#20726: — 04/01  at  10:28 PM
PZ - Thanks for the Frontpage!
I'll research and get back to you. I'll ignore your condescending, elitist attitude, 'cause if it wasn't you then you wouldn't be PZ!

The following is a response to "Troy", whose entire post is in the thread below.

Troy
>>early humans lived on the savannah and became buzzard bait when they died

Ok. That's a bit simplistic, don't you think? You're saying that not a single 'Missing Link' died in any concievable fashion such that their remains would be preserved? (ie None drowned in a river and were deposited in a flood plain?).
Again, I don't buy it.


>>If there WEREN'T the rock-solid appearance of naturalistic origin of mankind

You're going to have to earn that assumption. I am arguing that there IS NOT rock-solid appearance of naturalistic origin. Again, no Missing Link. Again, the assumption that something (Life) must generate from nothing; a logical fallacy. That's not quite Rock-Solid.


>>Life is localized reversals of entropy.

Thats interesting and true. We know how life propogates, but not how it began... Life from nothing? There is no evidence of that.

I can tacitly agree with just about everything else you posted. Thanks.

#20727: PZ Myers — 04/01  at  10:37 PM
Define "missing link".

Just to warn you...every time you use that stupid phrase, your credibility goes down another notch.

You're also going to have to define it in such a way to exclude the thousands of hominid fossils that have been found. You are aware that there are many hominid fossils that have been preserved, correct?

#20729: Les Lane — 04/01  at  10:41 PM
This guy should start in the children's section of the library.

#20730: Ben — 04/01  at  10:42 PM
Life from nothing? There is no evidence of that.

Sure there is. According to the red-shift of the universe, the evidence suggests that there was, at least from what we can observe, once nothing. Now there's something, plus life. Hence, life from nothing. If you're referring to the mechanism which gave rise to the first replicating organisms from primordial material, evolution has nothing to say about that, and nor do we because the science hasn't yet advanced that far. Your argument is erroneous anyway, since the theistic explanation for the existence of life is exactly the same as "Life From Nothing", only with an assumed, non-falsifiable, non-evidenced third party waving a magic wand.

Like PZ said, read the articles. THEN come back.

#20732: — 04/01  at  10:56 PM
>That's a bit simplistic, don't you think?

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

>None drowned in a river and were deposited in a flood plain?

drowning in a river isn't conducive to being deposited anywhere in one piece after the fishies and scavengers are through with you.

At any rate, you asked why we have lots of trilobites in the fossil record and not a comparable number of humanoid apes.

Lacking a time machine, we are left with postulating theories as to why this is the case. One reason, of course, is that trilobites were around for hundreds of millions of years all over the world and "transitional" humanoids existed in a comparitively brief timespan, and, so several accepted evolutionary hypotheses go, in a limited and/or isolated geographic range.

>I am arguing that there IS NOT rock-solid appearance of naturalistic origin.

There's many levels of this debate, so we need to define our terms.

By naturalistic origin I mean from dust to mankind.

One is the theory of "macroevolution", or speciation of animals over time. ALL the data we have leads us to infer that humans share common ancestors with the apes, and the apes share common ancestors with mammals, etc etc down to some far horizon of slime or what have you. If you wish to debate that we can, though I don't see much point in it since the evidence of macroevolution happening for this is overwhelming in many cases, so you would be left arguing why macroevolution could occur in eg. mammals -> whales and NOT occur for apes -> humans.

On the theological side, it appears to me by denying this simplest interpretation of the evidence of natural origins of mankind you are LIMITING the extent of your God's creative abilities.

Why couldn't your creator have created our human ancestors from apes? From all appearances we ARE apes, sharing so much of our DNA/physiology with them. Why would your creator go to the trouble of making us look so much like apes?

From my above, I argue that if we DIDN'T look so much like apes a Creator would have a lot of explaining to do. People would be DRIVEN by the need to find a Creator, any Creator, since there could be no possible explanation for our appearance ex nihilo.

That science can build possible explanations for the non-supernatural origin of mankind, and life, removes this mortal threat of FAITH from belief.

Again, if it were so clear that we were made by a Creator, faith in the same would thereby be cheapened. cf. the apostle Thomas. Some man of faith he was.

