Fossil 'disproves' evolution...?

[yy2bggggs]

Why is it when someone states that it is a fact that a creature didn't evolve because it was perfectly suited to its environment for 92 million years, no one points out that this is a nonsensical statment.

I'm confused. It appears that the first person to mention this was you.

 

[truethat]

The fact that the octopus hasn't changed for millions merely means that the design doesn't need changing. The octopus is superbly equiped for survival in a variety of undersea environments and apparently has been for tens of millions of years.

Not sure so perhaps I read this wrong?

 

[I Ratant]

Your basic crocodilian hasn't done much change in 250 million years, other than get smaller, from those monsters that could take on a T-rex!
Whatever it is they do, they're pretty well adapted in form to do it regardless of the changes to the environments over that time.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm confused. It appears that the first person to mention this was you.

I think he's referring to Cainekane's post.

I agree that it's not a very good answer. I don't think it's a typical answer given against this particular Creationist canard. If so, it's not a good one.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Your basic crocodilian hasn't done much change in 250 million years, other than get smaller, from those monsters that could take on a T-rex!
Whatever it is they do, they're pretty well adapted in form to do it regardless of the changes to the environments over that time.

I guarantee that if you could look at crocodilian mitochondrial DNA, it has changed over 250 million years even if fossils looks very similar to modern species.

 

[I Ratant]

I guarantee that if you could look at crocodilian mitochondrial DNA, it has changed over 250 million years even if fossils looks very similar to modern species.

.
No doubt, but mDNA fossilizes poorly.
Just like octopusses..

 

[ravdin]

And as I've stated I've heard that comment posted many times with regard to fauna, insects and other life forms that appear to be the same in fossils as it is in modern times. Like the colceanth? (sp?)

I can at least explain the coelacanth in a way I hope will make sense. Coelacanths are an order of lobe-finned fish, not a species. There are a couple of species of coelacanths in existence today, but they are not the same species that existed millions of years ago.

 

[MG1962]

Right but where better than a public message board could you devote yourself to such correction?

I saw several people address the skeptics position on evolution, but none corrected that mistake made by a supporter of evolution.

I see this double standard a lot. If a Creationist or IDer makes a mistake about evolution people are all over it.

But if an evolutionary supporter makes a mistake it is glossed over.


I find it annoying.

I appreciate your position, and to an extent you are right. But you will find this type of behaviour no matter the topic. However a public message board is going to also have the full gamit of personalities as well. Good bad and ugly.

My personal philosophy suggests the only stupid question is the one that didn't get asked. Rather than attacking people, I try to encourage them.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

.
No doubt, but mDNA fossilizes poorly.
Just like octopusses..

That's why I said "if you could".

 

[paiute]

O Rly?

The idea that people only need to be corrected if they are creationists or IDers is strange to me.

What? You have over 1600 posts and have not noticed anyone other than fundies being corrected?

 

[Nogbad]

I appreciate your position, and to an extent you are right. But you will find this type of behaviour no matter the topic. However a public message board is going to also have the full gamit of personalities as well. Good bad and ugly.

My personal philosophy suggests the only stupid question is the one that didn't get asked. Rather than attacking people, I try to encourage them.

This is a fact! There are some fantastically interesting and illuminating posts on this board which I am doing my best to counter and thus maintain an adequate dumb/smart ratio.

In a sense I am exploiting and adapting to the niche I am best suited.

 

[fuelair]

So because people are too stupid to understand it, lets just let them dwell in their "misinformation" rather than correct it.


Hmmm


I often hear this argument put forth that Science can't be bothered to make sure the public is properly informed.

But ok, I get that Science doesn't think this way. I guess that does make feel better on some level.

A firm NO on that. You are misinterpreting (not a complaint, a comment). Most people ( I teach science and talk with lots of parents and teachers and can safely and truthfully say that it is true of a majority of them - and, in case you do not think that adequate (it isn't for scientific standards) look up the statisticals on voting patterns and various surveys on actual voter knowledge in the areas involved in politics) do not want to know/read/understand evolution or any other science in anything close to enough detail to learn anything about it much beyond the extreme basics. The PUBLIC chooses through it's lack of real interest (and I am exactly that way about upper level finance) not to want to know and to leave it to the scientists (financiers) until something comes from it that they see as a problem or are told by political/religious/woo merchants that it is a problem.

