“But those aren’t transitional species; they are actual species. Show me a transitional species.”
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Another good example of people confusing the observable facts with explanations. For example, it is a fact that Australopithecines have a mixture of modern human and basal ape features. Whatever explanation you have for this fact, the fact still remains.
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No it is a conclusion.
Popularity or consensus mean nothing.
Either it is or it isn’t.
Howeer, even if it is , it don’t prove ToE.
ToE is more about the how than the existence. ToE claims a methodology to make those hierachies. That is still disputable
I could concede Nested Hierachy without conceding ToE.
Richard
I recall a similar diagram in botany.
Nested hierarchy was noticed before DNA could be sequenced; indeed it was noticed before we even knew there was DNA.
Not knowing how something came to be does not invalidate the observations of how things are.
Not just science education but most education. Simplification is used in teaching history, philosophy, linguistics, , and even in art.
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Exactly, which is why I am scratching my head as to why you are denying the existence of the nested hierarchy. Even people who reject the theory of evolution accept the fact of the nested hierarchy. After all, the nested hierarchy was first discovered by someone who believed in the fixity of species clear back in the 1700’s, a Swedish dude named Carl Linnaeus. You may have heard of him.
But a hierarchy is what we observe – why would you throw out observations?
Because that’s what is observed.
Nested Hierarchy didn’t come from what anyone was “looking for”, it came from just looking.
He does so because there is no other pattern that makes sense.
Biologists would love to find something that doesn’t fit the nested hierarchy – anyone who could show that would be a shoe-in for a Nobel Prize!
What you’re driving at is obvious: you don’t like science being what it is, you want to drag in guesswork and imagination and philosophy.
Or a process like in the game rummy: take the last card showing, or draw an unknown card.
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But they are accepted – it’s just that no verifiable examples have been found. Some come close and are thus debatable, but none can be established firmly despite a lot of effort.
Heck, one of my science professors kept hoping someone would find an undeniable instance of irreducible complexity, though his reason is that to him it would show that aliens meddled with life on Earth.
The two most likely candidates for irreducible complexity are the origin of life and the origin of DNA, both because they are highly specified.
A prominent biologist sometimes in the last few decades said that any more all the species being found are transitional; I recall another saying that this is now boring because we’re not finding anything that stretches the tree!
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You really should check out Lennox’s book.
But then you have to explain why things are that way and do so with more than conjecture.
No you do not. You do not observe each one giving birth to the next!
And that is illegal is it? (I deleted your false accusations.)
LOL
clearly you have no idea what constitutes irreducuibility
I rest my case.
Those two are not even on the list.
Richard
It is.
The nested hierarchy is not a hypothesis or theory. It is an observable fact. Wittingly or otherwise, when you call a python a snake, or a snake a reptile, or a reptile and animal, you are referencing the nested hierarchy.
Prove might not be the appropriate word, but the nested hierarchy is consistent with ToE, expected from reproduction with variation, in agreement with the fossil record, compelling evidence for ToE, and a poor fit with alternative explanations.
If macro-evolution is true, then every species is a “transitional species,” at least in principle.
I’ve asked (futilely) for criteria of what would qualify as a “transitional species” that might satisfy the questioner. I usually get crickets.
Not, like, I get literal crickets given to me. Nor are crickets suggested to fulfill the category of “transitional species.”
I mean, I get no response. Silence. The metaphorical implication of crickets chirping as a poetic placeholder for silence…the non-answer.
Because if someone were to provide actual criteria for what would qualify as a transitional species, I’m pretty sure that we could find a whole bunch of examples…
It is worth mentioning that prokaryotes don’t fall into a nested hierarchy because of rampant horizontal genetic transfer.
That’s not what a nested hierarchy is. Again, even those who believe species were separately created accept the fact of the nested hierarchy because that is the pattern of similarities and differences we see in complex life.
I wouldn’t fully agree with your description (although it has a lot of merit).
We can completely divorce the concept of a transitional fossil from ancestor and descendant relationships and define them solely on the basis of their morphology and how their morphology compares to other species. It is entirely possible for a species to lack a clear mixture of morphological features between two other groups even if they are in the direct ancestral line. The important part here is to focus on the observable morphology of the species, IMHO.
That’s been my experience as well.
A transitional species has some features of the ancestral species, and some features of the descendant species, but is identical to neither. Really, no more nor less than that.
That remains the criteria whether or not the questioner is satisfied.
It is not worth arguing. (again). There is nothing new here or under the sun. And nothing said or claimed will change things either.
Richard
How mammalian auditory ossicles arise in embryology was first observed without reference to evolution. I suggest that you take a look at the Wikipedia article, “Evolution of the mammalian auditory ossicles” - critically, going through the references. Don’t take anything that Wikipedia says without checking it first. But give it a chance. This particular article has a lot of references.