Duvenoy

Although bats are one of the most diverse groups of <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mammal.html" target="_blank">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mammal.html</a> today, they are one of the least common groups in the fossil record. Bats have small, light skeletons that do not preserve well. Also, many live in tropical forests, where conditions are usually unfavorable for the formation of fossils. Thus we know little about the early evolution of bats. /tertiary/eoc/greenriver/icaronycteris.jpg

/tertiary/eoc/greenriver/icaronycteris.jpg Some mammal teeth from the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/pal.html" target="_blank">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/pal.html</a> of France show characters of both bats and insectivores (the group including the hedgehogs, shrews and moles of today). However, since these fossils are only teeth, we don't know what the rest of the animal was like. The next bat fossils start turning up in the <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eoc.html," target="_blank">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eoc.html,</a> in sites with unusually complete preservation of whole skeletons, such as the Green River Formation of Wyoming and the Messel Shale of Germany. These fossils represent essentially modern-looking microchiropterans; bats had evolved all of their characteristic features and begun to diversify by this time. In fact, the oldest known complete fossil bat, the Eocene-age Icaronycteris shown at right, shows specializations of the auditory region of the skull that suggest that this bat could echolocate.
The oldest megachiropteran (flying fox, or fruitbat) is <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/oli.html" target="_blank">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/oli.html</a> in age, from Italy; it and a <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/mio.html" target="_blank">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/mio.html</a> fossil from Africa make up the entire known fossil record of megachiropterans.

<a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/eutheria/chirofr.html" target="_blank">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/eutheria/chirofr.html</a>

A revolutionary find of fossils in the state of Arizona has pushed back the possible date for the origin of bees and wasps and caused entomologists and botanists to scratch their heads over the origin of flowering plants and their furry little go-betweens. During the past year, about 40 fossilized bee nests have been found within giant petrified logs at the Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. The discovery was made by Dr. Tim Demko, a paleobiologist in the Department of Earth Resources at Colorado State University, Ft. Colins, CO. Dr. Tim Demko located the unique fossils while conducting studies to understand the paleoecology (the study of ancient climates and environments revealed in the fossil record). He and his associates have found many fossil nests they believe to have been constructed by ancient bees, along with scattered cocoons made by wasps from within giant Araucarioxylon-type (the domiant colorful turned-to-stone logs in the park) trees.
What is so amazing and exciting about these new finds from the Petrified Forest? First and foremost, their extreme age. The fossil tree trunks have been dated between 207 and 220 million years before the present! Fossils of adult bees, their larvae, and their burrows including natal cells are extremely rare in the fossil record. Before this discovery, the oldest undisputed fossils of adult bees are 80 million year old specimens prserved enshrined within golden tombs of amber (derived from tree saps and resins) from inland and beach deposits in modern day New Jersey. These little stingless bees belong to the species Trigona prisca Michener & Grimaldi (family Apidae) in New Jersey (Kinkora) amber.

<a href="http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/nx/fossils/fossils.html" target="_blank">http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/nx/fossils/fossils.html</a>

And before we begin waving Ockham's Razor about, let us remember that it never disputes the evidence.

doov

Hey - I edited a few of your links above - if you type anything around the link, it won't be "hypered" so to speak.---Scigirl

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Writer@Large

Or that creationism requires the imagining of an ultimately complex, ultimately powerful sky being with no explanation and no evidentiary proof--most certainly the antithesis of Ockham's Razor.

--W@L

Creation's Terrier

Thanks Doov, very nice. However...

Evidence? What evidence? You quoted:

So this demonstrates what then? It’s not intermediate; it’s not the supposed slightly-big-handed thing with flaps of skin or whatever. Nope, it’s a fully fledged (so to speak) proper bat. Are we to invoke an ‘evolution-of-the-gaps’ to explain its sudden fossil appearance?

And if you want to bring up echolocation, maybe you could explain what happened to all the ‘intermediate’ bats who deafened themselves with their high-pitched squeaks before the damping mechanism (something to do with muscles pulling the ear bones apart in time with each shriek) evolved? Sure, you’ll say, the two evolved together. What, it hears its squeaks echo... subsequent ones squeak louder to get better echoes... and louder... and at some point we’re supposed to believe that the muscles pulling the ear drum (or whatever) started to kick in, deafening the proto-bat... but only at just the right moment...? Surely the damping mechanism is pretty all-or-nothing.The intermediates either had to squeak quieter (losing the point), or... that’s some population bottleneck, all those ones who deadened the noise at all the wrong moments! How did they come to get it right?

Looks like clever design to me.

And as for the bees... (who mentioned bees? I’m talking about the intricate relationship between figs and wasps that Dawkins fails to explain (much hand-waving, no evidence) in Mount Improbable)... how do the experts know they are bees? Could it be that they are bees? But again, where’s the intermediate?

