The word "transitional" is based on the word "transition". And a transition occurs BETWEEN two points.
As wikipedia (the evotard "bible" says:
Transitional fossils (sometimes popularly called missing links) are the fossilized remains of lifeforms that exhibit characteristics typical of two distinct taxonomic groups, and which can be considered to represent the evolutionary transition between those groups.
Another source concurs:
Fossils that show intermediate characteristics are called transitional fossils — they have characteristics that are intermediate in nature to organisms that existed both prior to it and after it.
Geez that was the whole reason Shubin et al., went looking where they did because they thought the transition occurred between 385-365 million years ago.
However it has become painfully obvious taht evotards are too stupid to understand any of that.
Oh well...
Required reading:
ReplyDeleteTransitional vs ancestral.
Already read it and it doesn't apply to what I said- moron.
ReplyDeleteThen you reading comprehension is zero. Here is the concluding sentence:
ReplyDeleteThere are a few exceptional cases, such as some marine plankton micro-fossils, where the fossil record is complete enough to suggest with confidence that certain fossils represent a population that was actually ancestral to another later population, but in general transitional fossils are considered to have features that illustrate the transitional anatomical features of actual common ancestors of different taxa rather than to be actual ancestors.
No, YOUR reading comprehension is zero.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't anything in what I posted that claims the transitional has to be a direct descendent.
Fucking lowlife moron...
Yes the features are important but so is the TIME. If the time is wrong then the features don't matter.
ReplyDeleteThen in what way is Tiktaalik not a transitional fossil?
ReplyDeleteTime- you moron. It was found in the wrong strata.
ReplyDeleteYa see as I have explained many times tetrapods were already roaming the earth when tiktaalik was found.
The definition says nothing about time. Nothing.
ReplyDeleteJoe G said...
ReplyDeleteTime- you moron. It was found in the wrong strata.
Ya see as I have explained many times tetrapods were already roaming the earth when tiktaalik was found.
BTW: You do know that scientists can measure stuff like bone length, muscle attachment points, development, etc without having genetics. In fact, it's quite surprising that transitional fossils were know before man even knew what genes where. When exactly (what paper and publishing date) did the genetic component become a requirement for transitional fossils?
Since you can't give us any examples of "Joe's Transitional Fossils"(tm), how about I provide a few examples and you tell me if they are transitional or not?
oleg:
ReplyDeleteThe definition says nothing about time. Nothing.
What do you think "between" means?
Also why did Shubin talk about the specific TIME he should find the transitional?
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteYou do know that scientists can measure stuff like bone length, muscle attachment points, development, etc without having genetics.
Yes, so what? Without the genetics all you have is opinion.
http://www.physorg.com/news182005810.html
ReplyDelete"These results force us to reconsider our whole picture of the transition from fish to land animals," says Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University, one of the two leaders of the study.
Joe: What do you think "between" means?
ReplyDeleteThe word between refers to groups, not to the time. Red the first paragraph of the introductory paragraph, Joe:
Transitional fossils (sometimes popularly called missing links) are the fossilized remains of lifeforms that exhibit characteristics typical of two distinct taxonomic groups, and which can be considered to represent the evolutionary transition between those groups.
Now read the next sentence:
In terms of cladistics a "transitional fossil" will represent an organism near the point where major individual lineages (clades) diverge.
Clades, Joe. Do you understand what a clade is? Relations between clades are not characterized in terms of time. Look at the figure at the Berkeley Evolution 101 page devoted to Tiktaalik. It is a transitional between the clade containing lungfish and the clade of tetrapods. Both clades still exist!
oleg,
ReplyDeleteWhy did Shubin make it such a big deal with the timeline of 385-365 MYA if time- as in when the transitional existed- doesn't matter?
Right the word between refers to groups- groups that had different times of evolutionary appearances.
Just as the second child is between the first child and the third child. The first child was born first, BEFORE the second. The second was born before the third.
Duh.
Joe, So, in your opinion the words "transitional fossil" or oxymoronic because without genetics nothing can be transitional.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that you 'suddenly' included the word 'genetic' in your definition of transitional, because you discovered that transitional didn't mean between times.
Joe, so if Shubin had found tiktallik (Pretend Joe, pretend) in the correct time strata, would it be transitional (yes or no)?
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteJoe, So, in your opinion the words "transitional fossil" or oxymoronic because without genetics nothing can be transitional.
No.
If the transition in question is impossible is it still a transitional?
