Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 11, 2024, 6:55 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
How many fossils have been discovered?
#1
How many fossils have been discovered?
I've heard that we have discovered billions of fossils, though I can't find a reputable source that isn't Creationist to confirm it. Any idea? I'm pretty sure we possess hundreds of transitional fossils but I find that fairly suspicious (as Darwin predicted the Earth should be sprawling with them) if we literally have billions. What gives? Not doubting evolution but is there something in the process that would account for this?
Reply
#2
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
I can't tell you exactly how many but I almost regularly find them here. Where I live we have big hills covered in chalk everywhere, every now and then you see a split rock with a nice fossil inside. If I find them often by accident then how many do you think people who know what they are doing find them?
Reply
#3
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
Quote:I'm pretty sure we possess hundreds of transitional fossils but I find that fairly suspicious

You shouldn't.

Firstly, it is pretty difficult to become a fossil To begin with, you have to die in the right place. Then you have to get somehow covered over before something comes along and eats your remains (and its no good getting covered over with just any old muck).

If you DO managed to become fossilized, you have to not be destroyed - volcanic eruption, subduction, fracturing. If you get through all this, you're still not home free: as a fossil, you're of no use whatsoever until and unless someone finds you.

Finally, if you look at them properly, ALL fossils are transitional forms.

Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
Reply
#4
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
(January 10, 2014 at 6:05 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I've heard that we have discovered billions of fossils, though I can't find a reputable source that isn't Creationist to confirm it. Any idea? I'm pretty sure we possess hundreds of transitional fossils but I find that fairly suspicious (as Darwin predicted the Earth should be sprawling with them) if we literally have billions. What gives? Not doubting evolution but is there something in the process that would account for this?
Here is a good list of transitional forms, though incomplete.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_forms
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Reply
#5
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
(January 10, 2014 at 6:05 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I've heard that we have discovered billions of fossils, though I can't find a reputable source that isn't Creationist to confirm it. Any idea? I'm pretty sure we possess hundreds of transitional fossils but I find that fairly suspicious (as Darwin predicted the Earth should be sprawling with them) if we literally have billions. What gives? Not doubting evolution but is there something in the process that would account for this?

What gives is that the concept of transitional species is spurious, at best with regard to the fossil record. ALL species are transitional.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens

"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".

- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "

- Dr. Donald Prothero
Reply
#6
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
(January 10, 2014 at 7:17 pm)orogenicman Wrote:
(January 10, 2014 at 6:05 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I've heard that we have discovered billions of fossils, though I can't find a reputable source that isn't Creationist to confirm it. Any idea? I'm pretty sure we possess hundreds of transitional fossils but I find that fairly suspicious (as Darwin predicted the Earth should be sprawling with them) if we literally have billions. What gives? Not doubting evolution but is there something in the process that would account for this?

What gives is that the concept of transitional species is spurious, at best with regard to the fossil record. ALL species are transitional.
Yes they are, but most ( even scientists) mean transitional forms are fossils reflecting change from one clade to another.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Reply
#7
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
What, like the Crocoduck? Wink
[Image: 10314461_875206779161622_3907189760171701548_n.jpg]
Reply
#8
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
We do literally have billions. They're stored in drawers and cabinets in museums, some museums have huge rooms filled with them because it takes so long to figure out what they are, longer than it takes to find them. Maybe they keep some in universities now. So yea, they're stored, processing takes very long which is a little frustrating because something great could be hidden in a drawer full of similarly sized bones waiting to be noticed.
Reply
#9
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
There's this place in upstate New York on the side of a main road. It looks like your standard outcrop with a bunch of stones around it. But if you get closer, you see all the stones and the outcrop have fossils. You literally stand upon millions, maybe billions, of fossilized early marine life. And that is just one little dot on the map. Not to mention it is only one of the many localities in NY.
Reply
#10
RE: How many fossils have been discovered?
(January 10, 2014 at 7:19 pm)Lemonvariable72 Wrote:
(January 10, 2014 at 7:17 pm)orogenicman Wrote: What gives is that the concept of transitional species is spurious, at best with regard to the fossil record. ALL species are transitional.
Yes they are, but most ( even scientists) mean transitional forms are fossils reflecting change from one clade to another.

Do you know of a fossil species that doesn't?
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens

"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".

- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "

- Dr. Donald Prothero
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Dating Fossils jessieban 28 3171 June 20, 2019 at 4:08 am
Last Post: Gawdzilla Sama
  How can we know how old fossils are? jamesmadison 67 6568 May 2, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Last Post: Gawdzilla Sama
  Evolution has been observed recently blue grey brain 16 1978 December 1, 2018 at 6:44 pm
Last Post: T0 Th3 M4X
  For we many in north America who missed last night's lunar eclipse Whateverist 19 1768 July 28, 2018 at 4:08 am
Last Post: zebo-the-fat
  Body Of Water Discovered On Mars A Theist 4 1134 July 26, 2018 at 6:32 am
Last Post: A Theist
  Penguins the Size of Humans (Fossils found) The Valkyrie 22 4442 February 23, 2017 at 11:33 pm
Last Post: Minimalist
  Possible 5th fundamental force discovered? Anomalocaris 7 2059 August 18, 2016 at 4:29 pm
Last Post: Whateverist
  Something that has been on my mind dyresand 24 4162 December 4, 2015 at 10:22 pm
Last Post: Reforged
  Some shit we've been waiting for abaris 19 4232 May 1, 2015 at 5:35 pm
Last Post: Hatshepsut
  Astrobiologists discover fossils in meteorite fragments, confirming extraterrestrial life Phish 16 6602 April 12, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Last Post: Anomalocaris



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)