Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils

Brad, but in what context is "rare"?For example, it may be a rare occurence for an individual to be getting married on any given day, but it's not so rare for an individual to get married if we spread that out to a life-time.In fact, given a lifetime, it may be a likely and non-rare event for someone to be married.That link does not explain the context of rarity, and thus is somewhat meaningless.Another example would be, if fossilization is such a rare event, what are the odds of multiple fossils of any one species being found. Let's take winning the lottery. That's a rare event. What would be rarer is winning it more than once. If several people routinely won the lottery, it might actually not be such a rare event.Several species routinely win the lottery, in terms of fossilization.

Already done several times in fact.Quit stalling and answer.Where are the thousands of transitional forms between land mammals and whales?This message has been edited by randman, 08-05-2005 02:56 PM

Where, what post number? Serious, I ain't gonna go digging.This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-05-2005 02:59 PM

/lurk mode offI'd like answer to the question too. The best I could determine, Randman said this about speciation events, from message 45 of this thead: If that's wrong, perhaps Randman could clarify./lurk mode onThis message has been edited by Clark, 08-05-2005 03:13 PM

If you aren't going to read the thread, that's your problem.Your little spectrum analogy is a waste of time because when we look at life, we don't see the entire spectrum laid out. With light, the entire spectrum exists, but you don't see life as one big species with every little step laid out.In fact, terms like "species" are scientific terms with standards for defining them, just in case you did not know that.To make it even more easier, I suggested we use a looser definition of species drawing the line at being unable to produce fertile offspring. That may technically lump a few species together, but since you guys have so little data anyway, it doesn't matter if we assist your efforts in creating a definition easier to show that if we asked for a more fine-grained definition.It's up to you guys though, ultimately, to show the speciation event since that's your claim. The best you can do so far is to make an assertion that a speciation event must have occurred, because you know, evolution is true and all that, and hey, we have a creature with a hoof that also had a slighly expanded aural cavity.But you could quantify, as I suggested earlier, the number of differences in whales that cannot interbreed, or even try to find the nearest whale relatives that cannot interbreed, such as those within the same genera or family, and get a diagnostic picture of what level of change exists on bone structures between near relatives, and then assess how many speciation events, defined loosely there would need to be.Of course, and I didn't think of this in the OP, but since evolution theoritically does not occur via a direct tree, there would be many dead-end or perhaps non dead-end branches so that the actual transitional forms would be many times the number of transitions needing to take place.

So, If I have two skeletons, fosills, how can I prove they could/couldn't interbreed?

That's one place I mentioned it. There are others.But the relevant point is we have no candidates available to show that.In terms of speciation events theoritically, evolutionists posit the speciation events took place. All I am asking is for reasonable details on the process.How many differences exist between closely related current whale species on average? How many for land mammals?How many mutations would it take to produce those changes?Then, we could see how many mutations it would take and how many speciation events, and assess whether the data indicates this "story" really happened and is plausible.For example, if it would take an estimated 500 hundred speciation events, we might consider there to be 3000 transitional forms (as an example) considering the theorized branch-like nature of ToE.We could then see what percentage of these transitional forms (species) are seen in the fossil record.We could try to then see if there is a plausible explanation, backed up by solid research, showing in this instance why some species have multiple fossils, and yet among the thousands of transitional forms that existed, we have at best, what, 5?We could also examine whether mutational rates can explain the transition?Imo, these are basic questions evolutionists need to show BEFORE they can make a claim of the fossil record supporting their hypothesis.It appears to me, in fact, that the fossil record, from a layman's perspective, disproves ToE, and I can tell you that the fossil record is the main reason I don't accept ToE.

You could estimate based on the differences between whales and land mammals that cannot interbreed but which have similarities. You could also weight the evidence by estimates of the creature's habitat and theoritical reproductive system.For example, if one creature is thought to give birth in water, and another on land, clearly they could probably not interbreed from what we know about mammals. The issue would be the speciation events in that area that need to take place. What are the mid-birthing stages? A creature that gives birth in water or on land?But you guys are the ones claiming speciation occurs. So maybe you should back it up. Evolutionists do tent to make a lot of claims based on fossilized remains, often their initial assumptions presented as fact in popular literature are false, but they usually run a pattern of claiming transitional form.Neanderthal was claimed as excessively ape-like, and Pakicetus was presented as an aquatic creature.This message has been edited by randman, 08-05-2005 03:35 PM

