Ned, first off the thread is about trying to assess what the available evidence is. All the evos here have wanted to do is ignore the larger picture of the fossil record and focus on a few so-called transitionals and completelt dodge the main points of the OP.
Now, I have engaged, imo, quite effectively to someone of an open-mind and honest objective opinion the claims, particularly the absurdity of claiming a land mammal with hooves and maybe one or two whale-like potential features in minutae is a whale, but that's evolutionism for you.
But I object to your tone.
First, the claim of fossil rarity is an evolutionist claim, but not subtantiated. I repeatedly proposed means of trying to substantiate that such as comparing fossilization rates with current whale species and using that basic percentage to see how many whale transitionals should be available and have been found in the fossil record.
Why do you and the evolutionists not engage this point and show why it is correct or fallacious?
In fact, it appears there is no evo research at all along these claims, and thus one could reasonably conclude that evolutionists rely on a totally unsubstantiated claim, and moreover, you are biased and unfair in your moderation by not insisting that evolutionists here either back up their claim of fossil rarity with such studies as I suggest, or admit the claim is unfounded and mere speculation.
Will you do that?
Next, you are asking me for how I arrived at numbers. Well, once again you are distorting the record here. I asked point blank in the OP for what the numbers should be. How many transitionals should there be?
You agreed it was a worthy and interesting question.
I think this topic can be an interesting demonstration of degrees of tentativeness in science.
However, no evolutionist rose to the challenge.
So you asked me why I think there should be thousands of transitionals, and before answering that, let's think about the absurdity of evolutionists asking a non-scientist to do their research for them because in all these years, they have apparently studiously ignored the question.
Why is that?
Is it not reasonable to expect evolutionists to have assessed with some range how many transitionals forms it would take to evolve a land mammal to a whale?
How, for instance, can anyone claim that the fossil record shows any transitionals if this sort of analysis has not been completed?
Think about it.
You guys are focussing on a few creatures, and saying the fossil record indicates evolution, claiming they are snapshots of the process.
But on the face of it that is a totally unsubstantiated claim. The reason is you would need to assess how many such snapshots should be seen in the fossil record, and then examine if such predictions are borne out before one can safely assume that any so-called snapshots are indicative of evolution at all, at least you would need to as far as the fossil record.
So it appears evolutionists are making unsubtantiated claims on the fossil record because no analysis has been done to predict accurately within a range the degree of fossils we should find, and the number of transitionals it would take to evolve a land mammal to a whale.
So here we have proof that evolutionists are dodging the data rather than engaging it.
On why I said transitionals, I trust the assessment of the esteemed British scientist and biologist, Douglas Dewar, whom I quoted. Specifically, with the auxilliary branches involved that would most likely exist (the evolutionary bush), and the number of changes, I would expect, for example there to be families of species grouped around every single change, or maybe every few changes, and considering the large degree in changes in morphology, inward bones, losing hair, reproductive changes, etc,....I cannot myself see less than 2000 transitional forms.
Can you explain a better estimate?
For example, let's take the issue of Pakicetus ears and teeth. Here we have a family of species or a species (not exactly clear on the claim there) that is distinct based on very small similarities to whales.
I would think that if, for example, Pakicetus evolved a bumb on it's back as a precursor to the whale fluke, that would be a new transitional, and the same with just about all the changes needed.
Considering there are hundreds of changes, a guestimate based on my limited knowledge, and each change or few changes would undoubtely produce many different branches, I would estimate a few thousand transitional species.
But here is the kicker Ned. Let's say you disagree, but cannot show any studies to show what the number should be.
That shows the evolutionists have probably not done the studies. They have not backed up what their predictions are, and thus they have no way to make a reasonable claim that the number of transitionals is what we would expect from the fossil record.
Moreover, they are thus then making unsubstantiated claims on whether these are whale transitionals or just some species that share a very few similarities with whales.
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