Fossil Called Missing Link

I wonder what the 'telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature' were?

 

More importantly, could it sit up and beg for a biscuit? Or retrieve the newspaper?

 

Here is a long article, first.

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060403/full/060403-7.html

And I think the two abstracts may answer your question.

A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan, Daeschler et al, Nature 440, 757-763 (6 April 2006)

The pectoral fin of Tiktaalik roseae and the origin of the tetrapod limb, Shubin et al, Nature 440, 764-771 (6 April 2006)

To translate, basically they found a key stage where the fins of the lobe finned fish were about halfway to changing into the arms.legs of tetrapods. The shoulder had moved and changed in a way in which it could support the body in addition to being used for swimming. The arm bones through the wrists had changed to be very much like modern tetrapods. But the fingers were still more like the fins of a fish.

All in all, a spectactular find and another key transitional in the bag.

 

Another key transitional or a whole new extinct species. Depends on your viewpoint, doesn't it?

 

No, it is a transitional. It is halfway between fish and amphibian possessing a mixture of traits from both. There are a whole series of such transitionals now ranging from the very fish like to the very amphibian like to many stages in between. They are all found in a very, very narrow window of time. They are all found in a similar type of ecological niche. If you read the article, you will find that the scientists were looking for a creature just like this and they knew exactly where to look based on the ages of the other tetrapod transitional which had been previously found. (Which a I suppose is also another nail in the coffin for those who doubt dating methods. Amazing how they work so well, eh?)

You can deny the transitional nature of this and other fossils, but it does not change their true nature.

 

I understand the buttocks were missing on all specimens--is that curious or what? I remember cleaning bullfrogs as a kid. We would chop off only the hindlegs to eat. The rest was thrown in the trash.

Maybe they had hair on the hind parts. How does one tell about what was in the dermis when there is no dermis--only skeleton? Sounds like another winning round for "artists concepts".

Did they find any mastadons with food(Pre-Cambrian sealife)in their mouths?

One more dumb question: Are we still dating the fossils by dating the rocks near where the fossils are found?

Better keep digging.

Selah,

Bro. James

[ April 06, 2006, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: Bro. James ]

 

Any real problems with this find or are we just going to make stuff up to keep ourselves feeling good about denying an ever mounting collection of evidence.

So just where are the buttocks of a fish? We know from other fossils from the fish to tetrapod transition that the pectoral fins changed completely to limbs like ours while the rear fins remained more or less like fins until later. Since this species has front arms that are intermediate between those of fish and tetrapods, we can be fairly certain that if the rea portion of this creature is found that it will be fish like.

I don't really know where you are going with the red herring on "hair." Nor the "mastadon" red herring. Maybe you had something in mind but I have no clue what it could be.

And just what problem do you have with dating methods? Think about this. We have a collection of other tetrapod transitionals. From dating, we know that they are all found in a very narrow window of time. So to find this one, they went to a new location that was from that same very narrow window of time. And they found what they predicted they would find.

Now if these dating methods are so flawed, just how is it that they led these scientists right to what they were looking for?

The scientists ceratinly will keep digging. And you will just keep on denying the truth.

 

It's the greatest find in the history of history!!

Seems the critter tasted like a Big Mac (tm)....Sadly though a prehistoric ancestor to today's Ronald McDonald discovered it and wiped the species out by feeding it to the other dinosaurs....which quickly wiped them out.

Since then though evolution has done a great job of fixing everything up, so now that when we want a Big Mac we we work off most of the bad effects by driving to the shop and back.


......and it bugs me that I always seem to come up with lines about Big Macs roughly between 10-11pm and 7-8am when all the local Maccas are shut and I can't be bothered driving 20 minutes to the 24 hour one in town Oh well, I can go down the road for one this afternoon in honor of Fishyus Amazingus Biggii Maximus

 

"Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun."

You can save some money and fuel by making your own Big Macs at home with this recipe Pete, but more importantly your mates will say you are a friend to the earth by not wasting precious resoures like gasoline by driving 20 minutes just to get a burger!

