Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils

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Let's say, for sake of argument, and I am not buying this, but let's say we have 5 solid examples of species that meet the qualifications of transitional forms between whales and land mammals.

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We do. We have five solid examples of species that mix characteristics between modern whales and earlier ungulates. That is exactly the qualification for being a transitional form. These fossils represent transitional form by definition. Do you know what a transitional form is?

No, I am trying to get you guys to take an honest look at the data in the fossil record, and consider why there is such a lack of actual transitional species shown.Can you please back up your claims as to why there are so few species?

A literary historian theorizes that there is a lost play written by Shakespeare. There are various references to such a play in the writings of the contemporaries of Shakespeare. Someone finds in an attic pages 8, 154, and 702 of a published work dated 1602, with Shakespeare named as the author at the top of each of the 3 pages. The stylistic features are Shakespearian and the title at the top of each page is the same title referred to in the contempary writings. An analysis of the paper indicates it was the sort of paper made during the time of Shakespeare, which would be impossible to reproduce as a fraud. We do not have the entire 3,000 page play, only 3 random pages, and yet we conclude that these 3 pages are in fact part of the lost play.Randman comes along and says, or rather screams, "Wait a minute! Where are the other 2997 pages? According to my calculations, there are 3000 pages in this play!!! How do you justify the fact that you have only found 3 isolated pages? Can you explain why only 3 pages were found? There should be at least 50% of the play here. What is your rationale for the missing pages? This cannot be from the lost play because it's not complete or anywhere near complete!! You are using a faith-based system to just ASSUME that at one time the play was completely written!!!! Hypocrites!!!"This message has been edited by robinrohan, 08-05-2005 01:07 PM

Ned, evolutionists here are the ones claiming rarity of fossilization, right?So why are you not asking them to back up their claims?Moreover, quite often on this thread evolutionists sought to dismiss the OP topic as useless and argue something else entirely.Would you do back and correct them for doing that? And make them stick to the OP and deal with the data substantively instead of via analogy and unsubstantiated assertions.With just a few exceptions, I have been the one doing all of the relevant research here, even trying to help make evolutionists in their arguments by pointing them to ways they could back up their assertions.But thus far, with the exception of a few thoughtful posts, your's on page 1 and Thor's few posts, the evolutionists here refuse to engage on the subject of the OP.I even suggested for sake of argument, we just assume (for now), that there are 5 good candidates for transitional forms.That still leaves the issues of the OP unanswereed.If evolutionists are claiming fossilization is a rare event in the context of thousands and millions of years, then let them back that up, please?Thus far, they are not willing to back up any of their claims relative to the issues in the OP, and even have the gall to at times say it's not necessary! Well, if it's not necessary, why are they posting here at all?As you can tell, I spent hours last night researching claims on the Net, and took time today.I think at this point, either you or some other evolutionists here need to take a little time to explain their scientific rationale and research to validate the claim of extreme rarity of fossilization since this claim was made first by evolutionists here.Is that not a reasonable request?

First point, fossils are rare. We know this not just because of how infrequently it occurs, but also because of the process.From encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com:Fossilization is a rare occurrence, because natural materials tend to be recycled. In order for an organism to be fossilized, the remains normally need to be covered by sediment as soon as possible, however there are exceptions to this, such as if an organism becomes petrifaction or comes to rest in an anoxic environment such as at the bottom of a lake. There are different types of fossils, and fossilization processes.So lets build a model from what we can now conclude. Let’s take another animal that has fossilized remains. There have been about 30 t-rex fossils discovered since 1905. Many of them are not considered to be the same species. We can group them into about five different species; T. rex, T. bataar, T. efremovi, T. lancesis, and T. movojilovi. None of the fossils are complete, and no one knows how many bones the t-rex had. Now, T. rex was considered to be a common dinosaur based on the unusually high number of fossils we have for it. Now, whale population has always been much smaller then many other species. To me, it doesn’t seem so absurd to have about 1 ancient whale transition for every 5 t-rex fossils.I know this isn’t perfect, but we can begin to see where low numbers are very reasonable. Note also that the different species of T-rex that I named are considered to be transitions. Anyway, not all of the information here may be perfect, but I hope we are beginning to put some perspective into the issue that is more then a yeah huh/nuh uh debate. I would appreciate someone with more knowledge then myself also helping to take this in a more productive direction.Brad

More analogies. I quit reading them in detail although I do note something like 99% of the pages found and one missing, which once again shows your ignorance. It's 99.8% of the theorized data missing, and you have one word or two and want to claim it was a Shakespearan play.Just answer based on data for from here on out, please.You are claiming there are no fossils based on extreme rarity of fossilization, right?Please back that up, or back up something with data.These analogies are useless.This message has been edited by randman, 08-05-2005 02:12 PM

I think this one is rather entertaining, Randman. You might get a kick out of it.