Scientists can present material all they want, but if civilians don't learn it and work to understand it, then it is wasted time that real science could be done in. And truly knowledgeable populizers of science are comparatively rare (Asimov, Sagan, Hawking, Feynman and a few others) - and most I know do physics and related where wooists are their major problem rather than creationists and IDers.

 

[MG1962]

This is a fact! There are some fantastically interesting and illuminating posts on this board which I am doing my best to counter and thus maintain an adequate dumb/smart ratio.

In a sense I am exploiting and adapting to the niche I am best suited.

LOL - great now I have competition for my niche.....Oh wait evoluion predicted that would happen

 

[truethat]

A firm NO on that. You are misinterpreting (not a complaint, a comment). Most people ( I teach science and talk with lots of parents and teachers and can safely and truthfully say that it is true of a majority of them - and, in case you do not think that adequate (it isn't for scientific standards) look up the statisticals on voting patterns and various surveys on actual voter knowledge in the areas involved in politics) do not want to know/read/understand evolution or any other science in anything close to enough detail to learn anything about it much beyond the extreme basics. The PUBLIC chooses through it's lack of real interest (and I am exactly that way about upper level finance) not to want to know and to leave it to the scientists (financiers) until something comes from it that they see as a problem or are told by political/religious/woo merchants that it is a problem.

Scientists can present material all they want, but if civilians don't learn it and work to understand it, that is wasted time that real science could be done in. And truly knowledgeable populizers of science are comparatively rare (Asimov, Sagan, Hawking, Feynman and a few others) - and most I know do physics and related where wooists are their major problem rather than creationists and IDers.

Actually I've heard this complaint before as well.

However that is not true. The public likes science when it is made interesting and explained well.

However many people don't know what to trust when it comes to science. Often times to make it more "interesting" shows aimed at educating the public on science, take tremendous creative license. If one points this out, somehow you are then, "anti science." There is in general a sneering mockery of anyone that questions the status quo and people are treated like morons for not already knowing the answer or for being confused about something.

The fact is, that had this fossil really been an unchanged specimen, it would be very hard to believe that it represents evolution.

Likewise jumping all over the stupidity of people who are confused as to how soft tissue can remain in dinosaur bones or how fossils can have full mummified dinosaurs in them, last for millions and millions of years, makes them back away and not ask questions.

The group that does appeal to their questions without the "You are all failures because you haven't studied science the right way." are the Creationists and ID camp. Of course these people are giving out misinformation with regard to science, which causes the Science community to jump in.

So maybe if Science got off its high horse and tried to understand that in general people are going to be confused about things that don't seem to make any common sense, and that they deserve an answer without the ladeled on "How stupid can you be" drama, then they would trust Science more.

This thread is a good example of what Imean. The false science statment is glossed over and banted about like it was wit. My confrontation of this claim immediately makes me "suspect" and the responses are aimed at me "not understanding evolution" or "suggesting that this supports ID" or "you started it!" or any other sort of demonizing.


In fact, my observation, is correct. And that was not an accurate statement that should have immediately been corrected.

Funny how it wasn't.

 

[Egil]

The fact that the octopus hasn't changed for millions merely means that the design doesn't need changing. The octopus is superbly equiped for survival in a variety of undersea environments and apparently has been for tens of millions of years.

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate:

So, let me get this straight. Change equals Evolution. And No change also equals evolution? This statement is akin to the position that if something happens God wills it and if something doesn happen God Wills it Not to Happen. Furthermore, lack of something cannot prove something. Lack of evidence cannot prove.

And people wonder why I call Science a Revealed Religion as approached by many.

As for an unchanging organism... If an Organism does not change over time one can say it has reached Perfection. Perfection is a common attribute of God and it is commonly held only God can perfect things. Perfect Things require something to Perfect them or a standard to be perfected to. As God can only perfect things then it stands to reason that God perfected the Octopus. Therefore, Intelligent Design! (Yes, I know this argument is flawed.)



I'll argue any position. By personality I'll argue the contrary position even if I think it a joke.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Allow me to apparently be the first to say, hogwash! Cainkane1 said nothing wrong, nor did he say anything irrelevant.

According to Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily extraordinaire:

"The luck was that the corpse landed untouched on the sea floor," Fuchs said. "The sea floor was free of oxygen and therefore free of scavengers. Both the anoxy [absence of oxygen] and a rapid sedimentation rate prevented decay."

What most surprised Fuchs and his colleagues was how similar the specimens are to today's octopus.

"These things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species," Fuchs said.

