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Author Topic:   Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils Part II
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 288 (230990)
08-08-2005 12:37 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by NosyNed
08-08-2005 12:27 AM


Let's see.
As far as (1) goes, yes indeed. The hierarchical classification of all species (sorry to go on and on about it, but it is my favorite piece of evidence), biogeographic evidence, molecular biology, genetics, and vestigial organs and atavisms altogether provide pretty conclusive proof that common descent ocurred, and so whales must have evolved from an earlier non-whale ancestor. Note that fossil evidence is really not necessary, and the fact that we have good fossils of whale ancestors is rather embarrassingly gratuitous.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 76 of 288 (232706)
08-12-2005 3:42 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by Percy
08-12-2005 3:30 PM


Re: same species?
I would also add that regardless of the morphology of the beasties, two species would be no more closely related (genetically) than, say, humans and any ancestor separated by an equal amount of time.
An extant coelacanth and a Mesozoic one would be no more closely related than a human and the shrew-like mammals that existed at the same time.
An extant cockroach and one from the Carboniferous would be no more related than a human and one of the earliest still-almost-amphibian-like amniote.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 78 of 288 (232717)
08-12-2005 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Yaro
08-12-2005 3:49 PM


Uh-oh -- feeling like Cliff
Well, I've read that the average "life-span" of a species is about five to ten million years -- I don't know what the variance is, but I'm not particularly surprised that a 25 million year old species is known.
Most animal genomes consist of a large portion of non-coding "junk DNA" that would be free, more or less, to randomly mutate -- the so-called "molecular clock" -- I would expect that the genetic distances between this amberfied ant and a current one would be similar to that of a human and a late Oligocene "monkey" (note my use of the fancy word "Oligocene" in a desperate attempt to regain credibility).
I admit that your example does appear, though, to weaken my actual point a bit.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 170 of 288 (233166)
08-14-2005 1:43 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by Gary
08-14-2005 1:32 PM


Re: What if there were no fossils?
That's a good question. Other than that whales are undoubtably mammals and clearly descended from some terrestrial mammal, their affinities were conjectured solely on fossil evidence, I believe -- without fossils, there would have been little data to determine when and whence whales arose.
Now I think that genetic evidence has fingered the hippo as the whales nearest extant relative.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 209 of 288 (233443)
08-15-2005 2:13 PM
Reply to: Message 205 by jar
08-15-2005 1:17 PM


Re: Fossil evidence to refute the TOE?
I still say that a nice line of fish-direct-to-whale transitionals would also be a big, big problem.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 215 of 288 (233460)
08-15-2005 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 213 by deerbreh
08-15-2005 3:13 PM


Re: Boney species
quote:
If you don't find it convincing the burden of proof is on you to say why the transitional and homology data that are inadequate.
Unless randman simply cannot believe that whales evolved from ancient land mammals. Then he doesn't have to show anything, and I, for one, am happy to allow him his disbelief. I cannot honestly think of any argument that would convince him otherwise, nor do I think anyone should care enough to try.
Now, if he's trying to argue that no one should believe that whales evolved from land mammals, then, yes, he does have the burden of proof.
Edited to added quoted passage.
This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 15-Aug-2005 07:19 PM

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