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To: doc30

We do not see legs 'evolving' today. Why should that process have stopped? No reason.

You do not understand that imposing a 'leg evolution' sequence on a jumbled mess of geology is not science.


298 posted on 07/05/2006 8:16:25 AM PDT by GourmetDan
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To: GourmetDan
We do not see legs 'evolving' today. Why should that process have stopped? No reason.

Actually, every subsequent generation born is an example of evolution. No organism born has a *perfect* duplication of the parental genes.

302 posted on 07/05/2006 8:39:36 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: GourmetDan
"We do not see legs 'evolving' today. Why should that process have stopped? No reason.

We have intermediates of fin to leg development and leg to fin development in extant organisms. There are multiple species of fish that show not only the ongoing development of legs but the development of lungs from swim bladders. We have a number of mammals that are in the process of losing their legs and gaining fins. We have a substantial line of fossils that show the change from land mammals (artiodactyls) to whales. We occasionally find whales with small useless hind legs and more developed hips than normal. The data is out there and gives a well defined path to the conclusion that whales descended from terrestrial mammals. DNA analysis of a number of extant land mammals (Artiodactyla) and whales verifies their relationship.

"You do not understand that imposing a 'leg evolution' sequence on a jumbled mess of geology is not science."

The dates of the rocks and the diagnostic morphology of the organisms aside from the legs, as well as the fossilized ecology, impose the sequence. The vast majority of fossils that show the development of legs from fins also show other diagnostic traits that place them in the sequence. Do you honestly believe that the fin to leg sequence is the only fossil evidence for the transition?

314 posted on 07/05/2006 11:49:40 AM PDT by b_sharp (There is always one more mess to clean up.)
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