transitional fossils
Roaming Rider
transitional fossils?
/RR
John Tramel
The short answer is that fossilization in general is an exceedingly
rare process. It's a phenomenon.
Boikat
> transitional fossils?
1. Founding populations are usually relatively small.
2. The time for a species (or a portion of a founding population) to
adapt to a new environment is relatively short.
3. Fossilization is a relatively rare event.
Boikat
bobsyo...@yahoo.com
"Roaming Rider" <intereste...@live.se> wrote in message
news:f69741b7-fbb4-41ab...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
> Is there currently an explanation as to why there are so few
> transitional fossils?
>
> /RR
Yes, but it actually has nothing to do with the question as you phrase it.
There are not "so few" transitional fossils. Every fossil, and every living
thing, can be called transitional.
Everything came from something else, and is headed to be something else -
AND, in the interim, they, themselves, are fully functional.
This is not a "ladder" we are talking about but, more, like the growth of a
tree.
Yes, we could label every second as a "transition" in the life of a tree -
but a tree is constantly growing and changing in it's life.
There are NO steps in the growth of a tree - unless we decide to create a
human invented measurement for the purpose of record keeping.
Dan Listermann
"Roaming Rider" <intereste...@live.se> wrote in message
news:f69741b7-fbb4-41ab...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
> transitional fossils?
two missing links" are generated. The "no transitional fossil" game is just
a ruse Creationists play.
.
Roaming Rider
why there are so few transitional fossils. I thought about explanation
2, and here are my thoughts.
Explanation.
Transitional fossils exist in a relative short time period compared to
fossils that are non-transitional, developed and stable. Because of
that fossil findings are a snapshot in time of species and species
under development, the probability of finding a transitional fossil is
then much less. Therefore we find so few transitional fossils.
Motivation.
First, we can define transitional beings as those beings that are on
an evolutionary move. So in other words, transitional beings are those
that have not an optimized niche adapted phenotype. Evolution is all
about successful change and inheritance. The rate of change depends on
how advantageous it is to change. Thus if there is a relative
evolutionary advantage to successful change which produces a greater
advantage in terms of an advantage of better adapted to the
environment and/or advantage in terms of competition of the base
species then the coming offspring of those beings will continue to
change in that direction. The more advantage there is to change the
faster the change, since the greater the change the greater the
competition advantage and/or niche advantage. When a changing
population reaches a successful niche, and there is really no
immediate advantage to change anymore then the change of the phenotype
of the species will slow down, since the then changing offspring find
no “surviving/competition” advantage. When the change of the phenotype
of the species slows down enough, then the phenotype of the species
stabilizes and a mature developed species exist in this form for a
relatively long time. The greater the advantage to remain the same for
a specific niche, for a species, compared to random changes, then the
longer the this species will remain the same. Only initial mutations
in change of the phenotype of the base species where those changes
produce a competition advantage and/or a move in a direction of a new
niche will successfully continue to survive and breed, otherwise they
will be out competed by the base species thus leaving the base species
alone to successfully continue to thrive and produce offspring of
basically the same species. Thus where there is an evolutionary
advantage to change, it will happen once the initial mutation is there
and the greater the advantage the greater the change. Therefore the
transitional beings of the base species, with a relatively fast
changing phenotype of the base species, will only exist in a
relatively short time period compared to those species that have been
fixed and found a successful niche. Observe, the relatively fast
changing beings of the base species need to be at an evolutionary
advantage compared to those that remain the same for the new niche
that it moves to, otherwise there would be no advantage and thus no
change. Observe however that competition within the base species will
change the base species to new phenotypes, that also becomes fixed
once further change is no longer a competition advantage with
relatively fast transitions. Note that some mutations usually
initially only causes a tiny change in the phenotype of the species,
thus a tiny advantage. However, a tiny advantage can have a big impact
on many generations, in terms of dominance over others in population
size for a changed successfully changed population, for the same
reason that interest-on-interest can generate huge sums of money of a
relatively long time period. Also, once the change has occurred the
change will accelerate, since the genetic ground for change to bigger
size has probably already been established, and probably an already
developed gene for magnification of growth (similar to why the whole
body can grow over generations) can be used again for this change, and
thus this change will accelerate. So, to conclude, if there is an
advantage to change relatively quickly, then this will happen, and the
bigger the advantage, the quicker change, and there thus this changing
species will inhabit a relatively short time period in history,
compared to niches where there is no great advantage to change and
there is a small probability that a random change will produce an
advantage, which is especially true if there already is an occupied
niche that will compete with any new change of a base species, thus
once where a new niche has been established it is very unlikely that a
new development will occur in that same physical space, because of
competition from the developed species that will easily out compete
any tries to re-establish the same niche again just like the niche was
established first by the successfully developed niche species.
Example.
