On Mar 10, 4:38 pm, Ian Smith 
wrote:
> Pahu wrote:
> > Fossil Gaps 5a
>
> > “This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to
> > mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, .....
> > ...” George
> > Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (New York: Columbia
> > University Press, 1944), p. 107.
>
> 1944!
>
> Pity you can't find a more recent credible quote on the subject.
>
> They've found masses of them since!
>
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
>
> ... and that is from 1997 -  before they found the remarkable
> Tiktaalik (in fact they used evolutionary theory to predict where to
> look):
>
> http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/
>
> So, we even have the missing link to show how we emerged from the sea!
>
> So, no flexibility for wobble now, Pahu - demonstrated to be well
> beyond any reasonable doubt.
>
> Pity - still scraping about for a single credible piece of evidence
> for your deity after 2000 years and science has got evolution nailed
> in 200 years! Never mind.
>
> Keep them coming, Pahu - you just keep making your position seem
> ever more desperate and pathetic.
>
> regards, Ian

Referring us to the transitional fossils FAQ in the talk.origins
archive for “proof” of transitional fossils turns out to be
erroneous.  A careful perusal of this source is well worthwhile, as it
exemplifies the methods used by evolutionary “spokespersons” to defend
their beliefs by blurring the line between dogma and science, touting
so much theoretical speculation as if it were unequivocal, empirical
data, so as to convince any willing disciple that they can’t possibly
be wrong.

The “Transitional Fossil” FAQ

The above-mentioned FAQ, written by Kathleen Hunt, is in fact titled
“Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ” (and does not even attempt to
address the less conveniently “explained” absence of transitional
specimens among invertebrates, or between invertebrates and
vertebrates).  It is comprised of hundreds of references to various
species and genera, citing various organisms as related and/or
ancestral, based on the work of several evolutionist paleontological
authorities.

To the willing disciple of evolutionary doctrine, Hunt’s publication
may seem overwhelmingly persuasive and encouraging.  But an objective,
critical look at the contents reveals that Hunt really does little
more than perpetuate the myth of fossil transitions plainly denied by
the evolutionist authorities quoted above.  She seeks to accomplish
this with a combination of many assertively-made statements and
(wherever possible) references to specific physiological similarities
between certain species or genera, as suggested over the years by
various phylogenic theorists.

What is missing from Hunt’s document is any honest acknowledgment that
among the phylogenies she describes, few—if any—are universally
accepted among paleontological authorities, and many remain tentative
and subject to change, if not hotly disputed among authorities with
differing viewpoints.

The reader is encouraged to remember that, given the abundant variety
of vertebrate organisms in both the present and the fossil worlds,
coercing a selection of them into a passable phylogenic arrangement to
suit evolutionary preconceptions is no difficult task.  Given enough
time and material, and a willingness to “overlook” any “unsuitable”
facts, the desired scenario could easily be constructed, using
similarities wherever they help, and ignoring them wherever they
don’t.

Whale “Evolution”

One of many examples of the incomplete picture given in Hunt’s FAQ may
be found in her treatment of whales.  Besides presenting a phylogeny
that (much like elsewhere in the FAQ) seems to rely largely on dental
records at the expense (in the absence?) of the balance of
physiological evidence, she makes mention of Pakicetus, which she
describes as “the oldest fossil whale known ... nostrils still at
front of head (no blowhole) ... found with terrestrial fossils and may
have been amphibious...” What Hunt fails to include in her description
of “the oldest fossil whale” is the fact that the fossil material from
which Pakicetus was conjured up consisted of nothing more than:
the back of a mammal skull
two jaw fragments
some teeth

As Hunt notes, these fossils were found amidst an array of land mammal
fossils in 1983.  There is no significant evidence to lead one to
assume these remains belonged to an “old whale” any more than to an
“old land mammal.” Yet the discoverers (P.D. Gingerich et al.) chose
to “interpret” their findings as a whale, and evolutionary proponents
(such as Hunt) have happily parroted their claim ever since.

Remember that one alleged evolutionary ancestor of man (Piltdown Man)
was exposed as a deliberate hoax; that another (Nebraska Man) might as
well have been a hoax, a whole hominid “species” having been contrived
entirely from a single tooth, which turned out to belong to a pig; and
that among other now seriously questioned human “ancestors” is
Ramapithecus (since reclassified as Sivapithecus), based on a few
teeth and jaw fragments that turned out to so closely resemble those
of a modern day orangutan that Richard Leakey’s associate and co-
author Alan Walker has cautiously alluded to the orangutan as a
potential “living fossil”.  The history of paleontology abounds with
the rise and fall of various fabrications and complete reversals,
demonstrating the need for extreme caution in accepting any claims
based on what is often scant and equivocal evidence.

Similarly, Hunt presents us with Ambulocetus natans (=“walking-whale
swimming”), supposedly a “transitional” organism between land mammals
and whales.  Now, Pakicetus (the “oldest whale”) is said to be 52
million years old, and yet Ambulocetus natans (featuring powerful
limbs, hooves, a long tail, and land mammal breathing & hearing
configurations) was found in fossil beds nearly 400 feet higher in
elevation than Pakicetus and has been declared to be about the same
age.  Curiously, Hunt doesn’t mention that this creature, weighing an
estimated 650 lbs., in addition to possessing the above-mentioned land
mammal physiology, also features teeth remarkably like mesonychid
ungulates, considered to be large wolf-like carnivorous land mammals,
adding further to its questionability as an ancestor of modern whales.

In any case, it is noteworthy (and conspicuously absent from Hunt’s
document) that these Archeoceti (or presumed “primitive whales”) are
not universally accepted as such.  G. A. Mchedlidze, a Russian expert
on whales has expressed serious doubts as to whether the likes of
Pakicetus, Ambulocetus natans, and others—even if accepted as aquatic
mammals—can properly be considered ancestors of modern whales.  He
sees them instead as a completely isolated group.  [G. A. Mchedlidze,
General Features of the Paleobiological Evolution of Cetacea, trans.
from Russian (Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema, 1986, p. 91]

In 1988 R. L. Carroll, a leading paleontological authority among
evolutionists, published the presumption that whales evolved from a
land mammal like the mesonychids.  Since then, it seems there has been
a rush to attribute whale ancestry to anything resembling these wolf-
like creatures, creating aquatic behavioral scenarios to help the
imagination along—thus “filling” one of many troublesome gaps in the
fossil record.

The so-called record of “transitional fossils” (as portrayed by
Kathleen Hunt and elsewhere) is replete with just such
unsubstantiated, equivocal “evidence” as exemplified in Hunt’s
treatment of whale phylogeny.  It is by no means a convincing body of
“scientific data” in which an objective student could hope to find
solid evidence of transitional evolution.  More accurately, it is
testimony to what is possible as a the result of forcing the data
through an imaginative and speculative matching process, based mainly
on hypothetical presuppositions.