Have Darwinists Finally Found The Missing Link?

The Christian Diarist ^ | October 28, 2012 | JP

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

They never stop – the God-deniers who worship at the altar of evolution. Who pay homage to their high priest, Charles Darwin. Who continue to place their faith in theories they contend to be indisputable science.

The latest example is a new fossil study, published in the journal Science, co-authored by David Green, an anatomy professor at Midwestern University in Illinois, and Zeresenay Alemseged, chair of the anthropology department at the California Academy of Sciences.

The study claims that that the 3.3 million-year-old remains of a baby monkey, discovered in Ethiopia, somehow confirm that our early human ancestors swung from trees before evolving into the ground-dwellers we are today.

The fossil, a member of the species Australopithecus afarensis, has been nicknamed “Lucy’s Baby.”

It’s a reference to a 3.2 million-year-old fossilized ape, “Lucy,” which was previously discovered in Ethiopia, and which evolutionists claimed for a time to be the proverbial “missing link” between simians and homo sapiens.

The science media is now reporting a supposed link between Lucy’s so-called Baby, which National Geographic refers to as a “toddler,” and human beings as if it’s Gospel truth; as if it’s proof positive that the Bible’s creation story is a fiction.

But not every scientist who sings from the Darwinist hymnal endorses the notion, advanced by Green and Alemseged, that human beings are made not in God’s image, but are evolved from Lucy’s Baby.

The fossil just “doesn’t seem human like,” Carol Ward, a University of Missouri paleoanthropologist, told NatGeo News.

“I don’t think it’s the smoking piece of information that says those guys were climbing trees,” added Scott Simpson, a CaseWestern ReserveUniversity paleoanthropologist.

Ward and Hayes did not express doubts about Lucy’s Baby because they renounce Darwinism.

It’s because they don’t want to risk their scientific reputations by giving their imprimatur to the wild claim that a few ancient bones unearthed in Africa prove beyond a reasonable doubt that humans descended from arboreal monkeys.

Indeed, Alemseged and his colleagues at the Cali Academy of Sciences compared the fossilized remains of Lucy’s Baby with those of living apes, humans and other supposed early human species.

According to NatGeo News, they found that the sockets of the fossil’s shoulder joints point upward, as they do in apes; that the boney ridge that runs along the fossil’s shoulder blades is set at a similar angle as in chimpanzees; that the fossil’s scapula, long and curved fingers, and short clavicle are all gorilla-like.

Well, I’m no anatomy professor, no anthropologist, no paleoanthropologist. But, it seems to me that, if the fossilized remains of Lucy’s Baby look exactly like those of a monkey, it must have been a monkey.

And no matter how much Green and Alemseged want Lucy’s Baby to be the missing link, to prove that man transmogrified from monkey, it’s just more false advertising by scientists who believe in Darwin, rather than God.

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

Occam’s Razor, named for William of Occam, the British theologian, holds that, “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.” What does that mean with respect to the origin of man? That the explanation requiring the fewest explanations is likeliest the correct one.

Evolution requires so many tortured explanations – that man began in some primordial soup, eventually became a monkey, and morphed into human beings. The Bible’s more sublime explanation of man’s origin is that Almighty God created us.

[CatherineofAragon]

They’ve found it AGAIN, LOL?

[Vaquero]

My first lesson on evolution was given by Brother William, a Marist brother in the Catholic HS I went to.

Science should be taught by scientists and religion by people of God. In the case of Brother William (dubbed Bio Bill by the students). He had both ends covered and one did not conflict with the other.

The Lord works in mysterious ways and He expects us to do our best to understand how his universe works.

[TheZMan]

What if God’s creation of man, in His own image, took millions of years, through the route of “evolution”, because that’s how He wanted it done?

Science and religion can coexist rather easily, from the big bang, to evolution, etc. To say one diminishes or negates the other is rather silly, and for anyone to say they KNOW how it went down is the height of arrogance.

It’s like the 6000 year old earth argument. It just doesn’t make any sense, and shows a rather shallow mindset.

[TheZMan]

Well said. Seems we’re on the same page.

[tacticalogic]

Science and religion can coexist rather easily,

Only if you let them.

[muawiyah]

Next time you clean your finger nails ask yourself why your pet cat, your watch dog, your noisy parrot, the mice in your larder, and a host of other animals have claws and not mails!

[mjp]

But, it seems to me that, if the fossilized remains of Lucy’s Baby look exactly like those of a monkey, it must have been a monkey.

Secular humanists will not accept this. The fossil record is the only means available to the secular humanist to observe steps in the process of gradualist evolution of species. Many Darwinists admit that the fossil record does not contain evidence of macroevolution because the necessary transitional fossils are systematically missing. So they have to force the fossil record to fit into the evolutionary mold and then accept Darwinism on faith.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Curly Q. Link is supposed to be the missing Link! Could be a nephew of Bob O. Link.

[Chuzzlewit]

[James C. Bennett]

Many Darwinists admit that the fossil record does not contain evidence of macroevolution because the necessary transitional fossils are systematically missing. 

