LOL! William Fix evolutionary biologist?! Where do you get this stuff?
Fix is a "pyramidologist" and general "new age," brain dead nutter. (He believes in faith healers, psychics, ufo's, "ancient astronauts," etc, etc, ad nauseum.) He has no formal training, and no research or field experience, in any scientific field. He's not even a (lay) evolutionist. He rejects both evolution and creationism in favor some vague, eclectic, nutty newagey "theory" of "psychogenesis". Creation by psychics, spirits, aliens or "ascended masters" or some such. I have one of his books (The Bone Peddlers) but he's such a nut case and such an idiot that it's hard to make out a positive theory, at least a coherent one.
Sultis said: “I have one of his books (The Bone Peddlers) but he’s such a nut case and such an idiot that it’s hard to make out a positive theory, at least a coherent one.”
And all your maligning refutes the following how? “The older textbooks on evolution make much of the idea of homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the limbs of different animals. Thus the `pentadactyl’ [five bone] limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and flipper of a whale, and this is held to indicate their common origin. Now if these various structures were transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense. Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common ancestor has broken down”
As for your post 172 I’m aware that some bone fragmentsof certain species have been found and there has been a comparison between a few fossils that have been aranged to appear as though there was this great evolutionary process going on- however, as I pointed out in the gold/lead example still stands- simply becausewe find two (or even in htis case more than 2) similiar examples doesn’t mean the two are in any way related- I can set the gold and lead next to each other, and we can postulate all day long about the similarities and suggest that one ‘evolved’ from the other because of these similarities- however you simply don’t get gold from lead, ever- despite many similarities.
In the case of the few examples given of ‘early mammals’, while anyone can set the examples next to others and suggest a connection, it’s quite a stretch to state that there is a ‘clear case of transitions’ going on especially concidering the fact that if we’re to point out common descent, then we have to account for the myriad of differences between all species that simply do not show any such ‘progressions’ if indeed progressions did happen which is doubtful.
The illustrations that you’ve provided don’t point out that the cynodont was 15 times larger than the rat sized Morganucodon. The drawing is deceitful inthat it shows the two as being the same size in an effort to suggest that the supposed bone migration was proportionally consistent and thusly a nice smooth process clear for anyone to view- however, suggesting that a pig sized animal and a rat sized one are related simply because they share some similiar jaw features in slightly different configurations comes down to a highly subjective interpretation/acceptance and is anyhting but ‘clear evidence for transitions’ or even ‘clear evidence for the evolution of a major structural form’