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Post by renaissanceblonde on May 10, 2009 0:27:53 GMT -5
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Post by SimSim on May 10, 2009 7:21:25 GMT -5
It'll be interesting to see what happens happens once they study it. But even if it is a transitional fossil linked to humans and other apes, the fundies will deny it, like they do with all transitional fossils.
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Post by Hades on May 10, 2009 7:36:46 GMT -5
It'll be interesting to see what happens happens once they study it. But even if it is a transitional fossil linked to humans and other apes, the fundies will deny it, like they do with all transitional fossils. Indeed.
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Post by peanutfan on May 10, 2009 12:35:31 GMT -5
They won't deny it, they'll just move the goalposts. "Well, where's the transition between apes and that one, HUH!?!?!?!? I WIN!!!!111oneone!!"
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Post by Star Cluster on May 11, 2009 7:42:39 GMT -5
The thing is, fossils are, comparatively speaking, very rare considering the number of animals that have lived over the millions of years since life began and evolution has been going on. For all the creatures we do have fossils for, how many more were there that we have no clue about since we have never found a fossil of them?
As an example, I read a newspaper article not too long ago where we know that passenger pigeons existed and were thought to be the most common bird in North America at the time of the European settlement with an estimated population of 5 billion. It's numbers quickly diminished until it went extinct late in the 19th century. Yet not one fossil of a passenger pigeon has ever been found.
So how many phases of evolutionary transition has there been for which fossils have never been found? The "missing link", in all reality, may never be found. But that doesn't mean that one or more never existed. There is still more proof that it did exist than for their creationism claptrap.
<Edited to correct spelling>
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Post by atheiess on May 11, 2009 13:44:26 GMT -5
As an example, I read a newspaper article not too long ago where we know that passenger pigeons existed and were thought to be the most common bird in North America at the time of the European settlement with an estimated population of 5 billion. It's numbers quickly diminished until it went extinct late in the 19th century. Yet not one fossil of a passenger pigeon has ever been found. Mainly because people ate them, and the bones were turned into soup! But we do have photographs of passenger pigeons, so we have created a kind of cultural fossil record for them. I know that wasn't your point though. I wish the media would stop using that term "missing link" because it just encourages the layman's belief in it. Physical evolution is mirrored so well by cultural evolution, so I usually point out to people in doubt that we are just like a computer. We couldn't have ended up as an iPhone without going through thousands of steps of more primitive technologies. You can look through the fossil record of computers, way back to the abacus, and see where they came from. If God created us in one day why didn't he put iPhones in our hands at the same time?
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Post by deliciousdemon on May 11, 2009 16:35:14 GMT -5
Now wouldn't it be kickass if it's true? Not particularly. What would be "kickass" is if fundies could be made to understand that ALL fossils are transitionary because evolution is a continuum, a continous process, not a positivistic, deterministic, step based process.
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Post by SimSim on May 11, 2009 16:39:02 GMT -5
But we all know that isn't going to happen deliciousdemon. But it would be nice wouldn't it?
Edited to fix my English failure.
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Post by deliciousdemon on May 11, 2009 16:42:21 GMT -5
Aye, that it would. And don't even get me started on species concepts and population dynamics.
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Post by ltfred on May 11, 2009 17:46:44 GMT -5
They won't deny it, they'll just move the goalposts. "Well, where's the transition between apes and that one, HUH!?!?!?!? I WIN!!!!111oneone!!" Problem with finding transitional fossils is, when you duly find them, you just double your problems. Beause they want a 'missing link' between them and the fossils on either side.
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Post by Rat Of Steel on May 11, 2009 22:50:00 GMT -5
They won't deny it, they'll just move the goalposts. "Well, where's the transition between apes and that one, HUH!?!?!?!? I WIN!!!!111oneone!!" Problem with finding transitional fossils is, when you duly find them, you just double your problems. Beause they want a 'missing link' between them and the fossils on either side. *blinks* What d'ya know...Zeno's Paradox can be true in a context other than mathematics!
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Post by peanutfan on May 12, 2009 12:52:27 GMT -5
What's Zeno's Paradox?
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Post by Sigmaleph on May 12, 2009 13:19:12 GMT -5
Zeno's paradox: Suppose you want to get from point A to point B. To do so, first you have to walk half that distance. But to do so, you need to walk half that, or one quarter the original distance. And to do so, you must also walk half that distance, and so on and so forth. And since this can be continued forever, to traverse any distance you must make an infinite amount of steps in a finite time. Therefore movement is impossible.
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Post by Vene on May 12, 2009 13:25:46 GMT -5
Aye, that it would. And don't even get me started on species concepts and population dynamics. No, please do get started.
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Post by devilschaplain2 on May 12, 2009 22:01:31 GMT -5
It'll be interesting to see what happens happens once they study it. But even if it is a transitional fossil linked to humans and other apes, the fundies will deny it, like they do with all transitional fossils. Gee, where did you get that idea?...
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