Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils Part II

Admin, get someone who is objective to look at your posts. In no way, shape or form are you doing anything else in these threads where you attack me, but to use your mod status to encourage and allow personal insults, breaking all the rules, engaging in gross distortions of what I write, all to assist in making you and your fellow evo arguments, especially when you are shown to make absurd rants such as denying speciation can be a useful concept in discussing transitional forms.You do this by threatening and not holding yourself or any of the evos to any of the standards you claim to be trying to hold me to.How you can look yourself in the mirror with such atrocious behaviour is beyond me, and frankly indicates a lack of morals as a human being, evo or creo. No one should resort to such tactics as you have done, and it is quite ridiculous.I can only surmise that if you cannot answer the arguments and data that you must resort to such shameful abuse of your mod powers.It's quite silly, but maybe that's what you have been brought to in your life and cannot help yourself.I will hold no grudge from this point on and hope you come one day to see what I am talking about. Some things are more important than this debate.You may want to think about that.In terms of continuing to answer people, I refrained in good faith after being warned not to engage and to wind down or try to get back on topic those that are inflammatory, but since I am banned from the science threads anyway, why should I respond?Are you saying unless I respond to your petty demands, I am banned, or am I banned? It appears you are saying I am banned either way.I will answer if you clarify.

The fossil record, imo, is hard evidence and imo, it does not substantiate the ToE. You guys argue because more primitive life forms seem to appear in the fossil record before more advanced forms that universal common descent is true.That is a fallacy, imo.First, has life become more complex since the Cambrian explosion?I don't see it. So in fact, we don't really see this upward, from more primitive to more complex, transition in the earth's life.Secondly, ToE does indeed mandate that life forms slowly evolved and so it is logical that if we see an abundance of fossils for certain families of living species that we ought to see the same abundance for the immediate transitionals, but we do not. That strongly suggests that if ToE is true, then it does not occur via the mechanisms posited by evolutionist proponents.Lastly, it is noteworthy that you claim the fossil record is not germane either way to verifying ToE.This message has been edited by randman, 08-11-2005 12:27 AM

Wrong. There are thousands, for examples, of Basilosaurids fossils from 35-41 million years ago, evo dating, and we have thousands of whale families the same as current whale families dating from 40 million years ago, but we have no fossils of the supposed in-between stage.That is good reason to assume there should be fossils somewhere and we should have found them.You are the one following mere personal bias, and refusing to look at the data, not me, and indeed you claim the fossil data is largely irrevelant anyway!Imo, the fossil record is the primary data available to us.

Why is Ned or any evo here not answering these questions in this post concerning Basilosaurus?Interestingly, it appears that whereas we have numerous fossils of this creature, we have no fossils of the species that evolved from it, or from a cousin of it to form the group of modern whales.Why is that?

It is clear that you are not going to or are not capable of following points made and debating those.It is no longer useful to have you in the science forums. You will be allowed another chance in about 2 days.

You probably actually think that you have answered the points made to you. That is most of the problem and why you don't belong in the science side.Perhaps in a couple of days you will have had time to think about it more but I'm not getting my expectations too high.

