fossilization processes

Jon, so does that mean whale and fish fossilization should not be so rare because all we need is for the bones of the fish to sink?If that's the case, we should expect nearly all of the aquatic transitional species to be available, somewhere, in great numbers.Correct, or not?

I do too, especially since whales float when dead, and you are right about the extreme corrosiveness of salt water. Probably what they saw was either some whale bones recently fallen, which somehow stayed intact, maybe over very call water, or just something they thought was a whale bone.It could be though that some folks caught a whale or something like that, stripped it at sea, and then sunk the bones to make sure no evidence linked them to poaching.But then again, I don't trust anything coming out of TalkOrigins.

Ned, that's a totally fallacious approach. You assume evolution up-front in the analysis.Let's stick with observables. You say we have 4500 species of mammals. That's an observable if correct.How many of those show fossilized remains?Also, in terms of whale evolution, what percentage of the aquatic and semi-aquatic species or perhaps we should stick with genera or families have fossils?That's comparing observed species with observed fossils. That, imo, is real science.Now, how many species should there be, assuming ToE is true, is a valid question, but you need to consider the assumption.My guess is that with such strong evidence, based on statements of fossils found of all whale families, if not all whale species, well-represented in the fossil record, that fossilization per mammal family at least is not that rare, and occurs at such a rate that we are likely to have seen all mammal families represented, or most, and that we even find multiple examples of each.What would be interesting is to compare numbers of fossils per species or per family and see what the average number is.If the average number is greater than one or 2, then that to me suggests fossilization is not as rare as evolutionists claim.

Does that mean semi-aquatic species should have a high percentage of fossilization?

Well, they do float. Whale fall | NatureI suppose the question is do their bones sink, as the article suggests, and does the carcass sink intact regularly.If so, then we really ought to be able to find just about every theorized step in whale evolution, imo, since semi-aquatic and aquatic species should create an abundance of fossils.

It appeared to me you were starting with a number of species not based on observed species, but on an assumption based on how many species there should be, including most which are not observed.Curiously, btw, this same analysis is lacking on the whale thread. But maybe I am missing something here? Except that the most recent species have had less time to fossilize. So that may off-set the effect of erosion in balancing out more recent fossils with older fossils.

Mangy, good point, but that may be off-set some by some species today presumably being so young that they have not had time to fossilize?But the point is a good one.It would seem like before evolutionists could draw any definite conclusions on whether the fossil record supports creationist claims (lack of transitionals) or their claims, acceptable level of discovered transitionals, that such an analysis would have been done and the subject of much discussion and research, decades ago.The fact it does not seem to be done suggests to me evolutionist scientists are making unsubstantiated claims.

Any studies, data, etc,...backing that up.What are the rates of fossils to known existing land mammals? What do you mean "doesn't have to be that high"? Are they high or not, and I am not getting the "doesn't have to be" part?

What if the theorized .1% number is actually 90%?How can you tell if the discovered fossils are the whole picture, most of the picture, or .1% in terms of mammals fossils?It still seems to me that if whales and semi-aquatic larger creatures have a near 100% rate, at least with families and/or genera (skipping the species idea since you guys have claimed such a difficult time determining species), then claiming only .1% is absurd.

You are confused. The curve should be built from real numbers, comparing actual numbers of fossils found with the number of new species found. The idea is there is a law of diminishing returns, that with more and more new fossils we find less and less, eventually, new species.Inserting a hypothetical assumed number of species into the curve is a misuse of data, and not an accurate approach.Moreover, since you have no problem estimating the number of species it toto, why could you not estimate the number of transitionals needed to evolve a whale from a land mammal?Why avoid totally that question?Could it be that evos are afraid to admit to the actual numbers because they have such a lack of data in the fossil record?On younger species, presumably the current number of species have an lived on average, at best considering the extinction and depopulation rate due to man particularly with whale hunting, only half of their "normal" geologic time as a species on earth.Right?That's because, presumably, macro-evolution is on-going.So even if some species are far older, they will in general have lived out their complete geologic time on the earth.So let's say we estimate due to erosion, etc,...that fossils from 120 million to 30 million years ago have been reduced in half via erosion, but had on average twice the life-span of species from 30 million to the present.Is that reasonable?If that was the case, then we should expect equal numbers of fossils for ancient pre-whales that we would expect for the crop of current whales.Right?This message has been edited by randman, 08-08-2005 12:30 AM