>Life from nothing? There is no evidence of that.

Your misstating the case. If you wish to understand science you must be more precise with your thoughts and statements.

Current science postulates that life arose, not from nothing, but from an existing biochemical organic conditions, and the assumption is that these organic conditions obtained naturally.

Science has been testing this assumption by searching for (and finding)evidence of organic chemicals in such things as meteorites and other worlds in this solar system.

In addition, in science we can attempt to rerun abiogenesis in the laboratory. This would provide more evidentiary support for the hypotheses surrounding abiogenesis.

But at some point, lacking a time machine, even science will have to leave of the theorizing at leave our understanding up to Occam's Razor.

For all we can know life on earth was seeded by space aliens. Or some Creator, even if we are able to reverse-engineer abiogenesis in a laboratory.

#20733: — 04/01  at  10:57 PM
PZ - You'll have to help me along if we are to debate in good faith. You know what I mean by "Missing Link", although my definition may be technically incorrect. But allow me to humor you -

From my understanding, the progenitor of homo sapien's DNA has been examined and it could not have mated with homo sapien. Hence the need for the "Missing Link".

Yes, there are preserved hominid fossils, but I have yet to see them arranged in a row such that the "evolution" from one to another is almost imperceivable yet the first is clearly seen morphing into the last.

We could expand the definition of "Missing Link" to include other non-existent specimens that, if they existed, would prove macroevolution, but for the purpose of tonight why don't we stick with the homo sapien variety.

#20735: — 04/01  at  11:12 PM
It looks like we may be about to play the game "Multiplying Missing Links" wherein the creationist says there is no transitional form between fossil A and Fossil D. The scientiest points out fossils B and C. The Creationist then responds 'Yea, but you don't have a transitional fossil between A and B or between B and C or between C and D. Every time the scientist sticks another transitional form into the sequence the creationist just claims there are more 'missing' transitional forms.

#20736: — 04/01  at  11:16 PM
If you insist on having things lined up just-so for you then you're going to be in for a very long wait, until the time machine is invented.

Science has been working on other angles of the evidence linking humans to the apes. I find the evidence of common ancestry that exists within present-day genomes simply compelling, obliterating this so-called unscientific "faith" you are accusing those who believe in the naturalistic origin of mankind.

Arguments against 'macro-evolution' strike me as very similar to arguments against continental drift, in that they focus on appeals to disbelief/incredulity and do address the actual evidence science has obtained.

#20737: — 04/01  at  11:16 PM
In response to Ben, who said
>>If you're referring to the mechanism which gave rise to the first replicating organisms from primordial material, evolution has nothing to say about that, and nor do we because the science hasn't yet advanced that far.

Yes, I am, and I will point out to you that your argument requires as much FAITH in science (in that it will eventually explain said mechanism) as the Creationist does in God.


In response to "Troy"
>>drowning in a river isn't conducive to being deposited anywhere in one piece after the fishies and scavengers are through with you.

Ok, but you're missing the argument. I'm saying that AT LEAST ONE "Missing Link" must have died in a fashion in which to be preserved. We have many fossils much older and more delicate than the “Missing Link” should be. Surely there must be at least ONE well-preserved “Missing Link”.

>>I don't see much point in it since the evidence of macroevolution happening for this is overwhelming in many cases

Again, you'll have to earn that assumption. As I noted to PZ, I don't believe there are identified "missing links" that prove extra-species evolution.

>>For all we can know life on earth was seeded by space aliens. Or some Creator, even if we are able to reverse-engineer abiogenesis in a laboratory.

Well, you're honest. Thanks. I can tacitly agree with most everything else you had to say.

I'll do my best to respond to everyone, but in the interest of time I'll try to catch only the salient points. If I miss something important, then point it out. I intend to read the articles PZ has suggested. This may be my last post of the night, but I'll be back tomorrow.

#20739: — 04/01  at  11:26 PM
Troy said
>> I find the evidence of common ancestry that exists within present-day genomes simply compelling

Sure. My argument, however, is against macro-evolution. As I noted earlier, I might agree with micro-evolution, with caveats.


