where was the transition within fossil record?? [Stalled: randman]

Land creatures are not generally quickly buried after they died. So land habitats are not conducive to fossilization. Oceans are bad places for fossilization (either the remains are eaten or rot before they get near the sea floor which can remain in stasis for a long time) . I imagine the best bet is probably in the shallows of a river. Most organisms don't live under these conditions. Most creatures live in a habitat filled with predators or scavengers.This is not the only claim in this area. The next problem is that not only do they have to undergo permineralization, but they have to
a) survive to this day
b) survive in a location convenient for discovery. You are making the claim that there should be more fossils, can you back up your claim that these transitionals should exist under such conditions? The only claim we are making is that the ToE can be used in conjunction with paleontology to predict that transitional species should have existed, and that these species' fossils are later found. There is no reason to suspect these fossils would exist without the ToE. This is a succesful prediction for ToE. The only thing we have agreed has large numbers of fossils is Basilosaurus, and you have yet to provide any figures. I believe the explanation given to you was that Basilosaurus seems to have existed in an environment more conducive to fossilization than other species in such numbers as to explain the numbers that were fossilized. I haven't claimed that but I believe that is basic population genetics. Generally these populations aren't 'small', but are instead an isolated subset of the main population (thus are not small in number but rather limited in geography allowing alleles to become fixed easier). Why would the new forms necessarily stay small? They may stay in isolated groups smaller than their parent group. If our daughter group develops the ability to compete with the parent group in all niches, rather than its current niche, then it will probably expand.I don't understand your objection though. Can you re word it to be clearer? If this is your central point you are going to need to clarify it. As far as I am aware the evo prediction is that a succesful daughter species may only be successful in its niche. If it later is able to be successful in its neighbour niches as well, it will proliferate and expand, becoming large enough to stand a fairly good chance of its members fossilizing and those fossils surviving x million years and those surviving fossils being located in places that are now accessable to paleontologists. If the above does not address that point then indeed it has been ignored. It may be a good idea if you stick to just your main point and attempt to find a way of communicating this succesfully to your audience. Either:1: We don't understand it
a) Because you aren't making your point clear
b) Because your point is nonsensical
c) We are stupid
d) We are deliberatly ignorant
e) some other reasonor2: We understand it and you don't understand our responses.Perhaps you can break your point down into a selection of premises and conclusions so that we may isolate where the disagreement lies?

I was referring to deep oceans where the bodies of the dead are undergoing decay by the time they hit the bottom. Whales often come into shallower water, which I am led to believe is more conducive for fossilization. We don't see 90% of the traits that whales share in supposed predecessors? Can you list the traits that mark whales for what they are and then indicate which of these traits we do not see? If you have done this, perhaps link to the post? Did I? I thought that point three was me saying:

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The only thing we have agreed has large numbers of fossils is Basilosaurus, and you have yet to provide any figures. I believe the explanation given to you was that Basilosaurus seems to have existed in an environment more conducive to fossilization than other species in such numbers as to explain the numbers that were fossilized.

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Which doesn't mention time. Of course, the longer these organisms were around in conducive areas, the more of them there were, and the more fossils are likely to have occurred. You'll need to show us that the daugter species of 'Basil' lived in the same habitat as 'Basil' did, in similar numbers over a similar period of time (How long was Basil around, 5-10 million years?). What about, Prozeuglodon?
Eocetus?
Dorudon intermedius?
Agorophius?
Prosqualodon?
Kentriodon?
Aetiocetus?
Mesocetus? Why should there be? What is wrong with the explanation that between Basil and Aetiocetus there were a group of isolated daughters one of which became Aetiocetus? Perhaps there was another major group that simply had the lack of 'fortune' to have any members fossilized.How many species (You can stick with marine mammals here if it makes things easier) that have ever existed have failed to leave surviving findable fossils?Until you can answer the above, your position is very weak.Since you cannot answer the above, your angle has is futile. You cannot know how many major groups left surviving findable fossils compared to those that didn't. You are assuming that because two major groups (basils and modern whales) left fossils, that all major groups should leave fossils. This position is groundless don't you see?Not only because it is one hell of a leap, but because transitions are theorized to occur in smaller, more isolated populations which, if they evolve to be successful will then grow into a larger population. This is borne out by the number of smaller groups of post basil pre-modern whale appearing fossils found in the stratigraphy immediate between the two.

