Do feathered dinosaurs count as "transitional fossils"?

[Freakshow]

One of the arguments that creationists make is that there are no "transitional fossils".

What about the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been discovered? Anyone know what the "there are no transitional fossils" crowd make of them? I am going to guess that they respond with a special pleading fallacy.

 

[brodski]

One of the arguments that creationists make is that there are no "transitional fossils".

What about the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been discovered? Anyone know what the "there are no transitional fossils" crowd make of them? I am going to guess that they respond with a special pleading fallacy.

every gap that gets plugged in the evolutionary chain does not "solve" the issue for creationists, It just creates two more gaps.

Feathered dinosaurs are not "transitional fossils", as you would have to show what was immediately "either side" of them in the evolutionary chain. Otherwise creationists would just claim that feathered dinosaurs where a discreet type of species, which is not related to any other current species, and which happened to die out (probably in "the flood").

What's the matter? You weren't expecting ting intellectual honesty where you?

 

[blutoski]

One of the arguments that creationists make is that there are no "transitional fossils".

What about the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been discovered? Anyone know what the "there are no transitional fossils" crowd make of them? I am going to guess that they respond with a special pleading fallacy.

I think the Creationist who used the term 'transitional fossil' has to define what it means before we can say whether these specimens qualify.

My opinion: I feel Creationists would consider a fossil that showed a mix of two 'kinds' to be transitional. However, there is no Creationist taxonomy of 'kinds', so they have the convenient ability to define any fossil they see as a kind of its own. eg: Kind = feathered dinosaur (as originally created).

 

[Freakshow]

every gap that gets plugged in the evolutionary chain does not "solve" the issue for creationists, It just creates two more gaps.

Feathered dinosaurs are not "transitional fossils", as you would have to show what was immediately "either side" of them in the evolutionary chain. Otherwise creationists would just claim that feathered dinosaurs where a discreet type of species, which is not related to any other current species, and which happened to die out (probably in "the flood").

What's the matter? You weren't expecting ting intellectual honesty where you?

Nope, I wasn't expecting that at all.

I would be interested to find some article somewhere by a creationist that makes special pleading fallacy like that. It would be fun to throw things at it. Like shooting fish in a barrel. In the head. At point blank range. With a Howitzer.

 

[blutoski]

One of the arguments that creationists make is that there are no "transitional fossils".

What about the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been discovered? Anyone know what the "there are no transitional fossils" crowd make of them? I am going to guess that they respond with a special pleading fallacy.

Also: I just respond by saying that every fossil is transitional. Species are a convenient human-opinion categorization, but evolutionary theory is that lineages change gradually in a continuum.

The analogy is that people are young, then they get old. There is no 'transitional age': every day is a microstep from young to old. 'young' and 'old' are just convenient labels to keep things organized. As is 'species'.

Creationists have a challenge because they believe the opposite: kinds are distinct and fixed. When they come up with a definition of kind, or even a good example, we can engage in the dialogue of transitional candidates.

 

[Genesius]

One of the arguments that creationists make is that there are no "transitional fossils".

What about the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been discovered? Anyone know what the "there are no transitional fossils" crowd make of them? I am going to guess that they respond with a special pleading fallacy.

While all the feathered dinosaurs might not qualify, it seems that archaeopteryx does. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html gives a nice breakdown of its avian and saurian features.

Not that it would convince a fundy, of course. . .

 

[TobiasTheViking]

Hm, no, they just say we are missing the dinosaurs with half developed feathers. *giggle*

 

[brodski]

Also: I just respond by saying that every fossil is transitional. Species are a convenient human-opinion categorization, but evolutionary theory is that lineages change gradually in a continuum.

The analogy is that people are young, then they get old. There is no 'transitional age': every day is a microstep from young to old. 'young' and 'old' are just convenient labels to keep things organized. As is 'species'.

Creationists have a challenge because they believe the opposite: kinds are distinct and fixed. When they come up with a definition of kind, or even a good example, we can engage in the dialogue of transitional candidates.

with the concept of "transitional fossils" creationists have set themselves up to never loose. Because in order to be a true transitional fossil, It must e part way between too different "kinds" but cannot be viable as a species itself, otherwise it would just become another "kind".

