evolution vs. creationism: evolution wins

Hi, xevo! How's it going? My daughter, out here in the wilds of Texas, took Honors Biology in high school about four years ago. Campbell's excellent text was used. The teacher "taught" evolution by saying, "These chapters are about evolution. You may read them if you want to, but they won't be on the test."On the subject of tetrapods, read Jennifer Clack's Gaining Ground. It will give you a headache from all the names of obscure bones, but it gives a very nice "warts and all" treatment of what was known about the transition from "fish" to tetrapod in the Devonian. (She and others have found more since, though....)(edited 'cause I'm so spastic)This message has been edited by Coragyps, 01-18-2005 13:03 AM

I don't think that you'll find Clack making such a claim. She seems very cautious to state exactly what there is in the way of bones in each fossil, and then to carefully compare structures between them. I don't remember a single instance in her book where she claims "this is descended from that" - more like "notice how the supracleithrals and operculogulars are absent in the critters that have toes." (she states that a little more formally than I, though.)Clack spends some time on coelacanths, other modern lobefins, and how they fit into the relationships among "fish" and tetrapods, too.

Read Dr Clack's book, then. Or look at Thewissen's whale website:http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/Thewissen/

I italicized a word or two for you there......The fact that your presuppositions blind you to the amazingly well-recorded progression of fossils from landlubber to swimmer that have come out of Pakistan in the last decade doesn't mean it blinds others. Twenty years ago, before Gingerich and Thewissen dug all these pretty transitionals, whale evolution really was pretty opaque. It's clearer now.

Weren't you in this discussion with me on another board, X? If so, HI!
Didn't I ask about hemoglobin C over there? The one that gives African kids 93% resistance to malaria with mild-to-no side effects?