BTW, you can use thousand island salad dressing for the special sauce.

 

UTEOTW,
Are you sure they didnt dig up Jimmy Hoffa?

 

poncho Now you've really got me going

Just did some harder digging than any evolutionist and came across a REAL important find: Supposedly the recipies from Mac D's hmmmm...lot of effort though, nah, I'll just wait for this arvo and get a Mac attack the old fashioned way.

WOW!! Straight from Maccas themselves: MAC


...and now after all that I probably won't feel like Maccas this arvo. Oh well

I'll shaddap now and let everyone get back to whatever the original topic was

[ April 06, 2006, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: Pete ]

 

Why bother.

Let's just wait a few years and see if the find gets discredited like so many others throughout the years.

Scientists are so anxious to prove this nonsense, they go to any lengths as has been proven over and over and over ......

 

You see--we got these dates--based on several assumptions, the systematic error of which is not readily apparent. Everything must fit into this dating system. If it does'nt we throw out the data point. That way our data always fits the curve which is established by dating system, dubious as it may seem. That is true scientific methodology--just ask Ernst Haekel(sic), yes, the recapitulation guru. Sorry, he may be fossilized by now.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

"Why bother.

Let's just wait a few years and see if the find gets discredited like so many others throughout the years.

Scientists are so anxious to prove this nonsense, they go to any lengths as has been proven over and over and over ......"

I would not hold my breath if I were you.

This idea that science is constantly getting "discredited" is a false idea fostered by those who know it is true. Science is done by humans. I nanything done by humans, you have no trouble at all finding a few cases of humans behaving badly. But these people take a few standard examples and repeat them ad nausem. (OTOH, I could fill pages of this thread will examples of out and out YE lies being profferred by YE leaders today.)

The truth is that evolution is one of the best supported theories in science and explain an incredible number of observations that would be unexplaiable without it.

And ocntrary to your assertion, I have not seen the other tetrapod transitionals that have been discovered through the years being "discredited." On the contrary, they continue to build upon one another.

Here is a long article on discoveries in this realm. I doubt you will actually read it. But here it is anyway. You might surprise me.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000DC8B8-EA15-137C-AA1583414B7F0000

It seems that we are now in posession of several different stages of the transition and the new information has cleared up previous confusion on how the transition took place.

Reading the article should also give you an idea of how quick the pace of discovery is. She would like to discuss the fossil that starts this thread but she can't because the material had not yet been published. So she can only hint at it. In addition, near the end, she laments about the lack of fossils showing how the changes to the rear legs occurred. (The changes from fins to legs in the front is reasonably well established.) As it turns out, the December issue of Nature saw a new specimen of Panderichthys rhombolepis described which illustrates this very area.

 

"You see--we got these dates--based on several assumptions, the systematic error of which is not readily apparent. Everything must fit into this dating system. If it does'nt we throw out the data point. That way our data always fits the curve which is established by dating system, dubious as it may seem. That is true scientific methodology--just ask Ernst Haekel(sic), yes, the recapitulation guru. Sorry, he may be fossilized by now."

"[N]ot readily apparent" or not there at all?

Let's see. Did you read the article?

They have these other fossils.

They date to about a 10 million year window.

Exposed rock of the right age is rare.

They look through a geology text and notice that an island near Greenland has exposed rock the exact same age.

They go dig and find a marvelous transitional fossil right where they thought it would be.

These tetrapod transitionals are never found outside of this narrow window.

Just how does this show the failure of dating methods?

Just how would they have been able to do this work if the dating methods did not work?

 

A fascinating fossil find and all we get are a half dozen silly posts about hamburgers, some baseless snark, and a few straw men. How depressing.

I'm going out of town tomorrow so I won't have access to Nature. I should have put the pics of the fossils on Photobucket earlier. You'll have to manage without me until Monday, UTEOTW!

 

Everything fits in the wonderful world of circular logic. Things that do not fit are not included in the data base. That does not make it so.

Bro. James

 

I believe the bible. I believe evolution. One of these statements is not true.