You should be made aware that species don't always avoid extinction before giving origin to new species. When they do, it is not really unusual for various branches of distinct species to develop. Darwin himself already realized it way back while studying the variety of Finch birds at Galapagos' Islands.
Darwin's finches - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List o (see the illustration at item 2).
And you think I am not aware of this?
However the relationship between living species can be established by comapring their genomes. Except for a few exceptions we cannot do so for species that only exist in the fossil record.
I had never heard of the Tiktaalik, but a bit of research suggests that you expect to find the fact that it is believed to be extinct without having originated other species unconfortable to Evolutionists.
Why would this be uncomfortable for those who accept evolution? Tiktaalik is a basal tetrapod and an excellent example of a transitional form.
That isn't and couldn't be so. There is no particular reason to expect any species to necessarily give birth to other instead of becoming extinct - and that has been true ever since the original Darwin claim, to boot.
True, but only partially relevant to my challenge to Outhouse.
Maybe you are confused and wanted to ask which ancestors the Tiktaalik could have. According to the ToE, it must indeed have had many other ancestor species. But that is not at all the same thing, and certainly no hint that the ToE is incorrect.
No, my use of Ardi and Tiktaalik were correctly chosen to illustrate why Outhouse is wrong.
Far as I can tell, much the same applies to the Ardi as well.
Not to the same extent, Ardi is currently assumed to have descendants. But Ardi may not be in our lineage, that species could be an undiscovered contemporary of Ardi sharing many similarities in morphology. That is the difference between "possible ancestor" and "definite ancestor".
Why, of course it does. It just don't trusts them. That is the differenct between Hypothesis and Theory. Theories (in the correct scientific usage of the term) are backed up by evidence, hypothesis are not.
No its doesn't. Science is tentative unless describing facts.
And Hypotheses are backed up by evidence because they are still and attempt to explain facts, but they require more evidence and testing to be confirmed or rejected.
Maybe it is. I certainly haven't followed the exchanges with you. Still, your arguments betray a grave lack of basic understanding of the Theory of Evolution.
This from the person who had not heard of Tiktaalik? I'd say my understanding of ToE is better than yours.
Your response betrays a complete lack of understanding of how the fossil record is interpreted. But as you claim such knowledge perhaps you would like to explain exactly in what way the following statement betrays a lack of understanding of ToE.
Fossils can only suggest that there is a relationship but not state an ancestor/decendant relationship except in a very few cases where we have exceptionaly good detail in the fossil record (even if its almost a certainty). Genetics can do this however, but we have no DNA for almost all fossilised species.
It is impossible to say, without DNA, that any species that exists only in the fossil record
is the direct ancestor or descendant of another species outside the exception I mentioned above, I challenge you to find any palaeontologist who says that this is possible. This is an inherent result of the imperfections of the fossil record.
I was saving this for when Outhouse was unable to defend his assertions but... The statement that MoF claimed came from Talk Origins is wholly correct but meaningless to the validity of common descent. It is not necessary (and generally impossible) to establish precise ancestor/descendant relationships from the fossil record as it is the pattern of descent and the existence of transitional forms that is all that is shown due to the imperfections in the record for most lineages. What we establish are probable (and in some cases almost certain) relationships between species. Where we can be truly confident is that the monophyletic clades that we can establish from the fossil record accurately reflect the evolution of life in this planet.
Observed speciation and the analysis of the genomes of extant species establish common descent and the fossil record validates and confirms the paths that this descent has taken.
