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Author Topic:   Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils
randman 
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Message 1 of 302 (229458)
08-03-2005 7:27 PM


I'd like to propose a new thread examining ToE in the context of the fossils that are used to support the transition between land mammals and whales.
Specifically, how many speciation events would be needed to take place to evolve a land mammal to a genuine whale?
And how many mutations necessary to create a single speciation event?
If easier to grasp, how many to create a speciation event that likely creates 2 species incapable of sexually reproducing?
Let's call these speciation events "steps". I would think evolutionists, considering their dogmatism, would have fairly full theories as to the needed steps involved, with considerable range of course. Assuming that is done, my next question is:
What percentage of these steps are shown in the fossil record?
Let's say it would take 1000 speciation events. How many theorized speciation events does the fossil record show to date?
Lastly, is there any speciation event along this theorized chain that is documented in the fossil record, meaning the species prior and the species afterwards if shown?
The reason for asking for this last step is to see if the fossil record actually documents even one of the many theorized speciation events needing to take place.
I think this would be a useful, educational exercise, even if we resort to wild guesses because it can illustrate and educate concerning what is and is not shown in the discovered fossil record, and we can then argue from an understanding on other threads about the data.
It seems to me that the fossil record does not actually conclusively document one speciation event much less than the hundreds or perhaps thousands needed for a land mammal to whale transition.
Another related exercise could be to compare so-called intermediaries with differences in living species, and see if the living species were discovered at different strata, what evolutionist conclusions would be based on current assumptions of ToE.
This message has been edited by randman, 08-03-2005 07:30 PM

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Yaro, posted 08-03-2005 7:58 PM randman has replied
 Message 4 by Chiroptera, posted 08-03-2005 8:16 PM randman has replied
 Message 5 by NosyNed, posted 08-03-2005 8:17 PM randman has replied
 Message 7 by mick, posted 08-03-2005 8:29 PM randman has replied
 Message 21 by Arkansas Banana Boy, posted 08-04-2005 3:05 AM randman has not replied
 Message 22 by Modulous, posted 08-04-2005 4:11 AM randman has not replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 10 of 302 (229512)
08-03-2005 11:06 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Yaro
08-03-2005 7:58 PM


spectrum is not a good analogy
{qs species is like that spectrum. Can you tell me where one color ends, or one begins? [/qs]
Except that species do occur and are distinct, for example, if we just define species loosely as those that can sexually reproduce, then we see that species are distinct groups, not one part of a sliding group of change.
Species are quantifiable, though somewhat loosely.
Spectrum is also a poor analogy because the whole group does not evolve really. If evolution is true, then whatseems to occur is part of the group separates or something and forms into a new species eventually, and the traditional concept may work as well, but the idea it is one smooth, gradual transition is really not supported. If that was the case, you would not have so many different species per order.
So your example is not germane at all.
ain, this is not a quantifiable number. Back to the spectrum analogy,
If it's not quantifiable, maybe it's best to consider it not scientific to speculate too much, much less be so dogmatic.
But really you don't understand spectrum and light. First off, light is quantized, i.e. the photon, and secondly, and this is more easily demonstrated via RF waves, but waves have definite frequency parameters. Tp claim the entire spectrum is not quantifiable is silly.
If that was the case, we would not have radio and cell-phones.
Non-quantifiable.
Ok, ToE is non-quantifiable???

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Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Yaro, posted 08-03-2005 11:24 PM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 11 of 302 (229515)
08-03-2005 11:10 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Chiroptera
08-03-2005 8:16 PM


Re: unreasonable questions
These arguments from analogy are pretty useless. I suggest you discuss the data, or do some research and tell us whether the data has been studied in this manner.
There is something called the molecular clock, whether right or not, which has some bearing on the subject.
But regardless, these are the types of questions that should be asked to determine if the propositions of ToE are accurate. If you cannot answer these basic questions, imo, then the whale evolution claims are highly speculative in terms of the fossil record.