Ah, I believe the problem here lies in understanding. The spectrum analogy does hold. There are populations that exist and are reproductively isolated from other populations but that can interbreed. There are populations which can physically interbreed but have different display methods so they miss the signals and so are isolated for a different reason. There are populations that are isolated from one another, cannot interbreed with each other, but which can both breed with another species which neither species is isolated from.Its not a clear cut line, it has blurry edges. Not black and white, but a spectrum. Clearly black and white cannot mate, but some grays can breed with both black and white. Sometimes dark grey can mate with light gray, but it might be that it is not often successful. This is the spectrum analogy. You have accepted this as true.Speciation isn't a case of a pakicetus giving birth to an organism that cannot interbreed with other pakicetus. The population changes so that a pakicetus in one period of time might not be able to breed with the populations from an earlier point in time. If the original pakicetus population is still around we have a two species. It didn't happen in one generation, but over many generations. A gradual change from the one state of affairs to the other. A spectrum of change one might analogise.I'm sure you accept this view of speciation, it is the reasonable view of it. Agreed, but disagreed. It might be the case that instead of one species becoming two, it becomes 4 at approximately the same time. Their interbreeding capablities with one another can be viewed as a spectrum still. A with B, A with C and so on. It would a confusing picture to try and represent them all at the same time.Another way of looking at it is to think of it occurring in a straight line several times from the same root. Right. And at each stage, we could compare these species with their parent species and greandparent species in a spectrum like manner...like you did. There are other, parallel spectrums, which have spectrums between them too. Right, but when we compare a child to its parent we can do so in a spectrum manner. It started off as the same population, and may have become reproductively isolated before gradually losing its ability to breed with its parent population. After some time cross population reproduction is 50% less effective than inter-population breeding. After more time that become 70, then 90, then 100%. You might not classify it as a new species until that is 100% but some biologists may well classify them as seperate at 80% because they no longer even attempt to mate in the wild and the only way to get them to breed is in captivity.This message has been edited by Modulous, Mon, 24-October-2005 01:17 PM

I believe this assumption is invalid. We see 8 transitionals from Basil to modern whales. You are suggesting that whales, an ocean going creature, should have left as many fossils as one of the most represented land mammals.Your assumption is that all mammals should have a similar quantity of succesful speciations (succesful meaning speciations that had enough numbers in the population and lasted long enough to leave fossils). I challenge this assumption. To prevent needless bickering about not responding later on, I will take silence on the matter to mean you concede on this point.You then make an error that should be pointed out. You claim 28 transitionals for horses, I believe that is a correct number, but if we compare it to from Basil to Modern we make a mistake. Basil to Modern whale evolution took place over a period of about 35 million years. In the equivalent time span we have only about 15 horse transitionals. That is only seven more found transitionals in horses, than in whales. Quite signifant.If you can demonstrate to me that this 15:8 ratio is consistent when we consider all other mammals' history between 40 and 5 mya then I will be more impressed. Rather than selecting one potential outlier, let us look at the average number of fossils found for all mammals during this time.This kind of information would be useful to resolving this, I feel.So far, these figures are point us to the following possible conclusions, or combinations thereof:1. The horses had twice as many species as whales throughout its history.2. The horses had twice as many members of its species than whale.3. The horses are twice as likely to fossilize as whales4. the horse fossils are twice as likely to be found as whales.5. the horse fossils are twice as likely to survive as whales6. Natural History is hopelessly wrong and is erroneously relying on a scientific theory.Without any supporting evidence for you cannot differentiate from these six conclusions. Given the weight of evidence for Natural History (cladistics/stratigraphy which you agreed had a comprehensive study to back it up) we can tentatively reject (6) for now. Supporting evidence please?Once again, to avoid any later recriminations, I will point out that not providing further evidence will be taken as a concession that you do not have any.This message has been edited by Modulous, Mon, 24-October-2005 05:03 PM

Any number of factors have been proposed:* high quantity of living members of the population
* population existed in an area highly conducive to fossilization
* population existed globally, including areas highly conducive to fossilzation
* population existed in a similar state of affairs for a long period of time
* population existed in areas which have had a high fossil survival rate
* population existed in areas which have had a high fossil discovery rate (ie are accesable to humans in a practical manner)There maybe more and the actual answer is likely to be some combination of the above. As explained by myself previously it means that the vast majority of organisms that die do not fossilize.For more information, see Message 93, Message 87 and to a lesser extent Message 110Because we still don't have enough data. The missing data has been pointed out to you. I challenged your core assumptions on this in Message 251.

