This is an update to a previous post by Bex and the bat fossils and transitions.

Strangely scientists don't give much thought to what the public thinks, nor are they much concerned with inventing scenarios for public consumption. All they are concerned with is what the evidence shows.

Curiously genetics is now showing bats are not necessarily descended from Nyctitheriidae as they suggested earlier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat

Looks like another round of scientific revision is in order due to new evidence ...

I bring you this information for your use, and to show you that I am not trying to confuse or misrepresent the evidence.

Listing several hundreds\thousands\millions of different transitionals is not meant to be confusing, nor does not mean that we have transitionals for every stage of every development of every life form. What we have are enough to show that transition from one life form to another life form has occurred.

The typical (creationist/CTD's/your) listing of specific instances where we do NOT have transitional fossils between specific life forms does not in any way show that transition does not occur, all it shows is that you are ignoring the plentiful, profound and pervasive evidence of transitionals that do exist.

Saying there is no bat transition between 65 million years ago and 52 million years ago ignores that the 52 million year old fossils are different in significant ways from modern bats, ways that show they are intermediate between some non-flying mammal insectivore ancestor and modern bats

Abstract: Primitive Early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echolocation
Nature 451, 818-821 (14 February 2008)
doi:10.1038/nature06549;

bold color for emPHAsis.

So we have a bat ancestor that is capable of quadrapedal locomotion as well as tree climbing ability, and the flight pattern is not fully developed.

Here is a graphic from the actual article:


Notice that the fossil is intermediate in characteristics between non-flying mammals (in general) and bats (in general), ie it is transitional by Darwin's definition.

Modern bats have evolved since the first fossils known of bat ancestors, and when older bats are found we will know more about bat evolution - until then we can make some educated hypothesis, but that is all they are. Was there a common ancestry between sloths and bats? Or is branch hanging a just a similar behavior? Time will tell.

Well, that would be because we are talking about evolution, not "RussTolution" or "CTDilution" or "Bexolution" ... or what we can better call "Creolution" as they are all misinformed views based on common creationist arguments, misinformation and misconceptions. That way we don't slander any individuals here. The purpose is to inform and to correct the misinformation, misconceptions and misrepresentations.

In evolution all "fit" organisms - the ones that have the ability to survive and reproduce - are, by definition, fully formed organisms.

Individuals do not evolve. They develop from embryos to adults based on the hereditary traits they inherited and the mutations they have, and the relative success they have in survival and breeding will determine whether their hereditary traits are passed on to the next generation and how often. Those that breed more often will contribute more to the hereditary traits of the next generation in the population than those that don't. Those that survive and breed will be fully formed organisms.

Populations evolve. They evolve by the process of succession: some organism die, some reproduce, and the young organisms that reach the age of reproduction become the next generation. No two individual organisms are identical, they all have different mixes of hereditary traits from their parents, and they all have new mutations, and thus some will be relatively better at survival and breeding than others. Those that survive and breed will be fully formed, fully functioning organisms.

The populations change from generation to generation due to the succession of hereditary traits in the organisms that survive and breed based on their individual mixture of hereditary traits and the constraints of the ecosystem they live in. Those that survive and breed will be fully formed, fully functioning organisms.

If the ecosystem is static for long periods of time, then the adaptation to that ecosystem will be fairly similar within each generation, but if the ecosystem changes or the population branches out into a new ecosystem, then the effect of that new ecosystem will alter which individuals are better at survival and breeding in the new ecosystem, and different sub-populations will arise with different sets of hereditary traits. Those that survive and breed will be fully formed, fully functioning organisms.

If the different hereditary traits are not shared by breeding between subpopulations, then they are free to change further in response to the different ecologies. Over time this can result in different populations that no longer interbreed when the opportunity exists because they do not recognize the others as mates. Thus two populations descended from a common ancestor population have become different - they have diversified. In each new population, those that survive and breed will be fully formed, fully functioning organisms.

Both show hereditary traits in common with the ancestor population plus new traits. Both show hereditary traits in common with each other plus new traits. Both show transition from the ancestral population to their new population, with different sets of shared traits with the ancestral population. In each new population, those that survive and breed will be fully formed, fully functioning organisms.

The transition from ancestral population to daughter population will be shown by the hereditary traits in each of the individual organisms in each generation as one generation follows the one before and gives rise to the one after: the succession of generations of populations of individual organisms that are all in a transitional lineage between the ancestral population and the new daughter populations. Each individual organism will be a transitional organism, and those that survive and breed will be fully formed, fully functioning organisms.

All transitional organisms will be fully formed fully functioning organisms fully adapted to the ecosystem they live in.

What you do not see is "Creolutionist" transition ... because creolution does not occur. Don't forget to move the goalposts.

Again, what you see is the succession of generation after generation of similar but different organisms in population lineages, and those generations all have organisms that survive and breed based on their hereditary traits and the relative abilities they convey, and those that survive and breed are all fully formed, fully functioning organisms. Each of those organisms will be a member of the population species.

Only creolution suggests that something else happens at a population\species level. Only creolution says that there are half-formed chimera organisms caught in the middle of bodily transforming from one "kind" to another.

What is a "kind" (the perennial question asked whenever the term is used - words need definitions to mean anything other than noise)? Is a cat a different "kind" of animal from a fox?

Can you list all the differences between a cat and a fox? Can you list all the similarities? Is the amount or degree of difference more or less than the variation we see within dogs?

Can you list all the differences between a human and a chimp? Can you list all the similarities? Is the amount or degree of difference more or less than the variation we see within dogs?

The questions really, are (a) how much change are you expecting to see? and (b) over what time frame? Perhaps your expectations are mistaken, being based on misinformation.

Birds have feathered wings. Until a few years ago the only feathered fossils we had were of archeopteryx and later fossils with fully formed fully functioning wings with feathers. Now we have a multitude of fossils of dinosaurs with feathers that pre-date archeopteryx and show a clear lineage of feathers first, then adaptation of feathered limbs to flight. Each fossil is a fully formed, fully functioning organism that belongs to a specific population\species of fully formed, fully functioning organisms. Each population shows change in hereditary traits in their individual populations as they go through the succession of generation to generation, where all the organisms that survive and breed are fully formed, fully functioning individuals.

The more generations pass, the greater is the opportunity for more change to accumulate in a population through the succession of generations of intermediate forms.

Onychonycteris finney demonstrates the kind of change you will see in the fossil record - not in the fossil, but in comparison to other fossils and to modern living bats.

Enjoy.