What does all this mean to the evolutionary scientists?

Somehow, it proves evolution--even though it shows the opposite.

Let me make this perfectly clear. According to Joseph Farah, the fact that the octopus hasn't changed in 95MY "somehow proves evolution"; that is, it's Joseph Farah's assertion that this is, as opposed to what it really is, data posited to prove evolution--not to describe the evolution of the octopus. And you poor sods bought this obvious red herring hook, line, and sinker.

Dirk Fuchs isn't on a quest to prove evolution, I'm sorry. Evolution doesn't need to be proven--it's a fact. The shoe is on the other foot--evolution needs severely to be disproven by anyone claiming that it doesn't happen.

What Cainkane1 said was entirely correct. So what's wrong with it? The problem here isn't that the octopus not changing in 95MY should prove evolution true, it's that it shouldn't prove evolution false. And it doesn't. Let's look at some of the things that Dirk Fuchs said that Joseph Farah conveniently left out [source]

These are sensational fossils, extraordinarily well preserved. ... These things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species. ... The more primitive relatives of octopuses had fleshy fins along their bodies. The new fossils are so well preserved that they show, like living octopus, that they didn't have these structures.

Hmmm... so, apparently, the octopus has changed... it just hasn't changed in particular morphological ways in 95MY. Why not? Now read what Cainkane1 said:

The fact that the octopus hasn't changed for millions merely means that the design doesn't need changing. The octopus is superbly equiped for survival in a variety of undersea environments and apparently has been for tens of millions of years.

In other words, this doesn't prove evolution false.

That you poor sods have bought into this switch-and-bait is not my fault, and is not Cainkane1's fault. Take a close look at what you're actually trying to get... you want someone to explain why, if evolution is true, the identified 5... uhm... newly identified species of 95MY ago had 8 arms, suckers, no fins, and other overall morphology similar to modern octopi, as opposed to the previously thought 85MY. I'd like to offer that, maybe, evolution can be true if this is true; furthermore, that we don't have to even so much as flip over backwards and heavily rationalize why it takes another 10MY.

All Cainkane1 is saying, which is entirely correct in every possible angle from which I can attack it, is that evolution doesn't have to change those specific morphology traits--that we should naturally expect them to remain the same if they work. It's not a problem. And you know what? Call me crazy, call me illogical, but I agree. I don't think evolution is in serious jeopardy. Quite the contrary--I'd like for someone to explain why an octopus's overall morphology existing for 85MY is not a problem, but for 95MY, suddenly, demands an explanation.

Now will the lot of you kindly back off of Cainkane1's case already?

 

[truethat]

Yeah you're about 20 posts and a ton of words too late. I already pointed this out on the last page. Keep up man!

 

[TX50]

There have been two conjectures about why groups change little, but no
general theory. One is stabilizing selection (they live in remote and/or stable
habitats with little pressure to change - "the design doesn't need to change")
and the other is lack of genetic diversity (these groups have been studied
and show no genetic peculiarities that might preclude them from changing).

Mark Ridley's "Evolution" - a textbook, not a popularization (ISBN 978-
1405103459) comes very highly recommended.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Who says the Earth hasn't changed? It's changed a great deal. But there are certain environmental niches that have been around for a very long time. The types of environments that cephalopods occupy are still virtually identical to those that existed 100,000,000 years ago. The same goes for the types of environments inhabited by sharks, crocodilians, dragonflies, ferns, slime molds etc. Even stromatolites can still be found on Earth in places like Shark Bay because there is still an environment to be found that suits them.

What was once a river delta may have become a desert plain tens of millions of years ago. But river deltas are still around.

 

[I Ratant]

...

As for an unchanging organism... If an Organism does not change over time one can say it has reached Perfection. Perfection is a common attribute of God and it is commonly held only God can perfect things. Perfect Things require something to Perfect them or a standard to be perfected to. As God can only perfect things then it stands to reason that God perfected the Octopus. Therefore, Intelligent Design! (Yes, I know this argument is flawed.)

...

.
The design of anything is -adequate- for the environment.
Hardly perfect!
Their eyes have been said to be far superior to the human eye, for instance.
Yet have it and we don't.
Nature doesn't strive toward perfection in anything, just a "design" that can cope with the current environment.
When that changes beyond the capability of the organism to adapt, the organism goes extinct.
Apparently the environment for the octopus, if if challenges the animal, doesn't do it too rapidly for it to cope.