Sunday 4 March 2012

Yet another NOT missing link

One of Creationisms' most favoured cries is 'Where are all the missing links?' It's the oft-heard claim that evolution cannot be true because of the lack of transitory forms.

Well, firstly, the term 'missing link' is just wrong. Creationists present the evolution of a species as a simple chain of events e.g. fish to amphibian, and claim that if the link between the two is 'missing' then there's no evidence. That's nonsense. To begin with, there may have been hundreds of transitory forms between fish and amphibian. Plus, this simplified view pre-supposes that every species is preserved.

The truth is that fossilisation is a very unlikely and chance event. Therefore, the fossil record, no matter how big it eventually gets, will only ever be a snapshot of the countless millions of lifeforms that existed on this planet before humans evolved. At present we have only discovered about 700 species of dinosaur. Compare that to the fact that there are over 4000 living species of mammal, 10000 species of bird and an estimated 8,000,000 species overall. Fossilisation may not have preserved the majority of species that have ever existed. Therefore, the likelihood that we will find even one unbroken evolutionary timeline in which every single transitory form is preserved is next to zero.

For example, we may never find fossils of all of the forms that have existed between the bear-like animals that re-entered the sea and their descendants, the modern whales. But we do have some of those transitory forms and modern whales undeniably do have disarticulated, atrophied and utterly useless hip bones still embedded in their flesh. The question is ... why? The physical evidence is clearly there that the ancestral whale had a pelvis. And the only reason it would need a pelvis is if it once had legs. And why would God create an animal to live in the sea but give it lungs so that it can drown? Perhaps the commonsense reason that whales have lungs is that they didn't always live in the sea. You don't need every 'missing link' to see what's strikingly obvious.

Evolution is a blind process of chance mutation where an advantageous change may get carried over into future generations and become the norm throughout a species. Consequently, you have to look at fossils with the right mindset. Animals and plants aren't 'trying' to improve. Nor are living things aiming towards some perfect design. Consequently, there are blind alleys where a species doesn't make it. The path from ancestral horse to modern horse isn't a linear progression of species getting ever bigger as some older text books erroneously show, like here:

The true picture is rather more complicated. The evolution of the horse is a story of successes and failures. It isn't a simple linear progression towards an ideal and so the simplistic idea of a chain and missing links doesn't hold up. Here's a more accurate diagram:

Secondly, as I said, some of the 'missing links' have been found. It's just that the hardcore Creation lobby simply chooses to ignore them or they simply don't know about them because they don't read Evolutionist 'propaganda' i.e. properly researched scientific papers. If you want missing links, they are there in abundance. Take Tiktaalik roseae for example. Tiktaalik was something like a crocodile and something like a fish, having features of both. Tiktaalik represents a transitional form; although it had gills rather than lungs, the fossils show clearly that it had bony 'hands' that evolved to allow it to haul itself along on land. and, when compared with the fossils of creatures like Panderichthys and Acanthostega, we can see a clear development of form from fin to foot. Not every step - if you'll pardon the pun - is there yet but there's is evidence of a slow and steady change.

a reconstruction of Tiktaalik and a cast of its fossil




We also find transitional forms in terms of animal behaviour too. As you doubtless know, hermit crabs don't have shells of their own and, instead, inhabit the discarded shells of sea snails such as whelks and winkles etc.. The earliest identifiable crab fossils are found in the Jurassic Era, some 145-200 million years ago and, at that time, one of the most prolific kinds of mollusc in the sea were the ammonites; a now extinct order of animals related to modern day nautilus and octopus. And guess what? Hermit crabs used their shells too. We have the fossils.


I enjoy intelligent debate. So I address these questions to the Creationist movement: Why do fossils exist of crabs using the shells of extinct marine animals? Surely if the world is only 5000 years old then there would still be ammonites in the sea and hermit crabs wouldn't have needed to migrate to sea snail shells. And why would God create hundreds of species of ammonite and then wipe them all out? And how? Surely 'the flood' cannot be blamed as we still have many species of crab and fish. The ammonites couldn't have drowned could they? Not like whales can.