Tobias's "half developed feathers" wasn't far off the mark at all.

 

[Nick Bogaerts]

Also: I just respond by saying that every fossil is transitional. Species are a convenient human-opinion categorization, but evolutionary theory is that lineages change gradually in a continuum.

That's not entirely correct because of isolation mechanisms that do keep populations apart. But yes,the concept of species is a vast oversimplification for bookkeeping, butit is far from being irrelevant. Ring species such as seagulls are a beautiful example of this, with a continuum along most of the range, except where the two extremes overlap again and we get two distinct populations which don't interbreed. The carrion/hooded crow are the reverse, two perfectly well behaved species over most of their range, except for a narrow band somewhere in Scotland where the two interbreed.

 

[brodski]

Nope, I wasn't expecting that at all.

I would be interested to find some article somewhere by a creationist that makes special pleading fallacy like that. It would be fun to throw things at it. Like shooting fish in a barrel. In the head. At point blank range. With a Howitzer.

I doubt that you will find a single article like that, you would have to watch for the evolution of creationist "thought". For instance an article will appear saying that there are no "transitional fossils" between dinosaurs and birds, later another set of articles will appear saying that there are no "transitional fossils" between birds and feathered dinosaurs, or between feathered and non feathered dinosaurs.

The fundies will always win the "transitional fossil" argument IMHO, because they get to set the terms, and they get to redefine the term to be whatever they want it to be.

Its a soundbite, not an argument.

 

[jimlintott]

I like cynodont.

 

[writerdd]

One of the arguments that creationists make is that there are no "transitional fossils".

What about the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been discovered? Anyone know what the "there are no transitional fossils" crowd make of them? I am going to guess that they respond with a special pleading fallacy.

I think hippos count as transitional animals and they're not even fossils!

 

[brodski]

I think hippos count as transitional animals and they're not even fossils!

yeah, but you try telling a creationist that!

 

[Typhon]

Good question. Really, the idea of "transitional fossils" is an illusory and unscientific rhetoric trick. All fossils are "transitional," in a manner of speaking. But each fossil only shows one specimen, and that creature or plant or whatever existed as an individual that may be representative of the "species" concept, but isn't the species itself. The idea is that organisms change over time, but you aren't necessarily going to see change in individuals within a species. On the other hand, somebody mentioned Archaeopteryx, which clearly shows a creature with both dinosaur and "bird" features. Another well known example is the family tree of horses, which features several species "intermediary" between the first Hyracotherium-type horses through the modern type.

 

[bjb]

I was reading an old book about evolution where the duck-billed platypus was described as being an early mammal. It has fur, gives milk, and is warm-blooded like other mammals, but it lays leathery eggs and has poison glands like a reptile. I don't know where the duck bill fits in (which happens to be electrically sensitive), but it certainly is not something that most mammals have.

As I was reading, I wondered what creationists think about the platypus. Does it count as a transitional animal, something between a reptile and a mammal? Also, if intelligent design is for real, what kind of designer would come up with something so unlikely as a platypus?

 

[Beth]

I read in science news years ago that they had discovered whale fossils that included vestigal foot bones, thus providing evidence that whales were once land animals that adapted to the sea. I've always been surprised that such finds don't get more play in the arguments regarding transitional fossils.

 

[richardm]

I read in science news years ago that they had discovered whale fossils that included vestigal foot bones, thus providing evidence that whales were once land animals that adapted to the sea. I've always been surprised that such finds don't get more play in the arguments regarding transitional fossils.

There's always an excuse. For example, they might look like vestigial foot bones to you, but in actual "fact" they have a role to play in lining up genitals during mating, and thus are not vestigial after all (and in fact may not even be foot bones despite appearances).

 

[Soapy Sam]

The creationists are absolutely right; there are no transitional fossils.
Nor will there be.

A feathered tree would be a transitional fossil by their definition.

Which explains why there are none.

Every organism which ever existed was entire of itself, well adapted to its environment and not half way to being anything else.
Once a few more folk get their heads around that elementary fact, they will be better able to discuss the process whereby such a creature undergoes change.