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To: Alter Kaker
You mean aside from the fossil record, DNA...?

The fossil record shows no transitory fossils which has led to kooky theories like Punctuated Equillibrium.
Granted the fossil record may be incomplete. But is it incomplete because we have yet to find the illusive transitory fossils or is it complete because there are no transitory fossils?

27 posted on 12/29/2004 9:31:20 AM PST by AreaMan
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To: AreaMan
the fossil record may be incomplete.

Incomplete? You could put the whole 4 million year collection on a couple shelves in your study library. The fossil record has more gaps than George Washington's upper jaw.

34 posted on 12/29/2004 9:35:48 AM PST by RightWhale (Destroy the dark; restore the light)
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To: AreaMan

All fossils are transitionary by definition -- organisms either evolve or they go extinct facing ever-changing conditions. If you're talking about documented evolution, it exists in abundance. Just one of many examples:

From the Oligocene onward, the main carnivore lineages continued to diverge. Here is the dog/bear line.

Dogs:

Cynodictis (late Eocene) -- First known arctoid (undifferentiated dog/bear).
Hesperocyon (early Oligocene) -- A later arctoid. Compared to miacids like Paroodectes, limbs have elongated, carnassials are more specialized, braincase is larger. From here, the main line of canid evolution can be traced in North America, with bears branching out into a Holarctic distribution.
Cynodesmus (Miocene) -- First true dog. The dog lineage continued through Tomarctus (Pliocene) to the modern dogs, wolves, & foxes, Canis (Pleistocene).
Bears:

Cynodictis (see above)
Hesperocyon (see above)
Ursavus elmensis (mid-Oligocene) -- A small, heavy doglike animal, intermediate between arctoids and bears. Still had slicing carnassials & all its premolars, but molars were becoming squarer. Later specimens of Ursavus became larger, with squarer, more bear-like, molars.
Protursus simpsoni (Pliocene; also "Indarctos") -- Sheepdog-sized. Carnassial teeth have no shearing action, molars are square, shorter tail, heavy limbs. Transitional to the modern genus Ursus.
Ursus minimus (Pliocene) -- First little bear, with very bearlike molars, but still had the first premolars and slender canines. Shows gradual tooth changes and increase in body size as the ice age approached. Gave rise to the modern black bears (U. americanus & U. thibetanus), which haven't changed much since the Pliocene, and also smoothly evolved to the next species, U. etruscus:
Ursus etruscus (late Pliocene) -- A larger bear, similar to our brown bear but with more primitive dentition. Molars big & square. First premolars small, and got smaller over time. Canines stouter. In Europe, gradually evolved into:
Ursus savini (late Pleistocene, 1 Ma) -- Very similar to the brown bear. Some individuals didn't have the first premolars at all, while others had little vestigial premolars. Tendency toward domed forehead. Slowly split into a European population and an Asian population.
U. spelaeus (late Pleistocene) -- The recently extinct giant cave bear, with a highly domed forehead. Clearly derived from the European population of U. savini, in a smooth transition. The species boundary is arbitrarily set at about 300,000 years ago.
U. arctos (late Pleistocene) -- The brown ("grizzly") bear, clearly derived from the Asian population of U. savini about 800,000 years ago.. Spread into the Europe, & to the New World.
U. maritimus (late Pleistocene) -- The polar bear. Very similar to a local population of brown bear, U. arctos beringianus that lived in Kamchatka about 500,000 years ago (Kurten 1964).
The transitions between each of these bear species are very well documented. For most of the transitions there are superb series of transitional specimens leading right across the species "boundaries". See Kurten (1976) for basic info on bear evolution.


51 posted on 12/29/2004 9:47:32 AM PST by Alter Kaker (Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one’s nose.-Heine)
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