I heard about a theory that if it was a meteor that hit the earth the shock of it may have caused a spontaneous evolutionary evolving that happened very rapidly which would explain the missing fossils but i doubt that theory is true

It's not entirely cracked theory, if you look at it from a different angle.
There have been several mass extinction events in the earth's history which have resulted in the sudden extinction of 90% + of the currently existing species on the planet. Some postulate that these mass extinctions are the catalyst of massive evolutionary explosions, such as the oft-touted 'Cambrian explosion' or the end of the dinosaurs, when many new species and complex bodyplans evolved in a seemingly short amount of time.
The reasoning is thus: Before the mass extinction event the planetary ecosystems were fairly stable, with interspecies competition and predation limiting the migration of species - keeping them in line, as it were. However, when a minor apocalypse occurs, most life is extinguished. The survivors crawl out from under their rocks, and find the world to be an empty playground. They then spread quickly and occupy new and challenging environmental niches, and evolve in response to new conditions. New predator/prey evolutionary arms races are established, and a period of comparitively rapid change creates a lot of exciting new species until the populations stabilise.

It's a nice theory, though not yet particularly well grounded. It's the one I shall subscribe to until a more sensible explanation for the Cambrian explosion is suggested.
(There are sceptics who say that the Cambrian was never an 'explosion' as such, and that the period of rapid evolution is just an illusion due to imperfect fossil records and innacurate timekeeping, but I find this tear-wrenchingly dull)!

Insanity42 wrote:
I've heard it said that America is the one of the few countries where you could be both stupid and lazy, and still end the day with a full stomach, and place to sleep and a color TV. There are people around, who frankly, if they had to survive on their own, they couldn't.

erm, compared to glorious socialist states where all I need to do for bread is queue?

Boomshakalaka94 wrote:the HUGE problem with the evolution theory is that one only sees a species, and then its next evolutionary leap.

Lets say we have a creature that is quadrupedal. Its next stage then has 2 legs and 2 arms. Where the heck did those arms come from? Where was the transition? Are you telling me that this creature magically gained some arms instead of legs and the rest of its species did also?

Even Darwin himself said this. The lack of transitions blows up the whole thing.


Now, im not that religious, but we know that the first creatures on earth lived in the sea. Well, in the bible it clearly states that god made the ocean FIRST. How long ago was the old testament written? over 2000 years ago. The next step of terraforming (lol terraforming) God did was to make land, and low and behold, land creatures appear on the evolutionary chart.

It seems that there are the same tired, sloppy arguments to evolution that are continually spouted....

evolution occurs on a genetic level... morphological changes are consequent of these genetic changes.

Secondly, if you would have read any of this post, you would have been informed of the 'species' that can be considered "transitional"...

Thirdly, not having evidence of somethings existence DOES NOT mean that something doesn't exist.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? That old potato is normally used in a religious context.

Still, I am in agreement - everything is in a constant state of transition, so long as the environment is exerting its effect. Even humans are still evolving (in certain areas), though some would dispute that.

The problem comes when one tries to draw concrete lines between species 'A' and 'B', but nothing is ever that simple. The only true definition of a species is two individuals who can mate to produce fertile offspring. Thus the divisions between species can be miniscule, and down to biochemistry rather than morphology - something that does not show up so well in fossils.

beghemot wrote:Thirdly, not having evidence of somethings existence DOES NOT mean that something doesn't exist.

SirSmeg wrote:Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? That old potato is normally used in a religious context.

I would agree with this logic, depending the qualifications someone is using to determine if something does exist.

SirSmeg wrote:
It's not entirely cracked theory, if you look at it from a different angle.
There have been several mass extinction events in the earth's history which have resulted in the sudden extinction of 90% + of the currently existing species on the planet. Some postulate that these mass extinctions are the catalyst of massive evolutionary explosions, such as the oft-touted 'Cambrian explosion' or the end of the dinosaurs, when many new species and complex bodyplans evolved in a seemingly short amount of time.
The reasoning is thus: Before the mass extinction event the planetary ecosystems were fairly stable, with interspecies competition and predation limiting the migration of species - keeping them in line, as it were. However, when a minor apocalypse occurs, most life is extinguished. The survivors crawl out from under their rocks, and find the world to be an empty playground. They then spread quickly and occupy new and challenging environmental niches, and evolve in response to new conditions. New predator/prey evolutionary arms races are established, and a period of comparitively rapid change creates a lot of exciting new species until the populations stabilise.

It's a nice theory, though not yet particularly well grounded. It's the one I shall subscribe to until a more sensible explanation for the Cambrian explosion is suggested.
(There are sceptics who say that the Cambrian was never an 'explosion' as such, and that the period of rapid evolution is just an illusion due to imperfect fossil records and innacurate timekeeping, but I find this tear-wrenchingly dull)!

See i believe that whatever the higher power is meteors are his, her or its way of introducing new species to earth and riding it of the old till something it likes comes along and when it gets sick of it then boom meteor something new please lol

SirSmeg wrote:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? That old potato is normally used in a religious context.

Well regardless of the context you may have found it in, it is based in logic. Nor should it be applied in certain contexts and not others... It is also why science never proves only disproves.. it is an inductive endeavor.

The only true definition of a species is two individuals who can mate to produce fertile offspring.

This is an insufficient and incomplete definition since it assumes sexual reproduction, so organisms that do not partake are not species?

Oh blast; you got me. All too often it is far too easy to get carried away and forget entire domains of life, regardless of their importance and relative mass on the planet!