>>Arguments against 'macro-evolution' strike me as very similar to arguments against continental drift

Continental Drift, is, to my knowledge, verifiable because we can measure finite differences in distance measured over time. Macro-Evolution is like saying that Japan was attached to California and then instantaneously moved to the other side of the world. No, macro-evolution is an argument even worse than that, but for the sake of Occam’s Razor it will do for now.

#20740: Ben — 04/01  at  11:26 PM
Yes, I am, and I will point out to you that your argument requires as much FAITH in science (in that it will eventually explain said mechanism) as the Creationist does in God.

Indeed? I find your position fascinating, I must say. Would you be so kind as to explain to me how I require as much FAITH (defined as belief without evidence) in a body of investigation which predicates its advancement upon nothing BUT evidence as you do in a magic sky pixie who doesn't like us masturbating? I mean, pretend I'm a five-year old here. Thrall me with your acumen.

#20741: — 04/01  at  11:27 PM
Why /do/ creationists have so little faith in their creator, anyway? Why do they close their mind to the evidence of the power of natural processes aka materialism? Oops, I think I just answered my own question.

I don't really mind the IDers like Behe, they're more just being a PITA like Gould really, even though the 'irreducibly complex' argument has been shown to be crap time and again. Behe is just manning their last line of defense I guess, or serving as the thin edge of the wedge. If people want to believe in a god of the gaps, it's their loss not mine.

It is true that those who believe in the natural origin of the species have taken an inductive leap wrt the formative powers of mutation and selection. If this worldview is limited to those willing to see thru the creationist BS then I think this will be a good thing over time. As it stands now the lying and misrepresentation Christian creationists commit on a daily basis greatly poisons radical Christianity on the whole; I can't believe /anything/ a radical Christian says about anything now (eg. about the Schiavo case), they're all a bunch of proven liars AFAIAC.

#20742: Milo Johnson — 04/01  at  11:29 PM
The initial comment from the poster says everything I need to know - half a dozen spelling errors, incorrect and absent punctuation, superfluous capitalization, fragmentary sentences - everything simply screams "yes, I AM talking to a moron!" If this is what comes from top "teir" universities, it's no wonder creationism is gaining a foothold.

#20743: Ben — 04/01  at  11:33 PM
Now now, Milo. Ignorance isn't the crime, it's the refusal to discard ignorance in light of evidence. Let's give him a chance. Be open-minded, my friend, and perhaps he'll be more willing to reciprocate.

*downs another Valium*

#20744: — 04/01  at  11:35 PM
Ok, but you're missing the argument. I'm saying that AT LEAST ONE "Missing Link" must have died in a fashion in which to be preserved. We have many fossils much older and more delicate than the “Missing Link” should be. Surely there must be at least ONE well-preserved “Missing Link”.

Preservation is one thing, exposure is another. There might be a whole family of these "missing links" a hundred meters under your feet. How would you find out?

We have a hard enough time exposing much larger underground entities like fault traces, even when seismic data tells us they're there. An enormous amount of money goes into finding really _big_ things like oil fields, that turn out to be damned hard to find.

For a shoestring-budget paleontologist to find a hominid fossil of any sort requires that she has to go where erosion is exposing fossiliferous strata (usually in some thinly-inhabited desert or semi-desert, where lack of plants assists erosion), and then manage to find a significant fossil that is exposed at the surface, and dig it out before the next violent rain washes it away. And she probably has to do this in a 6- or 8- week window ('cause that's all the field expenses her grant will cover) or wait another year.

We're damned lucky to have the fossils that we do.

#20745: — 04/01  at  11:42 PM
This is a guess from a nonbiologist, but just how many trilobites were there to fossilize?

Let's play some quick order of magnitude games. According to Biology (4th ed.), by Campbell, the estimated worldwide population of arthropods is 10^18 (1 billion billion). Since about one million (10^6) species of arthropods have been identified, that gives us on order 10^12 (literally a million million!) per species.

By contrast, estimates of the world population of humans in Roman times are in the low 10^8 range; in 10,000BC estimates are about 10^6. Let's take that as our "transitional hominid" population (even though it's probably considerably too high). If these hominids were every bit as likely to do something leading to fossilization as trilobites (which is absurd), you'd expect to find one million trilobite fossils for every hominid fossil.

