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To: Tribune7
Which cannot be demonstrated by the fossil record.

It can for some groups, but not for others. This is largely due to different environments; eg, there are very few fossils of jungle animals compared to plain/savannah dwellers. Classical examples of the latter are eohippus - modeern horses, and australopithecines - modern people.

Also, in cases of "rapid" evolution, Gould's hypothesis is that the speciation (ie the intermediate forms) are in a small population in a geographically-restricted area. So we should expect few transitionals in this case. However, I have read that there have been a few lucky finds of exactly this scenario, but I forget just what species were involved (IIRC it was Gould's specialty, snails).

Something that is often forgotten by anti-evos is the abundant fossil record for many higher-level transitions, such as dino-bird and reptile-mammal. Recent reseach in Precambrian and Cambrian fossils is uncovering phylum-level transitionals. The link is to an essay by Glenn Morton that shows worm-arthropod, halkeriid-brachiopod, and annelid-halkeriid-mollusc. It has some great pictures.

502 posted on 09/23/2006 10:34:41 PM PDT by Virginia-American (What do you call an honest creationist? An evolutionist.)
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To: Virginia-American
You make some fair points. The fossil record can be use to make a case for the evolution of man and horse.

But those who wonder why there aren't a myriad of transitionals along every stage of development have a fair point too, and this has caused evos to consider things like PE.

And there are problems with making things stand on the fossil record. The very nature of it leads to misassumptions and uncertainties. Did Homo sapien descend from Homo erectus or Homo ergaster? Australopithecus afarensis or Australopithecus africanus? And it's not anti-science to say none of the above.

The Glenn Morton link is a case in point. Note in his essay he says "While this is widely stated by apologists and paleontologists, it is actually an assumption not borne out by the data." IOW, the Cambrian explosion claim is accepted by the scientific establishment and it's something Morton is challenging. So you go, Glenn.

512 posted on 09/24/2006 10:02:21 AM PDT by Tribune7
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