Ok, ummm...Pakicetus and the Dorudontids. They were several million years apart so certainly they couldn't interbreed.Also,
Now what?This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-05-2005 03:38 PM

One problem that we are all having is discussing this business of speciation from two different points of view.Please review this old post of mine to get a view that is more likely to apply to the whale pathway than one of individual speciation "events" that can be marked in time. Message 161

I'm not speaking to you in admin mode if you have specific things that you think need moderating then point them out.You said this previously: and I am asking you for the details.You said "according to standard TOE models" -- what are those and how did you use them in your estimating?You said "we have fossils of existing whales" -- I'm not aware of any other than bones collected for museums. Could you give some examples and the number of these you used in your estimates.How did you use the curve you referred to earlier?Then there are the numbers questions I asked you before which would be necessary to make such extimates.What taphonomic research did you dig up on the web and how did you apply it?I am in a position of finding your numbers rather incredible but I'm not able to judge that until you show the work you did to arrive at them. Perhaps you have information which makes them sensible.

Ned, it's not really a problem because all we asking for are estimates. Speciation does occur to evolutionists. The fact there are problems with the concept is, if anything, a problem for ToE, not my ideas on this thread.With mammals, we see different species, right or not?We see different whales and different land mammals, right?In no sense are these all on interbreeding group. In one of the posts you linked to, you seem to discuss a gradual change of the whole species, and for this discussion that is fine, although we don't really see that in the fossil record and hence, PE advocates usually speciation takes place along the fringes of the species in isolated groups.But even with a species that changes in toto, there is still a point where there is a new species presumably, where the new form could not or would not interbreed with the old form if present, right?So it's just not an issue for the hypothetical analysis to posit a range of how many different forms of interbreeding species would it take to mutate a land mammal to a whale, and then multiply that number by how many branches off that line one would expect, and one can estimate the number of transitionals that would need to be involved.This is what evolutionists should have done if they are going to realistically assess whether the scenario is plausible by existing mechanisms and whether the fossil data actually documents or fails to document these transitions.

It's not a problem for "evolutionists" because they do not think in terms of kinds. It's only a problem for those who do think in terms of kinds. Your idea is that there is a "speciation event" which is supposed to be recorded in a fossil. There is no such event. There are gradual changes over long periods of times. That's all there is. This is what you would call microevolution. I'm sure you believe in microevolution.Now every once in a while in the history of evolution, we assign some fossil to a different species. We don't have to. It's just a label. Once the hippo goes into the water, we might call it a different species. But we could just say it's water-hippo.

Ned, this is an example where I am appealing to you as a Mod to censure Robin. He has repeatedly brought up the subject of kinds and made false, unsubstantiated claims about me on this thread in this area, and has done so with virtual impugnity, never giving any data or scientific back-up to his claims.Here, his comments are less of a violation than in prior posts, but nevertheless, he continually misrepresents the thread and the evidence.For example, In fact I am thinking specifically in terms of species, and not "kinds" on this thread, and robin offers no evidence that there is no such thing as species and speciation. In fact, species is a well-established way of classifying creatures as well as speciation is a basic claim of ToE, namely that new species emerge as the result of natural selection.Throughout this thread, robin has refused to provide any scientific documentation for his claims, whatsoever.

Ned, note the following complaint on robin which I also listed prior addressed to him.Ned, this is an example where I am appealing to you as a Mod to censure Robin. He has repeatedly brought up the subject of kinds and made false, unsubstantiated claims about me on this thread in this area, and has done so with virtual impugnity, never giving any data or scientific back-up to his claims.Here, his comments are less of a violation than in prior posts, but nevertheless, he continually misrepresents the thread and the evidence.For example, In fact I am thinking specifically in terms of species, and not "kinds" on this thread, and robin offers no evidence that there is no such thing as species and speciation. In fact, species is a well-established way of classifying creatures as well as speciation is a basic claim of ToE, namely that new species emerge as the result of natural selection.Throughout this thread, robin has refused to provide any scientific documentation for his claims, whatsoever.I also object to Yaro's claims that species and speciation (the emergence of species) does not exist. He offers no scientific evidence at all, but erroneously claims biological life is like the spectrum. Or, Here Yaro claims that species are not measurable, and cannot be determined, clearly wildly overstating the fact that in some specific cases, classifying some species can be challenging.This message has been edited by randman, 08-05-2005 06:34 PM