 

http://www.transitionalfossils.com/

 

A few selected transitional fossils

Apes - humans | Fish - tetrapods | Dinosaurs - birds

Synapsids - mammals | Land mammals - whales | Protohorses - horses

Miscellaneous | Other | Credits | References

Introduction: All species undergo gradual change over time, but in the fossil record we find evidence of some changes that are particularly striking. This website is dedicated to some of these so-calledtransitional fossils.

Warning 1: The images are only artist's conceptions and might contain errors; so I keep a page with links to photos or diagrams of the fossils themselves.

Warning 2: When a fossil is called "transitional" between two types of animal, that means it shows some of the traits of both, but it does not mean it links those animals by direct descent. Evolution is a branching process - by which we mean that species often split in two. Therefore:

"Because evolution is a branching process that produces a complex bush pattern of related species rather than a linear process that produces a ladder-like progression, and because of the incompleteness of the fossil record, it is unlikely that any particular form represented in the fossil record is a direct ancestor of any other."

— Rusty Cashman / Wikipedia

In short, transitional fossils are best thought of as being close relatives of the species which actually link two groups. They may have lived at the same time as those actual links, or they may not have(this confuses many people). As long as these problems are borne in mind, transitional fossils give a rough indication of what evolutionary changes were occurring. But don't be misled into thinking that fossils are the only evidence for evolution. They're not even the strongest evidence for evolution.

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Apes - humans

Most ape-like at the top (though in a technical sense, humans are still considered apes). Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Sometimes called "the only transition which matters", this mustn't be thought of as a transition from chimps to humans, but rather, as a transition from the-common-ancestor-of-chimps-and-humans to humans. Chimps themselves have had time to evolve and change since we parted ways, and so "the ancestor we last shared probably differed substantially from any extant African ape" (White et al, 2009).

Ardipithecus ramidus ~4.4 million years ago

Ardipithecus ramidus had a brain the size of a chimp's, but probably walked upright on the ground, while still able to go on all fours in the trees, where it would find its opposable big toe useful (Gibbons, 2009).

Australopithecus afarensis ~3.6 mya

Australopithecus afarensis was a more advanced walker, with nongrasping feet (White et al, 2009), but it still had the brain size of a chimpanzee (Dawkins, 2009). Probably not a direct ancestor of modern humans (Rak et al, 2007).

Australopithecus africanus ~3 mya

Similar.

Homo habilis ~2 mya?

Homo habilis had a brain about 50% bigger than a chimp's. The fossils are found with a variety of stone tools; this is the earliest human which we're sure used tools (Coyne, 2009).

Homo erectus ~1 mya

A tool-maker, Homo erectus had a brain size of about 1,000 cc, still smaller than our own (Dawkins, 2009).

Homo heidelbergensis ~0.5 mya

Homo heidelbergensis had a brain size approaching our own, and shows a mix of Homo erectus and modern human features (Coyne, 2009).

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Fish - tetrapods

Most fish-like at the top. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Update: This group of fossils were thought to be roughly contemporary with the transition onto land. However, recently tracks of a four-footed animal were discovered in marine sediments firmly dated at 397 million years old (Niedzwiedzki et al, 2010). If that animal was a genuine tetrapod, then creatures like Tiktaalik may have been "late-surviving relics" exhibiting transitional features that actually evolved somewhat earlier.

In short, these are not the actual ancestors of modern land animals; but they are related to the actual ancestors, and so they do show us the sort of creature that evolved during the great move onto land.

Eusthenopteron,
Panderichthys,
Tiktaalik
© Nobu Tamura

Eusthenopteron ~385 million years ago

A pelagic fish, Eusthenopteron is probably representative of the group from which tetrapods evolved. It had a tetrapod-like skull and spine (Prothero, 2007).

Panderichthys ~385 mya

Panderichthys had a tetrapod-like braincase and tetrapod-like teeth, and had also lost its dorsal and anal fins (Prothero, 2007).

Tiktaalik ~375 mya

Though still a water-dweller, Tiktaalik had fins that were halfway towards being feet, and ears capable of hearing in air or water (Prothero, 2007). It was capable of crawling around in very shallow water, and it had a neck, unlike fish but like tetrapods (Coyne, 2009).

Ventastega ~365 mya

The bones of Ventastega are intermediate between Tiktaalik and Acanthostega (Ahlberg et al, 2008). Sadly, the fossil is incomplete and we can't see its fins/feet.

Acanthostega ~365 mya

Possessing four definite legs, Acanthostega was presumably capable of movement over land (Coyne, 2009), though the legs were still better suited for crawling along the bottom of the water (Prothero, 2007). Its tail was still adapted for propulsion through water, and it still had gills (Ridley, 2004).

Ichthyostega ~365 mya

Slightly more like a land animal, Ichthyostega had powerful shoulders implying it did indeed use its legs to move over land, at least sometimes (Clack, 2005). Even now, the skull still closely resembled that of Eusthenopteron (Futuyma, 2005).

Pederpes ~350 mya

The foot of Pederpes "has characteristics that distinguish it from the paddle-like feet of the Devonian forms [i.e. the above animals] and resembles the feet of later, more terrestrially adapted Carboniferous forms" (Clack, 2002).

These creatures were related to the lungfish of their time, and almost certainly all had lungs themselves.

It would be a mistake to think that the first tetrapods moving on land needed limbs capable of bearing their full weight; legs sprawled to the side would be enough to move about with. One thing the above fossils seem to show is that legs first evolved for crawling over the bottom of the water; only later did their use on land become paramount.

