Pasting well-known quote mines is not discussing science or theology peacefully.
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It’s worth emphasizing what others have told you, here and many times previously: Gould was talking about gradual transitions between closely related species, such as the two species of trilobite used as an example in the original punctuated equilibria paper. If you want to take this rarity as indicative of independent creation, you need to put the “kind” at the level of species, and all this talk of “body plans” and “new complex systems”, etc., becomes pointless. Every species must be poofed into existence, with no relationship to other species in its genus. Now if that’s what you want to claim, go for it. But you can’t use the Gould quote for anything else.
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In addition to comments others have made concerning context of the Gould quote, I would add that he wrote this back in 1977. Many transitional fossils have been since added to the catalog and that is continuously ongoing.
Take feathers for instance. As Rum posted, Gould already referenced Archaeopteryx as an intermediate form. Even to a layperson it is immediately recognizeable; that is a dinosaur like bird or a bird like dinosaur. That long standing inference, however, has in the past couple of decades been validated by evidence of feathers in many species both pre-flight and fully avian, which were unkown a half century ago. Tiktaalik was published in 2006. Several important whales such Pakicetus, Kutchicetus, and Ambulocetus were added downstream of Gould’s statement.
Fossil finds are indeed mainly elusive - they are after all generally buried. But not a year goes by and more turn up. The infilling is reality, not imaginary.
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This is not my claim, not at all; I used Gould quote only to contest Ron’s claim at 145, that’s all.
Then you understand nothing of what Gould said. This is either a blatant quote mine or egregious ignorance. Gould would have agreed with Ron, not you.
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But, as the “whether through design or stupidity” quote I gave above makes clear, Gould did not “contest” Ron’s claim!
Were you unaware of Gould’s clarification of his position, in the face of repeated creationist misrepresentation, Gilbert?
If so, then I would suggest that you make yourself more aware of the views of prominent scientists, before you attempt to parrot their comments at us.
If not, then you were foolish to think that you could deceive us with this infamous quotemine.
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Two points.
First, a case can be made that no such thing as “Feathered Dinosaurs” ever existed and that what has been assumed to be “Feathered Dinosaurs” were in fact « Secondarily Flightless Birds ».
Secondly, even assuming the reality of feathered dinosaurs, there is no evidence that the transition to feathered dinos from non feathered ones could have occurred by RV plus NS.
…
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I’d like to see you make that case. You need to stop getting all your information from creationist web sites. (Or, just as bad, Alan Feduccia, but I bet you’re only learning about him from creationist web sites.)
Not relevant to the issue, which was about the supposed absence of transitional forms, not about how transitions happen.
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On this topic, Bechly was my source
You’re wrong here for the presence of transitional forms was put forward by Ron at 145 as an intent to defeat my claim below.
Are you aware that many non ID scholars are dissatisfied with the idea that large scale morphological changes in evolution (macro evolution ) were caused by the same type of neodarwinian mechanisms underlying small scale changes (micro evolution) and that they consider this idea to be an unsupported assumption ?
Like I said, creationist web sites. You just have to stop. The problem isn’t that you’re incompetent at defending your position; it’s that your position is indefensible.
Your claim was a response to the idea that small changes add up to big ones, which transitional fossils support. It’s not about the mechanisms that result in small changes. Don’t forget that you’re a creationist who doesn’t believe in common descent. And Bechly is a believer in saltation. Feathered dinosaurs are evidence against both.
Again, you’re wrong here. The whole point of this thread was about whether the same type of neodarwinian mechanisms underlying micro evolution is operational for explaining macro evolution. My claim was a response to the claim that it is the case.
That’s funny, for I am not a creationist. It seems to me that I already stated on this forum that if I had to bet, I would bet for common descent, while maybe not for universal CD.
Evolution News is not a creationist web site nor Bechly is a creationist.
Well, it is a position shared by Feduccia, Bechly, Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig. And there are other paleontologists out there that see problems with the idea that birds are maniraptoran theropods.
Huh? The only person I’ve ever seen make that case was a YEC who said that T. rex was a giant turkey. Needless to say, his case wasn’t convincing. Are actual, professional creationists making this argument now?
That’s a common creationist response, obfuscating the issue. If you’re not for universal common descent, how far do you go? What’s a created kind? Apparently birds are a separate kind for you. Or are they related to other archosaurs? Why won’t you ever say what you think is true?
Sure it is. It just allows for fellow travellers like Bechly. But what about you? Are you a saltationist like Bechly? You seem very reticent about your actual position.
No, at least the first two have different positions; they just share a claim that birds aren’t dinosaurs. But Feduccia (and I’m guessing you have never read anything he wrote) thinks that maniraptorans aren’t theropods, while Bechly hasn’t said anything about what he thinks they are or aren’t. Don’t know who Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig is, but he doesn’t appear to be a paleontologist, just an ID crackpot. The number of paleontologists who think birds aren’t maniraptorans, or that maniraptorans aren’t dinosaurs, is vanishingly small. They do have their own acronyms, though: BANDits and MANIACs.
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They have for years. They latch onto anything that disagrees with or can be made to disagree with the conventional wisdom on evolution, Feduccia no less than Gould.
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That’s a pretty laughable page. Especially when Bechly argues that feathered dinosaurs can’t be dinosaurs because they couldn’t fly!
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Don’t know if actual, professional creationists are making this argument, but I know that a professional paleontologist named Alan Feduccia is making it.
Yes, and a lot of creationists have latched onto it. Here, for instance, first one to come up out of many:
We could discuss the problems with Feduccia’s ideas at length, but you should probably start a separate thread for it.
Pardon my ignorance, but is this issue even of any relevance to those creationists who deny common ancestry? Feduccia isn’t claiming that birds form a separate “kind” that magically appeared on earth with no ancestors, is he?
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No, but of course creationists will adopt anything that disagrees with mainstream science. It may not say that common descent is wrong, but at least it says that we don’t know anything. Now, @Giltil’s purpose is to discredit Archaeopteryx as a transitional fossil and he happily accepts Feduccia’s claims even though Feduccia in no way denies that it’s transitional or even that ordinary evolutionary processes were involved in its evolution. It’s a form of quote-mining.
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