator, but you don't believe him. That is your choice...but it isn't mine. It never will be. You have nothing convincing to offer those who know (not just believe) that God exists. We see his work and it inspires awe....I never stop giving thanks for it.

 

[Deeje]

I have to ask again Deeje, because I've never received an answer ...

How many science courses have you taken?

I've taken many science courses and never, ever were we taught not to "question the gods of science" or to take anything as "Gospel." That's actually what religions do. Perhaps you are just projecting?

Why do I need a science degree to believe in fantasy? The very foundations of your beliefs are flimsy to say the least. You are as indoctrinated by science and it's tenets as you believe we are by the Bible and what it teaches.

The only way to challenge anything in science is to remain in the ring. Step outside that ring and you commit academic and professional suicide.

 

[Jose Fly]

It's one thing to read papers and articles that tell you fundamentalists are prone to black/white, all-or-none thinking; it's something else entirely to see them do it firsthand.....

You do understand that a hypothesis is just an idea? Unless you can prove that the idea is fact...it remains just an unprovable idea.

This simplistic way of thinking is completely foreign to me. From this POV, something is either a proven fact, or it's nothing more than an idea made up out of thin air.....that's it...no other possibilities exist.

Just.....plain.....fascinating.

 

[Astrophile]

A skull of the gray whale that roams the seas today (below right) has its nostrils placed at the top of its skull. It would appear from these two specimens that the position of the nostril has changed over time and thus we would expect to see intermediate forms.

Note that the nostril placement in Aetiocetus is intermediate between the ancestral form Pakicetus and the modern gray whale — an excellent example of a transitional form in the fossil record!"

This is the size of Pakicetus...what do you notice about the size of these allegedly related creatures pictured above?

This is the size of a grey whale...

Do we really see an authentic comparison? Or a deliberate attempt to mask the truth? How does a small four-legged land dweller (the size of a dog) morph itself into a gigantic aquatic monster? The basic ingredient is imagination.....fueled by a desire to prop up a ridiculous theory that can never be proven.

So what do you think modern grey whales are descended from? Obviously grey whales must have had ancestors that lived at the same time as Aetiocetus (about 25 million years ago, or Late Oligocene) and other ancestors that lived at the same time as Pakicetus (about 50 million years ago, or Early Eocene). So what were these ancestors? There aren't any fossils of grey whales dating from 50 million years ago; if fact, so far as I know, there are no fossils of any large marine mammals dating from the time of Pakicetus, so what were the Early Eocene ancestors of grey whales?

 

[Deeje]

Are you suggesting that it's impossible for the skull of a population of organisms to grow larger over 52 million years?

I am suggesting that the skull of a land animal the size of a dog will not become the skull of a whale the size of a tanker because someone noticed a similarity in en ear bone.

right back atcha....

And aren't you arguing from incredulity? You can't seem to imagine life on this planet happening any other way but how you have been conditioned to view it. You believe it without any real evidence because you want to......and you will say the same about me.....impasse. There are no winners here....only *believers*....can't you see?

 

[Astrophile]

What God is this???? It is for God's sake that I believe what I do.
The deceptions promoted by science are not obvious to the general population. Science is not my religion. If it is yours, then that is your choice. You can "explain" all you wish.....I am not buying it. You guys count on the fact that science can't be wrong...that you can trust it......sorry, I will trust the Creator because he has never given me cause to doubt him.

Have you got any reason to doubt the validity of scientific theories other than the fact that they are in conflict with your beliefs about the Creator?

 

[Deeje]

So what do you think modern grey whales are descended from? Obviously grey whales must have had ancestors that lived at the same time as Aetiocetus (about 25 million years ago, or Late Oligocene) and other ancestors that lived at the same time as Pakicetus (about 50 million years ago, or Early Eocene). So what were these ancestors? There aren't any fossils of grey whales dating from 50 million years ago; if fact, so far as I know, there are no fossils of any large marine mammals dating from the time of Pakicetus, so what were the Early Eocene ancestors of grey whales?

Well, you see, I do not begin with a false premise, so I don't believe the whales descended from anything 'ancestral'.
Do I believe that all living things that God created are still here....? NO. As God is a Creator, he appears to have experimented with many lifeforms before he settled on those who would share the planet with man. That includes the land and aquatic creatures that the fossil evidence indicates lived before we came along.