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Dinosaurs - birds

Most dinosaur-like at the top. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Anchiornis ~155 million years ago

Although many feathered dinosaurs are known, Anchiornis is the first to be found that probably predates Archaeopteryx. The feathers were "not obviously flight-adapted" (Hu et al, 2009).

Archaeopteryx ~145 mya

The famous Archaeopteryx had feathers and was probably capable of at least gliding, but it also had dinosaur-like teeth, claws, and a long bony tail. Its skeleton was "almost identical to that of some theropod dinosaurs" (Coyne, 2009). Precisely how closely related it is to the main line of bird evolution remains the subject of controversy (Xu et al, 2011).

Confuciusornis ~125 mya

Confuciusornis had a bird-like tail and a pygostyle, which is a feature of modern birds. It retained dinosaur-like claws (Prothero, 2007). It had strong shoulder bones, but was probably not capable of true flapping flight (Senter, 2006). It may have glided. It is the earliest known bird with a toothless beak, but other lineages continued to have teeth for a long time.

Sinornis ~110 mya?

Sinornis "still had teeth, an unfused tarsometatarsus, and an unfused pelvis" (Prothero, 2007) but resembled modern birds in other ways, with reduced vertebrae, a flexible wishbone, a shoulder joint adapted for flying, and hand bones fused into a carpometacarpus (Prothero, 2007).

Vorona ~80 mya?

The legs of Vorona are all that we have (Benton, 2005), but they show a combination of bird characteristics and maniraptoran (dinosaur) characteristics (Forster et al, 1996).

Ichthyornis ~80 mya

A strong flyer, Ichthyornis was very nearly a modern bird (Prothero, 2007), and yet it still had teeth.

As birds evolved from dinosaurs, and required feathers to fly, the existance of non-flying, feathered dinosaurs is a prediction of evolution. Happily, we have now discovered a significant number of such dinosaurs, one of which, Mei long, was even found curled-up in a remarkably bird-like sleeping position (picture here).

The first feathered dinosaurs found were more recent than Archaeopteryx — feathered dinosaurs didn't die out as soon as birds evolved — but we now have Anchiornis, which has shown that feathered dinosaurs did indeed exist before Archaeopteryx.

One will occasionally encounter vague suggestions that birds evolved from (non-dinosaur) reptiles. John Ruben and colleagues are the main supporters of this idea, but it remains very much a minority view. Michael Benton (who literally wrote the book on vertebrate paleontology) considers the controversy artificially extended by the popular media's obsession with giving both sides "equal time", even though the dinosaur-bird view is supported by the vast majority of working palaeontologists (Benton, 2005). The University of California Museum of Paleontology has a reasonable overview of the dinosaur-bird relationship.

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Synapsids - mammals

Most synapsid-like at the top. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Strictly speaking, the group that gave rise to mammals were not true reptiles (though they were closely related). Therefore, there is no transition from reptiles to mammals, but rather from synapsids to mammals. However, the terms mammal-like reptiles and reptile-like mammals are still sometimes used for these transitional fossils.

Archaeothyris ~305 million years ago

Mostly lizard-like. However Archaeothyris is one of the earliest known synapsids; a group defined by possession of a single temporal fenestra (Ridley, 2004).

Dimetrodon ~280 mya

Dimetrodon had specialised canine teeth (Prothero, 2008) akin to those of modern mammals.

Lycaenops
© Dmitry Bogdanov

Lycaenops ~260 mya

More mammal-like, especially in how it held its limbs: closer to its body like modern mammals, rather than sprawled to the side like Dimetrodon(Prothero, 2007). It still had a great many "primitive" features, such as ribs in the lumbar area (Prothero, 2007).

Thrinaxodon ~245 mya

Had the beginning of a secondary palate in its skull (Prothero, 2007); in modern mammals, this allows eating and breathing at the same time, and is a sign of a more active lifestyle (Ridley, 2004). Its more advanced skull also allowed it to chew its food; and indeed it had premolars and molars with which to do so (Prothero, 2007). The skeleton was not yet fully mammal-like, but it had lost those lumbar ribs.

Probainognathus ~225 mya?

Probainognathus still possessed a reptile-like jaw articulation (Macdonald et al 2009) but also had "the initiation of the articulation which was later to become the more highly developed glenoid-condyle articulation of the mammal" (Romer, 1969). It had a well developed zygomatic arch (Macdonald et al 2009). However, its braincase was very unlike that of modern mammals (Romer, 1969).

Diarthrognathus ~210 mya?

The fascinating Diarthrognathus had a jaw that contained both the old reptile-like joint as well as the new mammalian joint (Prothero, 2007).

This is merely a small selection of fossils which could be named as transitional synapsids. Wikipedia has an impressive list of therapsids, a subset of the synapsids.

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Land mammals - whales and dolphins

Most land-mammal-like at the top. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Indohyus ~48 million years ago

Although only a cousin species of the ancestor of whales, Indohyus had bones denser than normal mammals, indicating it was partially aquatic: heavy bones are good ballast (Thewissen et al, 2009). Its ears shared a feature with modern whales: a thickened wall of bone which assists in underwater hearing; non-cetaceans don't have this (Thewissen et al, 2009).

