On Tue, 24 Dec 1996 14:42:02, Glenn Morton wrote:
[...]
JB>These stratomorphic forms are not true"intermediates" in the
>Darwinian sense. There is no gradual sequence which should show
>the morphing of new species, as Darwin predicted there should be.
>You have even admitted such in the past.
>GM>I don't know of a single evolutionist who believes that there
>should be a gradual morphing of one species into another. Darwin
>may have believed that, but Darwin was wrong...
[...]
Someone ought to tell Dawkins:
"All the great apes that have ever lived, including ourselves are
linked to one another by an unbroken chain of parent-child bonds.
The same is true of all animals and plants that have ever lived, but
there the distances involved are much greater. Molecular evidence
suggests that our common ancestor with chimpanzees lived, in Africa,
between five and seven million years ago, say half a million
generations ago. This is not long by evolutionary standards.
Events are sometimes organised at which thousands of people hold
hands and form a human chain, say from coast to coast in the US. in
aid of some cause OF charity. Let us imagine setting one up along
the equator, across the width of our home continent of Africa. It is
a special kind of chain, involving parents and children, and we will
have to play tricks with time in order to imagine it. You stand on
the shore of the Indian Ocean in southern Somalia, facing north, and
in your left hand you hold the right hand of your mother. In turn
she holds the hand of her mother, your grandmother. Your
grandmother holds her mothers hand, and so on. The chain wends its
way up the beach, into the arid scrubland and westwards towards the
Kenya border.
How far do we have to go until we reach our common ancestor with the
chimpanzees? It is a surprisingly short way. Allowing one yard per
person, we arrive at the ancestor we share with chimpanzees in under
300 miles. We have hardly started to cross the continent; we are
still not halfway to the Great Rift Valley. The ancestor is standing
well to the east of Mount Kenya, and holding in her hand an entire
chain of her lineal descendants, culminating in you standing on the
Somali beach.
The daughter that she is holding by her right hand is the one from
whom we are descended. Now the arch-ancestress turns eastward to face
the coast, and with her left hand grasps her other daughter, the one
from whom the chimpanzees are descended (or son, of course). The two
sisters are facing one another, and each holding their mother by the
hand. Now the second daughter, the chimpanzee ancestress, holds her
daughter's hand, and a new chain is formed, proceeding back towards
the coast. First cousin faces first cousin, second cousin faces
second cousin. and so on. By the time the doubled-back chain has
reached the coast again, it consists of modern chimpanzees. You are
face to face with your chimpanzee cousin, and you are joined to her by
an unbroken chain of mothers holding hands with daughters.
If you walked up the line like an inspecting general-past Homo
erectus, Homo habilis, perhaps Australopithecus afarensis -and down
again the other side (the intermediates on the chimpanzee side are
unnamed because, as it happens, no fossils have been found), you
would nowhere find any sharp discontinuity. Daughters would
resemble mothers just as much (or as little) as they always do.
Mothers would love daughters, and feel affinity with them, just as
they always do. And this hand- in-hand continuum, joining us
seamlessly to chimpanzees, is so short that it barely makes it past
the hinterland of Africa, the mother continent. Our chain of
African apes, doubling back on itself, is in miniature like the ring
of gulls round the northern hemisphere, except that the
intermediates happen to be dead.
(Dawkins R., "Meet my cousin, the chimpanzee, New Scientist, 5 June
1983, pp37-38)
God bless.
Steve
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