Just add water.............

[boyd]

There's a few things that puzzle me in regards to Evolution, so thought i'd twist a few noggins:

General belief is that we descended from apes, and that we have found cro-magnon man fossils that are our nearest match that we supposedly evolved from not long ago. I was taught in school that generally layers of dirt/rock etc build up over time and hence the older a fossil is the deeper down it is in the earth?

Now we've found fossils of a multitude of life forms from hundreds of millions of years ago deep down in the earth, way before we arrived, enough to make movies and books on. Yet this mystery "in-between" fossil has never been found!? As the human race now tops nearly 7 billion, surely there should be a few lying about somewhere? Is it because of a small number of humans at this time? Or because even with all our technology we have barely scratched the surface? Or was it that the cromag design was not good enough the first time round (poor sods), so humanity mk2 with added panache became?:confused:

There are many discrepancies for Darwen's theory of evolution, heres a bit of reading on the subject at the bbc http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A739947 . One of the main arguements is to do with the complex designs of things such as eyes. Complexity to me says "thought about/designed", many vastly different creatures all have eyes designed to suit a purpose. This reminds me of car makers using one chassis for a few models.

We all know that humans now have the technology to clone things, such as Dolly the sheep. We can, even in our semi-self destructing state, do things such as specify sex and physical traits, in essence, we can design and create a life form based on another. Not long ago this would have people calling us "gods" where today it is simply scientific progress!

Is it that far fetched then, to assume we came from some higher intelligence race? Why couldn't they have taken the cromagnon man and changed it to be a bit better/more appealing to them, and so there is no in-between fossil? To what reason this was done is an open debate, maybe to get a slave type workforce from our energy, or maybe as we are their children and they want to look after us? Although I dont believe in God so much, not like a religious person anyway, I find it hard to believe we weren't designed and built. Why would a Cheetah in a documentary jump when it was scared, or a group of Wolves raise the feral child. Having feelings as a universal constant, (an entity wanting to protect its existence and showing compassion towards helpless/needy entities), to me says "thought about prior to assembly" or "good design re-used". Perhaps we are just a complex airfix kit for the amusement of others, or maybe these higher beings are with us every step of the way as parents!?

Either way, I was bored and thought i'd give u something to think about, only time will tell. As I have never experienced any other worldly events, if there is some higher beings reading this and want to contact me then a Bugatti Veyron in Black sat outside my house ought to do it, preferably with Lucy Pinder in the passenger seat :D

Keep learning for thats all we have, peace

[localidiot]

When it comes to the number of fossils we have, keep in mind when it comes to a human "missing link" we are looking for one specific fossil.
Not one fossil has ever been found on purpose. Some have been extrapolated, in the sense that they were expected to show up, but it's not like someone went somewhere for the specific fossil.
As for the number of fossils. Currently, we have 2 representatives of the most famous long necked dinosaur, Apatosaurus. Some are more prevalent, others aren't.
Dinosaurs and later mammals covered most of the above ocean parts of the world, and parts of the ocean.
Humans, and our ancestors, had a fairly limited habitat until fairly recently.
Very literally, you are trying to find a needle in a haystack. Of the trillions of species that have existed on our planet, and have left some fossil evidence behind, you are asking for one specific example to be found.
As for cro-magnon, cro-magnon is very literally us. There is no substantial difference between them and us, about as much, really, as any of the other races of human on the planet today.


You would show the eye as evidence of intelligent design, I'd point out that whales and dolphins still have pelvic bones and finger bones. Completely and utterly useless pieces of anatomy.

[boyd]

U know what I mean, not cro-mag then, neanderthal is it? the "missing link". I see what u mean about the needle in a haystack thing but I would've thought a species that inhabited landmass and, in the context of fossils, was around only yesterday, would've been a lot easier to find than say, an aquatic creature that inhabited the earth hundreds of millions of years prior, even if it was an accident? I understand we've barely scratched the surface, scuse the pun, but how many treasure hunters have found an old 20p piece when they were out looking for that 18th century treasure chest? :)

I wasn't aware of the pelvic info, in the bbc link above it goes on about the bat and how its supposed to have evolved from a rodent. In a nutshell, it says that in an "evolving" state, half bat, half rodent, it would struggle to find either's food and so eventually die off? And the oldest bat fossils have fully developed winged limbs too???

Who knows, evolution/mother nature may be the force that created us and is still all around, even though we aren't advanced enough to know about it!? Then again, its equally likely that existence is nothing like we expect. A superior race that was as prone to mistakes like us would go some way of explaining things though, especially if its still happening! Just doesn't explain where it/they came from. Anyway the grey cells are nicely stirred now, thanks.

