Why doesn’t the average person continually stumble upon the evidence of transitional forms everywhere in river beds, creek beds… the same places where we find fossil remains of single creatures, arrow heads, etc…

A hundred years ago, there were billions of passenger pigeons in America; they were the most numerous bird species ever to live. And yet, there’s not a single known passenger pigeon fossil. Because fossils are rare.

When was the last time you “stumbled upon” any kind of fossil at all? I’m willing to bet the answer is “never”. They’re pretty rare, because the circumstances that lead to fossilisation are pretty rare, and the vast majority of rocks that fossils might be in aren’t conveniently on the surface where people can get at them. And if you did “stumble upon” a transitional form, how would you recognise it as such? Do you know enough about the anatomy of any class of extinct animals that you could identify primitive and derived features and assess its relationship to other known species?

That being said, when people do go looking for fossils, they find transitional forms pretty commonly. You’ve been linked to several resources that demonstrate this clearly, but you keep on pretending that if you don’t read them, they don’t count. If you’ve actually read them and can find actual problems with the sources cited, why not explain that to us so we can go on from there? When you keep insisting to aeronautics engineers that heavier-than-air flight is impossible, they tend to start ignoring you pretty quickly. That people here are still prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you might actually be interested in learning something new is an opportunity you are quickly throwing away.

Here’s a fascinating paper for you to ignore: Planktonic microfossils and the recognition of ancestors By Prothero and Lazarus, 1980. Basically, planktonic microfossils form commonly enough, and we’ve surveyed enough of the world’s oceans that we know about 80-90% of the species of plankton that have ever lived. So we have enough information to be able to accurately say that Species A is definitively ancestral to Species B, and we can map species transitions with an incredible level of detail.

You are ignorant of evolution. Go study it. If you are the creationist that finally makes evolution truly appear to be wrong in the eyes of scientists, then congratulations. What you are doing right now however is simply a farce. When your points about evolution are quickly dismissed by regular members of society, don’t you start to wonder about those who gave you such poor information? Where they incompetent? Were they liars? How could they possibly not know how wrong they are when regular people on the internet can provide the answers so easily?

I’m not angry with you, I’m annoyed by your ignorance. I don’t know anything about repairing cars, should I go tell people that there is a right way and a wrong way to repair a car? Should I hang out on car repair websites telling people that you just gotta weld this part right here or the whole damn thing won’t run? You don’t know about evolution yet you insist on talking about it as if you had disproved it. Please, read about it from non-creationist sources. If your disproofs were real, there would be entire universities dedicating vast resources to finding the real process if the current theory of evolution isn’t it. That isn’t happening. There are no reputable creationist peer reviewed publications. They don’t do research, or at least none to speak of. Why wouldn’t they? If they were right, there would be countless religious universities and hospitals employing research scientists to study.. well, creationism. Why isn’t that happening if evolution is so obviously wrong? Can you see the nose on your face?

Those who understand evolution rarely disagree with it. Those who don’t understand it, like you, well.. they just plain don’t understand it.

Q: Why is our planet NOT littered, flooded with the remains of transitional life forms — eg fossils showing “evolution” from a water to a land creature, for example?

Why doesn’t the average person continually stumble upon the evidence of transitional forms everywhere in river beds, creek beds… the same places where we find fossil remains of single creatures, arrow heads, etc…

You haven’t found anything because you AREN’T EVEN TRYING TO LOOK.

Did you even read my outline of eye evolution? Transitional forms can be found alive today.

You want a list of transitional fossils?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

Don’t think whales are descended from wolf-like terrestrial ancestors?
ttp://lh5.ggpht.com/_Z42U4rD7vMY/SXFSveBO1jI/AAAAAAAAAGk/sPIPN9b-A00/s144/whales.jpg

Are you even reading the links we supplied?

You sound a little angry to me… I wonder if you would relax and just kindly respond to my actual questions?

Q: Why is our planet NOT littered, flooded with the remains of transitional life forms — eg fossils showing “evolution” from a water to a land creature, for example?

Why doesn’t the average person continually stumble upon the evidence of transitional forms everywhere in river beds, creek beds… the same places where we find fossil remains of single creatures, arrow heads, etc…

“I was using the computer and internet as analogies guys, to point out the beauty and intricacy of them and to say they don’t just happen. People MAKE them happen.”

Sorry. Creationist argument FAIL.

Just because something is complex doesn’t mean a being had to create it. And beauty is SUBJECTIVE, and means nothing in this context.

Learn about evolution. Please. Before you bring up any more tired and stale pseudoscience, read.

PS. Quote mining Darwin isn’t exactly convincing either. Quote mining never is.

I was using the computer and internet as analogies guys, to point out the beauty and intricacy of them and to say they don’t just happen. People MAKE them happen.

