The Fossil Record Provides Scientific Evidence for Macroevolution

Cambrian Explosion (530 mya) Pro claims that lobopods are intermediates between worms and anthropods, but this is false because (1) lobopods appear in the Cambrian explosion at the same time as anthropods, not before, disqualifying them as intermediate ancestors, and (2) we do not have a progressive sequence of intermediate lobopods leading from annelid worms to arthropod crustaceans as required by macroevolution. To explain the absence of intermediates in the Cambrian, Pro"s quote suggests that a global ice age before the Cambrian explosion may have stalled development of complex organisms or kept populations down so that such fossils would be a rare find today. But the Ediacaran phyla which predate the Cambrian contain numerous soft-bodied organisms. The abundance of these fossils debunks the assertion that Precambrian animals were rare. (McCall (2006). Yet the Ediacaran fossils are not widely believed to be the progenitors of modern taxonomic groups such as the metazoan phyla which explode so abruptly in the Cambrian period. Even more devastating to the ice-age excuse is the fact that the ice age is thought to have ended 100 million years prior to the Cambrian explosion (630 Mya), so there was no ice-age at this point at TalkOrigins suggests. Neanderthals Evidence is mounting that Neanderthals were no different from humans today. "Blades were first produced by Homo sapiens during their colonization of Europe from Africa approximately 40,000 years ago. This has traditionally been thought to be a dramatic technological advance, helping Homo sapiens out-compete, and eventually eradicate, their Stone Age cousins. Yet when the research team analysed their data there was no statistical difference between the efficiency of the two technologies. In fact, their findings showed that in some respects the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were more efficient than the blades adopted by Homo sapiens"Many long-held beliefs suggesting why the Neanderthals went extinct have been debunked in recent years. Research has already shown that Neanderthals were as good at hunting as Homo sapiens and had no clear disadvantage in their ability to communicate. Now, these latest findings add to the growing evidence that Neanderthals were no less intelligent than our ancestors. Metin Eren, an MA Experimental Archaeology student at the University of Exeter and lead author on the paper comments: "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens were more advanced than Neanderthals. It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived. Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other." (University of Exeter (2008, August 26). New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 10, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com...) Mounting evidence continues to humanize Neanderthals despite evolutionary bias: http://www.youtube.com... The discovery of a human hyoid bone (related to the larynx or voice box) indicates that Neanderthals had speech and language ability equivalent to ours. (Bower, B., Neandertals to investigators: can we talk? Science News 141(15):230, 1992) In 1998 they found a Neanderthal-human "hybrid" skeleton in Portugal, indicating that humans interbred with Neanderthals. (Archaeological Institute of America (2005, May/June). "Look Before You Date." Archaeology. Insider. Vol. 58, No. 3) Pro"s photos of Neanderthal"s skull appears different from ours because it is older, hence more eroded and a different color, and has lots of cracks because they were hunters of dangerous animals (so they often sustained head injuries), and they tended to succumb to diseases like rickets and arthritis, hence slight bone deformity. Despite this, when put in the same color these skulls look much the same as ours: http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... Reconstructed face of the Gibraltar 2 (Devil's Tower) Neanderthal child, and another Neanderthal According to a January 1996 edition of National Geographic, researchers at the University of Illinois were able to use computer morphing techniques to fit pictures of living people onto Neandertal skulls, proving that their appearance was no different from folks living today. All Neanderthals features such as heavy brow ridges can be found in folks alive today as in the pictures below: http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... Survival of the Dumbest My opponent argues that educated people don"t always outlive uneducated people. Now this strikes me as a bazaar argument to make considering the gap between Neanderthal man and chimpanzees. Remember Pro"s excuse was to blame the extinction of Neanderthals on their environment, which begs the question, how could chimpanzees overcome environmental difficulties that humans were unable to meet? How could a nation of retards make it where a nation of intelligent minds failed? Reptile-to-Bird Transitions I don"t have room to discuss all Pro has listed, but I"ll say something on Archaeopteryx (1) Its fossilized remains reveal perfectly formed feathers on aerodynamically designed wings capable of flight. The fact that its wings were fully developed suggests this was not a being changing from one species into another, but a separate kind altogether. If evolution is true, we should find reptiles with undeveloped wings progressing toward becoming "complete" wings, where are they? (2) Its supposed reptilian features are found in birds today, and it doesn"t even predate birds, because fossils of other birds have been found in rocks of the same period as Archaeopteryx. (The Neck of the Giraffe, pp."34, 35; Science, "Feathers of Archaeopteryx: Asymmetric Vanes Indicate Aerodynamic Function," by Alan Feduccia and Harrison B."Tordoff, March 9, 1979, pp."1021, 1022) Zuckerman and Bipedality Zuckerman found the foramen magnum behind the centre of the skull as in apes, rather than in the centre of the skull as in humans, refuting Pro"s claim of a human characteristic here in A. Afarensis. (Beyond the Ivory Tower, p. 79) Zuckerman headed the Department of Anatomy at the University of Birmingham in England for many years, and was scientific adviser to the British government. Zukerman and a team of scientist based this conclusion on 15 years of intense study, comparing hundreds of fossils in great detail. His view that australopithecines were not bipedal was not abandoned as TalkOrigins claims, but taken up by other experts such as Charles Oxnard, Professor of anatomy and human biology and a leading expert on the australopithecine fossils. (Scientific American, Feb. 1976) Also in agreement were Randy Susman, Jack Stern and Bill Jungers of the Stony Brook Institute ((Lucy"s Child, p. 194), and Russel Turtle of the University of Chicago. ((Lucy"s Child, p. 196). These experts realized that with feet more curved than a chimpanzee"s it would be impossible for australopithecines to walk upright like humans. Oxnard concluded that they "are now IRREVOCABLY REMOVED FROM A PLACE IN THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN BIPEDALISM." ((The Order of Man: A Biomathematical Anatomy of the Primates, p. 332). Lucy doesn"t even have the locking mechanism in the knees that allows us to stand upright. In 1994 Jack Stern expounded these views to the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. (Duane Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No, p. 257). A biochemical examination of the hip and thigh of Australopithecus concluded that it was not bipedal (C Berge, Journal Human Evolution, 1994, pp.259-273)