I believe what the Creator says...after preparing the earth for habitation, and having provided food for all living things before they arrived, Genesis 1:20-22 says...
"Then God said: “Let the waters swarm with living creatures, and let flying creatures fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 And God created the great sea creatures and all living creatures that move and swarm in the waters according to their kinds and every winged flying creature according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 With that God blessed them, saying: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the waters of the sea, and let the flying creatures become many in the earth.”

So in my belief system, as opposed to yours, the great sea creatures were created as they are. No ancestors needed.

 

[Deeje]

Have you got any reason to doubt the validity of scientific theories other than the fact that they are in conflict with your beliefs about the Creator?

Absolutely! All you have to do is read up on some of the "overwhelming evidence" for organic evolution that is published on the sites like Berkeley, for students, and you will see that the larger part of what is claimed has no real foundation....but that fact is never projected. The "evidence" they have is overwhelming in volume...but not in substance.

 

[Frank Goad]

If we came from monkeys.Why is are dna not almost identical? Sorry if this has been answered in this forum before.

 

[Skwim]

If we came from monkeys.Why is are dna not almost identical? Sorry if this has been answered in this forum before.

You mean, If we came from oysters.Why is are dna not almost identical? Thing is, humans didn't come from oysters OR monkeys. Monkeys and humans came from a common ancestor about 30-40 million years ago. Moreover, if one went back far enough a person would find that oysters and humans came from a common ancestor.

Now I don't know what you have in mind by almost identical, but would 93% do?

"All of the great apes and humans differ from rhesus monkeys, for example, by about 7% in their DNA."
source

.​

 

[Deeje]

I almost forgot about tiktaalik. Lets see what we can find out about this half fish/half land dweller.....

I could give you a couple of examples, like how using evolution theory lead to the succesfull prediction of fossils like tiktaalik, or how the process of evolution is used in practical applications throughout engineering departments as powerful optimization modules and search heuristics, about phylogenetics and how everything matches up from multiple independent lines of inquiry etc....

But the problem is that you'll still be stuck with your a priori religious bias and your strawman idea of evolutionary biology and how all this data was obtained and scrutinized.

We've presented plenty of such examples to you and your friends in past threads. I know, because I was one of them. It's all useless. You just handwave it away with strawmen and a priori beliefs.

I would love it if you presented substantiated evidence that tiktaalik is what science assumes that it is.....please be my guest. But no assumptions...just facts...OK?

In the meantime here is a little something from The National Science Foundation published in 2006 when tiktaalik was first discovered....

"New Fossils Fill the Evolutionary Gap Between Fish and Land Animals
Predator has sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head and flattened body.

April 5, 2006

Working in rocks more than 375 million years old far above the Arctic Circle, paleontologists have discovered a remarkable new fossil species that represents the most compelling evidence yet of an intermediate stage between fish and early limbed animals.

The new species has a skull, neck, ribs, and parts of a fin that resemble the earliest limbed animals, called tetrapods. But the creature also has fins and scales like a fish.

"This animal is both fish and tetrapod. We jokingly call it a fishapod," said Neil Shubin of the University of Chicago. He and paleontologists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University conducted the research. They report the finding in two papers published this week in the journal Nature.

"Paleontologists have known that animals first appeared on land in the Devonian Period," said Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s division of earth sciences, which funded the research. "To reach this evolutionary milestone, a skeletal progression from fish to land-roaming tetrapods would have been needed. Now we have new evidence of that progression."

The back of the animal's skull, neck, ribs and fins "are particularly tetrapod-like while the snout, lower jaws, and scale-cover are similar to those seen in closely related fish," Shubin said. The animal was a predator with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head and a flattened body.

Scientists collected the fossils during four summer explorations on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut Territory. They turned to the people of Nunavut, who retain ownership of the fossils, for help in naming the new creature. The Nunavut Elders Council suggested the name "Tiktaalik" (tic-TA-lick), their word for a large, shallow-water fish.

At the time Tiktaalik lived, the Canadian Arctic region was part of a landmass that straddled the equator and had a subtropical climate. The deposits that produced the Tiktaalik fossils were left by stream systems meandering across wide floodplains.

