On Tue, 13 Aug 1996 02:09:50 -0500 (CDT), Steven Schimmrich wrote to
Geoffrey Howells:
GH>hear a lot about missing links such as archeopterix - an unusual
>bird. This is the only transition between different classes I
>know about. And is it really a transition, or just a
>freak/unusual species. There is no way of telling!
SS>Archaeopteryx is more than just an unusual bird. It was first
>classified as a dinosaur because of it's skeletal characteristics
>(before feather impressions were found). Some might describe it as
>an unusual feathered dinosaur!
The point here is though that possession of feathers is one of the
unique diagnostic feature of birds. All birds have feathers and
nothing else (not even the most morphologically similar dinosaur
Comsognathus) has feathers:
"Flight in Archaeopteryx is associated with a single character that
is capable of fossilization, feathers. The preservation of feathers
(or rather their impressions) is a rare phenomenon. They are known
in Archaeopteryx only because the remains of this genus were
preserved in fine grained, lithographic limestone. No dinosaurs are
known to have had feathers...It is more significant that feathers are
not associated with the one very well-preserved skeleton of
Compsognathus from Solenhofen (Ostrom, 1978)." (Carroll, R.L.,
"Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution", 1988, W. H. Freeman & Co.,
pp340-341)
There are also a number of differences between known dinosaurs and
birds that preclude an immediate ancestral relationship:
"When Archaeopteryx was first described, it was thought to be closely
related to dinosaurs. As that group became better known, it appeared
that all dinosaurs were too specialized to be directly ancestral to
birds. In his very influential book, Heilmann (1926) argued that
Archaeopteryx must have evolved from more primitive archosaurs, the
Triassic thecodonts. There are no features of primitive thecodonts
that preclude them from being the ultimate ancestors of both
dinosaurs and birds, but no thecodonts can be demonstrated as sharing
a unique, common ancestry with birds. The features that they share
are all primitive for archosaurs in general. Walker (1972), Martin,
Stewart, and Whetstone (1980), and Martin (1983) showed that there
are some characters of birds that are shared with crocodiles, but
there is no evidence that they are uniquely shared with a common
ancestor of these groups....There is a great overall similarity to
Compsognathus, but this genus is too late in time (as a direct
contemporary of Archaeopteryx) and too specialized in the reduction
of the the manus to two digits. No other adequately known theropod
appears to be an appropriate ancestor." (Carroll, R.L., "Vertebrate
Paleontology and Evolution", 1988, W. H. Freeman & Co., pp340-341)
It is ironic that Archaeopteryx remains the only example of a
claimed intermediate form, yet it comprises a bird which
evolutionists otherwise explain is absent because of poor chances of
fossilisation:
"The hazards of preservation and subsequent exposure impose another
bias-against groups of animals that were rare or geographically
restricted. This bias is particularly unfortunate, since most major
evolutionary changes probably occurred in small, isolated populations
that were subject to stringent selection pressure (Dobzhansky et
al.,1977; Mayr,1963; Simpson,1953). Where information regarding
transitional forms is most eagerly sought, it is least likely to be
available. We have no intermediate fossils between rhipidistian fish
and early amphibians or between primitive insectivores and bats;
only a single species, Archaeopteryx lithographica represents the
transition between dinosaurs and birds." (Carroll, R.L., "Vertebrate
Paleontology and Evolution", 1988, W. H. Freeman & Co., p4).
The fact is that the fossil record might suggest common ancestry, but
it does not support a Neo-Darwinian blind watchmaker *mechanism*:
"Perhaps we should not be surprised that vertebrate paleontologists
did not support the prevailing view of slow, progressive evolution
but tended to elaborate theories involving saltation, orthogenesis,
or other vitalistic hypotheses. Most of the evidence provided by the
fossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic
interpretation, as pointed out by Eldredge and Gould (1972), Gould
and Eldredge (1977), Gould (1985), and Stanley (1979, 1982). Few
contemporary paleontologists would deny that natural selection
controls the direction of evolution, but many would seek additional
factors to account for the rapid evolution that characterizes the
early diversification and radiation of groups and the early stages in
the elaboration of major new structures." (Carroll, R.L.,
"Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution", 1988, W. H. Freeman & Co.,
p4).