Of course, even simians (which are not nearly as bright as hominids) think circles around modern arthropods, so you should probably throw another few orders of magnitude in to account for the lower relative likelihood of fossilization.

As for your "life from nothing" quip--please define what you mean by "nothing"? Do you mean a pre-life Earth, or the dawn of time? If the former, you can't make entropy arguments; entropy arguements only apply in a closed system, and we've got an external power source. If the latter, you _still_ can't make entropy arguments, since the earliest states of the universe that we can directly argue about (according to current models) were certainly not nothing. (Actually, your entropy argument is backwards--nothing has one state, and so -k logZ=0. Absolutely anything has more entropy than nothing!)

#20746: — 04/01  at  11:44 PM
Oh, and as for why we have so many invertebrate, plant, and other fossils, some of them quite delicate: there were a whole lot more of them. Your chances of being fossilized are a whole lot better if you're close to the bottom of the food chain, so you're abundant, and (even better) if you live under the sea away from areas that get churned up by storms or in some swampy backwater, where sediment can collect on top of you in a gradual, nonviolent fashion. Your family is a whole lot more likely to have at least one individual get fossilized if your species continues over many millions of years, as opposed to us flash-in-the-pan hominids.

#20747: — 04/01  at  11:45 PM
>Surely there must be at least ONE well-preserved “Missing Link”.

You asked why we have so many well-preserved trilobites and not one intact ape. A quick comparison of their skeletons provides some of the answer.

Trilobites, being compact and tough little bastards preserve (relatively) well. Hominids with their gangly limbs and hostile dry environs, not so well. Every fossil we do find is something of a "miracle".

And your focus on one "missing link" is of course specious, as MalumRegnat explained above.

Like an acorn grows into an oak, there are thousands of 'missing links' required to smoothly move from hominid to modern-day human.

To expect science to lay these out for you is asking for a superabundance of evidence. Science doesn't work that way, nor need it to. All that is necessary is construct a theory that withstands all the current evidence at hand BEST. It also helps if this theory has predictive powers.

Continental Drift, is, to my knowledge, verifiable because we can measure finite differences in distance measured over time.

Common ancestry, is, to my knowledge, verifiable because we can measure finite differences in present-day genomes that correlate to predicted ages of species divergence.

Macro-Evolution is like saying that Japan was attached to California and then instantaneously moved to the other side of the world.

No, it's precisely like saying a lot of small "micro" changes add up to "macro" changes over thousands and thousands of generations and millions of years; much like India can move from antarctica to asia not in one day but over eons, species drift along, changing over time.

Scientists don't need any "faith" to believe that present-day whales had mammalian ancestors that walked on land. We've got sufficient evidence in the fossil record, backed by genetic comparisons, to make that inductive leap safely. Is that not macro evolution?

If macro evolution can exist for whales I see no reason why similar naturalistic forces would not operate on mankind's forebears.

#20749: — 04/01  at  11:54 PM
Ben asked
>>explain to me how I require as much FAITH (defined as belief without evidence) in a body of investigation which predicates its advancement upon nothing BUT evidence as you do in a magic sky pixie who doesn't like us masturbating?

Because we both have FAITH, which is to say, we both believe - without observable evidence, that our separate interpretations are correct. You say Science may someday prove the spontaneous generation of life. I say Science may someday prove that there is a God.


Troy - I've enjoyed talking with you, but it appears you've hit an impasse in your arguments. Instead of a flame war, why don't we agree to disagree this time? Remember, I have already agreed with much of what you had to say.


Milo - Your initial comment says everything I need to know about you. Elitist, Condescending, and Remarkably Unfriendly. You serve PZ well, but your cause you do not.


Karen said
>>We're damned lucky to have the fossils that we do.

I agree. You are no doubt under-funded and at the mercy of the elements. But despite the inherent hardships, you folks do amazing work; and although many might find it unglamorous, I tend to think it would likely be pretty exciting and rewarding.

