The Fossil Record Provides Scientific Evidence for Macroevolution

Horses As I pointed out earlier, one, two, and three-toed horses still exist today and anyone can look at them and tell they are horses; so the fossils Pro originally presented in round 1 are simply examples of variation within the kind, not a transition of one species into something completely different as macroevolution demands. Yes, there are no one-toed horses in the Miocence period, but the fact that not all variations of the horse exited in this period does nothing to show that a horse can become another kind of animal or another animal can become a horse. The history of black people is older than that of whites, but just because there are no whites at a certain time in human history doesn"t imply that the black to white transition is evidence of non-humans becoming humans. Blacks and whites are fully human in the same sense, just as one-toed and three-toed horses are horses in the same sense. In fact, even if I am very kind to Pro and include Mesohippus alongside Eqqus, how would this be any different from placing Michael Jordan beside a pygmy? Both are equally human, both are equally horses, both are examples of variation within the kind, but no new "kind" is coming into being. You get tall horses and short horses, but they remain horses; you have tall humans and short humans, but they always remain humans. Mutation always runs into the limits of variation, so there"s nothing new for natural selection to select. Habilines The very characteristics that supposedly distinguish habilines from humans are found in people living today who are no less human than me or you. "Negroid skulls are renowned for exhibiting alveolar prognathism, and a wide nasal form (Gill, 1986; Bass, 1995)" The teeth of Negroids are large, and their palate shape is also very pronounced (Ubelaker, 1989) The Negroid mandible ramus is also low and wide (Krogman & Iscan, 1986). In summary, the Negroid in terms of craniofacial features is robust, with poor facial symmetry. Prognathism, as observed in Negroid crania is usually associated with a sloping forehead. All these traits combined, makes the Negroid appear very simian, hence the very old comparison of Negroids to apes, which is rooted in genuine observation in terms of cranial morphology between Negroids and apes. A notch observed in the Negroid sacral vertebrae, is "characteristic of pongids [apes]" but absent or far less pronounced in the other races (Baker, 1974)." (Wikipedia: Black Africans Prognathism) Habilines are much like modern pygmies: "In both types [of pygmy] the eyes tend to bulge, the upper jaw juts out, and the arms are longer than the legs." (Peoples of the World, Francis Huxley, 1971) "There are two types [of prognathism] alveolar prognathism, which is restricted to the tooth region, and facial prognathism, which affects a much larger area of the face causing it to jut out, so increasing the facial area. A small chin is characteristic of both conditions. Prognathism is considered a primitive feature, particularly as it is most commonly found in apes and ancient primitive men. The Andamanese [pygmies] have pronounced prognathism." (A Dictionary of Anthroplogy, David Davies, 1972) So the so-called ape-like characteristics in habiline fossils occurs in people today who are no less human than any of us. The idea that none of H. Habilus features are found in any modern humans cannot be proved by Pro comparing one habiline skull to a single human skull, because this one skull in his comparison does not accurately represent the full variation of human skulls. http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... Africanus Afarensis Teeth Pro"s source claims that Australopithicus Afarensis had curvature in its teeth like that of a human, but I have already refuted this in my quote from Cremo and Thompson (1993 pp. 729-731) "In humans, the teeth in the jaw are arrayed in a parabolic curve, In the Hadar jaws, such as AL200, the teeth on either side of the jaw are set in straight parallel rows, as in the apes" (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp 267-268). Although he goes on to say that "the rearmost molars are sometimes slightly displaced," we should only take the word "sometimes" to indicate the exceptions to the rule, for even in humans they are deviations from the usual (or most popular) anatomy of skulls (such as prognathism, see Wikipedia: prognathism) but such variations both natural and by disease do not make such people more or less human than you are I in any sense. Therefore, a few exceptions in how the teeth of australopithicines are shaped doesn"t imply they were evolving into humans anymore than such exceptions in human prove we are evolving into gods. Such variation within the kinds doesn"t cause humans living today to be classified as a subspecies or missing link between other humans and apes; the same should be true of Afarensis if evolutionists are to be consistent with their logic. Feet In 1983 Randy Susman and Jack Stern described Lucy"s feet as being even more curved than a chimpanzee"s. ((Milton, Shattering the Myths, p. 207) How could feet with more curvature than a chimp"s be an example of evolution towards human feet I"ll never know. Pro"s source claiming that Lucy"s feet had human characteristics is simply wrong. Skull As I said before, "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)" Humans do not have a sigittal crest at the top of their skulls, but apes do. Zukerman"s team found this feature in the australopithecine fossils, and after comparing them to 800 ape skulls, concluded: "that the existence of sagittal crests in the australopithecines implied that they had carried their heads like apes and not like man" (Beyond the Ivory Tower, p. 85). Pro wants to create the illusion that Lucy"s bipedality is a settled issue, but this was far from evident at a gathering of anthropologists at the Institute of Human Origins in New York in 2009. Reporting on this event the NewYork Times said: "The debate over whether the primate Lucy actually stood up on two feet three million years ago and walked--thus becoming one of mankind"s most important ancestors--has evolved into two interpretive viewpoints, three family trees, spats over four scientific techniques and too many personality clashes to count. ... The long and short of it is, according to a participant, that bipedality lies in the eye of the beholder" ("Did Lucy Actually Stand on Her Own Two Feet?" (New York Times, Aug. 29, 2009). Neanderthals "Early artistic reconstructions mostly presented Neanderthals as beastly creatures"Reconstructions of Neanderthal men, women and children have become much more intelligent-looking and pleasing to the modern eye." (Wikipedia: Neanderthal) The humanization of Neanderthal has come a long way, I merely suggest it has a bit further to go. If it is our gene expression and not the DNA sequence that makes us human, I see no reason why I shouldn"t consider a man who looks and behaves just like me but who has differences in his genes to be human. This would only be variation within the kind. Further, Neanderthal DNA only appears to be different because much pertinent information is left out of the analysis. http://www.debate.org... To show the same problem in trying to establish similarity between humans and chimps" DNA, is suggest Pro read Human-Chimp Similarities: Common Ancestry or Flawed Research? by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D, and Genomic monkey business"estimates of nearly identical human"chimp DNA similarity Re-evaluated using Omitted Data by Jeffrey Tomkins and Jerry Bergman. I"ll rebut his remaining objections next round as I"m out of space.