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Thewissen and colleagues' discovery allows us to address both of these problems. The newly found fossils include several skulls and postcranial bones from two early pakicetid species--which, it seems, had the head of a primitive cetacean (as indicated by the ear region) and the body of an artiodactyl. All the postcranial bones indicate that pakicetids were land mammals, and it is likely that they would have been thought of as some primitive terrestrial artiodactyl [goat-like animal or even toed ungulate] if they had been found without their skulls. Many of the fossils' features--including the length of the cervical vertebrae, the relatively rigid articulations of the lumbar vertebrae, and the long, slender limb bones--indicate that the animals were runners, moving with only their digits touching the ground.
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Same source.

In other words, we determined their relationship based on the middle ear. But if you chose other 'basal' traits you could draw other radically different lines if you wanted to.





It must be me, but that's not what I read in that text. Furthermore they only said it has features of both species families, doesn't this simply indicate a species in TRANSITION? I think you've ripped this out of it's context too.

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So there's no transition in size and bone structure that explains the difference between a four legged animal and giant swimming mammal, and that's ok because dolphins and whales are closely related but are different in size? That's a pretty weak explanation.



Look at present human species and compare their length, you will see that it can vary a lot, so in this case 'size doesn't really matter'. Off course I'll be happy to admit that the differences are big, but from the perspective of evolution it's not more than logical considering the animals there habitat at that time.

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Ambulocetus presumably was built to walk on land. Its hard to say since we're missing what looks like 90% (at least) of its spine and all of its hip. Then basilosaurus is completely built for aquatic motion. Where's the transition?



Yep, incomplete fossils do give scientists a hard time, but that's why they look at what IS available, not what's missing and start guessing around.

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Because when I made a joke about evolution and abiogenesis having no proof you asked what my proof of God is. Let's use an example dialogue to illustrate why this makes no sense, if you don't mind.

"UFOs abducted me and put a probe in my butt."

"What proof do you have of this?"

"What proof do you have that God exists?!"

Yeah....




Aaaah, so you were joking. Then you must joke a lot, considering all your odd and stubbornly strange posts, okey I will take that into consideration for any of my interpretations of your future posts then.

You're 'dialogue example' shows how odd your reaction is indeed. If e.g. I would infact have a probe implanted we could simply find out by searching, research and observations -> that's science. You don't except the evidence that this research would give and still wouldn't believe the 'probe story' so to speak, but on the other hand you do believe in your God for which you've got no evidence at all. That tastes to me like "big inconsistency" in your reasoning, I was out to make you see that.

But I guess your belief doesn't allow you to understand this somehow.

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Oh, I see. I was a fool not to believe whale evolution made sense, because there's no reason to believe in God. What was I thinking.



Okey, let me explain, I'll keep it simple this time...

Evolution theory -> evidence in favor of the evolution theory has been found.

God / creation -> no evidence for either has been found.

Evolution theory -> 1+. Creation/God -> 0. What's so hard to understand about what my little reasoning problem is with 'your theory'?

It's funny how you try to make fun of the argument, all you've succeeded in though is making yourself sound ridiculous. Just thought you'd like to know.

Again, my argument wasn't about who's right or wrong, since both can be wrong, however it was about why you don't believe in something when there is infact evidence in favor of it (that is more than 0 evidence, remember? ), but you do believe something when there 0 evidence for it. That's S T R A N G E.

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(I'll give you a hint, shape of the middle ear, and also teeth, scientists admit everything else between whales and land mammals are so different its hard to tell).



When looking for similarities, it's the similarities you'll be looking for. What's inconsistent in this method? Scientists do not add the same conclusion you give here by the way. It's not different, and thus it's hard to tell wether or not they are related, it's different as in that's where the similarities can not be found and too much of the species has evolved/changed already. Off course the similarities have to be convincing enough, otherwise you would be like 'proving' that a patatoe is actually extremely closely related to a pineapple, which it's obviously not.

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