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"We're all modified sharks"

#48: May - June 2008 (Non-Fiction)
evodevo09

"We're all modified sharks"

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Hello! So I have to write a paper on 'Your Inner Fish' and I need some help for supporting evidence. For this essay I have to discuss at least three examples of how evidence (for example from the fossil record, comparative anatomy and/or developmental biology) helps illuminate the evolutionary pathway that led from earliest chordate ancestors to mammals, in particular humans. Also using Neil Shubin's claim that 'we are all modified sharks'. Can anyone help me!
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johnson1010
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Re: "We're all modified sharks"

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Hello evodevo,

One thing that illuminates our shared ancestry is the fact that we in fact do have spinal chords, vertebrae, and a skull. No creature without a spinal chord has any of these things, and everything which does have that set of bones IS a chordate.

Evolution is like your computer files, in a way. Everything that ever was fits into one folder. Inside that folder are several sub-folders. Anything that goes into one of those folders can never be in the other one. Each time you open a folder, you are specifying all kinds of traits for everything that goes inside that folder which nothing else possesses.

So the very fact of our spinal chord makes us undeniably chordates, and puts our very specific folder, names Homo Sapiens Sapiens, inside a much larger and inclusive folder "Chordata".

I think you might find this thread useful

http://www.booktalk.org/yes-evolution-t8939.html

and this post specifically might be of use where i post several wikipedia links with our ancestral lineage.
Quote:
Dawn:
Your Dad made a point I think I'd agree with--the absence of missing links really undermines the theory of evolution, and how is it tied in with our origins anyway? A real conundrum.





From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_link


Quote:
He (Darwin) noted the limited collections available at that time, but described the available information as showing patterns which followed from his theory of descent with modification through natural selection.[2] Indeed, Archaeopteryx was discovered just two years later, in 1861, and represents a classic transitional form between dinosaurs and birds. Many more transitional fossils have been discovered since then and it is now considered that there is abundant evidence of how all the major groups of animals are related, much of it in the form of transitional fossils.[3]




This just goes to show you how extensively the lies about evolution have been repeated by the opponents of science. The first transitional specimen was collected 150 years ago. And it was a whopper!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archyopterix

A proto-bird with un-fused wing fingers... EXACTLY what darwin said we should find! And it's been 150 years of people claiming no transitional specimens have been found. They found the thing TWO YEARS after Darwin's land mark publication!

The "missing link" is usually in reference, specifically, to human evolution, and not referring generally to the numerous transitional species which have been discovered (taking the most restrictive definition, and not the more liberal application in which literally everything that ever was is a transitional species, as nothing ever stopped evolving).


Quote:
The idea of a "missing link" between humans and so-called "lower" animals remains lodged in the public imagination. The concept was fuelled by the discovery of Australopithecus africanus (Taung Child), Java Man, Homo erectus, Sinanthropus pekinensis (Peking Man) and other Hominina fossils.



But the term "Missing link" was not really used to describe something that had to be found, but rather something that JUST WAS found, in the case of Java man.

In other words, people are not saying "Where is the missing link?" But instead "Java man is the missing link."


Quote:
The term tends to be used in the popular media, but is avoided in the scientific press as it relates to the links in the great chain of being, a static pre-evolutionary concept now abandoned. In reality, the discovery of more and more transitional fossils continues to add to knowledge of evolutionary transitions,[3][9] making many of the "missing links" missing no more (see List of transitional fossils)



For those interested in human "missing links" which have now been found by the bushel, take a look at this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

about three quarters down the page under "Species list" for a list of twenty eight different species, represented by hundreds of fossils, each transitional in the progress from basal primate to homo sapiens sapiens

Almost all of which do have wikipedia pages to save you the extra time of google searching the names.

Take a look at this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... _evolution

which does the same thing as one of my earliest posts in this thread and traces our evidentially supported lineage from eucaryote single celled organisms right on through to fully formed humans. But this page has the benefit of more extensive description of the different stages, accompanied by illustrations of what our long long ago ancestors looked like.

See also this link:
topic10130.html

Where there is discussion of Aron Ra's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism videos. This link speaks directly about so called "missing links"
It's an interesting thing, evodevo. I understand the shark quote is probably meant to be illustrative of a qhote, but while humans are indeed the descendants of aquatic animals, those animals were not literally sharks, and nor were they exactly fish. Not all that swims is a fish (Whales, seals, shrimp) and the creatures we evolved from are as far removed from modern fish as they are from us. They did look superficially like fish, just like hyenas might be mistaken for a kind of strange wolf...

There is a whole lot to learn about evolution and the more you know, the more interesting these discussions become. Although, it has made me a sci-fi snob. Everytime somebody calls some alien a kind of lizard or bug, it grates on me.

If you have any questions, i would be happy to help.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: "We're all modified sharks"

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Sharks like humans huh...hogwash!
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johnson1010
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Re: "We're all modified sharks"

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??
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: "We're all modified sharks"

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Azrael, what are you saying?
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