Kevin- answer the question:
Why did Shubin make it such a big deal with the timeline of 385-365 MYA if time- as in when the transitional existed- doesn't matter?
Joe: Why did Shubin make it such a big deal with the timeline of 385-365 MYA if time- as in when the transitional existed- doesn't matter?
ReplyDeleteThis period falls between the dates of fossils of the earliest tetrapods known at the time (365 MYA) and Panderichthys, a fish with some tetrapod-like features (395 MYA). Shubin guessed that fossils transitional between these two groups could exist at an intermediate date, and he turned out to be right: Tiktaalik is a transitional between them.
That does not necessarily mean that the transition from fishes to tetrapods occurred during that period. Both Panderichthys and Tiktaalik could have been descendants of earlier fishes and "fishapods" that branched from each other.
oleg:
ReplyDeleteThis period falls between the dates of fossils of the earliest tetrapods known at the time (365 MYA) and Panderichthys, a fish with some tetrapod-like features (395 MYA)
Geez that is only what I have been saying all along. And that supports my claim.
Also his data was wrong as we now know tetrapods existed well before that period.
I'll answer your question and I will expect answers to mine.
ReplyDeleteShubin, amazingly enough, couldn't predict the future. The consensus of the time was that was the correct age of the earliest tetrapods.
Tiktallik is still a transitional. It still represents a transition between fins and wrists. That's all that anyone ever said that it did (well, there are some skull characters too).
Now, Joe, let me ask you. Can you be alive at the same time as your nephew? Or, IOW, can a species be alive at the same time as non-directly related species.
You pick a cladogram, any cladogram, and note that all the species on it are directly or indirectly related. Those relationships are based on CHARACTERISTICS, not time.
If, you have something without wrists and something with wrists, then you would expect to find something with partial wrists. And yes, those partial wrists are functional, as described in the book.
What Shubin said:
ReplyDeleteLet's return to our problem of how to find relatives of the first fish to walk on land. In our grouping scheme, these creatures are somewhere between the "Everythungs" and the "Everythings with limbs". Map this to what we know of the rocks, and there is strong geological evidence that the period from 380 million to 365 million years ago is the critical time. The younger rocks in that range, those about 360 million years old, include diverse kinds of fossilized animals that we would recognize as amphibians or reptiles. My colleague Jenny Clark at Cambridge University and others have uncovered amphibians from rocks in Greenland that are about 365 million years old. With their necks, their ears, and their four legs, they do not look like fish. But in rocks that are about 385 million years old, we find whole fish that look like, well, fish. They have fins. conical heads, and scales; and they have no necks. Given this, it is probably no great surprise that we should focus on rocks about 375 million years old to find evidence of the transition between fish and land-living animals.- Neil Subin pages 9-10
Tiktaalik is not the earliest transitional form between fishes and tetrapods. It is nonetheless a transitional form. It belongs to he clade intermediate between them.
ReplyDeleteClades, Joe! You know what a clade is, don't you? (Wink, wink.)
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteShubin, amazingly enough, couldn't predict the future. The consensus of the time was that was the correct age of the earliest tetrapods.
It turned out to be WRONG. However that is moot because he was doing it EXACTLY AS I SAID. There isn't any other reason for him to bracket those dates if what I said was not true.
Kevin:
Now, Joe, let me ask you. Can you be alive at the same time as your nephew? Or, IOW, can a species be alive at the same time as non-directly related species.
You need to keep up. I have covered tht and it doesn't have anything to do with my claim.
oleg:
ReplyDeleteTiktaalik is not the earliest transitional form between fishes and tetrapods. It is nonetheless a transitional form.
Keep telling yourself that. Someday you may be able to confirm that piece of bald assertion.
Joe, Tiktaalik is a transitional form according to every definition you have posted here. Berkeley Evolution 101 concurs:
ReplyDeleteIn January of this year, a group of Polish and Swedish paleontologists announced the discovery of nearly 400 million-year-old fossil footprints that seem to have belonged to a fully-formed tetrapod. If a full blown tetrapod was around 400 million years ago, the earliest tetrapods must have evolved long before then! Tiktaalik's fossils may be younger than the first tetrapods.
