Well, in the past 10 years one small lineage of horses, out of many that were around in the late Miocene, lost their second and fourth digits. Major body plan change anybody?
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That would also apply to sea otters…
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Puck invited me back to this discussion, but he’s already said most of which I thought I could add (i.e., rapid evolution only after major environmental disturbance/organisms radiating into “empty niche” space). I’d also note that in the case of a terrestrial organism adapting to water one would expect there to be very high selective pressure for suitable phenotypic changes, which might explain the relatively short time of the fossil record sequence.
However, I do wonder, if Darwinism is somehow trumped by this, what the ID explanation is. Is it:
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The Designer made a special creation of Pakicetus, and then guided its change over time by adding various mutations so that it could rapidly adapt to be some sort of “true” whale?
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The Designer created Pakicetus, realized that he/she hadn’t made a very good version of an aquatic mammal, so scratched that and started again ---- several dozen separate creations until we finally arrive at Basilosaurus? Which sort of begs the question, why pick Basilosaurus as some sort of final whale? There’s a huge morphological distance between that critter and the whales of today.
But we know what the ID answer is. Darwinism is questioned, therefore ID by default: the mechanisms and the wherewithal aren’t important.
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Bechly is a saltationist, i.e. he appeals to divinely caused macromutation. Apparently God’s plan was to tinker around for a few billion years until he managed to produce, at long last, his intended biosphere. And then he stopped. Once he has evolved humans, the pinnacle of creation, evolution is finished. Thus nothing is supposed to be happening recently.
2 posts were split to a new topic: When did Pakicetus and Basilosaurus Diverge?
Excellent question. Timetree.org doesn’t have any info for Pakicetus.
I’m still confused as to the actual nature of the challenge. He is asking for a extant pair, but gives as the point of comparison two species that were non-contemporaneous. Clearly what he should be asking for is either an extant pair, extant species paired with some fossil, or a extant pair AND some ancestral fossil species.
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Ah well, but those horses losing their digits managed to give him the middle finger.
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That’s Timetree.org. Treetime.org sounds like an interesting web site, but it appears not to exist.
Just keep reminding yourself that this “challenge” was not issued in good faith, but was just a publicity stunt to impress his fellow creationists. Then there will be nothing left that needs explanation.
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If only they could rotate their wrists for a better presentation.
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I think he changed the “challenge” to say within any time period.
5 posts were split to a new topic: Rudeness from the “DI crew”?
I believe that the only species that can be on timetree.org are ones for which we have molecular sequences. Hence the absence of Pakicetus
Urk! Fixed.
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