But the fact we see thousands, it seems, of an extinct family of creatures like Basilosaurus suggests that FOR A SPECIES, FOSSILIZATION IS NOT THAT RARE AT ALL!
I seem to remember speaking of this with you in the old whale evolution thread. I gave you some ideas that you seemed to think were reasonable but it looks like you've forgotten it. I'll try to re-visit my general idea.
So, there are a lot of fossils of Basilosaurus. This does not by any means serve as an indication of how many fossils will exist of anything else. Lets look at things as they are today. There don't appear to be a lot of places where fossils are likely to form. You need things like mud, tar and such things. Volcanoes too, are a likely fossil forming phenomenon. However, animals live in all sorts of places. Some live in areas where there is greater potential for fossilization than others. Is this a reasonable statement? I think it is.
Back to our old friend Basilosaurus. Fossils of these guys may be common, but all this suggests is that the habitats they tended to live in were in locations where fossilization was more likely. To take the example of basilosaurus and use it to claim that fossils of all or most of other transitionals should be as common is a very very big jump. Furthermore, basilo may have been very common and wide ranging in its day. Look at something like the common rat. They are everywhere, all over the world. Then there is the Giant Panda, very rare and inhabits a small part of the world. In a few million years time, which do you think is more likely to have fossils of them dug up? It's quite possible that there would not be any panda fossils at all, but say there was a mudslide that landed squarely on top of a colony of rats, well, then you'd have a lot, maybe hundreds or thousands of fossils of them.
I'm not a scientist, so I can't and won't give detailed specific evidence of any of this. At any rate, I'm not making assertions, rather I'm speculating what is likely to have happened in the past based on what we can observe today. So I'll leave you with this. Think of an area of real wilderness that is existing today, maybe the Amazon, or central Africa, something like that. Think of how many different animals and plants inhabit this place. Now stop and consider, in several million years time (assuming no human interference) what would the fossil record from this area reveal to whoever might be around to dig them up?
The probability that someone is watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.
™ Version 4.2