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However, the use of fossils for dating nodes is subject to error, and there are several reasons why a given fossil may incorrectly date a node, leading to in congruence between age estimates derived from fossils and molecular dating methods (Smith and Peterson 2002; Benton and Ayala 2003; Bromham and Penny 2003). The incompleteness of the fossil record will consistently lead to an underestimation of the age of any given lineage (Marshall 1990b), and the magnitude of this error bias will depend on the difference between the fossil age and the actual lineage age (Springer 1995). Severe but directionally random errors can also result when fossils are placed erroneously into a phylogenetic tree (Lee 1999; Benton and Ayala 2003), when the phylogeny itself is in error, or when the geological age estimates of fossil-bearing rocks are in error (Conroy and van Tuinen 2003). Finally, error will occur if minimal age estimates are applied to the crown group that a fossil subtends rather than the appropriate stem lineage in a phylogenetic tree (Doyle and Donoghue
1993; Magallon and Sanderson 2001).

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Assessing Concordance of Fossil Calibration Points in Molecular Clock Studies: An Example Using TurtlesIt took me seconds to find a paper that 'claimed a lack of data' in the the molecular clock scenario. Your point is summarily refuted by example. I don't think anyone has a problem with the idea of it being necessary that there be a large number of extinct species of pre-modern whale cetaceans. I believe my points directly respond to your points.This message has been edited by Modulous, Tue, 25-October-2005 05:39 PM

Excellent, then you concede that I have explained why some species are more likely to have fossils than others. Referring you back to Message 93, Message 87, Message 110 and of course, Message 259, all that is being proposed is that the vast majority of organisms that die do not fossilize. You accept (above) that populations can be favourable to discovarable fossilization. There are reasons that have been given why some species have many more fossils than others. Notably in the very post you replied to. Let me go over them again:

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* high quantity of living members of the population
* population existed in an area highly conducive to fossilization
* population existed globally, including areas highly conducive to fossilzation
* population existed in a similar state of affairs for a long period of time
* population existed in areas which have had a high fossil survival rate
* population existed in areas which have had a high fossil discovery rate (ie are accesable to humans in a practical manner)

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The populations of species that we see many accounts of probably existed under some combination of the above conditions. The populations of species that we do not see many accounts of probably existed under different combinations, such as existing in an area which has no surviving fossils due to erosion, or existing in areas that inaccessable or existing in areas that were high in predation or any number of counter scenarios to the above list. Sorry for giving you a weasel answer, but it is the honest answer, so I assume you should deal with it.

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Most organisms do not fossilize and those that do are usually destroyed by geological processes or they never surface for examination

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Source

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Most organisms lack substantial hard parts and rarely fossilize. The fossil record in its entirety is estimated to include only from 3% to 13.6% of all species that ever lived. The vast majority of described species are living ” only 8.7% of those described formally are fossils.

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SourceI contend that it means something. I contend that it means that most organisms that die do not fossilize. You mean 100% of all species could have at least one member fossilized and my definition still be true? Yes, one could argue that. It would still be a rare event. Indeed. Well, in order to make this kind of analysis we need data. Data that we are missing, the kind of missing data is discussed in Message 237 (and in just about every other post in this thread). Nobody is making any mathematical claims based on rarity so exact figures for each species is not necessary. If you want to quantisize, let's try for just one species. Basilosaurus:Answer me this: How many times did Basilosaurus fossilize?We'll need to know this, and we'll need to know:How many Basilosauruses have ever existed.Then we can calculate, for that species, how rare fossilization was.Of course, we cannot do this calculation. If you can actually demonstrate why a quantitive figure is needed for certain conclusions to be reached, then do so.I'm going to paste your quote again: It is rare for any organism that dies to fossilize. That refers to individuals.True or False:* low population species are less likely to have an individual represented in the fossil record.The answer to your question is: It depends. It is rare for a small (quantity) species living in an area ill-conducive to fossilisation, with high predation living alongside scavengers which only exist for 5,000 years to have one of its members fossilize.It is less rare for a highly populated species living in ideal fossilization areas, little predation or scavengers which exist for 10,000,000 years to have a member fossilize. They either didn't fossilize, haven't been discovered or have been since destroyed. Modern Whales and Basilosaurus are known to be global, long lasting and highly populace species. Can you tell me that the intermediate species were also global, long lasting and highly populated? Also note, I believe I have listed at least 8 found transitional fossils between Whales and Basilosaurus. It is the length of time given transitionals stuck around, and how populace they were. We do, several of my posts have documented eight cetaceans between basilosaurus and modern whales.

