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Hi Dan.I have some concerns about this series. I was told by a creationist that this series was put completely out of order, so I decided to check the facts (I know weird huh?) Of course, I did not find them to be completely out of order, but I am puzzled by what I found and I think this calls into question the legitimacy of this series or at least deserves some discussion.Source of all data is http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl1. Indohyus indirae is known from a mandible (type specimen) from the upper Ypressian and Middle Eocene deposits in India. (50mya — 40mya)Sister taxon: Diacodexis is widely known from the USA (56mya — 50mya) and from India / Pakistan in Lutetian deposits (48mya — 40mya). Helohyus is known from the USA from 48mya — 44mya.Note: Indohyus was not fully aquatic and N. America was separated from Europe/Asia by the Eocene2. PakicetidaeAll 4 Pakicetid species are known from the same area in Pakistan in Lutetian deposits (48mya — 40mya). Type fossil for P. attocki is a mandible from Lutetian deposits.A set of teeth were found in upper Ypressian deposits (50mya — 48mya). They were originally identified as Ichthyolestes pinfoldi and later reclassified as P. attocki (the type fossil).Sister taxon: Ichthyolestes and Nalacetus are known from the same Lutetian deposits3. Ambulocetus natans (type fossil) is also known from Lutetian deposits. It was found significantly higher in the strata than Pakicetus and therefore is younger in the fossil record. I reflect this in my chart by shifting Ambulocetus’s age by 3my younger.Sister taxon: Himalayacetus is known from a mandible found in Ypressian limestone. Gandakasia is found in Lutetian deposits in the same area.4. Rodhocetus is known from 2 species found in Pakistani Lutetian coastal deposits5. Dorudon2 species, D. atrox and D. serratus are known form Priabonian (37mya — 33mya) deposits in S. CarolinaEgyptian specimens are known from the Late Eocene / Upper Bartonian (37mya — 40mya)------------------------------------I have charted this dates below. While I am certainly not saying the series is clearly bogus and therefore creation is true! Hahaha I win! LOL. I think this shows the organisms in this series were contemporaries living in pretty much the same area. It is worthwhile to question whether this could actually represent a clear transition. Could evolution have caused such rapid changes among contemporary species?The Himalayas were being formed at about this time. The land mass of India contacted the Asian continent about 70mya and the Tethys ocean was closed by about 50mya. How could this have affected the situation? It doesn’t appear that the Himalayas would have created a speciation barrier as most of the fossils were found in Pakistan. In fact, it seems as the formation of the Himalayas would have pushed the direction of evolution in the opposite direction of what this series shows. It seemed to me that these creatures were developing in the Tethys ocean, but the Himalayas were closing this water habitat. Wouldn’t the animals of that area need to become more adapted to land rather than reverting to the sea?Just some things to think about.HBD

Evolution could happen because evolution did happen? Circular reasoning.My question is not so much "could" it happen as "did" it happen. I am not questioning evolution in the traditional sense. I am only trying to make sense of it. For the most part I accept evolution, but I don't just "believe" because of a well placed "series". I need to examine it and decide for myself if the evidence is sufficient. That's what we should all be doing, correct? True. But those dates don't necessarily tell you when the species started, only when that particular animal lived. Can it be logically deduced that was one of the earliest specimens? Especially when a sister group is significantly older.I also question using Wikipedia as a source. It is just not reliable.I am going to do some more work on this and will get back to you in a couple of days. The trend looks good on both ends, but the middle group sure looks like they all lived at the same time in the same area.I am also uncertain as to why these creatures would be adapting more and more to life in the water when India was crashing into the continent, closing the Tethys and pushing up the himalayas. Any insights here?HBD

1 mutation does not equal 1 species by any stretch of the imagination. For example, you likely have up to 300 mutations that neither of your parents had and you are not a new species are you? I suppose that one mutation could cause such a change and that a new species could be described because of a single mutation (for example polyploidy), but it is not necessary so.Some mutations are rather large, such as inversions, deletions (of whole segments), transposons, and so on. If 1000bp of DNA are inverted, is this one mutation or 1000?The other problem is most mutations are neutral mutations. This means they occur in regions that have little or no affect on the fitness or phenotype of the individual. These neutral mutations can then accumulate until a subsequent mutation utilizes them and then can cause significant changes in phenotype. One mutation of many?So the assertion that it requires 50,000 mutations, and therefore 50,000 transition steps is completely unfounded.