Oops, I didn't realize it was proposed new topics and that was why I could not respond.Sorry.This message has been edited by randman, 08-08-2005 12:41 AM

I have already supported it by showing in respect to whales that all whale families, and perhaps all whale species, that are alive today have fossilized remains, at least according to the evolutionist web-site I linked to.Did you not read that?As far as all fossils, I would not be willing to predict numbers of bacteria, plants, sharks (have no bones, just teeth), and a wide variety of species.My point is applying the .1%, which I assumed you got from the analysis on the other thread of ALL SPECIES was invalid since large creatures like mammals with bones that fossilize relatively easy compared to the soft tissue of many creatures are different, and moreover, there is such a high rate of whale fossils.What part of this analysis do you disagree with?

Well, it would be useful for evolutionists to predict how many species, particularly in areas more narrow, such as how many land mammal to whale transitionals they predict.I asked for estimates, and I not find any evolutionist that had made such estimates in formal studies that I know of.But in my mind, in terms of determining how many species are left to be found, based on evolutionist assumptions, and then comparing that to numbers of actual fossils to determine fossilization rates would be highly fallacious reasoning.I don't think you can do that to accurately determine fossilization rates. But it is useful because it could help show the predictions of ToE for fossilization rates, but it would still need to be revised per type of species, vertibrate versus non-vertibrates for example.A more proper approach is to use numbers we can verify with observed facts. For example, comparing new fossil finds to new species find (the collector's curve) is somewhat valid.An even better approach for certain types of species would be to compare known the numbers of fossils for mammals among current known species. That should give us an approximation of what we should expect to find with older species.Do you agree on that? Well, now we're getting somewhere. I agree by the way that the range here is somewhat broad, but 1,000's is a good start. Can you substantiate that? For example, are fish from the Amazonian rain forest known not to fossilize well? How about other aquatic and semi-aquatic creatures.Furthermore, isn't Pakicetus considered to have lived in a dry climate overall, but near a stream? But is the rate of fossil destruction greater than half per the time period of land mammal to whale evolution, compared to the time period where all whales have fossilized remains? Maybe, but can you back that up? More to the point, you need to define "rare" here and have never done that.To what degree is fossilization rare?For example, and I mentioned this before, it is very rare on any given day for a specific individual to be getting married, but it's not rare at all, given the life-span of the individual, for he or she to be getting married on one of those days.So an event can be both "rare" and common at the same time depending on the time period involved.If fossilization is so rare, why do we often have multiple specimens of one species, sometimes millions of years apart?If you say it has to do with their eco-system, then would not most semi-aquatic larger animals share a similar eco-system in many regards?You haven't answered these questions at all.In what sense is fossilization "rare"?

Ned, before I seemingly waste a lot of time reposting the same arguments and same site, can we come to an agreement on interpretion of the data?Specifically, would you accept the fact of fossilized remains of every whale family known today, so much so we can tell when those families emerged in the geologic column, as evidence that similar aquatic species should that evolved into whales should be well-represented?Or, are you just asking me to take time to provide a link I already provided before, and you are going to ignore the reasoning again, and I have wasted my time?In other words, do you care what the data says here?I write somewhat harshly here because you have been very "vocal" in claiming I am not backing things up, but it seems every time I spend a lot of time providing such data only to have it ignored, and evos here try to move the goalposts to something else, and dodge the point.So is a very high incidence of whale fossils compared to known whale species evidence, that for whale-like creatures, fossilization is not that rare?

How sure is "pretty sure"? Care to wager something, or actually commit to changing your views if I can show you that my data is correct?