CT

Duvenoy

Transitionals, huh? Ok:

<a href="http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~reffland/anthropology/origins/comingonto.html" target="_blank">http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~reffland/anthropology/origins/comingonto.html</a>

<a href="http://www.mdgekko.com/devonian/Order/new-order.html" target="_blank">http://www.mdgekko.com/devonian/Order/new-order.html</a>

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html</a>

And just for the fun of it:

<a href="http://www.mdgekko.com/devonian/devo-index.html" target="_blank">http://www.mdgekko.com/devonian/devo-index.html</a>

Apparently you missed the point of the bat site. It shows that bats turn up very late in the fossil record due to the unlikelyhood of their remains being preserved. Transitional fossils haven't been found. Yet.

I've got a better one than wasps and figs. In the western US, there is a species of ground squirrel that is regularly preyed upon by a rattlesnake (Crotalus v. viridis). This squirrel, the species, not an individual, has developed a partial immunity to the snake's venom and the snake has to get a very good hit to kill one. In turn, the snake's venom is gradually becoming 'hotter'. Isn't that remarkable?

doov

Oolon Colluphid

Bugger...

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Creation's Terrier

Thanks for the links Doov, I’d not seen some of those. Not sure how the walking fish make any difference. We still have lungfish, which do similar stuff, and they’re not transitional, they’re modern species. So the fossil ones would be just a variation on God’s plan, that there be such fish.

As to the TO long lists... sure, very impressive... if, like most evolutionists, one is easily impressed. Fossils are just snapshots of what was around. They’re only transitional if you accept evolution! Otherwise, they’re just previously existing creaures. How do you know they’re linked? If, as evolutionists claim, so much of the fossil record is missing, how do we know that these rarely-preserved creatures weren’t contemporaneous, just cos one seems to come after the other? Can you prove that there’s a genetic lineage linking, say, Panderichthys with Acanthostega?

Thought not.

(Which you’ve not explained... but not to worry, I can’t remember the exact details offhand myself, so I’ll drop it for now . )

Whoa there! You have evidence that they’ve not always had it?

Really? Evidence please.

Sure. The term is ‘microevolution’, I believe.

So, back to the bats... no fossils “yet”, huh? Invoking a Theory of the Gaps then?

CT

Duvenoy

Go here to learn more about venomous snakes than you ever wanted to know.

<a href="http://www.venomousreptiles.org/" target="_blank">http://www.venomousreptiles.org/</a>

Ok CT, exactly who's sock puppet are you. There's been a number of accuasations floating around, including several in my direction. When you said,"...accepted evolution..." you gave it away. A real Creationist would have said, "believe evolution..."

Yer cover's blown, bro, 'Fess up!

doov

Oolon Colluphid

double bugger

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

WWSD

Originally posted by Droxyn:


I ultimately can not convince you of the truth of the Bible, only God, through his Holy Spirit can do that.( I can offer things in there that help me to believe in it) So in pointing out potential problems with the worldview of evolution, it is possible one might see that it just doesn't have all the answers and there is more to defining reality than naturalism.


Here you seem to be offering creationism and Xtianity as a solution for evolution being an incomplete theory.
How is creationism any better? That's already been asked, so I'll move on to my burning question that never seems to be addressed in any satisfactory manner whatsoever.

My favorite example of fantastic complexity is the adaptable immune system that we humans have.
It has its problems but, let's not consider them at the moment.
Let's assume that someone or something created our immune system.

Let's also assume that this same someone created everything else in the universe.

Now let's look at a common human parasite which kills scores of children in sub-saharan Africa each year. <a href="http://"http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~parasite/trypanosoma.html"" target="_blank">
Trypanosoma spp.
</a>
Trypanosomes have the ability to adapt to the immune system. They have a system of gene splicing that allows them to change thier outer coat's antigenic identity every so often. A close look at this system reveals an amazing level of complexity.

Why did the creator create these two opposing systems if he (the Xtian version) is a good, loving creator?

To me, this points to a sadistic creator (if I were a creationist). How do you reconcile the above with your beliefs?


A common and unsatisfactory dodge has to do with the fall of man.
Satan is another very unsatisfactory dodge.
Please don't use them.


Then the individual might open their heart just enough for God to enter in and guide them. I dunno, I never make the claim to have all the answers as some might, but I think we both believe that all the answers can be found if we are diligent in our search. The only difference is where we look for the answers. I hope I am not to preachy and I hope that no one replies with a meany response.

At one time in my life I asked for your god's guidance. Where was it? Where was he?
Don't get me wrong, I don't "hate" your god, nor an I angry at your god since I simply do not beleive he's there.

Please do not answer wih "you didn't try hard enough, beleive enough etc enough."
You cannot possibly know.

hezekiah jones

That's crazy. Who "reveres" evolution? Problems with the theory (and there obviously are problems to solve) are what keep scientists going. Problems that are phony, irrelevant, arising from misunderstandings, or that ignore other key pieces of evidence, such as those continually raised by creationists, are what are labelled as ridiculous. Real problems that comport with existing evidence are what scientists work on.

Evolution isn't a "worldview." It's simply what happens in nature. Too many creationists are in the business of attacking a strawman philosophical position that they claim automatically proceeds from the study of biology. It's absurd. What about all the biologists that are believers, indeed, that are Christians? Don't they count?

Who would say evolution has all the answers? Like so many creationists you're conflating methodological with ontological naturalism. This is a basic error and you're bound to make many more if you accept it as a premise.