Pakicetus and Ambulocetus
© Sharon Mooney, based on images fromNational Geographic (see details)

Pakicetus ~52 mya

Perhaps the actual ancestor, Pakicetus was probably semi-aquatic; like Indohyus, it had dense bones for ballast (Thewissen et al, 2009). Its body was "wolf-like" but the skull had eye sockets adapted for looking upwards, presumably at objects floating above it (Thewissen et al, 2009). Although initially known from just a skull, many more bones were found later (Thewissen et al, 2001).

Ambulocetus ~50 mya

With a streamlined, elongated skull and reduced limbs, Ambulocetus probably spent most of its time in shallow water. Its reduced limbs meant it could only waddle on land (Coyne, 2009). It resembled a crocodile in some ways.

Rodhocetus ~45 mya

The nostrils of Rodhocetus have started to move backwards (towards the blowhole position) and the skeleton indicates a much stronger swimmer (Coyne, 2009). On land it would struggle, moving "somewhat like a modern eared seal or sea lion" (Gingerich et al, 2001). Its teeth were simpler than its predecessors (Futuyma, 2005), a trend that continued to the present.

Maiacetus ~47 mya

Seems similar to Rodhocetus. One fossil was found with what appeared to be a foetus, in a position indicating head-first birth (Gingerich et al, 2009) unlike modern whales. However this is disputed; the "foetus" might just be a partially digested meal (Thewissen and McLellan, 2009).

Basilosaurus ~40 mya

The whale-like, fully aquatic Basilosaurus had almost lost its (tiny) hindlimbs, but they had not yet vanished entirely (Prothero, 2007).

Dorudon ~40 mya

Also fully aquatic, Dorudon also had tiny hind limbs, which "barely projected from the body" (Futuyma, 2005).

Aetiocetus ~25 mya

The blowhole in Aetiocetus is about halfway to its position in modern whales on top of the head. Aetiocetus also represents the transition from toothed whales to the filter-feeding baleenwhales, being similar to baleen whales in most respects, but possessing teeth (Van Valen, 1968).

Basilosaurus © Sharon Mooney, based on an image from National Geographic (see details)

Whales evolved relatively quickly. As Coyne (2009) explains, "adapting to life at sea did not require the evolution of any brand-new features - only modifications of old ones". Thewissen et al (2009) give a good overview of whale evolution, which is freely available.

Beware: There's a commonly reproduced image from a popular science book (Zimmer, 1998) that depicts two dolphin-like creatures, Takracetus and Gaviacetus (always misspelled Gaviocetus) as having short hind limbs. However, the first fossils found were basically skulls plus a few vertebrae (Gingerich et al, 1995), and I've been unable to find any discussion of more complete fossils. Zimmer's book is explicit that some of the depictions are based on very incomplete fossils, so I don't regard that image as authoritative. Happily, we have much better fossils for the species I mention in my list.

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Protohorses - horses

Least horse-like at the top. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Body mass of horse species over time; click for larger; after MacFadden (1986)

With horse evolution, it's particularly important to bear the warning at the top in mind: we have many fossils, and the known family tree is very bushy, not a straight line. At one time, 13 different genera of horses existed simultaneously (Raven et al, 2008). Regardless, there are definite trends over time towards larger body size; larger, ridged teeth suitable for grazing; longer limbs; and reduction of side toes (Raven et al, 2008). These trends were not absolute, however.

Hyracotherium ~60 million years ago

A cousin species of the ancestor of horses. The forelimb of Hyracotherium had four toes (Raven et al, 2008).

Protorohippus ~50 mya

Bigger. The forelimb had four toes.

Mesohippus ~35 mya

Bigger. The forelimb had three toes (Raven et al, 2008).

Miohippus ~35 mya

The skull and snout of Miohippus are becoming more horse-like (Prothero, 2007).

Parahippus ~23 mya

The skeleton of Parahippus was more adapted to long-distance running, for escaping predators in an open environment (Evans, 1992). About this time, grasslands were becoming common in North America, where horses evolved (Raven et al, 2008). They would later die out in America (Dawkins, 2009).

Merychippus ~17 mya

With bigger teeth, Merychippus was more adapted to the grazing lifestyle of modern horses. Earlier species were likely browsers that ate leaves, but Merychippus could also eat grass (Ravenet al, 2008).

Pliohippus ~12 mya

Pliohippus still had three toes, but only the central toe touched the ground; the others being too small. This was probably not a direct ancestor of modern horses.

Dinohippus ~5 mya

Some specimens of Dinohippus have three toes; but some have one, like modern horses (Florida Museum of Natural History).

There are a large number of other fossil species that could be mentioned. There are reasonable pages on horse evolution at Tufts University and Wikipedia.

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Miscellaneous

A few other transitional fossils of interest. This is, obviously, not a sequence. Images and diagrams of the fossils here.