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Dr David Berlinski, made an important point in my opinion. He made the now semi famous statement that a cow would have had to undergo over and above 50 000 mutations to reach a whale which sounds very reasonable don’t you think? I would think that it would be way more than that, however let’s say it is only 50 000.
Consider the fact that each of these 50 000 mutations can loosely be considered as new species as they are each slightly different from the previous.

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The statement of 50,000 mutations itself is a baseless assertion Where did he come up with that number? Did he study genomic differences between cows and whales or just pull the number out of his ***? (*** = hat) But ascribing that number to transition steps goes even farther out into left field (out of the park even, and I don't mean a home run!). It does not take into account size of the steps, or mutations that accumulate before a transition, or the types of mutations.So lets speculate and say that maybe it takes 1,000 mutations to produce a new species (3 times what you could have in your DNA right now). That only leaves us with 50 transitions. Would that be feasible?Now, had you asserted that the changes happened to rapidly too be accounted for by RM/NS (Darwinian style evolution), this may be something we could work with. Evolutionists use a metric for evolutionary change called the Haldane (some still refer to the Darwin). I won't try to explain the concept here, you will have to research it (or perhaps you are already familiar with it?). If you could show that the evolution change from Indohyus to Dorudon measured in Haldanes greatly exceeds the rate of change we observe today, measured in a way that scientists accept you may actually be able to build a case.You have to realize that it takes a lot of work to understand and argue this stuff. You can't just parrot what you read on creationist web sites, you have to learn what evolutionists really believe and what is actually a fact. I used to hate the comeback "Go read a Biology book", but it is appropriate. Understand what you are arguing, don't just repeat what others say because it may just be inaccurate or misleading.Research, research, research!HBDABE: After posting saw that ZD had responded in a similar vein, Didn't mean to dogpile you>Edited by herebedragons, : No reason given.

No. That was not my logic.I have not corroborated this date with other sources yet, but Wikipedia has the Tethys closed by 50mya. So the Pakicetids and Ambulocetids would have been faced with a dwindling marine environment as the ocean closed. As the Indian plate slid under the continental plate and lifted it, it would have created isolated bodies of water. And indeed, Pakicetids and Ambulocetids are believed to have spent time in both freshwater and marine environments. Pakicetids and Ambulocetids were still dependent upon land or at least shallow waters similar to modern crocs. Rodhocetus, while it inhabited coastal areas, was completely aquatic and could not have gotten around on land.However, Rodhocetus (45mya) fossils are found about halfway between the modern Indian coast and the Himalayas. If the Tethys was indeed closed by 50mya, they were trapped. Would their evolutionary course continued to favor life in the open ocean? I wouldn't think so, but this series shows that they did. By about 37mya Dorudon managed to have worldwide distribution.Just an expansion on my reasoning behind

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I am also uncertain as to why these creatures would be adapting more and more to life in the water when India was crashing into the continent, closing the Tethys and pushing up the himalayas. Any insights here?