Source: Julia Whitty at Deep Blue Home. My thanks to the lovely Dr Helen Scales for making me aware of this.

21 comments:

  1. Evolution is utterly silly for a scientist to believe. For instance how did flight evolve 4 different times? From pterosaurs,insects,bats, and birds. The Random chance that flight must take to evolve just once is crazy, but 4 different times? Impossible. Plus Evolution is in conflict with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which says that everything that is left alone becomes disorganize and less complex, but evolution says everything is getting more complex, and organized. Please consider this. Oh, by the way this post was written by a 12 year old.

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    1. 2nd law of thermodynamics can only be applied to a closed system. Earth is not a closed system and you know it, but still choose to lie and ignore it. I bet you have been corrected on this many times but you still keep using it as an argument. Pathetic!

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    2. Life itself defies the second law of thermodynamics. The growth and development of multicellular organisms requires that diffuse energy (e.g. light) be concentrated, changed into chemical bond energy in sugars (which are constructed from low-energy molecules of water and carbon dioxide). Once these sugars are constructed, they are broken down for their stored chemical energy to build larger molecules, and so on. Therefore, life itself reverses entropy. Once the "spark of life" leaves, the organism decomposes. To quote the Bible, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return", BUT, that "dust" will feed countless other organisms, allowing them to defy the second law of thermodynamics too.

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    3. Convergent evolution relies on environmental pressures to select for traits, like flight, among non-related species. Flight was advantageous in different conditions and thus selected for. There are many things that evolved and re-evolved many times over evolutionary history (like eyes, penises, limbs, etc). Evolution isn't some random chance explanation - it's a way of understanding how chance occurrences (like mutations, climate changes, drift) affect the genes of individuals, and how those individuals are represented within the population. Please educate yourself

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  2. On the Evolution of the horse, the order that the horse fossils were found were way out of order. To claim that the ancestor of the horse (orohippus) was found below the fossils of the modern horse is just plain dishonesty

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    1. As a matter of fact, you are correct in stating that fossils of the modern horse were not found above Orohippus. That's because the horse family originated in South America and spread into North America, and that's where its fossils are found. The modern horse genus, Equus, is not even shown on the chart. It developed in Asia from ancestors that crossed from the Americas into Siberia during the last glacial maximum. Therefore, pre-modern horse fossils CANNOT be found below remains of modern horses, because they are on different continents. The same can be said of the camel family, which also originated in South America. Llamas and their kin still live there, though. And don't say that the fact that they are found on different continents is proof that they were separate creations until you study how plate tectonics have shuffled the continents around in the last few hundred million years.

      On another note - if evolution is hogwash, why are new varieties of influenza every year? Why do new drug-resistant strains of diseases such as HIV (a retrovirus), tuberculosis (a bacterium) and malaria (a uniciellular eukaryotic parasite) appear? Hundreds of dog and cat breeds, both from single sources (wolf and Egyptian cat), dozens of different breeds of cattle, pigs, chickens, corn, rice, etc. The answer is in two mechanisms: mutation (which provides the raw material for change) and selection (which, whether by human or natural means, chooses which traits will be passed on to the next generation). These two mechanisms are the underpinning of evolution. The proof is all around you, yet you shut your eyes and plug your ears.

      I posit that it is just as silly to think that an all-powerful creator would spend a lot of energy creating each species, one at a time. And if all these creations are "perfect", why are at least 99% of all species that have ever lived on this planet extinct? Were they somehow imperfect? Why wouldn't the creator make it possible for species or populations to change their most common characteristics over many generations to match their changing environment?

      Before sailing on the Beagle, Charles Darwin graduated from Christ College, Cambridge, near the top of his class, with a degree in theology. He knew full well that what he postulated would be controversial, so he spent 22 years gathering evidence from a number of sources to support his theory before he finally published it in 1859. If you don't believe he was a man of faith, pick up a copy of "On the Origin of Species" and read the last paragraph in the book. Many biologists like myself are also Christian, and we see no inherent conflict between creation and evolution. Gen. 2:2 does not say "On the seventh day, God stopped creating". I believe he had too much fun to stop, and continues to create through the processes of mutation and selection, sometimes putting his finger in the pot and stirring things up with an asteroid impact, glaciation, or major volcanic event.