Eocaecilia
© Nobu Tamura

• Aardonyx, a proto-sauropod dinosaur that, though bipedal, could probably also walk on all fours (Yates et al, 2009). Contrary to what you might expect, in this case bipeds evolved to become quadrupeds.
• Amphistium, an early flatfish, with eyes intermediate in position between an ordinary fish and a modern flatfish (Friedman, 2008).
• Claudiosaurus, an early relative of marine reptiles like plesiosaurs, but the limbs are not very specialised for swimming (Prothero, 2007).
• Darwinopterus, a pterosaur, has the advanced skull and neck of the Pterodactyloidea group, but other traits (e.g. its long tail) are like the primitive Rhamphorhynchoid group (Lu et al, 2009).
• Enaliarctos, an early seal, but with more primitive skull and feet (Prothero, 2007).
• Eocaecilia, an early caecilian, but with limbs (Jenkins and Walsh, 1993).
• Gerobatrachus, a transitional fossil between frogs and salamanders (Anderson et al, 2008).
• Haikouella, perhaps the earliest known chordate (Coyne, 2009).
• Najash, an early snake. Had two hind limbs (Apesteguia and Hussam, 2006).
• Odontochelys, an early turtle with "half a shell" and a long tail (Dawkins, 2009).
• Pezosiren, an early manatee, but with legs rather than flippers (Prothero, 2007).
• Protosuchus, a crocodile precursor but "smaller and much more lightly built" than modern crocodiles (Prothero, 2007).
• Seymouria, a "mosaic of primitive tetrapod [i.e. amphibian] and advanced amniote [i.e. reptile] characters" (Prothero, 2007).
• Sphecomyrma, an early ant, with primitive features (Coyne, 2009).
• Triadobatrachus, an early frog, but with more vertebrae, and possessing ribs, which modern frogs don't have (Benton, 2005).

Mixosaurus © Nobu Tamura

There was a section on ichthyosaurs (a group now extinct) on this site, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with it. We don't yet have anything as good as Tiktaalik or Ambulocetus for ichthyosaurs. Still, fossils like Mixosaurus can be considered transitional between early eel-shaped ichthyosaurs, and later dolphin-shaped species.

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Other

This website mentions many of the more famous transitional fossils, but these represent only a tiny fraction of what we know. We have good fossil evidence for a great many other transitions, some of which might be added here in the future.

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Acknowledgements / contact

Tetrapods and Mixosaurus images copyright 2007 Nobu Tamura; released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. Eocaecilia image copyright 2007 Nobu Tamura; released under theCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Lycaenops image by Dmitry Bogdanov; released into the public domain. Whale images copyright 2006 Sharon Mooney; based on images from National Geographic, November 2001: "The Evolution of Whales" by Douglas H. Chadwick, Shawn Gould and Robert Clark; but re-illustrated for public access distribution by Sharon Mooney.

The author is a biology undergraduate. To contact me, send a message to any email address at this domain (except "info", which gets too much spam).

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References

Articles behind a paywall are accessible for free from some universities and libraries. In any case, you can usually get at least an abstract.

• Ahlberg PE, Clack JA, Luksevics E, Blom H, Zupins I (2008) Ventastega curonica and the origin of tetrapod morphology. Nature 453(7199): 1199–1204 (paywall, figures).
• Anderson JS, Reisz RR, Scott D, Frobisch NB, Sumida SS (2008) A stem batrachian from the Early Permian of Texas and the origin of frogs and salamanders. Nature 453(7194): 515-518 (paywall, figures).
• Apesteguia S, Hussam Z (2006) A Cretaceous terrestrial snake with robust hindlimbs and a sacrum. Nature 440(7087): 1037-1040 (paywall, figures).
• Benton MJ (2005) Vertebrate Palaeontology, 3rd edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
• Clack JA (2002) An early tetrapod from 'Romer's Gap'. Nature 418(6893): 72-76 (paywall, figures).
• Clack JA (2005) Getting a Leg Up on Land. Scientific American 293(6): 100-107 (online).
• Coyne JA (2009) Why Evolution is True. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dawkins R (2009) The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. London: Bantam Press.
• Evans WE (1992) Horse Breeding and Management. New York: Elsevier Science.
• Florida Museum of Natural History (date unknown) Dinohippus (online).
• Forster CA, Chiappe LM, Krause DW, Sampson SD (1996) The first Cretaceous bird from Madagascar. Nature 382(6591): 532-534 (paywall).
• Friedman M (2008) The evolutionary origin of flatfish asymmetry. Nature 454(7201): 209-212 (paywall, figures).
• Futuyma DJ (2005) Evolution. Sunderland: Sinauer.
• Gibbons A (2009) A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled. Science 326(5949): 36-40 (free reg required).
• Gingerich PD, Arif M, Clyde WC (1995) New Archaeocetes (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Middle Eocene Domanda formation of the Sulaiman range, Pun Jab (Pakistan). Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, The University of Michigan29(11): 291-330 (online).
• Gingerich PD, Ul-Haq M, Zalmout IS, Khan IH, Malkani MS (2001) Origin of Whales from Early Artiodactyls: Hands and Feet of Eocene Protocetidae from Pakistan. Science 293(5538): 2239-2242 (paywall, data).
• Gingerich PD, Ul-Haq M, Von Koenigswald W, Sanders WJ, Smith BH, Zalmout IS (2009) New Protocetid Whale from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan: Birth on Land, Precocial Development, and Sexual Dimorphism. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4366 (online).
• Hu D, Hou L, Zhang L, Xu X (2009) A pre-Archaeopteryx troodontid theropod from China with long feathers on the metatarsus. Nature 461(7264): 640-643 (paywall, figures).
• Jenkins FA, Walsh DM (1993) An Early Jurassic caecilian with limbs. Nature 365(6443): 246-250 (paywall).
• Lu J, Unwin DM, Jin X, Liu Y, Ji Q (2009) Evidence for modular evolution in a long-tailed pterosaur with a pterodactyloid skull. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (online).
• Macdonald DW (ed.) (2009) The Encyclopedia of Mammals, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• MacFadden BJ (1986) Fossil Horses from "Eohippus" (Hyracotherium) to Equus: Scaling, Cope's Law, and the Evolution of Body Size. Paleobiology 12(4): 355-369 (paywall).
• Niedzwiedzki G, Szrek P, Narkiewicz K, Narkiewicz M, Ahlberg PE (2010) Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature 463(7277): 43-48 (paywall, figures).
• Prothero DR (2007) Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Last site update: 2011-07-28