That being said... Shouldn't we be able to find at least ONE "Missing Link"? Just ONE? Shouldn't the Scientific Community ‘go for broke’ in this effort, given the HUGE IMPLICATIONS of the find? Seems to me like they should.

#20750: — 04/01  at  11:58 PM
So many new posts, so little time! I'm going to call it a night, I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful commentary.

#20751: Ben — 04/02  at  12:03 AM
Because we both have FAITH, which is to say, we both believe - without observable evidence, that our separate interpretations are correct.

I don't believe in anything without observable evidence. And if I ever decided to break my cardinal rule, I'd make up all sorts of zany stuff and not the mouldy old, boring, well-trod zany stuff which any world religion past or present has come up with. Nine-headed cats. Which breathe fire. No, bees! No, they shoot bees at you when they meow!

You say Science may someday prove the spontaneous generation of life.

No I didn't. I said that science presently has nothing to say about the spontaneous generation of life, so hypothesising is a fruitless exercise without the evidentiary framework upon which to base it. Will it ever? I dunno. Maybe, maybe not.

I say Science may someday prove that there is a God.

Oh, ye of little faith. I thought religion was all about belief without proof, now you're going off half-cocked about "proving God's existence" and thereby undermining the very theism to which you cling. Have you ever read Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy? You might find Douglas Adams' arguments regarding proof and God quite stimulating.

#20752: — 04/02  at  12:04 AM
why don't we agree to disagree this time?

LOL. cue

Shouldn't the Scientific Community ‘go for broke’ in this effort, given the
HUGE IMPLICATIONS of the find?

We have more than enough evidence to prove common ancestry. That you are unwilling to accept these basic facts of life is your problem, not ours.

Seems to me like they should.

After the DNA evidence linking chimps and humans came in, that's all she wrote as far as special creation was concerned.

The Creator of Judaic mythology would be pretty perverse making man out of a monkey like that, then telling us we're created in his image. Hmm, mebbe HE'S a monkey, too?

#20754: — 04/02  at  12:10 AM
Actually, my order of magnitude calculations above only relate to fossilization rate. Trilobites existed for 300 million years; hominids emerged at most 6 million years ago. That's two more orders of magnitude. I also treated "trilobites" as a species (like I said, I'm a nonbiologist); trilobites were apparently (according to an interesting Web site) around 15,000 species of trilobites. As you can see, it really, really isn't surprising that we've got more trilobites than hominids in the fossil record.

You really should answer Troy's comment--given a low fossilization rate, how is your demand for an ever increasing number of missing links even plausible? That isn't something you can "agree to disagree" on, it's a fundamental hole in your argument.

#20755: — 04/02  at  12:17 AM

That being said... Shouldn't we be able to find at least ONE "Missing Link"? Just ONE? Shouldn't the Scientific Community ‘go for broke’ in this effort, given the HUGE IMPLICATIONS of the find? Seems to me like they should.

Does anyone else notice he is a bit disingenuous? Here he asks for 'Just ONE' "Missing Link" when else where he asked for an entire series set up like a kids flip book so he could rifle the corners and magicaly see 'ape' become 'man' with no breaks or jumps.

#20756: — 04/02  at  12:28 AM
That isn't something you can "agree to disagree" on, it's a fundamental hole in your argument.

I think he's trying to argue that scientists require "faith" to believe humans came from hominids, since we don't have all the bones lined up just-so from 15 MYA to the stone age.

This is, of course, ignoring the genetic evidence of common ancestry. Analogies are weak, but our DNA is a stamped passport that says we shared a long trip in the same common species with chimps, and the great many other so-called "macro-evolutions" we have rock-solid evidence for provide us with sufficient evidentiary bases to infer the transition from hominid to human just wasn't that big a deal.

Even lacking DNA evidence, from comparative anatomy it's clear we are a monkey's uncle. Man is a monkey, a hominid, a mammal, and an animal, and only religious nutcases and those they have fooled have any problem with these propositions.

These facts are of course very deleterous to the fragile human psyche. We've been given the lordship of the earth in the Old Testamenent and eternal life in the New.

Tough for scientific materialism to compete with that, really. How much cooler to believe a Creator breathed life into you, metaphorically speaking, rather than, at best, just wounding up the watch and watching it go.