A developed fish lives in the sea. Some fish start to eat insects on
the near shore to land. Those fish that can feed on crawling insects
on land will be at an advantage compared to those that remain the
same. Thus there will be an evolutionary advantage to crawl further up
on the land, since the further they can take themselves to the food
the better and there will be a pull to develop better fins in terms of
moving on the ground (that eventually will become legs) and also they
will tend to develop better and better gills to breathe air, that
develop as better and better lungs. This is a big food advantage and
thus the rate of change will be quick. The more the fish can breathe
air the greater the advantage, since they can remain on land longer to
feed and the better developed fins for moving on the ground the
greater the advantage since the quicker they can feed. Thus more and
more developed lungs will develop. At the same time, better and better
fins, that can be used to crawl on land will develop. Thus it is easy
to see that those fish that have a better capacity for breathing air
and better adapted fins to move on land will breed more successfully
than those that remain the same, thus a relatively quick change will
occur since there is enough large positive gradient with advantageous
niche on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis. Once fully
developed legs and lungs have been established for the fish that can
move on ground and breathe air, then they are a successfully developed
species on land, feeding on a wealth of insects there. Thus a new
successful niche has developed and that will remain the same for a
long time, since there is relatively no big advantage to change again
for that species once the niche is exploited. Thus the changing
species will inhabit a relatively short time period, whereas a
successful stabilized niche species will inhabit a relatively long
time period. Thus we will find very few transitional forms of the fish
in the fossil record since those non-developed fish/land creatures
will inhabit such a relatively short time period, because of the
successful rate of change is so quick compared to the successful
niches of normal fishes, of amphibians (the amphibians will be there
to exploit the advantage of both living on land and in water where the
niche has been optimized) and of successful land creatures.
/RR
Iain
> Is there currently an explanation as to why there are so few
> transitional fossils?
They are not few. Fewer than what? What's to explain? What number
would not require an 'explanation'?
Firstly, there are millions of fossils in our possession, ALL of which
represent a transitional phase on some order of magnitude. Sometimes,
where fossilisation is frequent, the transition is smooth, and
sometimes, where fossilisation is less frequent, we only have glimpses
of the transition. But there's no sense in which the number or
structure of fossils excavated is incompatible with evolutionary
theory.
Secondly, we have no right to expect any fossils at all, of any kind.
Fossilisation is rare. There is no sense left, therefore, in which it
may be said that there are 'few' fossils.
Thirdly, there is a conceptual error implicit in the question. There
is no special kind of animal or plant to be found, which exudes
inbetweeniness by itself. Every being represents a degree of
transition. There is no such thing as a truly non-transitional fossil
form. No father is equal to the son.
--Iain
Boikat
Though some of your details are wrong (gills did not evolve into
lungs, for example) yes. And remember, paragraph breaks are your
friend. I kept getting lost in the stream of thought, but from what I
could follow, without going cross-eyed, you pretty much got it. I
think. :P
Boikat
MAB
Ticktaalik is about as good as it gets for a 'transitional' species.
http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/
Note that some people say there is no such thing as a transitional
fossil or that everything is transitional - all living creatures had
to be functional enough for their environment. A transitional species
is a better term I think.
Mark
Ken Denny
> On Nov 5, 3:28 pm, Roaming Rider <interested.reade...@live.se> wrote:
>
> > Is there currently an explanation as to why there are so few
> > transitional fossils?
>
> They are not few. Fewer than what? What's to explain? What number
> would not require an 'explanation'?
>
> Firstly, there are millions of fossils in our possession, ALL of which
> represent a transitional phase on some order of magnitude.
Not necessarily. Dinosaur fossils dating very close to the KT event
are quite likely not transitional. The species represented by those
fossils most likely went extinct shortly after those dinos died.
Species that go extinct are not transitional.
hersheyh
Transition between what features and what features? Cannot respond to
such a vague claim; transitions only have meaning in specific
examples.
In some cases, particularly for soft-bodied organisms or parts (or
forest organisms or rare organisms) that don't fossilize well, the
answer is obvious. We have very few transitional fossils between the
earliest jellyfish and modern jellyfish because we have very few
jellyfish fossils period.
chris thompson
Yes, the explanation is that there are lots of transitional fossils.
Chris
TomS
<f69741b7-fbb4-41ab...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com>, Roaming
Rider stated..."
>
>Is there currently an explanation as to why there are so few
>transitional fossils?
>
>/RR
>
I know of one explanation as to why there are so many transitional
fossils.
If there were only one, or twenty, or maybe even a few more, one
might find it plausible that they were just a matter of chance.
(For example, to say, "An agent which is capable of doing just
about anything might have done just about anything, and it just
happens to have turned out this way.")
But when they turn up so often, and in just the right geological
formations, there has to be a reason.
And I know of only one explanation. An explanation which happens
to be consistent with the only explanation that I know of which
accounts for the tree of life, and with the only explanation that I
know of which accounts for the distribution pattern of biogeography.
