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To: VadeRetro
People who suggest that a transitional has to be some kind of obviously unfit freak do not know what the theory of evolution says.

Correct. A "transitional" is nothing more than an ancestor. It lived, it survived well enough to reproduce, and that's the deal. Your parents are "transitionals" between your grandparents and you. They are not one-half grandparents and one-half you. They are themselves.

As for the micro-macro issue (which hasn't surfaced yet but it's sure to arise), each ancestor in the chain of evolution, being fully evolved in its own generation, is capable of having mutated offspring, regardless of how many of its own ancestors did the same thing. There is no mechanism for keeping score. Natural selection is the only rule. The number if mutations which can appear in a line of descent that stretches back millions of generations is not limited by some arbitrary principle that says "thus far and no farther." Every creature that ever lived is capable of being part of a "transitional" species. And unless they go extinct, or find a congenial unchanging niche, they probably have been transitionals, or will in due course be seen to have been transitionals.

302 posted on 08/03/2004 5:13:05 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Since 28 Oct 1999, #26,303, over 193 threads posted, and somehow never suspended.)
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To: PatrickHenry
That's a good statement of the actual assumptions of evolution. Let's see if the creos can refrain from bashing strawmen now. (Hardy-har har!)
304 posted on 08/03/2004 5:15:43 PM PDT by VadeRetro
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