If scientists come to a consensus about the date of these footprints and the fact that they belonged to a tetrapod, would it contradict Tiktaalik's status as a transitional form? No. Tiktaalik's position on the evolutionary tree of tetrapod ancestors wouldn't change a bit — after all, Tiktaalik would still have all the characteristics that help us understand the order and way in which tetrapods evolved. However, it would imply that Tiktaalik and early tetrapods like Acanthostega have long ghost lineages — a series of ancestors that lived but did not leave behind a fossil record. In other words, our best hypothesis regarding the evolutionary relationships among these organisms would not change, but we'd have to reevaluate the likely dates we assign to different branching points on the family tree of tetrapods and move many of them back in time.
If you disagree with that assessment, tell us which part of the definition does not fit Tiktaalik. So far you haven't.
oleg:
ReplyDeleteTiktaalik is a transitional form according to every definition you have posted here.
According to the definition of TRANSITION tiktaalik cannot be a transitional.
IOW you evotards are redefining words to suit your needs.
Also how does anyone know if Tiktaalik got those alleged transitional featrures via convergent evolution?
Then we would have a transitional form that had absolutely nothing to do with any transition.
And that makes it totally useless.
But again, the proof of my claim is in what Shubin said. That you are too stupid to understand what he said is a reflection on you, not me.
Joe, no one said anything about convergence, dont' even bring it up.
ReplyDeleteThe claim is that Tiktaalik is part of a clade that is intermediate between fishes and tetrapods. That is in full agreement with the definition of a transitional form you quoted.
If you wish to claim that there is a contradiction, state exactly what it is, namely which part of the definition is not working for Tiktaalik.
First, OK Joe. Prove to us that Tiktaalik is based not upon relationship but because of convergent evolution. You said it, you back it up. What EVIDENCE (you know that thing you claim to be following) do you have that this is so and you aren't just creating a 'just so' story to cover up the mess you're in.
ReplyDeleteSecond, even if it was convergent, it is STILL TRANSITIONAL. The bones Joe, look at the bones. That's the only thing, in all the definitions of transitional you see Joe. Characters that are between.
Joe, a tricycle is transitional between a bicycle and a wagon, not because tricycles were invented after bicycles and before wagons. They are transistional because they have 3 wheels, where bicycles have 2 wheels and wagons have 4.
3 is greater than 2, but less than 4.
It's the TRANSITION between 2 and 4.
Joe, where did you go to school (was it Tennessee?) that gave you such abominable English skills?
oleg:
ReplyDeleteJoe, no one said anything about convergence, dont' even bring it up.
Fuck you asshole. Convergent evolution is a fact.
oleg:
The claim is that Tiktaalik is part of a clade that is intermediate between fishes and tetrapods.
No way of telling what clade it belongs to- convergent evolution and all.
Joe, we have the definition of a transitional form (not transition) right here in this thread. Point out which part of it does not apply to Tiktaalik. Should be easy.
ReplyDeleteJoe, you do realize that if convergent evolution is a FACT, then ID is completely blown out of the water.
ReplyDeleteTalk about an own goal. You have just eliminated your entire worldview.
But that's not what this thread is about.
Please
The claim is that Tiktaalik is part of a clade that is intermediate between fishes and tetrapods. That is in full agreement with the definition of a transitional form you quoted.
If you wish to claim that there is a contradiction, state exactly what it is, namely which part of the definition is not working for Tiktaalik.
oleg,
ReplyDeleteI am going by what Shubin said. Now either he is as dishonest as a snake-oil salesman or what he said is basedon sciece.
Again I will go with hat Shubin said.
Yourmethodology boils down to "it looks like a transitional to me" and if that is OK so is saying "it looks designed to me".
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteJoe, you do realize that if convergent evolution is a FACT, then ID is completely blown out of the water.
Only a moron would think so.
My colleague Jenny Clark at Cambridge University and others have uncovered amphibians from rocks in Greenland that are about 365 million years old. With their necks, their ears, and their four legs, they do not look like fish. But in rocks that are about 385 million years old, we find whole fish that look like, well, fish. They have fins. conical heads, and scales; and they have no necks. Given this, it is probably no great surprise that we should focus on rocks about 375 million years old to find evidence of the transition between fish and land-living animals.- Neil Subin
ReplyDeleteFossils or organisms that show the transformation from an ancestral form to descendant species' form.
ReplyDeleteAncestors usually come BEFORE descendents.
Kevin:
ReplyDelete. Prove to us that Tiktaalik is based not upon relationship but because of convergent evolution.
Prove to me it is based upon relationship- you can't dipshit as that is the whole problem with your cowardly position.
But anyway according to Shubin it wasn't what he was looking for...