--
---Tom S.
the failure to nail currant jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to
the currant jelly.
Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to William Thayer, 1915 July 2
Walter Bushell
"Dan Listermann" <d...@listermann.com> wrote:
And one "missing link" is destroyed. So the net gain in "missing links"
is one.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Iain
Ok, yes....'barring dead ends'.
--Iain
J. J. Lodder
> Is there currently an explanation as to why there are so few
> transitional fossils?
Au contraire, there are a great many transitional fossils.
It's just that there are still more others,
Jan
Iain
Actually, no, I take that back. Zooming out to an even greater order
of magnitude, even late dinosaurs have their place on the gradient,
given that their cousin species became birds. The 'transitional'
designation is not always about _actual_ ancestry, but nephewhood
also. After all, it could be(for all i can speculate) that the
specific archaeopterix species of which we have specimens went
extinct, but that's besides the point....that the specimens may be
representative of a wider taxon from which modern birds are descended.
--Iain
Ye Old One
In reality most fossils are transitional.
--
Bob.
Ron O
We have trouble explaining why there are so many.
Ron Okimoto
Desertphile
Hundreds of thousands is "so few?" Just how many more do you want?
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz
Desertphile
<marklynn...@gmail.com> wrote:
(CUTS)
> Ticktaalik is about as good as it gets for a 'transitional' species.
> http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/
Not merely transitional, but intermediate. Panderichthys,
Tiktaalik, Ventastega, Acanthostega, Tulerpeton, Pederpes,
Casineria, Eryops megacephalus.... it must really suck being a
Creationist here in the information age, I even feel sorry for
some of them.
We got fish-like tetrapods, and tetrapod-like fish, and they all
fall precisely in the geologic column where evolutionary theory
predicted.
> Note that some people say there is no such thing as a transitional
> fossil or that everything is transitional - all living creatures had
> to be functional enough for their environment. A transitional species
> is a better term I think.
>
> Mark
Desertphile
Many more await funding for being dug up and prepared and
examined. It is a damn shame that the USA spent many hundreds of
billions of dollars killing brown-skinned people for no rational
reason, yet universities and scientists must depend upon donations
to fund their fossil digs.
R. Baldwin
news:9927f5dkovlcae9ns...@4ax.com:
> On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 07:28:48 -0800 (PST), Roaming Rider
> <intereste...@live.se> wrote:
>
>> Is there currently an explanation as to why there are so few
>> transitional fossils?
>
> Hundreds of thousands is "so few?" Just how many more do you want?
>
>
Only hundreds of thousands? What about diatomite?
Sapient Fridge
<fd46924c-10f6-44b4...@r24g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Roaming Rider <intereste...@live.se> writes
<snip>
>A developed fish lives in the sea. Some fish start to eat insects on
>the near shore to land. Those fish that can feed on crawling insects
>on land will be at an advantage compared to those that remain the
>same. Thus there will be an evolutionary advantage to crawl further up
>on the land, since the further they can take themselves to the food
>the better and there will be a pull to develop better fins in terms of
>moving on the ground (that eventually will become legs) and also they
>will tend to develop better and better gills to breathe air, that
>develop as better and better lungs.
Not far off, but current thinking is that limbs and hands/feet developed
first in water as being more efficient than fins to move through heavy
vegetation in swampy environments. Therefore the first tetrapods moving
to land would have already have moved away from fins.
The evidence for this is that, from the fossil record, fingers etc. seem
to have formed before the limb bones were strong enough to support the
weight of their owners:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthostega
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_6_115/ai_n26919250/?tag=content;col1
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-did-fish-grow-legs-15424.shtml
http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darwin200/pages/index.php?page_id=g3
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Stuart
You mean few as in "few thousand" ?
Stuart
J. J. Lodder
Indeed, there almost all extinct.
It is just that we have more of some
than of others.
Jan
Desertphile
Ooops! Okay: <Carl Sagan> billions and billions! </Carl Sagan> Or
actually trillions and trillions, considering all the limestone in
the world.
The number of intermediate fossils currently found, prepared,
examined, and written about are staggering; it would take a
superior brain (than mine) to keep track of them all. There are so
many that even a few Creationists have started calling them
"mosaics" (i.e., the gods made them that way to deceive us)
because they cannot ignore the intermediate nature of the fossils
any more. Yet most of their peers still deny the intermediate
fossils even exist.
Fish with hands and legs; snakes with legs; whales with a large
assortment of land-dwelling features including legs.... just what
Charles Darwin said we would find, and there they are. One could
almost (but not quite) feel sorry for Creationists: it must really
suck being them, what with all the evidence telling them they are
ignorant shits.
Ernest Major
<res0...@nozirevBACKWARDS.net> writes
Hundreds of thousands of species. (The figure I last saw was 250,000
known fossil species.)
--
alias Ernest Major