"This kind of shallow stream system seems to be where many features of land-living animals first arose," said Ted Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. "The species shows that evolution from life in water to life on land happened gradually in fish in shallow water."

The skeletal structure of Tiktaalik and the nature of the deposits where it was found suggest an animal that lived on the water bottom, in the shallows, and perhaps even out of the water for short periods.

"The skeleton of Tiktaalik indicates that it could support its body under the force of gravity whether in very shallow water or on land," said Farish Jenkins of Harvard University. "This represents a critical early phase in the evolution of all limbed animals, including us."

The project was also funded by the National Geographic Society, an anonymous donor, and the researchers' institutions. The team also relied on geological mapping by the Geological Survey of Canada."

New Fossils Fill the Evolutionary Gap Between Fish and Land Animals

So how many 'assumptions' can we see here? How many 'suggestions' are there that go unnoticed?

The researchers and the team who went looking for an intermediate creature between land and sea found what they were looking for....how surprising.

Are there any other fish that walk?

What are these proof of?

Here is a little snippet from Berkeley....
What has the head of a crocodile and the gills of a fish?

"Missing" links?

"Missing link" is an inappropriate term when referring to a transitional form not yet discovered in the fossil record. "Missing" usually describes something that was supposed to be present but has disappeared for unknown reasons — if, for example, a favorite book suddenly disappeared from your room But you wouldn't describe the book as "missing" if you had lent it to a friend and expected it to be gone. The same arguments apply to so-called "missing links." Biologists know that fossilization is a chancy process — most things that have lived on Earth are eaten or rot away before they can be fossilized. Very few organisms wind up in situations in which fossilization is possible and have body parts that can be preserved in fossils. Thus, biologists expect that most intervening steps of an evolutionary transition (such as vertebrates' invasion of the land) will not be preserved in the fossil record. Occasionally, we get lucky and discover a transitional form that has been preserved in a fossil — but that does not imply that its ancestors, descendents, or other organisms that once lived on Earth are "missing."

So that being the case and that fossils are so rare, how can they be relied upon to provide much information at all to science? The book illustration was interesting....so does that mean that all the intermediate fossils were lent to someone and no one gave then back, so science expects them to be missing? They are not missing at all....we just can't find them.

How many intermediate species are we talking about here? How many would be required to fill in the chains that lead to all the diverse creatures who have ever lived on this planet? Can you have a chain at all if most of the links are not there?

No faith was required to predict and then find tiktaalik.

There is a lot more faith than there is real evidence. So much is assumed about tiktaalik.....I guess you see what you want to see when you already know what you want to find....

 

[ImmortalFlame]

You think my own words would explain it better?

I'm not asking for a "better" explanation. I'm asking you to explain it in order to demonstrate that you understand the concept. Copying and pasting a website - one that doesn't even explain how the process occurs - doesn't demonstrate that you have any personal understanding or knowledge of the subject.

I'm trying to ascertain how much you actually know. I've been very clear about that.

Taking the Peppered Moth as an example of natural selection driving adaptive change, those moths with darker colouring survived better when coal fire pollution darkened the bark on the trees that the moths called home. Natural selection caused a shift to the darker coloured moths, so that they dominated the population. Predators ate more of the lighter coloured ones. The darker ones remained and reproduced. When the pollution problem was addressed, and the trees recovered their natural colour, the reverse took place and the moths also returned to their natural colour. This is adaptation....a natural mechanism that is inbuilt in all creatures.

Okay, thank you. That's not a bad explanation.

The question is: what is it that caused the variation in colour among the moths? If natural selection was simply acting selectively on what was present, what caused the variation for it to select from?

Seeing that, and then assuming that an amoeba can morph itself into a dinosaur are not exactly equivalents IMV.

You are correct. That conclusion is not reached by observing adaptive changes alone - it is reached by observing changes in populations, speciation, understanding genetics, genetic lineage and observing the fossil record.

Adaptive change does not alter the structure of creature, which remains true to its kind, regardless of whatever changes natural selection led to.

So how much has to change before an organism becomes no longer "true to its kind"? For example, a chihuahua and a great dane are signifciantly different, yet you would consider them the same "kind", correct? So where is the line?

