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Except, maybe, those who go extinct without any other species evolving out of them - as I’m sure some species did when the asteroid hit.
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I like to use elephant seals as an example of a potential transitional species (if they make it) because, while marginally successful, they’re something that it would be odd to design, but perfectly understandable with evolution.
Plus we had a great time dragging our kids to see them one Thanksgiving, which they still haven’t forgiven us for.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
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Except, maybe, those who go extinct without any other species evolving out of them - as I’m sure some species did when the asteroid hit.
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That still wouldn’t mean they were morphologically “finished,” only that they died in “transition.”
I like to speculate on the possibility of future, giant-brained hominids looking back on homo sapiens as a “transition” between apes and real “people.”
Well, that’s part of the problem with the term “transitional species”, right? You can only recognize them in retrospect, once they’ve left one or more descendent lineages.
My feeling is that since evolution is a dynamic process linked to fluctuations of the local environment, the only way species cannot be transitional is if their environment becomes perfectly static and remains so in perpetuity. Or, I suppose, if a species becomes immune to environmental pressures in some way.
That’s a nice example actually, but I don’t think there’s anything “potential” about it. One might have made the same comment about Tiktaalik in its day.
No only do we have ample evidence of speciation (IDer’s much supposedly mythical “macro evolution”) in the fossil record we can can actually see it in action.
While it would not be the first time such an event has occurred, I think that you should not leap to conclusions. There are people who have lives away from the SDMB (or even the internet). It has not been even 24 hours since his last post. He may return.
They have very limited breeding grounds, so my “potential” is in case they go extinct.
For Dio - I see us becoming mobile robots with our brains downloaded into computer simulations of the brain, (with ample backup) but I agree - we’re transitional (or terminal.)
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1 (In case you didn’t get around to reading it for yourself.)
Evidence for Him is what you have been studying all along to come up with these imaginative conclusions. See Romans 1 He is the alternative explanation you keep choosing to ignore. He designed the stuff that way. He designed you and me so that we would be stubborn and challenge each others preconceived notions.
Thump, thump! Sorry, I just can’t help myself. The Designer made me do it. If you can’t find anything else, I will be Exhibit A. Aw, but then you would say He was a real stupid designer to come up with a design that won’t listen to circular/illogical reasoning. Well believe it or not, if you look in the mirror you will see exhibit B. (…or whatever letter you want to be.) He might be trying to reveal himself and his character and invisible attributes to you. You ignore it to your own detriment. There is still hope. Keep fighting.
There is common descent within the same types of animals, and plenty of transitional forms. I’m saying the evidence for transitional forms changing from one type of animal to another, like fish to birds or reptiles to mammals is nonexistent and a figment of someones active imagination. I will concede that they don’t actually “create” evidence. It is in quotes because they really just take it and “fudge” a bit to make it fit their preconceived ideas of what should be there.
Got a question. In blithely witnessing to people who are trying to have a reasoned debate, are you:
A) Making a bona fide attempt to win them to your way of thinking, or
B) Witnessing without regard for whether it’s received or not, simply because you feel you’re commanded to in a “so I can shake the dust off my feet” way?
I ask because if the answer is “A,” you really need a new approach. If “B,” then, by all means, carry on. This is the forum for it.
Thinking that retroviral genes are anything but an amazingly intricate design would be the height of ignorance. Keep fighting.
(This was quicker than finding the original quote. Forgive my reply to my own post.)
After I boil all the irrelevant preaching out of this post what remains is a concession that you have no alternative explanation for retrogenes except that “a wizard did it” (and if you really knew what retrogenes were, you’d know that even a “designer” is an insufficient answer), a partial concession that transitional forms exist and an erroneous asserion that no transitions exist getween classes or genera (the word “kind” has no biological meaning, but I’m assuming that’s what you mean).
That last part of your post is the only part with anything close to having any debatable content and it’s already been refuted un this thread.
Will you please answer my question from post #137?
Now you concede that there are plenty of transitional forms? Common descent within the “same types” of animals? What are the boundaries of those “types”? How do you know what falls within a “type” and what doesn’t?
Regarding your “God is revealing himself to you, you morons!” argument, srmclauren, I can’t help but notice that while we on the pro-evolution side of the argument haven’t been persuaded at all, you in fact have conceded on several points. Perhaps it’s the truth of evolution revealing itself to you?
You can only recognize them in retrospect, once they’ve left one or more descendent lineages.
One might have made the same comment about Tiktaalik in its day.