Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils

No, I think the genetic evidence corobarates and supports the fossil evidence.Long before genetic evidence, it was a pretty well established theory that whales evolved from even-toed ungulates. These deductions were made from fossil evidence. When genetic studies into whales occured, low and behold their genes were similar to those of Pigs, Cows, Hippos, and Deer (more so hippos), this coroborates the deductions made by fossil experts.I asked you to adress genetics as it lends support to the fossil evidence, and credibility to the fossil record. Is this not applicable to the topic?

Yaro said: Chiropetera claims: Appears to me that long before any evidence, evolutionists considered "whales evolved from even-toed ungulates."But no to your question, the genetic evidence deviates from the OP, imo.

I really don't understand the problem here. I guess I will have to repeat myself.

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Scientists hypothesize based on the assumption that whales could only come into being via ToE.

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Of course. That is how you test a scientific theory; you make predictions based on the assumption that the theory is accurate. The prediction is: If this theory is true, then this fact should be true. If the theory of evolution is accurate, then there should have been animals that show characteristics intermediate between whales and artiodactyls. That is how we do science. That is how all of the sciences are done. You assume the theory is true, you figure out what the theory implies, and if the implications are observed then that counts as a confirmation of the theory. What is it that you don't like about this? This is the standard description of the scientific method.Now let's play scientist and make a prediction. According to taxonomical data, whales show more similarities with some artiodactyls than other animal groups, including other artiodactyls. Therefore, if the theory of evolution were true, then whales and some artiodactyls share a common ancestor not shared with other currently living animals, including other artiodactyls. That is, that ancestor should be an artiodactyl itself. Therefore, there used to be species that have characteristics that are intermediate between artiodactyls and whales.So, according to the theory of evolution, we have the following:If the theory of evolution were accurate, there used to be species that show characteristics between artiodactyls and whales.Got that yet? If not, we can spend some more time on this. Assuming that you understand this point, we then make the following observations:Fossils have been found. Several fossil species have been found. These species have characteristics between artiodactyls and whales. Therefore, we have a prediction: if evolution is an accurate theory, then there used to be species that show characteristics between artiodactyls and whales. Species just like this have been found. There used to be living creatures that had characteristics between artiodactyls and whales. These creatures did not have to exist; without another theory that predicts what sorts of species must have existed, there is no reason to have suspected that these species ever existed. But the theory of evolution predicts that these species did exist. And the fossil remains of some of these species have been found. This is confirmation of the theory.

To me this is extremely convincing, even without the DNA confirmation.

Chiroptera, the prediction was actually that hundreds of fossils of species would be found showing this type of transition, and that didn't happen. So don't overdo the "prediction" angle here because it does not really support your claims.I realize we now have a watered-down prediction after the fact, and that's OK if you want to argue that, but really in terms of this thread, we are just trying to nail down what the fossil data is, and I think I am doing that nicely, and if you want to add some clarity in that area, please do so.But if we are going to talk about the predictive element of evolutionary theory in terms of the fossil record, then the truth is it failed miserably. The back-up claim from evolutionists now is that fossilzation is such a rare event, we are not likely to ever find the data that evolutionists originally predicted a long time ago.

To me, it's not. It demonstrates an incredible lack of data in the fossil record. The claim, I suppose, is over millions of years, fossils are so rare that we cannot expect to find a speciation event, not even one, of the land mammal to whale evolutionary path.An alternate claim, imo, is that the fossil record does not show the transitions because they did not occur.Another interesting point would be to really consider if the mutation process can explain the number of mutations needed?Without quantifying the number of mutations and speciation events needed, I don't see how evolutionists can answer that question.

You don't need hundreds of these fossils--only a few. That combined with the DNA similarities makes it very certain as far as I can tell that whales evolved from those land animals.

Ya, and they made the deduction from whale bones. The ancient proto whale bones were clearly some sort of whale. So, if they were whales as well, they too must be descended from the even-toed ungulates. Surely your not going to claim that the ancient proto-whales are not whales at all? No it dosn't, it is a perfectly valid defense of the fosill record and the methodology used to study it.

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Chiroptera, the prediction was actually that hundreds of fossils of species would be found showing this type of transition....

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Actually it doesn't. The theory of evolution says nothing about what fossils should be found; fossilization is a pretty rare process, and we should be lucky to have any fossils at all. The theory of evolution makes predictions as to what sorts of creatures existed in the past; whether we find those fossils or not is a matter of luck (or skill of the finder).As I said, these animals did not have to exist. Without the theory of evolution, there is no reason why we should expect that these animals existed; but the theory of evolution predicted that these types of animals existed, and we now have some evidence that some of these animals did, in fact, exist.

This was a great specific example of the evidence for evolution.

randman writes:

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It doesn't matter if the whole species evolve or a group evolves, the point is when that species would no longer be able to sexually reproduce with the prior form, assuming one would be present.

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An alternate claim, imo, is that the fossil record does not show the transitions because they did not occur.

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I'm curious, randman, just as a speculative learning exercise in the spirit of your own:1. What fossil findings would demonstrate a speciation event?2. How would one determine reproductive compatibility or lack of same between two contemporaneous fossil forms?Those criteria would be helpful to my learning experience.

Robin, bare assertions don't cut it here.Let's talk about the data.How many fossils of one of the theorized intermediaries have been found? In other words, pick the most well-established, in terms of actual fossils, ancient species and tell us how many individual specimens have been found, either in part or whole.

Is there a point relevant to the thread somewhere in there?

Wrong and increbily arrogant as well, but it doesn't really matter here since it is not germane to the thread.Let's keep this on the actual data, please.How many specimens of these so-called intermediaries have been found?

I have already provided a proposed way to demonstrate this. Now, it could be wrong, but for purposes of this thread, what I asked for were fossils showing the immediate prior species that evolved into the theorized intermediary and the immediate subsequent species.In other words, to actually document a speciation event in this transition. That's a good question I would hope evolutionists, but for purposes of this discussion perhaps we can start off with are there any credible candidates of this in the fossil record. In other words, if we have nothing even close, then the question is a moot point, which I suspect that it is.However, if we find some fossils of an ancient species fairly near to another species but with some small differences, perhaps we can submit it as a candidate for documentation of a speciation event.To my knowledge, in the context of whale evolution, there are no candidates.nevertheless, if there were, I would propose examining whales that can interbreed with whales that cannot, and try to quantify the differences in their bones structures for estimates on how many differences, on average, occur between species, if we define "species" here as groups that cannot produce fertile offspring. If we apply more stringent standards, then we would have to take those into account, but drawing the line at sexual reproduction should be useful in determing "steps" that would be needed.Of course, this is all a moot point as we don't apparently see any documented cases of speciation between land mammals and whales.