[localidiot]

Yes, Neanderthal seems more likely. But, from looking at both our habitat at the time and our relative difference, both us and Neanderthal came from a similar ancestor, either Homo Erectus or habilus, and it's entirly possible that a mid-species speciment won't be found.
We rarely evr work with a complete skeleton, and most of the ones we do find aren't perfect, either they're missing pieces or their bones aren't good enough to give us a clear picture of them.
Case in point, the original Neanderthal skeleton we found suffered from bad arthritis, which is why the early illustrations of cave men showed them as predominantly slouched and stupid.
When a more intact skeleton was found, it revealed a lot more about Neanderthal than we originally believed.
They most certainly weren't slouched, and the fact that the original fellow survived as long as he had showed that he was cared for. Meaning they had some form of culture, and later finds increased this belief.
Generally speaking, hominid fossils are rare.
Literally speaking, any fossils are rare. Intact fossils are even rarer still.
Dinosaurs very much littered the landscape, but finding their skeletons, even the ones of the most common kinds, is a challenge.
Save for freak instances, like Ghost Ranch, where several Coelophysis fossils were found intact after a flash flood, most species are known from partial skeletons that are basically extrapolated from their known relatives.
It's why early dinosaurs looked like squat and slow lizards, the closest relatives we knew of at the time were lizards and crocodiles.

As for the bat, again, it's a example where we have few representatives of the species on the fossil record.
They were small, light boned, and probably didn't leave much behind when they died. The earliest fossils we have of them do show more as gliders than fliers, so I assume their ancestors behaved like flying squirrels do today.
being neither a specialist in animal behavior or a paleontologist, of course, i can't say for certain.

[starstuff]

If you want the official explanation for how complex designs such as eyes came into existence, try Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker. While I was studying evolution at university I bought into the explanation; nowadays I'm not so sure, but it's been a long while since I read any scientific papers or read any textbooks on the subject so I don't know if I'd find any holes in it if I tried looking at it from a more critical viewpoint. It's an interesting read, at any rate.

[armoured_amazon]

I bet Dawkins isn't an atheist now lmao

[enddivision]

Dawkins is a vehement Atheist, to the point of being anti-religious.

The trouble with human remains is that they don't fossilise very well. Even relatively recent burials (Saxon etc.) are often partial, and some skeletons are so badly crushed and shattered that it is like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle when it comes to reconstructing them. Fossils only preserve well when they are buried under fine silt, sand or ash, the hundreds of bodies that are beneath the Thames will likely be preserved as fossils in around a million years time. Most forest-dwelling creatures are poorly represented in the fossil record, mainly because the ground is fairly static, it doesn't erode much due to the tree roots anchoring it, so things just don't get buried easily. The forest is the likely ancestral home of bats, who would have leapt from tree to tree like a phalanger or a flying squirrel. It is known from comparative anatomy that bats evolved from the Insectivores, now represented by shrews, hedgehogs etc. although some believe that they may have evolved from very early Primates, hence the similarity between flying foxes and lemurs.
As for Whales, they left the land only around 10 million years ago, it used to be thought that they evolved from a dog-like carnivore, but new finds reveal a hoofed mammal as an ancestor.
It is known that mammals actually appeared around the same time as the dinosaurs, however, they were still not quite warm-blooded, and were sprawling like lizards, yet the first dinosaurs were all bipedal, swift, fully warm-blooded creatures who got the head start, allowing them to very quickly evolve into newer forms that prevented the majority of mammals from growing to beyond the size of a domestic cat. Warm-bloods (endotherms) have a higher species turnover than cold-bloods (ectotherms), which is why warm-bloods become extinct so easily. A cold-blooded species will last for around 10 million years, but a warm-blood will either evolve or die out in 1-2 million years, due to accelerated metabolism and reproductive rate. It is believed that a species has it's lifespan preprogrammed into it's DNA, unless the DNA changes, it will go into genetic senility. It may even be this 'senile DNA' that actually causes major evolutionary changes to take place anyway, as it starts to rapidly mutate into different forms, at least some of which may be beneficial. May also be radiation from the sun, as well as Cosmic Galactic Radiation and radiation from supernovas reaching the earth on occasions when the solar radiation weakens enough to let it through. Failed mutations would generally just cause cancers and deformities.

[boyd]

Thanks for the reply's, some interesting points there. Makes you wonder how little of our own planet we know whilst talking about aliens in outer space! Who knows what we'll find next!

[samtak]

Thank you enddivision. It's good to see that other people know their conventional science as well.