randman, Nor do we have to.Science works by providing a hypothesis that makes predictions. Those predictions are borne out or they aren't. Transitionals exist. Your claim that we should see more is nothing more than a subjective ad hoc argument. If you wish to counter this then provide an argument with known premises rather than your personal opinion.Your lack of transitionals argument is particularly baffling when the sampling study you asked for of the fossil record exists. This makes your fallacy double-fold, you now hold your subjective view in the face of an objectively derived study. I totally agree, & so what? THe ToE does not say complexity must increase, only that it has. Go back 3.5 Ga, there are only single celled prokaryotes, then single celled eukaryotes, then multicelled eukaryotes. That's an increase in complexity seen over time in the fossil record.I think it's worth repeating a previous post contained points that have been ignored twice already by you...Third time lucky?"Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Dahlanistes, Rhodocetus, Tekracetus, Gaviocetus, Remingtonocetids, Protocetids etc.Duane Gish made exactly the same error you are making, he asks, "where are there transitionals?". They are pointed out to him, & he wants to see the transitionals of the transitionals or he won't accept that the originals are transitionals. If they are provided, he wants to see the transitionals between the transitionals of the transitionals. This has become known as the Gish Number. It is an intellectually bankrupt debating device because it can never be satified.Evolutionary theory expects fossil forms that possesses character states that are part way between two separate taxa, &/or a mix of discrete characters between two taxa, namely transitionals.They exist. Whether you like it or not, they exist. In the same way you can't show motion in a snapshot. Evolution predicts something that has whale-like properties, what's your beef (pun unintended - artiodactyl in-joke)? It wasn't going to be more than that. This is a sad attempt at playing down a borne out prediction. Would it? Why couldn't individual features evolve fairly rapidly? And as you well know, the actual number of cetacean genera known is relatively low with millions of years between finds, so you are going to see "jumps" in characters. Such a flick-book scenario would only exist if the sampling of the fossil record were amazingly good, which it isn't.So we are left with the fossils we have rather than the ones you think we should have, which alone suggest an artiodactyl-cetacean transition. We have the phylogenies derived from morphology, amino acids, & DNA that also suggest the same thing.Why are you not addressing the congruency of the data? As pointed out before, it's typical creationist head in the sand tactics. If you don't address the congruence you can pretend to live in a world of infinite coincidence where all correlating data that opposes your view (which you laughingly declare to have arrived at evidentially) is dismissed out of hand with a, "c'mon guys *insert irrelevant objection here*".Fortunately the rest of science doesn't work that way. We have four different datasets suggesting the same thing, it is therefore a perfectly reasonable conclusion that the data is a "signal", & that signal is derived from the evolution of cetaceans from artiodactyl ancestors.Pretending that there should be more fossils is not a rebuttal.
Ignoring multiple correlation is not a rebuttal.
Asking, "when did he lose his hooves" is not a rebuttal.
Asking, "when did he develop a tail" is not a rebuttal.
Asking, "when did he start birthing underwater" is not a rebuttal.
Splitting hairs over what we can call a whale, or not, is not a rebuttal.
Repeatedly asserting that four congruent datasets pointing to the same conclusion is making a, "mountain out of the slightest seeming evidence", is most certainly a triumph of wishful thinking over reason, but most definately not a rebuttal.Rebut the correlating evidence, or give it up."Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Since you asked for a reply I'll give you my best understanding (as a non-professional) for you to consider until you can post again. Other than you don't like the term vestigial why would they be "most likely ... necessary for mating"? There are lots of creatures (snakes, blue whales) that manage to mate without them. In addition, even if they had a use for basilosaurus they are nicely intermediate between the earlier forms and later legless whales. You are arriving at a conclusion based on what you want without any other support. This has been explained to you several times. To demonstrate that you do have some understanding of the topic perhaps you can offer some reasoning as to why we would have a harder time finding this. I see nothing particularly interesting about that. Perhaps you can explain in more detail. The basilosaurus is about a million generations after the first ancestors of cetaceans started to explore the sea. It shows characteristics of cetaceans and of earlier mammals from long before. It represents a stage of the transition even if it is only a cousin of the actual ancestors to modern whales.Remember: it was hypothosized based on evolutionary theory and the characteristics of modern whales that there would be an evolutionary series of creatures that had as one looks back into the past fewer and fewer of the features of modern whales and more features of the land living ancestors.All the fossils we do have support this hypothosis. You think there should be more fossils. That seems to be the only argument that you have. When there are more fossils you will remain just as unconvinced so why bother?This message has been edited by Admin, 08-12-2005 07:17 AM

