Evolution? How?

timber-

How do we know that all this "Published in Nature", "Peer reviewed", "advection", "professorships" stuff isn't one vast giant conspiracy. We know how much money sloshes around it and men and money are a well known combination.

Like when they say politicians are all "pissing in the same pot".

How do we know these fossils haven't been bought in a butcher's shop and "aged" and taken out to Ethiopia to justify the holiday with the nice research assistants and the bloke who does the carbon dating isn't a big pot pisser whose holding some of the strings.

We might be being mesmerised with this new language of science.

Our leading satirical magazine VIZ has done a few features along the lines that Mr Attenborough has done it all in a studio in Bristol.

Set, Daeschlers et al work was purely a descriptive, not a functional analysis. I cant say that this fish had the abilities to walk on land, nor can I deny it. Just that the evidence doesnt go there (maybe it will). The specimen theyve found was in the bottom sediment of an alluvial steam. Maybe, like a mudskipper, it could, "Hop about" to go rom one distributary to another. However, thats another story entirely and one where the work in its functional description, has not even begun.

I can neither prove nor disrove the existence of a God, I just dont let it rule my work just so I can retain total objectivity. We have to let the data and evidence carry us to the conclusion, even something as minor as a conclusion that "indeed this fish walked on land" is bogus science..

Morphologically, Tiktaliik was really close to the later fish and early amphibians that we knew were able to go on land, but not so Tiktaliik.

spendi. I have no idea how the word "advection" fits in your note, but its not in my day to try to get into your head.

If , as you say, all this
peer reviewing" is just a vast conspiracy, then science would be no better than the Creationist Ider camp where everybody gets a PhD in some science and then promptly lets their religion take over while still implying that their degree is still valid.

What a hoot you are.

We do have frauds periodically, but see how quickly they are weeded out and exposed. Dr Suk being the lastest to suffer a career ending disclosure.
Much of the evolutionary stuff is so competitive that, like a quarterback on a US fooball team, youd better produce or your gone.

timber wrote-



Rhetoric instead of painful training do you mean.

He looked the viewer straight in the eye and in a deeply serious and sonorous monotone,with the 3rd movement of Mahler's 5th in the background,he explained how blah,blah,bloody blah again for those who have a need to understand what the fook is happening what is happening.

Actually,it's all about energy,rhythm,colour and movement as you will see in the shortly to be manifested World Cup. Which is as religious as religious gets. When they win they start behaving like a swarm of bees.Which is why they bring the cops in.

spendi. Im thinking rabbits and pancakes again.

I'm thinkin rabbits and pancakes and lack of oxygen to the brain.

I'm thinkin' rabbits and pancakes, lack of oxygen to the brain and a seriously stubbed toe.

I'm thinkin' rabbits, pancakes, lack of oxygen to the brain, a seriously stubbed toe and a pepperoni pizza.

For spendi, it's more likely than not, it's booze.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/reviews/0,70700-0.html?tw=wn_politics_6


I am not as ignorant as you think...

http://www.madore.org/~david/computers/quine.html


Humans are quines...

Why the self-deprecation? Such modesty is ill-becoming; you never cease to surpass our expectations.

Hi Farmerman,

Tiktaalik, as currently dated at 375 million years, if it were truly a 'transitional' creature from water-to-land, indicates a fairly rapid sequence between it and complete land dwellers (the 'early' tetrapods, supposedly of 360 million years ago), doesn't it?

Also, wasn't the coelacanth widely considered to be a transitional creature between fish and tetrapods (and thought to be extinct for '80 million years' as well) until we started finding live ones?

The supposed holes in Evolution that have been documented here show a lack of understanding. It seems that if you don't understand it, or it contradicts beliefs already held, it must be wrong. It aint so, kiddo's. Go and do some more reading to understand it rather than dismiss it.

Evolution, like science, loves to be prodded and exposed. It's falsifiable, something that creationism and ID isn't.

It's not really a level playing field here. Creationism and ID should be allowed to be falsified, and some sort of proof provided for their position. I have a problem with creationists and IDers dishonestly defending their beliefs and trying to discredit evolutionary facts through distortion and a lack of understanding.

rl. We have a really good record of coelecanths all the way from the Devonian to the late Mesozoic, where we lost the record of thisorder. The form of coelecanth called Latemeria was found off Africa in the 50s. It was very similar in morphology to the earlier coelecanths. The reason we havent fornd any later fossils of this guy is simple, its a fluke of stratigraphy.Since the late Mesozoic, pretty much the present world continental configuration was maintained, with just oceans opening further and continental collisions along margins. The Latemeria seems to be adapted to a deep ocean environment and we dont have too many later stratigraphic examples of tropical ocean deeps that were fossil bed material. Im sure, if we drill along the African Coast wed find some, but really, as an example of any developmental "intermediate" , coelecanths dont represent anything important, they are a primitive crossopterygian fish (yawn)

Daeschlers earlier find, an early form of Icthyostega, from the Pa Continental Devonian, maybe 10 million years later (Hiner Pa) was a more developed fish/amphibian.
However the fossil Tiktaliik is one whose an even earlier structure and is a nice morphological fit (lower down) between those fishes that were developing more land friendly features (osteolepis) and the really early amphibians (Ichthyostega). All these finds fit into the stratigraphic column and the environmental reconstruction quite nicely. Latemeria, on the other hand, fits into deeper ocean sediments not alluvial streams.

Its a nice bit of evidence that allows a good bit of morphology tracing. The crossopterigian fishes, that include the coelecanth, are a developmental side bar very different from teleost fish like our modern fish and he didnt have many modern adap[tive features . In 1952 or 3 whenever the coelecanth was found, it was called a "living fossil" not a "missing link". SOmehow someone made the incorrect assumption that this fish was a connection to living forms when indeed it was more of a "dead end" wherein its entire order consists of only 1 remaining species. Tiktaliik, on the other hand, contains more "experimental " body features like flattened rib cage bones, a swivel head, developing digits in the fins, a shoulder girdle. Hell, this guy is "suiting up" evolutionarily

The swivel head and shoulder girdle features are significant, though. It suggests that (unless we've managed to stumble on a freak who survived but never reproduced) there was an adaptive value to those features. Possibly, like fish today who are known to "travel" from one shallow water feature to another seeking deeper water, this creature was frequently exposed to shallow waters, in which a swivelling head on a sturdy set of shoulders were an advantage--perhaps in "looking for" deeper waters. An interesting find, which may reveal more if more specimens are discovered.

yep. We can think outside the box and speculate about the advantages of such structures. And , it is comforting to have the "end story' available. I try to tell my students to make believe they were dropped by parachute without any references and background material, then do your research.
How would we start? where would the connections be? Wed have to judge each find by its morphology and then by inference from existing forms.

The important work on Tiktaliik is the environmental reconstruction. We already know that these guy lived in anastamosing alluvial streams that braided throughout a shallow sloping foreland. Like a great big version of the Nile Delta. The advantage may have been imposed if the fish was (and it probably was) a carnivore, it could chase hoppidy critters and look above the waters edge to see prey along the waters edge and maybe on land.

Hoppidy critters?

Like the Easter bunny?

What stopped one critter from completely wiping out all other life?

It's still possible. Critters that can type and have religious agendas are the most likely candidates. Usually though, populations "bust" when the environment (inc food source) can no longer support them. Besides, few critters are truly independent of other critters, who in turn are dependant on still others,etc, etc....

I'm speechless. Well, almost. That was almost the stupidest statement I've ever read on this forum.