Transitions
Posted on: March 23, 2010 - 7:35pm
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Transitions
I just had a quick comment. In all the Evolution vs. ID debates I've heard, when the creationists start demanding transitional forms, the best retorts I've heard are that all living things are transitional forms and examples of recently more complete branches of the Tree assembled from fossil finds. But I'm very surprised to have never heard a list like this one: penguins, flying fish, flying squirrels, bats, frogs, toads, salamanders, sea otters, walruses, etc. Yes, I know they're not riding a fence between one species and another, but they would seem to be the perfect and existing examples of how transitions could very likely take place. Polar bear fur + porcupine quills + bird feathers would also strike me as somewhat interesting.
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for theists who seem to believe that creatures evolve sideways from modern forms they insist are actually primitive. As you say Smarty, everything is transitional, though some forms are more obvious vestigial than others. I think some people have trouble conceiving of the vast amounts of time taken to for changes to accrue. Instead of accepting this concept it's easier to just reach for gap god.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Well, obviously there hasn't been enough time since the universe is only 6000 years old.
Well, I suspect that that would not break through the barrier. After all, big otters have little otters and big penguins have little penguins. Such is the logic (or lack thereof of the yec crowd). They have their minds made up on this and they will not be swayed by even the most brilliant of positions and a world of evidence.
I have seen a few examples where someone who is into yec was actually shown a transitional fossil. The answer always comes back that that is clearly a life form “of it's own kind”. Then they demand to see the transitions in between what the currently displayed specimen and the precedent and anti decedent forms are. At that point, it is not worth the time to pursue the matter. After all, as long as there is a single undiscovered fossil, then god did it all.
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Yeah, I've noticed that too. It's almost like if a scientist can't showing them an exact lineage of a quadrillion individual fossils in a row, they won't be satisfied.