What these "additional factors" are remains the 64-million dollar
question. Gould flirts with a "fast-transition" theory to explain
the explosive burst that originated the animal phyla:
"Two different kinds of explanations for the absence of Precambrian
ancestors have been debated for more than a century: the artifact
theory (they did exist, but the fossil record hasn't preserved them),
and the fast-transition theory (they really didn't exist, at least as
complex invertebrates easily linked to their descendants, and the
evolution of modern anatomical plans occurred with a rapidity that
threatens our usual ideas about the stately pace of evolutionary
change)." (Gould S.J., "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the
Nature of History", Penguin: London, 1991, pp270-272)
Good, professor emeritus of botany at University of Hull (who cannot
use excuses like poor fossilisation), even suggests the
possibility of direct de novo creation:
"For one paramount reason, namely the absence of any effective
palaeontological history of these plants, the answer can only be that
their direct influence on this problem is comparatively small, but
more indirectly many of their features, and especially their huge
numbers, give them considerable significance. If a new biological
type is not the result of transformism it must, as far as we are
capable of judging, arise in some way within the meaning of the words
de novo, and that is something quite beyond our experience. That we
have no such experience, however, is not in itself a reason for
excluding the possibility of an origin of this sort in all cases,
through it does afford reasonable grounds for doubting whether this
has ever been a general and wide-spread phenomenon, because if this
had been the case the less likely that we should continue to be
without any evidence of it. On this argument then the very numbers
of the Flowering Plants tend to support the opinion that they are, at
least in all essentials, the result of biological transformism. At
the same time we cannot totally ignore the possibility that
occasionally in time and space, if no more frequently, there may have
been involved an event of a different kind." (Good R., "Features
of Evolution in the Flowering Plants", 1974, p384, in Bird W. R.,
"The Origin of Species Revisited", Vol. I, Regency: Nashville,
1991, p55)
One of these "additional factors" that cannot be ruled out (except on
the grounds of metaphysical naturalism) is a "fast-transition"
resulting from a direct supernatural intervention by an exogenous
Intelligent Designer. Indeed, Archaeopteryx is a huge problem to
Neo-Darwinian blind watchmaker evolution. Here we have a reptilian
form acquiring characteristics over millions of years in a supposedly
blind and undirected way (eg. light hollow bones, air-sacs, avian
lung, warm bloodedness, etc) and then the only animal that could use
feathers, actually grew them when it was ready to use them! This is
actually one of the best evidences for Intelligent Design and a
biotic message to those who have eyes to read it.
[...]
GH>Does anyone know of any other good transitional fossils?
SS>There's a VERY large FAQ at the Talk.Origins archive listing many,
>many examples of transitional fossils with references to the primary
>literature. Most people aren't aware of how many their actually are
>because most people don't read the paleontological primary
>literature.
[...]
I presume Harvard Professor Stephen Jay Gould reads the
"paleontological primary literature"? :-) If so, he claims that
transitional fossils are extremely rare:
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record
persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees
that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of
their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the
evidence of fossils. " (Gould S.J., "The Episodic Nature of
Evolutionary Change", "The Panda's Thumb", Penguin: London, 1980,
pp150-151)
The key may be in the vagueness of the term "transitional
fossils". Darwinists may use it of much more numerous but
uncontroversial lower taxa that a creationist would concede as
micro-evolution. But it is in the *higher taxa* where there is a
lack of "transitional fossils" as Gould's predecessor at Harvard
George Gaylord Simpson (who also "read the paleontological
primary literature <g>) , pointed out :
"This is true of all thirty-two orders of mammals...The earliest and
most primitive known members of every order already have the basic
ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous
sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is
so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is
speculative and much disputed...This regular absence of transitional
forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal
phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of
almost all classes of animals both vertebrate and invertebrate...
it is true of the classes, and of the major animal phyla, and it is
apparently also true of analogous categories of plants." (Simpson
G.G., "Tempo and Mode in Evolution", 1944, pp105,107, in Sunderland
L.D., "Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems", Master Book
Publishers, El Cajon, CA, revised edition, 1988, p80).
I conclude with two quotes by Wilcox:
"If I am to speak to this issue, I want to make my focus very clear.
This paper concerns the appearance of biological structure, not the
tie of such appearance to biotic descent. Evidence for structural
difference/descent does not constitute evidence for the mechanism by
which structural transformation took place. Therefore, the sorts of
evidence that simply indicate relationship and/or descent from a
common ancestor (e.g., molecular clock data, fossil sequences,
chromosomal banding, and other measures of similarity) are not
relevant to this question unless they indicate the nature of the
creative mechanism that produced novelty during that descent.
Evidence of ancestry does not imply knowledge of the morphogenetic
mechanisms that are able to produce novelty. This was perhaps better
understood in the nineteenth century than it is today (Muller and
Wagner, 1991). Indeed, by 1850, almost all researchers accepted
common descent (Gillespie, 1979; Desmond, 1989). The unique
implication of Darwin's theory was therefore not descent, but its
suggestion that the source of biotic order was to be found in the
natural (material) order. " (Wilcox D.L., "A Blindfolded Watchmaker:
The Arrival of the Fittest", in Buell J. & Hearn V., eds.,
"Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?", Foundation for Thought and
Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p195)
and
"I have no metaphysical necessity driving me to propose the
miraculous action of the evident finger of God as a scientific
hypothesis. In my world view, all natural forces and events are
fully contingent on the free choice of the sovereign God. Thus,
neither an adequate nor an inadequate ''neo-Darwinism (as mechanism)
holds any terrors. But that is not what the data looks like. And I
feel no metaphysical necessity to exclude the evident finger of God."
p (Wilcox D.L., "Tamed Tornadoes", in Buell J. & Hearn V., eds.,
"Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?", Foundation for Thought and
Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p215)
God bless.
Steve
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net |
| 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au |
| Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 9 448 7439 (These are |
| Perth, West Australia v my opinions, not my employer's) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------