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  3. Hello 'Anonymous'

    You were doing fine until the last line. I may write like a 12 year old but at least I understand proper sentence construction and use of capitals.

    That aside, I stand by my post. Forms of flight have evolved many many times, from true flight (birds, pterosaurs, insects, mammals) to gliding flight (snakes, lizards, fish, squirrels etc.) All of them have found different ways to achieve it. Insect wings are completely different in construction to bird wings and the way a bat's wing membrane is stretched across its fingers is very different to the finger arrangement of pterosaurs. Flying squirrels achieve a kind of flight by webbing between their limbs and flying lizards have extensions to their ribs over which skin forms a kind of wing. Surely if flight in animals was designed by an intelligent designer they'd have used a single method. Why have five or six? And why not simply have skin over a framework like a kite? Why all the fingers nonsense? Unless, of course, the fingers were there before rather like the whales' hip bones which, I note, you completely gloss over without explanation.

    You trash my blogpost without providing any evidence to support your claim other than 'it's impossible', which it patently isn't as you can see all around you. Oh, and if it's impossible - which by definition means cannot be done - how did God do it?

    Oh, and I have belief enough in my convictions to tell you my name and don't feel the need to hide behind anonymity.

    Thanks for visiting.

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    1. God is an omnipotent being "all powerful" he can do what ever he wants. he is an immortal being that does not have a beginning or end.

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    2. A human architect uses different designs, for instance, a cup, it does the same thing but has different colors, shapes, sizes, etc. A Creator loves to show his unparalleled 'creativity'. With that here is your answer.

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  4. Yes, indeed, why would a scientist believe in provable fact? rather than in ... oh ... say ... a book written the best part of 1400 years ago edited and revised by a group of power hungry men several centuries later and then used to hold down free thought and scientific discovery.

    I'd reply to your post on a point by point basis, but you never actually make any ... just a series of short pointless ejaculations ... hey maybe YOUR post was written by a 12 year old.

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    1. If Solid evidence is what you want, read my comment. But I was referring to my age when I said 12, because I am a 12 year old. Therefore it was written by a 12 year old. Happy Trails

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    2. pointless ejaculations? My "ejaculations" are perfectly valid, scientificly true. I was referring to my age when I said 12. You were right, my comment was written by a 12 year old.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Anonymous

    It occurs to me, having re-read the comment, you may have meant that you are 12 rather than me. If that's so, I apologise. My confusion was you saying 'post' - what I wrote - rather than 'comment'- which is what you wrote.

    However, I stand by my answer and am happy to debate this subject. I suspect that if you are 12, you probably haven't read as many books as I have, visited as many museums and libraries as I have, talked to as many religious leaders as I have, as many scientists as I have. I also imagine that you won't have travelled very much or seen a great deal of the world. I've been round the world several times. I'm 51 years old. I've shaken hands with men who walked on the Moon. I've seen, first hand, fossils being unearthed; I've found a few myself. The weight of evidence supporting the concept of evolution is overwhelming whereas the Creation view is based solely on faith alone.

    I'm very open minded. Show me some evidence and I'm happy to look at it. No book tells me what to think. I make my own decisions based upon evidence.

    S
    x

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    1. i am 12 and I have a freelance writing job for a very popular website, wiseGEEK. I have noted many things in my short but stellar career. My parents do not affect my point of view. I am very independent, for a 12 year old at least. Nothing can affect my theory. The theory of a 12 year old (me) is more valid than a theory of most of the world. In the future, all of the believers in the world will vanish into thin air. If this happens, believe.

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    2. One more thing, you spelled "apologize" wrong. I know that, and i'm 12.

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    3. I understand the confusion, apology accepted.