[exDemMom]

Trying to portray Christians as a group of scientific illiterates helps no one. You can’t exactly bring people to the Lord by convincing them that they can only be Christians if they ignore every scientific advancement ever made in every field of science.

Organized religion has survived the discoveries that the earth is not flat, that the sun is not the center of the universe, and that the universe is more vast than we can imagine. It will survive the discovery that humans were not made from dirt 6000 years ago, too—but not through the efforts of people clinging desperately to a narrow, metaphorical view of the earth.

[Oztrich Boy]

“Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true!” — Homer Simpson.

[newzjunkey]

Please! Enough with your strawman argument.

Fossils are rare; it's the nature of remains to decay completely.

Remember "ashes to ashes, dust to dust?"

It's hardly surprising the fossil record is not complete. The world hasn't been turned upside down looking for fossils; the exploration period has only occurred in the last 150 years and by a few individuals. I submit, no matter how complete, it will never meet your criteria because you are closed off to the idea entirely.

If you want to believe the Earth and universe are a few thousand years old as an article of Faith, that's your prerogative but don't claim it fits scientific observation.

Misrepresenting science does not help your cause, it just makes you appear silly, unserious and a devotee of the occult. Scientific study and a strong Christian faith are not at war.

[mj81]

According to the somewhat provocative slide presentation at this website

http://www.threeimpacts-twoevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/COMET-IMPACT14.pdf

most of Earth history (and therefore human history) is buried under more than two miles of water.

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

It’s not just “scientific illiterates” who take issue with evolution. Hundreds of scientists have signed the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which states: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

The list includes respected scientists from such universities as Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, UCLA, among others.

[panzerkamphwageneinz]

Ok, it takes protein to make DNA and DNA for PROTEIN to replicate. They would have to spontaneously evolve at the same time, know how to interact, and work within whatever cell or space they spontaneously evolved in. If you can believe that, then your a Darwinist. If you have a brain and realize it is impossible, then your a realist. Welcome to sanity.

[Rashputin]

The study claims that that the 3.3 million-year-old remains of a baby monkey, . . "

You need not read anything beyond that to know these folks are not scientists. They find a monkey, they know it's a monkey, they even admit the skeleton is that of a monkey, but since they see various things like ribs, feet, hands, and a skull, it's wonderfully suggestive of a human skeleton.

The monkey has a locking wrist "suggesting" that it ran on all fours putting its weight on the knuckles of its hands. Some details of the shoulder blades "suggest" the critter was a good climber which "suggests" the critter may have spent a good deal of time in trees. They believe that the hip bone, lower limb, and foot are "unequivocally humanlike", a turn of phrase that means just as much as someone looking at the passing clouds saying, "that cloud is unequivocally shaped like a deflated basketball".

Next month or next year when someone is forced to admit this is really the skeleton of a still common sort of rabbit, there will be many an academic paper written about how important it is to know that a rabbit skeleton "suggests" a monkey skeleton.

This is all just a big game of academic folks helping one another tell lies so all of those involved can advance their careers.

[albionin]

I agree with you.

[Edward Teach]

To me, the God haters’ belief train wreaks at abiogenesis, from which it doesn’t recover. Sorry but if you cannot explain how life began in the first place, then all the rest of your theory falls apart.

[tjd1454]

A foundational Christian belief (indeed of all traditional Monotheists) is prominently expressed in the Apostles Creed, which begins:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

This affirmation of God as Creator is repeated in subsequent doctrinal formulations which are accepted by all Christian churches, such as the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

It is the duty of anyone who claims to be a Christian to affirm the fundamental belief in God as Creator. Granted, the creative process is shrouded in mystery, and surely transcends human comprehension. However, whatever their belief in the development of species, Christians are bound to affirm God as Creator.

Those who claim to be both Christians and evolutionists might want to consider Francis Schaeffer's "Ghost in the Machine" analogy:

Suppose someone who is given to myths and superstitions insists that the clock in the tower above the town square is actually powered by ghostly figures. To which a rational person would respond: "Any sane person can see that the clock is operated by a nuts & bolts mechanism of gears and levers. You are free to believe it is due to some mystical 'power,' but it is quite certain that your superstition is utterly superfluous." I.e., the clock works perfectly well without an imagined "ghostly presence."

