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Author Topic:   Land Mammal to Whale transition: fossils Part II
Nuggin
Member (Idle past 2518 days)
Posts: 2965
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Joined: 08-09-2005


Message 285 of 288 (273853)
12-29-2005 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 283 by randman
12-29-2005 12:58 PM


Re: Fossil Record Completeness
First off, in order to know the fossilazation rate, don't we have to know the total population? I mean, if the only giant ground sloth to ever live fell into the La Brea tarpits, we'd have a total of 1 fossil, but the fossilazation rate would be 100%.
So, saying that we expect to see X, Y or Z based on rates that we can't possibly know seems a little disingenuous.
Secondly, you're going under the assumption that all evolution is multiregional and at a constant rate.
Let's take a scenario:
Prehistoric Whale species A is worldwide. A small subset of the species moves into the arctic waters and begins to adapt to the colder environment - eventually becoming an entirely seperate species.
For 50 million years, species A lives in 90% of the ocean waters while B lives in 10%.
We'd expect to find fossils from species A, given the wide range. We'd expect to find fossils of species B if the artic region was conducive to fossilization. However, if the arctic is not a good "fossil zone" we'd have almost no representation of species B during this period.
At the end of the 50 million year period, the world slips into an Ice Age. The "arctic" zone increases to 75% of the world's waters in just a few thousand years.
In the fossil record we would not see a "gradual" change in species A. We'd see replacement. The water cools down, species A can't handle it. They swim off, species B moves in and takes over.
Your assumption in your post is that evolution happens gradually and multiregionally. There are some scientists that agree with that. However, a different view is that isolated species evolve more rapidly then break out from isolation and replace the individual groups.
Just because the fossil record doesn't demonstrate your theory of evolution, doesn't mean that it doesn't support any theory.
The fossil record, even as you describe it, fits quite well with isolated evolution and species replacement.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 283 by randman, posted 12-29-2005 12:58 PM randman has not replied

  
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