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It very well could have worked the opposite way. The violent formation of the Himalayas was trapping them against the coast and this drove them to seek shelter and food in the Tethys eventually completely retreating into the sea to escape the intensity of mountain building. However, it seems that we would need to delay the closing of the Tethys by 10my in order for this scenario to make sense.So, my logic is not quite as ridiculous as "getting out of the water and learning to climb mountains" is it?HBD

Sure, that's reasonable. I would like to see how the fossil evidence supports the idea, but I still have some work to do putting that information together. The timing still seems a bit off. But, it would certainly have been an intense time of geographic change in that area. Perhaps that is indeed what caused the diversity and changes.Thanks for the replyHBD

Actually that's not accurate. The Indian Plate broke away from Madagascar between 90mya and 85mya. The most widely accepted date for contact with the Asia Continent is 55mya, but recent work done here has moved the date back to 65mya. The ocean floor was sliding beneath the Asian Plate during this time, but it was when the land masses came into contact that the Tethys was closing. Perhaps your 50 - 60my was from the break-up of Gondwanaland?Also realize that the Indian Plate was setting a land-speed record (knee slap) moving at 15 - 25 cm per year, covering about 6,000km during that time span. Of course, the collision slowed the advancement of the plate considerably (to about 10cm / year, I believe - it is currently at 5cm / year). At that rate, it would have travelled 1,000km in 10my! So the closing of the Tethys (ie. it no longer existed) would have only taken about 10my and would also have been very violent.So, if you look at the dates for Indohyus, Pakicetus and Ambulocetus they occur concurrently with this closing of the Tethys. If the date of initial contact is in fact 65mya, this compounds the issue. I am not saying this discredits the series, but it is something I think deserves to be to explored. Actually, it could help explain the divergence and diversity we do see.HBD

You can't isolate a quote and answer just that, you need to consider the context. Let's look at what I actually said:

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I think this shows the organisms in this series were contemporaries living in pretty much the same area. It is worthwhile to question whether this could actually represent a clear transition. Could evolution have caused such rapid changes among contemporary species?

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The context was that these animals were contemporaries living in the same area. Answering that with "humans evolved in 8my" did not respond to concerns. If you want to put the goalposts back where to you think they were and declare victory, I don't care. The real victor is the one who learns! We both know that Wikipedia is not considered a scholarly source. It is OK to use for general information and a starting place to find facts. One of the reasons I have come to this forum is so I can have intelligent, educated discussions about these topics. I want to go deeper than "Wikipedia" discussions. Don't you? I did that: http://www.paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl
http://sims.ess.ucla.edu/PDF/Ding_et_al_Tectonics_2005.pdfanything else that I needed to cite? Read some of my other posts (even just those on this thread). I am clearly not anti-evolution. If you came here to beat-up on creationists, I am not that guy. But neither am I an atheist. As I stand somewhere in the middle, I am not adamant about any specific issue. If a piece of evolutionary theory falls, so what. If a piece of evolutionary theory stands, that's fine too. As long as either way, it is the truth.Evolutionary relationships are questioned all the time. New evidence and new fossil finds can completely rearrange thinking about the evolutionary process (not the general processes, but the specifics). Such an upheaval has happened recently in the origin of mammals. Finds in Australia have challenged the long held view that mammals originated in northern Lurasia and later made their way south. I presented evidence in this thread Message 61 that India closed the Tethys 10my earlier than previously thought. I think this poses a challenge to the currently held view of Cetatian evolution. This is NOT my position. Call it an observation, an hypothesis if you will. A discussion topic. And you are assuming that they did? How is that any different? The evidence that they diversified is not the end result. If we don't know how they went from point A to point B then we simply don't know. So what is the evidence that they diversified? The commonly held theory is that whales evolved in the Tethys, but how did they evolve in the Tethys when the Tethys was closed? These are the types of things I am looking to discuss - not whether "evolution is true".I hope this clears up the misunderstanding of my intentions and reasons for bringing this issue up.HBDEdited by AdminModulous, : Changed url from http://%20http//paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl to its present form.

I really like the website you got your image from. I looked around a bit and he has certainly done a lot of work.We certainly don't have the resolution in the Cetacean record that we do in Pelycodus. How does the amount of change from P. ralstoni to N.nunienus / N. venticolis compare to that of the Cetacean series? It covers about the same time span. Could you expand on this a bit? Are you saying that a reduction in selection pressure allows increased diversity within a population? Which then allows increased opportunities for speciation?How could we apply this to the whale series?HBD