Likewise, Christian evolutionists may insist that some unseen Divine power lies behind the process of evolution, to which evolutionists respond: "The mechanisms of evolution are well-established and fully explicate the existence of the universe and all that is in it without resorting to some invisible mystical force."

The term "affirm" is important - and quite revealing: you who are so quick to defend the Infallibility of scientists and to "affirm" the theory of Evolution, are you also as ready to affirm the historic Christian belief in God as Creator?

[James C. Bennett]

Yes, like how the theory of gravity and Newtonian motion fall apart because we do not fully understand the nature of the quark.

[/sarc.]

Back to magic poofs and clay to creatures theory, it is!

[tjd1454]

One might also add the Prologue to the Book of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...

It is no small matter for Christians to claim that this actually refers to an impersonal process of pure chance and mutation.

[tjd1454]

One might also add the Prologue to the Book of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...

It is no small matter for Christians to claim that this actually refers to an impersonal process of pure chance and mutation.

[circlecity]

Found him? We elected him President!

[muawiyah]

it's actually quite easy to think of DNA as constituting the basis for self-assembling mechanisms ~ and to think of DNA itself as being a rather fundamental sort of chemical.

New stars go through a lengthy period where the spew out vast amounts of water ~ at 50,000 atmospheres pressure (a trivial pressure in the water being shed by those stars) water forms into a double-helix molecule ~ much like at 0 degrees C it forms crystals.

You actually don't need to use the theory of evolution to come up with gigatons of DNA-like structures ~ all you need are double-helix molecules, sufficient degrees of activity to allow for contact with other elements and molecules (seeding the nascent DNA water molecules with the bridges needed for self-replication) and you are virtually guaranteed to have DNA that can make proteins.

The next stage ~ self-assembly ~ is probably not as random as some would like things to be ~ in fact, probably isn't random at all. DNA, once it's cut loose in the proper environment to enable it's higher forms to survive, then simply builds itself into remarkably similar creatures.

Again, that's not evolution ~ just teeny-tiny machines doing what they are supposed to do.

In the end the Universe is filled with life ~ and, given the resilience of this hardy molecule, all the Universes in the Multi-verse itself are also filled with life.

[James C. Bennett]

Ok, it takes protein to make DNA and DNA for PROTEIN to replicate. They would have to spontaneously evolve at the same time, know how to interact, and work within whatever cell or space they spontaneously evolved in. If you can believe that, then your a Darwinist. If you have a brain and realize it is impossible, then your a realist. Welcome to sanity.

Complex biological molecules and protocells

Sidney W. Fox experimented with abiogenesis and the primordial soup theory. In one of his experiments, he allowed amino acids to dry out as if puddled in a warm, dry spot in prebiotic conditions. He found that, as they dried, the amino acids formed long, often cross-linked, thread-like, submicroscopic molecules now named “proteinoids”.

In another experiment using a similar method to set suitable conditions for life to form, Fox collected volcanic material from a cinder cone in Hawaii. He discovered that the temperature was over 100 °C (212 °F) just 4 inches (100 mm) beneath the surface of the cinder cone, and suggested that this might have been the environment in which life was created—molecules could have formed and then been washed through the loose volcanic ash and into the sea. He placed lumps of lava over amino acids derived from methane, ammonia and water, sterilized all materials, and baked the lava over the amino acids for a few hours in a glass oven. A brown, sticky substance formed over the surface and when the lava was drenched in sterilized water a thick, brown liquid leached out. It turned out that the amino acids had combined to form proteinoids, and the proteinoids had combined to form small, cell-like spheres. Fox called these “microspheres”, a name that subsequently was displaced by the more informative term protobionts. His protobionts were not cells, although they formed clumps and chains reminiscent of cyanobacteria. They contained no functional nucleic acids, but split asexually and formed within double membranes that had some attributes suggestive of cell membranes.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wPNPAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Colin+S.+Pittendrigh%22,+%22laboratories+will+be+creating+a+living+cell+within+ten+years%22&dq=%22Colin+S.+Pittendrigh%22,+%22laboratories+will+be+creating+a+living+cell+within+ten+years%22&hl=en

 

Found: first amino acid on a comet

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17628-found-first-amino-acid-on-a-comet.html

 

An amino acid has been found on a comet for the first time, a new analysis of samples from NASA's Stardust mission reveals. The discovery confirms that some of the building blocks of life were delivered to the early Earth from space.

Amino acids are crucial to life because they form the basis of proteins, the molecules that run cells. The acids form when organic, carbon-containing compounds and water are zapped with a source of energy, such as photons – a process that can take place on Earth or in space.

Previously, researchers have found amino acids in space rocks that fell to Earth as meteorites, and tentative evidence for the compounds has been detected in interstellar space. Now, an amino acid called glycine has been definitively traced to an icy comet for the first time.

"It's not necessarily surprising, but it's very satisfying to find it there because it hasn't been observed before," says Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, lead author of the new study. "It's been looked for [on comets] spectroscopically with telescopes but the content seems so low you can't see it that way."

Raw materials

Comets and asteroids are thought to have bombarded the Earth early in its history, and the new discovery suggests they carried amino acids with them.

"We are interested in understanding what was on the early Earth when life got started," Elsila told New Scientist. "We don't know how life got started ... but this adds to our knowledge of the ingredient pool."

Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona agrees. "Life had to get started with raw materials," he told New Scientist. "This provides another source [of those materials]."

The amino acid was found in samples returned to Earth by NASA's Stardust mission, which flew by Comet Wild 2 in 2004 to capture particles shed by the 5-kilometre object.

Tiny sample size

The samples in Elsila's study came from four squares of aluminium foil, each about 1 centimetre across, that sat next to a lightweight sponge-like "aerogel" that was designed to capture dust from the comet's atmosphere, or coma.

The researchers reported finding several amino acids, as well as nitrogen-containing organic compounds called amines, on the foil in 2008. But it was not clear whether the discoveries originated in the comet or whether they were simply contamination from Earth.

The researchers spent two years trying to find out – a painstaking task since there was so little of the comet dust to study. In fact, there was not enough material to trace the source of any compound except for glycine, the simplest amino acid.

With only about 100 billionths of a gram of glycine to study, the researchers were able to measure the relative abundance of its carbon isotopes. It contained more carbon-13 than that found in glycine that forms on Earth, proving that Stardust's glycine originated in space.

Close study

"It's a great piece of laboratory work," says Lunine. "It's probably something that couldn't have been done remotely with a robotic instrument – it points to the value of returning samples."

Elsila says she would like to see samples returned not just from a comet's coma but from its main body, or nucleus. "There might be more complex mixtures [of amino acids] and higher levels of them in a comet nucleus," she told New Scientist.

Europe's Rosetta spacecraft should help shed light on the issue. The first mission designed to orbit and land on a comet's nucleus, it will reach the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 after a 10-year journey from Earth.

Journal reference: Meteoritics & Planetary Science (forthcoming)

[campaignPete R-CT]

“I’m no anatomy professor, no anthropologist, no paleoanthropologist.”

I guess he be out of his field.

[count-your-change]

Since “Lucy” is just a collection of bones found in a field filled with all sorts of bones it’s been a bit of disappointment but nevertheless a deep well of speculation.

What is “Lucy”? Who knows? Some gorilla bones possibly, no hands, no feet, a leg bone from something, how many different animal bones assembled? Unknown. But for certain not one individual.

[campaignPete R-CT]

"definitely not my baby"

[Jeff Chandler]

[exDemMom]

It’s not just “scientific illiterates” who take issue with evolution. Hundreds of scientists have signed the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which states: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

The list includes respected scientists from such universities as Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, UCLA, among others.

I looked over that list. What I saw is that very few of the signatories actually have any experience in an evolutionary science. Some of them do claim to have knowledge in sciences that are closely impacted by evolutionary considerations, but even in disciplines most closely impacted by evolution, it is possible to find a niche where one can do some research without considering the evolutionary implications. I saw that the crackpot Michael Behe is on the list... that's not a great recommendation for that list. Many of those scientists cannot be verified, since they are in countries where information is difficult to obtain (Czech Republic, etc.)

I also counted: there are approximately 44 names per page, for 18 pages. Another two pages have maybe another 50 names. So that is less than 1,000 signatures--out of around 20,000 PhD scientists in the US, plus who knows how many from other countries, plus who knows how many Masters level science technicians... that's not a very large number. In the real world, there is no controversy about evolution. At work, we spend plenty of time talking about details, like how much Neanderthal DNA is present in the genomes of people of European descent? But I have yet to come across an actual scientist who questions evolution.

As I said before, it harms the cause of bringing more people into the fold by portraying Christians as scientifically illiterate.

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

You haven’t “come across an actual scientist who questions evolution”?

How about Richard Smalley, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Sir John Eccles, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1963; Ernst Boris Chain, winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology; Wolfgang Pauli, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945; and Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937), winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics?

Not one of those actual scientists endorsed Darwinian evolution.

[exDemMom]

You haven’t “come across an actual scientist who questions evolution”?

How about Richard Smalley, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Sir John Eccles, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1963; Ernst Boris Chain, winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology; Wolfgang Pauli, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945; and Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937), winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics?

Not one of those actual scientists endorsed Darwinian evolution.

What I don't see in that rather short list of scientists who supposedly reject the overwhelming evidence of evolution is a single scientist who works (or worked) in a discipline directly related to evolution. I also notice that all but one predates the molecular biology revolution, which verified and advanced the field of evolution far beyond what anyone would have thought possible even 50 years ago.

It is one thing to find a scientist working in a normally evolutionary science who avoids doing any research related to evolution. There are a handful of those. (By actively avoiding evolutionary research, they are, in fact, acknowledging its existence.) But let me know when you find an actual scientist who works within a normally evolutionary discipline, whose work uses evolutionary principles, who claims that evolution doesn't happen.

As I said, I have never met a scientist who denies the process of evolution, and I've met a lot of scientists. My own PhD work was very much based on evolutionary questions.

[RobbyS]

The truth is that it is a mystery. We don’t know the “how” and trying to find evidence of it is as futile as trying to locate Rose’s jewell at the site of the Titantic.

[RobbyS]

The silly thing is trying to locate the remains of the ancestors of the first human. It is mere sensationalism.

[RobbyS]

The silly thing is trying to locate the remains of the ancestors of the first human. It is mere sensationalism.

[onedoug]

Me too.