Computers need to be built because they don’t breed and reproduce. Therefore natural selection cannot operate upon them. Really, when you’re trying to talk about how living things come into the world, and how computers, cars, Coke cans or pocket watches come into the world understanding that basic difference will render any creationist analogy moot.

Darwin said at the end of his life, that unless a plethora of “transitional forms” could be found in the fossil record to prove his evolutionary theory, he’d have to say it was just that… an interesting, but unproven theory. IE, you’d expect to find transitional forms everywhere. We don’t.

Yes we do. I mean, assuming we go out and loom for them, anyway. Wikipedia has a very, very short list of a bare handful of the more famous transitionals at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils. A rather better discussion of the topic, complete with more obscure transitionals can be found at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html.

But here’s the big secret: Pretty much every fossil ever found is transitional. It has ancestors that are different from it, and it (probably) has descendants that are different from it, and it is transitional between the two. We might not have found an ancestor and a descendant that are different enough that we can tell the difference from fossils, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a transition between two states.

Transitions between species often take place quickly (in geological terms) so obvious species-level transitions (as opposed to a late example of the parent species, or an early example of the child species) are comparatively rare, but transitions between larger groups happen slowly, and we have a great many fossils that are perfect, textbook examples of such transitional phases.

you’d expect to find transitional forms everywhere. We don’t.

I don’t understand how anyone except a creationist — or someone who has never studied evolution — can say this. It’s an astounding accusation and ignores the last 100 years of science history.

I would know, I used to be a creationist.

Here are some things to read for an overview:

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates

http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

We find exactly what we expect to find in the fossil records.

But seriously, please go and read Zimmer’s Evolution. Please.

Darwin said at the end of his life, that unless a plethora of “transitional forms” could be found in the fossil record to prove his evolutionary theory, he’d have to say it was just that… an interesting, but unproven theory. IE, you’d expect to find transitional forms everywhere. We don’t.

If computers could breed and reproduce over millions of years, with those baby computers that were better able to communicate having a survival advantage, you’d expect to see the Internet evolve naturally.

But as computers don’t reproduce like living creatures, it’s really a bad idea to use them as an analogy. Evolution only affects things that reproduce genetically, not things that get made in a factory.

Those are things you should consider. Don’t just wave them away because they don’t fit what you want to believe, but consider them. Perhaps if you gain knowledge of evolution you could be the creationist to find critical flaws. Perhaps your new found knowledge would lead you away from creationism. Either way, it is better to have the knowledge than not.

I’m not wintermute, but I’ll start the topic off, if that’s fine.

One important point to understand that the eye, while complex, contains many obvious imperfects: blind spots, placement of blood vessels hindering light, high risk of retina tearing, etc. This can be explained by evolution (natural selection is an editing process that works on a “better than” basis – ancestral flaws are difficult to completely get rid of and thus are traceable across lineages) but casts doubt on the foresight of a supposedly omnipotent creator.

A rough outline of how the evolution might have occurred:

- The eye likely began as a flat surface of photoreceptor (light-sensitive) cells. After all, distinguishing shadows would be a big advantage over blindness for tasks like basic navigation.
- Natural selection would then favor that group of cells to form a cup-like depression. Since each cell receive different amounts of light from being in a slightly different positions, the organism is able to discern, roughly, the direction of light. This is the eye that still exists in species of flatworms.
- The next development is the transition from an open cup to a closed structure with a narrow slit. By minimizing the amount of light entering the eye cavity, the image can be better focused. However, it also has the major drawback of making the image dim. This type of eye still exists in the chambered nautilus.
- How to improve the focusing power? Add a lens over the opening, of course. This basically the eye of vertebrates. (The octopus also has a lens eye, too, but its version is thought to have independently evolved.)

Diagram:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diagram_of_eye_evolution.svg

PBS Video Demonstrating Transitional Models:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

Creationists and IDers often like to say that 50% of a “fully developed” eye is useless – therefore, the eye could not have evolved from simpler forms. But as you can see, these simpler forms do exist in nature, and they offer a substantial advantage over a lack of an eye.

A more details treatment of the vertebrate eye:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/evolution_of_vertebrate_eyes.php

The relevancy of my question is as follows, and while I am not a scientist, I do like to think logically about things… :

The internet is one of the most intricate, complex “things” we computer savvy humans observe, interact with and use on a daily basis.

We can easily recognize it as being a “thing” that would not exist without the thought, creativity, desire, intellect of humans to cause it to happen and persist. For example, the chips, code, satellites, etc were purposefully made by humans. We would decry anyone who claimed that it just “happened.”

The intricacy of the human eye, for example, exceeds in unimaginable complexity that of the internet . . . I respectfully ask you [no personal attacks here... genuine curiosity...] to help me understand your willingness to attribute the presence and function, viability of the internet to its “creators” yet are seemingly unwilling to attribute the exquisite intricacies and functions of the myriad components of the eye, for example, to a thoughtful, creative, intelligent Creator?