The Galapagos finches did not stray outside of their family. They were just new varieties of finches. The tortoises and the iguanas were still readily identifiable as varieties of their own taxa. The changes produced by adaption will never alter that.

Nor will any kind of evolution. Evolution can never produce a taxa other than what produced it. What it does is produce variations within the taxa. Finiches produce finches, but they produce varieties of finches. Finches themselves are a variety of birds which were produced by earlier birds. Birds are a variety of vertebrates which were produces by earlier vertebrates. Vertebrates area variety of eukaryote that were produces by earlier eukaryotes.

In conclusion, nothing produces anything "outside of" its taxa. What they do is produce variations WITHIN their taxa.

What God is this???? It is for God's sake that I believe what I do.

So you admit you have a religious bias, then.

Oh, but I have. All you need to do is produce the solid, scientifically supported evidence that a single celled organism can become something other than a single celled organism.

Pregnancy and childbirth.

OK...so explain how the original single cells, the foundation of all life, (whose origen is still a mystery to you) produced something other than that which produced it.

I literally JUST explained this, Deeje. They didn't. They produced VARIATIONS of what they were. The progenitors of modern animals were eukaryotes, which produced eukaryotes. You are a eukaryote.

You do understand how contradictory your statement is?

No, because it's not.

Can bacteria that exists today become anything other than bacteria, regardless of any adaptive change?

No, because they EVOLVED INTO bacteria from the last universal common ancestor and will not produce outside of that taxa, as I have explained. Modern bacteria are not the same thing as the first unicallular organisms or self-replicating proteins.

If it can't become anything other than bacteria, then how did that original single cell change from something microscopic into something the size of a three story building? I am all ears.

You realize that this process occurs every time a living thing reproduces, right? We observe full-sized organisms growing from single cells every day.

You have nothing convincing to offer those who know (not just believe) that God exists.

I don't care what you believe or claim to know about God. It's irrelevant.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I am suggesting that the skull of a land animal the size of a dog will not become the skull of a whale the size of a tanker because someone noticed a similarity in en ear bone.

That's the definition of an argument from incredulity, Deeje.

And aren't you arguing from incredulity?

No.

You can't seem to imagine life on this planet happening any other way but how you have been conditioned to view it.

False. Evolution is something I learnt on my own and educated myself about, and it became the best available explanation for diversity on this planet. Please do not project your religious conditioning on to me.

You believe it without any real evidence because you want to......and you will say the same about me.....impasse. There are no winners here....only *believers*....can't you see?

If you can't see the reality - that you are the one in denial, and have to keep speaking obvious falsehoods in order to prop up your beliefs - then there certainly is an impasse, yes.

See, imagine this situation were the other way around. Imagine we were engaged in a debate about your religion, and I was telling you that your religion was false. You may very well chalk my objection up to a difference in belief, and that both of us have positions that are, perhaps, equally tenable and based on faith or interpretation.

But imagine that in our debate, I kept saying things like "Your religion is obviously wrong, because the Bible says that Jesus lived in the 1980s and ran a popular TV show called "Jesus and Guests", but there is no evidence that this show ever existed! Also, the Bible says that all chimpanzees have four anuses and that Christians can summon cake out of nowhere simply by reciting the lord's prayer. These things are obviously not true, therefore the Bible and your religion is nonsense!"

Now imagine that you took the time to carefully demonstrate to me that the Bible never said these things, and that they were obviously and demonstrably false.

And then imagine that, regardless of that, I kept asserting them, over and over, in every thread on the subject of the Bible.

Now, would you have confidence in us simply having "different opinions or beliefs" about the Bible, or might you reasonably conclude that I was being deliberately ignorant?

Because that is precisely what you are doing when you repeat claims like:
"Evolution says organisms produce something other than what they are"
or
"Evolution claims to produce changes outside of the taxa"
or
"Adapation is not evolution"

These statements are as false as my earlier assertions about the Bible saying Jesus hosted a TV show in the 80s, chimpanzees have four anuses and that Christians can summon cake. They are things that, regardless of whether you accept or believe evolutionary theory or not, are not thing that the theory has ever - or would ever - claim. And when you keep on saying them (along with other outright falsehoods you have claimed in the past, such as the hilarious "there are no facts in science" debacle in which I proved that a claim you said lots of evolutionists made had never actually been claimed by anybody on these forums other than YOU) it doesn't fill me with tremendous confidence that you are approaching this subject honestly, and are instead either just engaging in trolling or self-deception.