Perfect.

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So why are you not asking them to back up their claims?

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Probably because he recognizes the only reason you want to discuss this is to avoid having to discuss real evidence.You have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence in favor of evolution. You have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence in the fossil record for evolution.We have presented you with one piece of evidence for evolution from the fossil record. The theory of evolution predicted that there used to be animals that had a mix of charateristics of artiodactyls and cetaceans. There was no other reason to suspect that such creatures ever existed; this was a prediction based solely on taxonomical data and the theory of common descent. It turns out, such creatures have been discovered. There actually were such creatures. Hence, we have evidence in favor of evolution.Now a reasonable person would admit that there was some evidence for evolution. In fact, a reasonable person would no longer ever make the claim that there was no fossil evidence for evolution. Once that admission was made, it would be possible to discuss potential problems with the evidence.But we are not discussing this with a reasonable person. We are discussing this with a person who has talked himself into a corner and cannot extricate himself gracefully. We are discussing this with a person who must, for some deep emotional reason, continue to convince himself that there is no evidence for evolution, and must convince himself that there is no fossil evidence in favor of evolution. We are discussing this with a person who has made a decision and is incapable of budging an inch from that position.

I agree with Yaro; nice.

Brad, a big error imo is the assumptions based on T-Rex. If we want to create some reasonable accuracy, we need to have something measurable today to work off of.That's why I suggested current whale species and their fossils.Now, one could argue they are not as old and thus less likely to have fossils disturbed, but an counter-balancing argument is that since some presumably are younger species, they are less likely to have ever fossilized so maybe it's a wash.Regardless, if evolutionists are claiming rarity IN THE CONTEXT OF MILLIONS OF YEARS, then they need to back up that claim, but I see no analysis backing up that claim.In terms of fossils, I do know of over 300 whale fossils being found in one location. It would seem then evolutionists need to reevaluate the prevalence of T-Rex since hundreds of whale fossils have been found, but relatively few T-Rex's and as you state, whales are considered to be fewer in number compared to other species.

Chiro, you have been running from the substance of this thread the whole time. I even, for sake of argument, said we could consider 5 good candidates of transitional forms, but you still refuse to debate the OP.Is that because you cannot answer?On the subject of ToE, I have never thought there was no evidence at all, and don't think Genesis discounts ToE. In fact, I have stated genetic evidence is the best, and imo, about the only real viable evidence evolutionists have produced to my knowledge, but imo, that cannot discount the fact the fossil record does not show the speciation events occuring so the genetic evidence can probably best be explained by similar DNA matched to similar function.What I do think is the evidence in the fossil record as a whole indicates that universal common descent did not occur, and I give my reasons here on this topic. The actual transitional forms are not seen. At best, only a handful of the many thousands of forms that should exist are seen in the land mammal to whale evolution.You have yet to explain why there would not be thousands of transitional forms seen? You claim fossilization is a rarity, but you never explain or back that up.

It shows that I quit reading them in detail and thus misinterpreted the analogy.Another analogy would be we find letters from different languages, and don't even have the right language, and try to make all these letters fit into one alphabet or something.After awhile, analogies are useless.The data is the subject of the thread.In fact, you may not realize this, but whether ToE is true is not even the primary subject, the primary subject is the data itself.What is the available data and what is missing and why, in terms of the fossil record and the number of mutations to produce a speciation event?Why can't you guys answer based on fact?

Fossilization is a rare occurrence, because natural materials tend to be recycled. In order for an organism to be fossilized, the remains normally need to be covered by sediment as soon as possible, however there are exceptions to this, such as if an organism becomes petrifaction or comes to rest in an anoxic environment such as at the bottom of a lake. There are different types of fossils, and fossilization processes.

DEFINE SPECIATION EVENT!?What would you have to see?Also, how would you determin the imediate species before, and the imediate species after?HOW! HOW WOULD YOU DO THIS?How the heck do you expect us to proceed if you can't even define your terms ?!