How about these (not to scale):
Orohippus, 52-45 MYA
Mesohippus, 37-32 MYA
Miohippus, 32-25 MYA
Parahippus, 24 -17 MYA
Pliohippus 12-6 MYA
Equus, 5 MYA-present
Understood. But the fact is that the big bang is impossible, and as far as we know, was always impossible. We have no evidence that it was ever possible. And saying that "The big bang is natural process because at the time it happened, the laws of nature didn't exist" is no more absurd then saying that "God created the universe, but that it's perfectly scientific because at the time the laws of nature didn't yet exist." And to believe not only that something came from nothing, but that everything came from nothing, without evidence that it's even possible or ever was, just requires a lot of hope in things yet unseen.
Nope. And as with "natural laws," I'm not sure "source substance" has any real meaning. But I'd have to ask a physicist.
My apologies, I meant "Singularity" which is described as being about the size of a dime and that from which our universe was born.
I don't think so. Think of all the people that have ever lived--current estimates run around 100 billion. Shouldn't we be up to our necks in old bones by this point? Even just considering historical times, they estimate 300 million people were alive in the year zero.
According to this the earth has about 57.5 square miles of land. According to google calculator 57,500,000 (square miles) = 36,800,000,000 acres.
This means that the world-wide average is 2.72 dead people per acre. Now of course there are grave sites which have hundreds of people's worth of remains, and other areas that don't have any. So for every acre that has 28 buried, that's 9 more acres that don't have a single buried. And by the way, we do run across bones every once in a while. See this article where hundreds of bones were unearthed for a construction project. Nobody knew they were their, but of course when they were unearthed, the nearest Indian tribe claimed them to be their anscestors, and it became quite an ordeal. The fact is that even from the past few thousand years, there are lots and lots of bones in the ground -- it's just that they're nothing new so we don't hear much about them. (and we try to not dig them up)
Do we have 300 million skeletons from that time? No, because most dead things get eaten and decay--that anything survives even a few hundred years takes luck or protective measures.
You're comparing the skeletons from a few thousand years as compared to millions of years. It certainly is true that many remains get eaten leaving only the bones, strewn all over. But buried bones really last quite well. And it's not that we haven't found a lot of bones, it's that we haven't found very many intermediate species, compared to all the ones that must have existed.
-Jesse
I didn't say that--what I said was that the concept of "natural process" doesn't apply to the big bang because etc. But it appears I may be mistaken (see next comment).
I meant "Singularity" which is described as being about the size of a dime and that from which our universe was born.
Okay, but your link doesn't say there was any "substance" to that singularity. It credits the appearance of the singularity to a "vacuum fluctuation," a term I wasn't familiar with. First I tried reading the Wikipedia entry, but I couldn't make head nor tail of it; but a search on "'vacuum fluctuation' 'big bang'" led me to a page with this fascinating section:
"The energy locked up in a spacewarp can be converted into particles of matter and antimatter. This occurs, for example, near a black hole, and was probably also the most important source of particles in the big bang. Thus, matter appears spontaneously out of empty space. The question then arises, did the primeval bang possess energy, or is the entire universe a state of zero energy, with the energy of all the material offset by negative energy of gravitational attraction?
"It is possible to settle the issue by a simple calculation. Astronomers can measure the masses of galaxies, their average separation, and their speeds of recession. Putting these numbers into a formula yields a quantity which some physicists have interpreted as the total energy of the universe. The answer does indeed come out to be zero within the observational accuracy. The reason for this distinctive result has long been a source of puzzlement to cosmologists. Some have suggested that there is a deep cosmic principle at work which requires the universe to have exactly zero energy. If that is so the cosmos can follow the path of least resistance, coming into existence without requiring any input of matter or energy at all. (Davies, 1983, 31-32)
"Once our minds accept the mutability of matter and the new idea of the vacuum, we can speculate on the origin of the biggest thing we know - the universe. Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness - a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility. (Pagels, 1982, 247)"
So apparently, according to modern physics, the big bang is far from impossible and, in fact, may be the "path of least resistance"!
How about these (not to scale):
Orohippus, 52-45 MYA
Mesohippus, 37-32 MYA
Miohippus, 32-25 MYA
Parahippus, 24 -17 MYA
Pliohippus 12-6 MYA
Equus, 5 MYA-present