I get it. Your religion is important to you. You've built your life around it in a big way. Your religion tells you evolution is false, so it's something you have to believe in order for your life to make sense. This isn't just "you being dumb and not getting it". You're not dumb. In fact, quite the opposite. I think you're an extremely intelligent person; probably much smarter than me or most posters on here. That's why I believe you should be able to understand when I tell you that repeatedly asserting false things - despite the fact that they have been pointed out to you over and over - I am not doing so in a effort to put you down, put myself above you or try to "win" the debate. I'm not. I'm trying to break down a very serious mental block you seem to have in accepting these very basic facts about what evolution claims.

So, please, please, PLEASE take the following facts on board:

1) Evolution has NEVER claimed that organisms produces outside of their taxa.

2) Adaptation IS evolution by definition, as it is a small-scale change in allele frequency.

3) The conclusion of common ancestry was NOT reached by looking at any one piece of evidence in isolation - it is reached by looking at ALL of the evidence.

Until you accept all three of these claims (keeping in mind that accepting these three claims in no way requires you to accept evolutionary theory or common ancestry as a whole), I don't see how you can possibly contribute to any debate on the subject of evolution meaningfully.

Yours hopefully, ImmortalFlame.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I almost forgot about tiktaalik. Lets see what we can find out about this half fish/half land dweller.....
I would love it if you presented substantiated evidence that tiktaalik is what science assumes that it is.....please be my guest. But no assumptions...just facts...OK?

Here you can read about the point that I was making, which is about how scientists knew that it had to exist AND how they knew where to look for it.

As said, it was found and discovered by prediction.

https://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/searching4Tik.html

...

So how many 'assumptions' can we see here? How many 'suggestions' are there that go unnoticed?

I read through it. Didn't see a single assumption.
Why don't you pick a single one of the supposed "assumptions", zoom in on it and try to explain how you think it is an "assumption" and how it's unreasonable to make that "assumption".

The researchers and the team who went looking for an intermediate creature between land and sea found what they were looking for....how surprising.

Not surprising at all, considering the find was predicted by a body of knowledge concerning evolution, evolutionary history, paleontology, geology, geological history, etc.

Are there any other fish that walk?

What are these proof of?

These are extant animals, which actually don't exhibit the relevant properties of tiktaalik.
Tiktaalik is a creature that live 350 million years ago, and who's existance, anatomy AND geographic location was predicted.

Here is a little snippet from Berkeley....
What has the head of a crocodile and the gills of a fish?

"Missing" links?

"Missing link" is an inappropriate term when referring to a transitional form not yet discovered in the fossil record. "Missing" usually describes something that was supposed to be present but has disappeared for unknown reasons — if, for example, a favorite book suddenly disappeared from your room But you wouldn't describe the book as "missing" if you had lent it to a friend and expected it to be gone. The same arguments apply to so-called "missing links." Biologists know that fossilization is a chancy process — most things that have lived on Earth are eaten or rot away before they can be fossilized. Very few organisms wind up in situations in which fossilization is possible and have body parts that can be preserved in fossils. Thus, biologists expect that most intervening steps of an evolutionary transition (such as vertebrates' invasion of the land) will not be preserved in the fossil record. Occasionally, we get lucky and discover a transitional form that has been preserved in a fossil — but that does not imply that its ancestors, descendents, or other organisms that once lived on Earth are "missing."

So that being the case and that fossils are so rare, how can they be relied upon to provide much information at all to science? The book illustration was interesting....so does that mean that all the intermediate fossils were lent to someone and no one gave then back, so science expects them to be missing? They are not missing at all....we just can't find them.

How many intermediate species are we talking about here? How many would be required to fill in the chains that lead to all the diverse creatures who have ever lived on this planet? Can you have a chain at all if most of the links are not there?



There is a lot more faith than there is real evidence. So much is assumed about tiktaalik.....I guess you see what you want to see when you already know what you want to find....

You're grasping at straws, completely missing the point being made and projecting your own faults unto others.

Once again, you are given evidence and you are dismissing it with arguments from incredulity, willfull ignorance and strawman versions of biology.

Ridiculous.