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randman 
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Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 12 of 302 (229516)
08-03-2005 11:17 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by NosyNed
08-03-2005 8:17 PM


Re: An interesting topic...
7) There is now a series of about 6 or so fossils whose characteristics fit between the early land forms and modern whales.
So one question answered. There are a potential of 6 steps shown in land mammal to whale evolution, and I presume none of these documented in the sense of showing the immediate prior species and subsequent so the claim they evolved at all is inferred from other data.
Right?
8) The available fossils are NOT a step by step series of every single change in the path from land animal to whale.
Obviously. The question is how many steps in terms of speciation events are not shown, assuming these are actual steps in the evolutionary path. My guess is a couple of thousand, assuming they exist at all for sake of argument?
Any other guesses?
it may still be the best available hypothosis.
Imo, we need to distinquish between "best available hypothesis" and the degree of evidence available. We should not let the evidence be exagerrated just because we have no other hyothesis. It could be the best available hypothesis is that we don't have enough evidence to make develop a solid theory, based on facts, at all.

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randman 
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Posts: 6367
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Message 14 of 302 (229518)
08-03-2005 11:29 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by mick
08-03-2005 8:29 PM


Re: whale fossils are surprisingly good (I promise!)
One problem with your request is that we can not necessarily make a "chain" of fossil animals that lead from one ancient extinct form to the modern day species.
That's obvious, but it appears we cannot even string 2 links together, nor do we have any idea at all how many links need to be in the chain. We have, what, 6 fossil species that we have creatively linked together with perhaps a couple of thousand links missing.
That's what the fossil record shows, and in that sense, the fossil record is not particularly strong evidence for evolution meaning it could well be argued as evidence against evolution since we see little actual evolution occurring in terms of documented speciation events. The data, in other words, is made to fit via considerable help from the human imagination.
who knows how many generations pass between rare fossilisation events,
Well, evolutionists date the fossils, predict mutation rates, and know roughly sexual reproduction patterns so what's the big deal here?
We can make some estimates of differences in fossilized species by comparing bones today and seeing how different the bones are in proportion to the rest of the different species.
It would be a gross estimate with a huge margin for error, but we could thus estimate the number of speciation events that need to occur.
and who knows whether fossil whale-like forms are a part of the chain, or side branches to it that ended up fizzling out?
Good point, but it could still be useful in measuring the number of speciation events needed.
Btw, let's don't get off-topic here. The topic is not all the other evidence out there to try to link some fossilized species as part of the whale evolutionary path.
For sake of argument, let's assess the data as if all the claims are true, for analysis, and then see how many speciation events they represent and how many are not shown in the fossil record.
Is that good enough for you?
We can then look at the individual species, and see why evolutionists think they should be considered intermediaries.
My point is to see what the fossil record indicates in terms of showing speciation events and what percentage of the evolutionary chain from land mammals to whales are shown.
It appears thus far there are only a handful of fossilzed species presented as possible intermediaries.
Are there more than that?

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 15 of 302 (229519)
08-03-2005 11:31 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Coragyps
08-03-2005 9:17 PM


Re: whale fossils are surprisingly good (I promise!)
For this thread, let's don't get too bogged down assessing whether assumptions about any one particular species are correct.
The issue is how many speciation events would there have been and how many of these steps are reasonably seen in the fossil record.

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 16 of 302 (229521)
08-03-2005 11:33 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Yaro
08-03-2005 11:24 PM


Re: spectrum is not a good analogy
The whole group experiences genetic drift. That's how species form.
It doesn't matter if the whole species evolve or a group evolves, the point is when that species would no longer be able to sexually reproduce with the prior form, assuming one would be present.
That's an easy line of demarcation for a loose definition of speciation in this context.
So how many such speciation events do you estimate would need to occur?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Yaro, posted 08-03-2005 11:24 PM Yaro has replied

Replies to this message:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 19 of 302 (229526)
08-04-2005 12:13 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by Yaro
08-03-2005 11:46 PM


Re: spectrum is not a good analogy
I mean seriously, how would you suggest even going about finding out such knowledge?
First, I would expect evolutionists to do this if they want to properly assess their data.
But my layman's suggestions would be to try to determine:
frequency and likelihood of a beneficial mutation likely to be selected for
the level of change a single such mutation could affect and the average size of one
how many such changes and thus mutations would be needed, on average, to create a speciation event in mammals
Also, I realize there are interfertile species among whales, but I put that out there as a line for demarcation because we are just talking about getting to whales, and it doesn't matter that much for this discussion if we make species a little broader and draw the line at sexual reproduction. In other words, I was giving evolutionists here some leeway to make the steps smaller than they would be otherwise, but to still show the level of mutations needed for the larger step and number of "speciation events" needed.