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  7. Yes, apology accepted, I was referring to my age. However, please answer my claim about the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

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    1. Dear Anonymous

      Okay, the traditional argument is that the evolution of lower life-forms to higher life-forms is not possible because it involves an increase in complexity, which amounts to a decrease in entropy. This argument is fundamentally flawed in two different ways.

      First, we have no evidence that the complex life-form is actually less entropic than the simple life-form. Entropy is a measure of statistical disorder, not simplicity vs. complexity of design. There is no reason to believe that a man is less 'disordered', on a molecular level, than an equivalently-sized chimpanzee, for example. Crystalline solids have lower entropy than either men or chimpanzees, and yet clearly their design is much more simple and repetitive, not more complex.

      Second, even if higher life-forms do have lower entropy than lower life-forms, the Second Law doesn't say that they can't evolve. The burning up of the sun, with its corresponding energy transfer to the earth, along with other processes such as geothermal activity, increase the entropy of the universe at a far higher rate than evolution could possibly decrease it. The entropy of the universe as a whole is still increasing.

      Beyond these two fundamental flaws in the argument, there is a reason that we can be absolutely sure that evolution does not violate the Second Law. To see this, we must understand that entropy is an example of what is known as an "extensive property." That means the entropy of an entire system is just the addition of the entropy of all of its parts. So, for example, the entropy of a collection of fifty identical 100-pound loads of organic material is fifty times the entropy of a single 100-pound load of organic material. The entropy of a population of fifty 100-pound monkeys is fifty times the entropy of a single 100-pound monkey. And the entropy of a population of fifty 100-pound humans is fifty times the entropy of a single 100-pound human. Let's assume (for the sake of argument) that the entropy of a monkey is less than the entropy of a 100-pound load of organic material, and the entropy of a human is least of all. Let's assign an entropy of 1 unit to each human, 2 to each monkey, and 3 to each load of organic material. So, for the collections of 50 of each item we have an overall entropy of 1×50 + 2×50 + 3×50, which is 300. Now what happens when a new human is born and grows up? The population of humans grows from 50 to 51, but where does the matter (which must be conserved) for the new human come from? It has to come from the surrounding environment. We can model this by saying that the collection of organic material decreases from 50 loads to 49. So if we again add up the overall entropy (of the items we're discussing, not of the whole universe) we find it decreases by 2 to 298. This change in entropy is completely independent of whether the new human was born to human parents or to monkey parents. It doesn't depend on whether or not there was already an initial presence of humans. We can start with 0 humans and 50 monkeys, and postulate a sudden and bizarre evolution by assuming a human born to a pair of monkeys, and the entropy decrease is still 2, exactly the same amount of decrease as when the human baby is born to human parents.

      Obviously, the birth of a human baby to human parents happens all the time and thus cannot be a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Therefore, it would not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics if the human baby were born to monkey parents either. The same argument can be made for any evolutionary step, no matter how large or small. Therefore, the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not argue against the theory of evolution.

      (Borrowed from noble-minded.org who explained it much more clearly that I probably could.)

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  8. Hello Anonymous

    To address your comments in turn.

    1. When and if people vanish into thin air, I'll look for a logial explanation rather than simply accept someone else's opinion of what's happened.

    2. You say your theory is more valid than 'most of the world', which seems a little hubristic, but you haven't actually put up a theory, only a belief. You also ssay that you are very independent but that 'nothing can affect your theory'. Part of being independent is being open-minded. I don't denounce people's faith even though I don't share it. I'm open to the possibiity of a god or gods; I just don't currently believe in them as I have never seen an ounce of proof of their existence. Show me the evidence and I'd be happy to change my mind. I follow the evidence, not dogma.

    3. I spelled apologise correctly. I'm British. English is my language. That's how we spell it here. I assume you're overseas using a borrowed version with variant spelling.

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  9. Problem is you have no evidence the theory fails at the cambrian period it doesn't get off the ground and get's worse as it tries to advance face it it's a faith not a science

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