Mark, reasonable estimates of the number of forms, families of species, it would take to evolve a land mammal to modern whales is in the thousands. No reasonable thinking person would deny that.
Comparitive analysis among today's mammals are one measure on how you can easily see this.
For example, we know there are wide areas of differences between land mammals and whales. That area of difference is a range.
You can then look at existing mammals, such as whales themselves, and compare the differences (the range) with numbers of species and families of species. With whales, there are something like 80 species.
The fact is you are just trying to claim it is too difficult when it is not. It's pretty easy to see that a bigger range of differences encompasses a bigger range of species, right?
Now, here is where you guys seem to not even understand evolutionary theory. According to evo theory, evolution proceeds in a bush-like manner. Remember how you guys claim that species that we know did not lead to direct evolution of today's species are nonetheless considered transitional by evos.
Why?
Because the form is considered transitional even if it did not evolve further at all because the theorized bush-like nature of evolution suggests that a variation of the form was evolving in a separate line of evolution. In other words, if we a form, we can generally infer there are cousins, aunts, uncles, etc,...proceeding.
Why is this relevant?
Because it shows the bigger the range of differences and time-scale in evolution, there is an exponential growth of species that must have existed.
Let's look at another large mammal, modern horses. Evos currently identified via fossils, 28 horse-like creatures that existed prior to horses today. Not all are considered in direct line of horses, and all of these creatures might even be considered "horses" or part of a horse-kind for creationists. The point is the range is small.
So going back a little with whales to the previous whale ancestors that must have existed, comparing mammals with mammals, it is not unreasonable to think there would be a 28 to 1 ratio of modern whales to the forms just before it. One should expect then there to be 2240 transitional species. Now, they would all be very whale-like, just as the prior horse forms were very horse-like.
But going back within the range scale all the way to land mammals, there would be millions probably of transitional species.
If you don't want to use horses, pick other large mammals and do comparisons for a range. Irregardless, to produce that level of morphological change, you are looking at probably millions of species.
But let's cut this down to families of species, and assume best-case scenarios, etc,....you are still looking at thousands if not tens of thousands of transitional forms.
Where are they in the fossil record?
You guys present a handful you claim are good candidates. Let's say the handful are good candidates for sake of argument.
Where are the other 99.999%
Maybe they don't exist because they never existed?
You claim fossil rarity as the excuse, but if fossilization was that rare, it would not be reasonable to expect to find multiple fossils of any one species, especially in different locations. Keep in mind that even the immediate ancestors and predecessors are completely unseen, no data in the fossil record for them at all.
All of the elaborate thinking, imagination and twisted logic just cannot get around the fact that if evolution occurred as you guys claim, we would see an abundance of fossils for the process, and we don't. We see a statistically neglible amount of fossils that could possibly, with a lot of imagination and faith in ToE, be considered transitional.
I prefer to go with the evidence, and the evidence to date suggest ToE models are wrong. The notion that the fossil record is not needed to support evolution, as if we would not see the process more documented, is totally unsubstantiated by evos.
, & yes, they do.
™ Version 4.2