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 20 of 302 (229527)
08-04-2005 12:15 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Yaro
08-03-2005 11:53 PM


Re: Whats a species?
Asexual reproduction and a lot of that is not germane to this thread. We can work with a broader definition of species defined as a new group that cannot interbreed with the old group and produce fertile offspring. Exact parameters are not necessary for a gross estimate of speciation events, defined in this looser manner.

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randman 
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Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 24 of 302 (229781)
08-04-2005 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Chiroptera
08-04-2005 11:25 AM


Re: Bad question redux
Your analogy breaks down in a number of ways. You at least know already what your family is. You have the birth certificates, for example.
A better example would be that we found you one day as a baby or something, with no oral history, and we were trying to see who dropped you off or something along those lines. We studies your features and maybe concluded you were Caucasian and noted a lot of Caucasions immigrated at such and such time.
It's even worse than that because we are talking about a single species travelling and still can verify the steps exist. We know Ohio, Oregon, etc,...are there.
But we don't even know the pathway, the steps, or even if there are steps, that exist for the land mammal to whale evolution.
But here is my real problem with your post. My questions are educational, aimed at determining the level of real data out there. You use an analogy that has something on the order of a 1000 times more data available, and all sorts of things verifiable, and thus are obscuring the truth.
The truth seems to be that not one single speciation event is well-documented in the land mammal to whale evolution, and there appears to be no thought given to the number of speciation events that would be needed to create this evolutionary path, and thus no analysis done to consider whether we have substantial data it occurred or not, in terms of the fossil record.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Yaro, posted 08-04-2005 3:02 PM randman has replied
 Message 26 by Chiroptera, posted 08-04-2005 3:03 PM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 27 of 302 (229821)
08-04-2005 5:00 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Yaro
08-04-2005 3:02 PM


Re: Bad question redux
What would you consider "well-documented"? A 2000 fossil unbroken chain? Sorry man, it's just not gonna happen.
Read the OP. I laid out the terms of documentation, and it's not showing 2000 fossil chain.
Specifically, one step can be well-documented as having evolved if you can show the immediate prior species it evolved from and immediate species it evolved to, or maybe just the one it evolved from.
That would not document the land mammal to whale evolution, but at least you could say the species in question is documented in the fossil record to have evolved from a prior species.
But you cannot, can you?
The fossil record does not appear to record one speciation event among the hundreds or thousands needing to occur. That's the point.
If you want to explain why the fossil record should not reasonably do so, then start a thread and we can discuss that aspect of the issue, or maybe even do so here, but the point of this thread is to get some agreement on what the fossil record data is, and what it isn't, and it does not seem to document one of the many speciation events needed, right?
So let's start with the narrow focus of the OP.
The actual fossils do not show one speciation event in the theorized evolutionary chain, correct?
What it does show are species that are considered by evolutionists to be intermediary forms due to similarities, but in reality, it does not appear evolutionists know or even have ventured a guess on how many "forms" in terms of speciation events are needed to create the transition, and thus how many mutations are needed, and thus the likelihood of this scenario being plausible in terms of the data.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Yaro, posted 08-04-2005 5:10 PM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 28 of 302 (229823)
08-04-2005 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Chiroptera
08-04-2005 3:03 PM


