[gore3000]

I precisely stated an otter-like carnivore as an example of a common aquatic body-type that land animals seem to acquire when transitioning from land to aquatic species. This would also serve as an illustration for convergence - when two non-related species vying for the same ecological nich, assume the same outward appearance despite their genetic gulf, such as the Ichthyosaurus and the modern dolphin, or the Pliocene's thylacosmilid, which was a saber toothed marsupial which looked very much like the big cat, smilodon, but of course evolved from the marsupial branch, not the mammilian branch. -wmbach-

Clearly your statement means that it is impossible to trace evolution through fossils.-me-

Do you always just make up sentences like the one above, devoid of any meaning. Talk about non-sequiters!

Noooo. My statement directly follows from your statement about convergence. Evolutionists have always said that if it looks alike it is proof of ancestry. However, if you are going to say that things that look alike can have completely different ancestries, then you cannot prove evolution through fossils because we can never know whether the similarites are due to ancestry or convergence.

Let me also note, that to anyone who bothers to read Darwin, one will see that the only arguments he makes for evolution are based on homology - same functions, same looks are due to common ancestry. So you have put your foot in your mouth with your double-talk. Heck, if two species looking similar means either homology or convergence how can you tell if one is an ancestor of another? Because your theory needs a missing link? Because you say so? Because you invoke the ghost of Darwin and he tells you the correct answer? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Wm Bach]

Noooo. My statement directly follows from your statement about convergence. Evolutionists have always said that if it looks alike it is proof of ancestry. However, if you are going to say that things that look alike can have completely different ancestries, then you cannot prove evolution through fossils because we can never know whether the similarites are due to ancestry or convergence.

Forgive me for my own failure to adequately explain similarities of convergence vs similarities of lineage. Convergence produces life forms with similar superficial traits, such as a hydrodynamic body or a sprinting body and forward bifocal vision for predation. Different species who occupy similar ecological niches may adapt over time to have similar outward appearances due to biology's having come up with the same solutions for say, running down prey, hiding from predators, climbing, digging, etc. But the overall phisiology will tell a different story. The bones of a marsupial will be very different from the bones of a mammal despite their superficial similarites (in the case of smilodon and thylacosmilid). You must admit that while they look very similar, they clearly belong to to entirely different class let alone genus. The holes for blood vessels will be different, the number and arrangement of tarsals, number of vertibrate etc. The details will be vastly different in instances of convergence.

Now in divergence you have just the opposite. The details change slowly, (or perhaps quickly during environmental turmoil and only minutely during periods of relative environmental stability, if you're of the PunkEEK school of thought - which I accept as a valid evolutionary mechanism). So that over the distance of time, while the outward appearance of the progenitor species and it's perhaps many descendent species may differ quite dramatically, it is the details, that is, the alignment of fissures in the cranium, a peculiar occipital knob, serrated ridges on the back of a particular tooth which exist on no other animals except the progenitor and it's descendents, which are the hallmarks of common divergence and lineage.