Could we figure out evolution without fossils?
It's and intriguing question.
Some creationists and fundamentalists seek to explain away the fossil record, take huge exception with the so called gaps and anomalies and sometimes, outright reinterpret all the fossils studied and accumulated till today, with simplistic generalizations.
In spite of such intellectual laziness there are more witnesses of evolutionary processes than a bunch of cold hard rocks.
Darwin was able to deduce descent with modification by observing geographically isolated living species and artificially selected and bred domestic animals. Fossils just helped him figure how this all worked out over much longer time periods.
Artificial selection used by farmers and other breeders of domestic animals, while selectively breeding for desired traits, hinted at the other side of the evidentiary coin, genetics.
Darwin never had the tools and mass of understanding that now exists around genetics, so without fossils it might have taken longer, but once, we as the human race got to being able to observe biology at the molecular level, evolution would have become just as apparent to us, as it was to Darwin on his voyage on the Beagle.
Professor Richard Dawkins in The Ancestor’s Tale describes it this way...
"If every fossil were magicked away, the comparative study of modern organisms, of how their patterns of resemblances, especially of their genetic sequences, are distributed among species, and of how species are distributed among continents and islands, would still demonstrate, beyond all sane doubt, that our history is evolutionary, and that all living creatures are cousins. Fossils are a bonus. A welcome bonus, to be sure, but not an essential one. It is worth remembering this when creationists go on (as they tediously do) about “gaps” in the fossil record. The fossil record could be one big gap, and the evidence for evolution would still be overwhelmingly strong. At the same time, if we had only fossils and no other evidence, the fact of evolution would again be overwhelmingly supported. As things stand, we are blessed with both."
What makes this doubly interesting is that "Britons most Pious Atheist" ends up demonstration the Biblical law of witnesses.
2 Corinthians 13:1 "...In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established."
I agree with you but only to a certain extent, do you think the human race would have had the same spark of curiosity and interest I researching evolution and the species if we had not found fossils?
All these things are evident to us right now, but without the desire to unearth more fossils and seek more knowledge that such discoveries sparked, do you still believe it would have been as easy as you try to imply?
All I'm tying to say is that maybe without the discovery of fossils, the interest on the field would have been lower, and thus slowing is down the research for centuries.
It's hard to say, since there is no way of knowing for sure since the egg is already broken but we agree
It would be an interesting topic to see any of my favorite alt historian YouTubers tackle "What if fossils didn't exist"
Fossils are there as a clue. Without them, making scientific deductions about our ancestry and origins as organisms would be a difficult one.
Yet, I'm still skeptical enough to not totally depend wholly on fossil records in tracing my human evolutionary ancestry to a 'cousin ape'.
Questions abound...
there aren't "evidence" for it. I mean the science that supports evolution is nonsense. such as carbon dating. the only scientific evidence evoultion have is what? yeah you guess it. Carbon dating and what??? yeah microevolution. carbon dating is just a guessing game.
My comment became so long, @gavvet, i decided it was better to post it as an article on my blog. I would, you check it out.
https://steemit.com/steemstem/@mirrors/could-we-figure-out-evolution-without-fossils-a-quick-response-to-gavvet-s-question
Yours is a comprehensive response for sure but perhaps some semantics crept in.
I suppose my perspective is such that, as much as I love geomorphology, geology and paleontology, it seems, at least from my perspective, that the genetic record (as preserved in the genomes we can study) is far more comprehensive a record than the fossil record can ever hope to be. The genetic record gives us insight in far greater detail and granularity than external morphology.
As with almost non-existent genetics in Darwin's day there were far more "gaps" in the fossil record back then. It's my opinion that genetics etc. even as late starters, close their "gaps" faster and will ultimately provide a far more detailed and comprehensive record.
I am however grateful we have both complimentary records. It generally requires two eyes to achieve binocular vision....
That shades more light, i see your perspective more clearly.. And true. As alludes the Profesor Dawkin's,
I am more grateful. You know the question of evolution can be as divisive as it gets, i am glad we can find common ground.
Thanks, by the way, for taking the time to follow up, and respond.
I'm largely in agreement with your reply here. Whole genome sequencing of organisms have allowed scientists to identify evolutionary relatedness in well conserved areas of the genome between species. Genetics (study of single genes in organisms) is gradually and almost being completely replaced by Genomics (study of entire genes in organisms).
Well what if you look at it this way, fossils surely helped in understanding how our timeline occurred. But due to infinite catastrophic events most of them are gone over time. Leaving researchers dependent on very less available data. We got to agree that the data we got are pretty much close to 0.001% leaving most of the facts uncovered. Maybe fossils are doing us a favour in understanding evolution or maybe since we are completely dependent on inadequate data we are still lacking a lot of understanding. The recent theories after the discovery of the sumerian tablets, destroys darvins theory of evolution. The thing this makes all if this controversial friction between these theories is that both contain the truth, but darvins theory of evolution contains certain loopholes which the sumerian tables quite discloses.
Thanks for evolution post........love to read it......It teaches us something much better...........Upvote done..... @gavvet77
100% upvote to yourself done
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Thanks for sharing nice post and thanks to inform us about science.
Keep it up.@gavvet you beauty.
Fossils greatly help in evolution we can not do without them when looking at evolution. They constitute an understanding of evolution using information if relationships between organisms and an insight to how relationships between organisms changed. This enables evolution scientists to get a complete picture of the past comparing it to the present, this provides them with a complete picture of how and why the present life on earth is the way it is currently.
Yeah the atheists have to deal with the witnesses. The scientists now have better tools to analyze the fossils unlike Darwin.
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