Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils

Habitat meaning water in general, yes, but water has different habitats within. Different parts of the world have different water temperature at different times of the year. Different food is found in different places, predators, etc. If the mud were very soft, could it not sink and be unable to get out? Sort of a quicksand like thing. Whales may float, but some whale ancestors might not do it so well. Anyway, I wasn’t specifically thinking whales there, just trying to illustrate the general concept. Mud happened to be the first thing I thought of for an example. I don’t see why that should be the case. Whales are not just found in one part of the ocean, they migrate, which gives them some range. It’s also well known that some whales beach themselves. Possibly certain whale ancestors had this trait and formed some fossils as a result, while other species living at the time were not quite so fond of going to the beach. Doesn’t sound impossible. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that this indicates the species are not there, or for that matter, if they are there. All it indicates is that we have not seen them. Refer to the last paragraph in my last post, the basic point is that I’m certain there are a lot of fossils that we have not found, many of which we may never find.I would also like to make mention of Basilosaurus. This is a whale that actually had two small hind legs, that were too small for movement in the water. It is hypothesised that they may have been used to help with mating. IMHO I think it’s reasonable to say that a whale with small hind legs suggests it evolved from something with legs, which are an adaption for movement on land and not of much use in the water.

---

On the 7th day, God was arrested.

No one is talking about "kinds" here?: You are talking about kinds. The label given is Pakicetids. We could call it "early whale" or "late pig" or anything else. It doesn't matter. The label only matters to you because you are thinking in terms of kinds.

I agree. I really like the specificity of the example.

Pakicetid was an arcydactil. Wolves are canids Also, you avoided my last post. I'll put the questions tward you again: Any answers?EDIT: Just to give you another point of reference, pakicitids were related to creatures like this: Remarkable how similar they are.This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-05-2005 08:54 AM

Good stuff, Yaro. What is that photograph of?

A warthog. Kinda cute ain't he?

Charming. Is there any evidence of a relationship between Pakicetid and a warthog?

I'm sorry, maybe I didn't phrase my last post right. Pakicetids were early cetaceans that still retained much of their Artiodactyl ancestry. They are formaly classed in cetacea, like dolphins and whales and such, but they still show many Artiodactyl fetures (note the feet). The key givaway to the whale heratige, and what puts them in cetacea, is the way the ear is structured.Now, the warthog is a member of the Pig family, and it's about the same size as Pakicetid was. So I thought he would be a good example to show what pakicetid ALSO looked like. Infact he was likely more pig-like than whale-like, except for those tale tale transitional fetures.Take a look at the link I posted earlier.As well as this wiki: Evolution of cetaceans - WikipediaEDIT: As a point of fact, modern cetaceans and whales are more closely related to hippos than pigs. I used a pig as an order of reference for it's size and body shape.This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-05-2005 09:24 AM

The problem was not your phrasing but my ignorance. Thanks for the info.

No one is asking those questions or discussing them because they are irrelevant to the ToE. They are a pointless red herring which you are now busy constructing into a straw man.You might as well be saying:"Look, evolutionists can't answer my pointless, meaningless, question! Evolution is a sham cuz they don't meet my stupid, impossible, unatainable, criteria (which has no bearing on the theory anyway)!"This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-05-2005 10:23 AM

Nothing substantial to discuss in it, is there?Sarfati relies on ReMine's fallacious assertion that beneficial mutations must spread through a population sequentially; he ignores the very real possibility that two or more beneficial mutations may be spreading through a population simultaneously. Therefore ReMine concludes that there is never enough time for anything to evolve.Even if we accept the above restriction, why is 1,700 mutations insufficient to evolve Ambulocetus into Rodhocetus? How many genes did they have in their respective genomes? One would suspect they might have a comparable number of genes to humans, in the order of 30,000 genes. So Sarfati's 1,700 mutations represents maybe a difference of 5% between the respective genomes of Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus. Isn't that comparable to the differences in the genomes of humans and chimpanzees?All you have given us is Sarfati's opinions and his bald assertions. And they don't seem too convincing after a little thought.

It seems odd that someone would make such a toughtless statement unless by some unlikely circumstances they had never seen an otter. Since this is not anyone's suggestion of how the transition has occured this too is utter nonsense. This is only demonstrates someone mouthing off from total ignorance.The rest is only slightly less nonsensical.Rather than going for quantity of references, Randman, why don't you actually review what you link to and see about keeping the quality a bit higher?

Here is a summary of the article:"Nuh-uh!"Mostly just says, "It isn't so!" Not very impressive.

quote:

---

You may view this "whale" which looks an awful lot like some sort of wolf, run across the page, on all four legs, a fully land animal, but hey, it's a whale! Yippee!

---

Did you read anything about why they think it is a whale ancestor?

Good point on beaching. One way to help determine whether there should be fossils would be to consider how many fossils of current whale species we have found and see if known changes in behaviour and habitat have an affect on fossilization.On Basilosaurus, I don't think it is now considered a direct ancestor of modern whales. I would have to look into the claim on the small legs. It seems like though a lot of these claims are revised as more specimens are found.