yes, and the piltdown man was originally considered a legitimate missing link.basilosaurus was named by dr. richard harland in 1843. he was working from bones collected by someone else, and from an incomplete skeleton. paleontology was something of a fledgeling science then, and not everybody got everything right the first time. basically, they thought the top one kind of looked like the bottom one. and it kind of does. however, a skilled eye will immediately pick out that the top one as mammalian ribs and spines, and the bottom has reptilian. there are lots of various differences.sir richard owen, working from a nearly complete skeleton some years later identified that this was not a reptile, but a mammal, and a relative of whales. this is not under discussion, and the assignments of major defining characteristics are not arbitrary. it is most certainly not a reptile, and is most certainly a mammal.paleontologists today know what they're doing. it is a science, not a bunch of people sitting around in a room making stuff up.edit. suppose you didn't know who your father was. so you decide you're gonna make all of the guys you happen to know, at work, in social situations, etc, take a paternity test.one turns out to be your uncle. can you reasonably figure out who your father was? your uncle doesn't have kids, and has never had kids, so one of them can't be you.that's sort of what this is. it's a modern whale's great long lost uncle. it and modern whales share a common ancestor. it's closer to that ancestor than modern whales. it's an indications what the transition was, even if it itself was evolutionary dead-end or never gave rise to modern whales.there is so much change and so much SUBTLE change that finding a direct evolutionary pathway with every step (ie: every generation) is just statistically unreasonable. it's a tree-structure, something like a family tree. try tracing yours back a few thousand years, let alone several million. try it with about 90% of the data missing. you might find your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother 's third cousin twice removed. but you're not to likely to find a straight line between you and your earliest ancestorThis message has been edited by arachnophilia, 08-12-2005 02:30 AMThis message has been edited by Admin, 08-12-2005 07:13 AM

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אָרַח

responding to a very old post, because i was reading through the thread and i'm on a paleontology kick tonight. we do!...sort of. we find forms that are not exactly identical but very close. there is obviously a passage of time between modern and ancient, and evolution does indeed occur even in relatively stagnant niches. i could find pictures for this, of course, and make it all nice and obvious. but ferns go back several hundred million years. white sharks go back to the cretacious at least. dragonflies and crocodiles go back at least as early, and let's not forget the coelacanth.these are all modern species with very analogous species "mixed in" with all those ancient species. but like i said, slight changes. our current varieties seem to be a fair bit smaller, but are exactly alike in almost every other way. for instance, carcharodon carcharias is nearly identical in every feature we've found of c. megaladon, except megaladon is nearly twice the size. bad example, really, because all we have of meg are teeth and some poorly preserved vertebrae. but the same case is very evident with crocodiles and dragonflies, since they have a lot more hard parts.more importantly, this is not inconsistent with the ToE. species who fit their niche well would be expected to stay about the same if the niche stayed about the same. if they are an optimum fit, very little mutation would result in a change that is more successful. size probably is dependent on environment changes (availablility and size of prey, etc).This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 08-12-2005 02:13 AM

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Hey Arach,I am aware of species like crocs and such which haven't changed much. I cited them in this trhead. My question: Was more specifically refering to the fact that you aren't going to find a modern dolphin in the same layer as Pakicetus.One question randman has still failed to answer, and I hope he does when he gets back, is:Why are there these strange whale species, no one has ever seen before, in the middle of a desert in Pakistan?

i'm a technicality whore.now, it'd be entirely different to find a modern human artifact in the pre-cambrian. i think that was sort of what your were getting at.

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אָרַח

I know that the coelacanth is not the same species (or even genus) and has changed quiet a bit from the last found fossils.I'm less sure of others but suspect that none of them are the same species however much they are generally similar to modern forms.In any case, the point is that they are not modern forms. So if you are trying to say there are modern species mixed in I think there is no support for that.

no. like i said, there are changes and differences, and they are different species. just very closely related. no, not exactly. just that things that are more or less modern go back a long way, and that we do find some animals that we have around now mixed in with rock millions of years old. not every animal in the fossil record is extinct.

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אָרַח

As far as the Coelacanth goes, I think I have to agree with Ned, though it might hinge on how you define "closely related". Modern species of Coelacanth are not the same species, not the same genus, not even the same family, as those we've found in the fossil record. They're the same order, which is a very broad classification category. See Message 73 for more detail.I think Ned's point is that the modern Coelacanth, being only in the same order as extinct Coelacanth's, is not what we normally refer to as "closely related," and that he suspects the same is true about the others you mentioned.--Percy