I'm not Mark, but I'd like to point out for at least the third time that we see at least eight species in between.

From Scope | News

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Dr. Brand found that the whale remains were blanketed by a thick layer of diatomite (silica remains of diatoms). These tiny creatures, known collectively as plankton together with dinoflagellates, are part of the food source for whales...

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But why did the whales die in the first place? "There is more and more evidence that red tides--blooms of diatoms and dinoflagellates--produce toxins which can kill large animals and fish," he says.

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Recently, it was discovered that several hundred sea lions off the coast of California were killed by toxins produced by diatoms. Other studies of these tiny organisms have found that increased levels of iron in the water greatly increase the rate of reproduction.

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"Perhaps an increase of iron in the water, together with volcanic ash from the Andes--which provides silica--caused a bloom of diatoms to take place," Dr. Brand hypothesizes, "and the toxins produced by the diatoms killed the whales."

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Falling to the bottom, he postulates, the whales were soon covered by the skeletal remains of the diatom bloom before decay and scavengers could damage and scatter the bones.

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"We did not find evidence of the other animals which typically form the ecosystem around a decaying whale carcass," he details, "probably because whales were buried before those animals were able to colonize it."

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Interestingly, sharks did leave their mark on the fossil whale remains studied in detail by the team, evidenced by both teeth marks on the bones and actual teeth left behind.

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I thought that might be interesting to everyone. The other links aren't so interesting unfortunately.

Back in Message 120 I fired off eight species that evolutionarily come between Basilosaurus and Modern Whales, these were found with a few minutes of searching so there may be more.BASILOSAURUS: mid Eocene
Prozeuglodon: late Eocene
Eocetus: late Eocene
Dorudon intermedius: late Eocene
Agorophius: Oligocene
Prosqualodon: Oligocene
Aetiocetus: Oligocene
Kentriodon: Miocene
Mesocetus: Miocene
MODERN WHALES: Late Miocene

I'm certainly not claiming that these creatures evolved from Basilosaurus, although Dorudon is remarkably morphologically similar to Basilosaurus so it wouldn't surprise me if they were very closely related. OK, so if it really suits you:

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BASILOSAURUS: mid-late Eocene
Prozeuglodon: late Eocene
Eocetus: late Eocene
Dorudon intermedius: late Eocene
Agorophius: Oligocene
Prosqualodon: Oligocene
Aetiocetus: Oligocene
Kentriodon: Miocene
Mesocetus: Miocene
MODERN WHALES: Late Miocene

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And we have some overlap. These are still eight cetaceans which arrived between Basilosaurus and Modern Whales. I never gave a chronology, just a list of cetaceans and their associated age. I was not stating which ones came in which order other than the broader scope of passing of the ages.

It isn't a difficult concept. Let me replay the thread you are responding to: Its a perfectly simple principle I am more than capable of grasping. Now its your turn to grasp a simple principle:The fact that fossilization is less rare for some species does not mean fossilization is less rare for all species.For some species we see a lot of fossils. It could quite easily be that it is less rare for that species to fossilize. Or it could be that any number of the other factors we've been discussing for the past 200 posts or so that have left us with many fossils of one species and a dearth of another.That isn't a difficult concept is it randman?For some species we don't see a lot of fossils. It could be that it is more rare for that species to fossilize. Or it could be that any number of the other factors we've been discussing for the past 200 posts or so.This isn't too difficult a concept is it?