Yes, what I quoted was the working definition of species for multicellular eukaryotic life, and truth be told - it's not even a particularly good definition even then. I have since been informed (granted, by Wikipedia... so attach as much credence to this as you care to) that supposedly sterile Mules and Ligers have been known to produce offspring when mated with one of their parent species.
The same article then went on to inform me that horizontal gene transfer may also occur among dissimilar crustaceans and echinoderms. I obviously ought to take more care with what I write, even here in internet forums!

So, it's extremely tricky to effectively classfy a 'species', in a way that satisfies all the various domains of life. I guess the definition I provided is like grammatical rules in the English language - they work fine when applied to a specific set of assumptions, until little exceptions needle away at the eternal truth of the matter

Tanelorn wrote:

bobus1st wrote:ready for this??? Darwin wasn't 60% wrong.... He was 100% wrong. He argue it himself... and even recanted having written the book. Basic rules of Thermodynamics fight against it... Hey, Gravity works against it... If evolution were so right... why are there more stupid people in the world then ever before? Are we evolving into stupidity? Isn't the backwards? Oh, no it not it's ENTROPY!!!

First off, you're a ree_tard. So maybe your theory is right.

Secondly, everyone should see this funny as SPORE clip from Idiocracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1sE1E3z7jU

That's certainly entertaining. Let's hope it doesn't work out that way. Oh, and bobus1st. of you are still here, I think the "Darwin Confession" thing may have been a fake. I know some of the stuff he allegedly said was. It is quite possible to "devolve" so to speak along the process of evolution- even more so for us since we have done so much to avert and delay death, no doubt slowing and possibly altering evolution (I'm not saying people should be allowed to die, I think this is actually an evolution of a more technological sort). Last thing, just because it is getting kind of frustrating. The second law of Thermodynamics does NOT fight against evolution. Not to offend anyone, it's a pretty common misconception and I'm sure quite a few people are just spitting it up because certain others taught the response. I can't remember the exact wording and to avoid confusion I'd rather not come up with a summary, I'm sure someone here more knowledgeable on the subject than I can give it properly. In fact, I think it might even be posted on the forums somewhere. Besides, if the laws of physics defied it don't you think a few of our scientists would have noticed?

Insanity42 wrote:

Ultimately, the lack of these innumerable transitional forms presents a serious problem to the theory of evolution.

Actually it doesn't. You are seeing transitional forms even in the human races. We see them in the same species across the globe, we even see them in real time with 'ring' species where the species slowly changes across some terrain, even the globe, where when the species meet they can no longer interbreed.

This is all pretty deep for the layman, and completely incomprehensible to people who see dividing lines as needed for their thought process.

Herculoids wrote:

Insanity42 wrote:

Ultimately, the lack of these innumerable transitional forms presents a serious problem to the theory of evolution.

Actually it doesn't. You are seeing transitional forms even in the human races. We see them in the same species across the globe, we even see them in real time with 'ring' species where the species slowly changes across some terrain, even the globe, where when the species meet they can no longer interbreed.

This is all pretty deep for the layman, and completely incomprehensible to people who see dividing lines as needed for their thought process.

I am hardly a layman in science. I do have a degrees in Biological and Chemistry sciences, as well as graduate courses in Prokaryotic Cell Biology and Evolutionary Biology, and read current publications.

Insanity42 wrote:

Herculoids wrote:

Insanity42 wrote:

Ultimately, the lack of these innumerable transitional forms presents a serious problem to the theory of evolution.

Actually it doesn't. You are seeing transitional forms even in the human races. We see them in the same species across the globe, we even see them in real time with 'ring' species where the species slowly changes across some terrain, even the globe, where when the species meet they can no longer interbreed.

This is all pretty deep for the layman, and completely incomprehensible to people who see dividing lines as needed for their thought process.

I am hardly a layman in science. I do have a degrees in Biological and Chemistry sciences, as well as graduate courses in Prokaryotic Cell Biology and Evolutionary Biology, and read current publications.

But do you understand what I'm saying?

If you are as educated as you say, you would see there is no flaw to be seen here.

Even Darwin himself said this. The lack of transitions blows up the whole thing.

Wrong. The evidence from the fossil record did had not been found yet in Darwin's time because the field of Archaeology was relatively new. Since Darwin's death the fossil record has provided hundreds if not thousands of transitional fossils. In actuality, every fossil found is a transitional fossil, because every generation is a single step along the long gradual path of evolution.

At the time Darwin wrote his book the evidence wasn't found yet and he admitted that. But since then that evidence has been found in abundance.

We've more than adequately filled in enough gaps of all the major evolutionary transitions to understand their path, including water-to-land, land-to-water (whales), flight, and recent human evolution.

The old argument of "well you found one transition but now you're missing two more lol" is so long-since debunked that to argue it is akin to admitting you've given up real logical discussion. Once enough transitional fossils are found to show all the changes in major features, finding more transitional fossils is just icing on the cake. But you already had the cake before the icing.

Some people don't even need icing on cake. Sometimes it's just too sugary depending on the icing. Then there are cakes that don't even need icing, like angel's food. Mmmm... angel's food cake... I'm hungry.

Pirwzy wrote:Once enough transitional fossils are found to show all the changes in major features, finding more transitional fossils is just icing on the cake. But you already had the cake before the icing.

Some people don't even need icing on cake. Sometimes it's just too sugary depending on the icing. Then there are cakes that don't even need icing, like angel's food. Mmmm... angel's food cake... I'm hungry.

/me waits for a YEC to reply "The cake is a lie!"