[AndrewC]

their purported ancestors— dog- to horse-size, swamp-dwelling beasts called anthracotheres— date back to at least the middle Eocene and may thus have a forebear in common with the cetaceans.

Very nice, you support my premise(If it is a whale and the hippo is not, then the hippo-whale split occured over 50 million years ago.). Now how does that affect camels and what does that make a Pakicetus?

[VadeRetro]

It means there's a conflict with the tree in 715. Different molecular studies draw different trees all the time. So do different cladistic analyses. Different trees happen. This does not mean there's no underlying real phylogenetic tree, only that data are incomplete and reconstructions will vary.

The cool thing about paleontology is that, for all its shortcoming, it works with real historical data points. When the scenario plays out that evolution predicts something should be out there, and creation "science" scoffs that gaps are forever, and the something is found, that's the march of science.

It isn't as if the fossil whales are the only such case.

"We're finding more and more dramatic evidence by the day that major changes have occurred in both appearance and adaptation," said Domning. "It's no longer a matter of theory. We have actual bones in hand representing all phases of the evolution, from land animal to sea animal, in different groups of animals."

Legged Sea Cow Found in Jamaica.

Every answer brings new questions. The Luddites and AndrewC ignore the new knowledge and trumpet the new questions. Well, Luddites will be Luddites ...