Re: Bad question redux
The point is that a historical event can be considered confirmed with a relatively few pieces of data even if the entire history is not known in complete excruciating detail.
That's vague and largely inadequate if not downright false.
What defines relatively "few pieces of data"?
The truth is the less data, the less we can determine accurately, and as this thread shows, there is nearly no data in the fossil record.
Your claim is that prior to the fossils being discovered, "scientists knew" whales evolved along a certain path.
I think that is a gross overstatement, totally absurd on the face of it. Scientists hypothesize based on the assumption that whales could only come into being via ToE. So the primary evidence is an assumption.
Moreover, this thread is about the fossil data, and you are basically now arguing the fossil data is unimportant in terms of knowing whale evolutionary paths. I appreciate you are a person of some faith, but that's all that is, faith that whales evolved.
Historically, the fossil record thus far appears to:
1. Not document one single speciation event in whale evolution.
2. Provide only a handful of potential "steps" or species that evolutionists "believe" were involved in whale evolution.
3. The fossil record does not show the many hundreds or thousands of species that lived over millions of years that would document this theorized transition, and the fossil record, as point 1 states, does not even show one single speciation event in this entire theorized chain of events.
Conclusion: The fossil record does not document whale evolution, but is weak evidence at best, showing potential intermediary forms, but not a slow, gradual transition, not even one small part of a slow gradual transition, but just some species appear fully formed, distinct, and are posited by evolutionists to be intermediaries due to similarities, and evidence outside of the fossil record, which are not the subject of this thread.
Can we agree on that?
This message has been edited by randman, 08-04-2005 05:11 PM

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 30 of 302 (229826)
08-04-2005 5:18 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Yaro
08-04-2005 5:10 PM


Re: Bad question redux
I am sorry, but if you want to propose a thread on genetic evidence for whale evolution, please do so, but this thread is strictly about the fossil record, what it shows, what it should show, and what it does not show, and strictly in the context of whale evolution.
If you have something to add, please do so, but trying to divert the conversation to an alternative thread is wrong.
Clearly you want to do that because you think the genetic evidence is somehow stronger, and that's fine, except the point of this thread is to discover and demonstrate the degree that the fossil record actually documents land mammal to whale evolution, not that the fossil record could be considered documentation in some manner if we look at other evidence, and then view a few fossils as clues or some such.
Particularly, critics are often proclaimed as excessively demanding the gaps be filled in. So let's see what gaps are filled in already, and see what gaps are not filled in.
What percentage of speciation events are documented?
It appears the answer is 0%.
So the argument critics are merely employing sophistry in terms of the fossil record is absurd. The critics are right. The fossil record does not document land mammal to whale evolution.
That's the truth of it.
Why it does not, or whether it should or not, I suppose are acceptable for this thread topic, and maybe you guys should argue that or something, but clearly the fossil record does not document speciation events, not even one it seems, in the land mammal to whale evolution transition.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Yaro, posted 08-04-2005 5:30 PM randman has replied
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 32 of 302 (229831)
08-04-2005 5:35 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Yaro
08-04-2005 5:30 PM


Re: Bad question redux
Yaro said:
Long before genetic evidence, it was a pretty well established theory that whales evolved from even-toed ungulates.
Chiropetera claims:
Scientists already realized, before the fossils were found, that whales evolved from some line of artiodactyls
Appears to me that long before any evidence, evolutionists considered "whales evolved from even-toed ungulates."
But no to your question, the genetic evidence deviates from the OP, imo.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by Yaro, posted 08-04-2005 5:55 PM randman has replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 35 of 302 (229837)
08-04-2005 5:47 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by Chiroptera
08-04-2005 5:37 PM


Re: Bad question redux
Chiroptera, the prediction was actually that hundreds of fossils of species would be found showing this type of transition, and that didn't happen. So don't overdo the "prediction" angle here because it does not really support your claims.
I realize we now have a watered-down prediction after the fact, and that's OK if you want to argue that, but really in terms of this thread, we are just trying to nail down what the fossil data is, and I think I am doing that nicely, and if you want to add some clarity in that area, please do so.
But if we are going to talk about the predictive element of evolutionary theory in terms of the fossil record, then the truth is it failed miserably. The back-up claim from evolutionists now is that fossilzation is such a rare event, we are not likely to ever find the data that evolutionists originally predicted a long time ago.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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