On Sat, 24 Jun 1995 15:15:25 -0400 you wrote:
GM>If evolutoin is wrong, that is perfectly fine with me, but I have
not been
>able to explain why these particular fossils appear at just these
>stratigraphical intervals with a mixture of traits between the two groups.
>
GM>What is your explanation?
>
GM>If someone can give me a non-evolutionary explanation which
explains
>this then I will seriously reconsider my position. But saying that it
>just happened by chance does not explain it.
PC could also explain "why these particular fossils appear at just
these stratigraphical intervals with a mixture of traits between the
two groups", as Wise points out:
"The general features of the fossil record that are explained by
evolutionary theory are at least as well explained by other theories.
The existence of a Creator who introduced organisms on the earth in a
particular order could explain the general change in organisms through
the record, but so could the effects of a global flood as it
successively sampled from a biogeographically zoned distribution of
organisms. The general change in organisms through time can be
predicted by any one and all of these three theories (macroevolution,
progressive creation, global deluge). On the other hand, the rarity
or absence of evidence for transitions between major groups and the
fact the major groups do not converge on one another as one goes back
in the fossil record seem to argue that major groups were introduced
in the fossil record only after they were fully formed. This is more
consistent with creative order and global deluge theories than with
macroevolutionary theory." (Wise K.P., "The Origin of Life's Major
Groups", in Moreland J.P. ed.,
"The Creation Hypothesis", 1994, Inter Varsity Press, Illinois, p226).
Establishing a genuine transition is only half the battle.
Naturalistic (and presumably Theistic) evolution must explain the
*mechanism* that can transform a land mammal into a whale in just 15MY
(or less).
Since evolution can't even explain a feather, I think you might have
a few problems. Here are some ot them:
"Nobody knows the origin of whales, although it is presumed their
ancestors were some kind of primitive hoofed mammal which moved from
the land to the sea, and that during the period there 'must have been'
an amphibious stage. That they are mammals is beyond doubt, for they
are warm blooded, air breathing, give birth to their young alive, and
suckle each one with up to one and a half tons of milk a day. The
first creatures classified as whales, Archaeoceti, are found in the
fossil record roaming the high seas only five million years after the
most famous crisis in the history of Earth, the extinction of
dinosaurs around sixty-five million years ago. Modern whales arrived
about five million years after that.
The problem for Darwinians is in trying to find an explanation for the
immense number of adaptions and mutations needed to change a small and
primitive earthbound mammal, living alongside and dominated by
dinosaurs, into a huge animal with a body uniquely shaped so as to be
able to swim deep in the oceans, a vast environment previously unknown
to mammals.
Notable complexities in whale evolution concern the eye, subtly
changed so that light rays through the sea water are brought to focus
on the retina; the skin, which has a curious outer surface helping to
streamline the flow of water; the replacement of sweat glands by a
thick layer of blubber fat to control the body temperature; the superb
hearing system; the way in which a female whale suckles her young
under water without them drowning; and the plates of baleen which hang
like curtains, instead of teeth, from the roof of the mouth of
whalebone whales, acting as perfectly designed sieves for the tiny
crustaceans which form their food . All this has to evolve
in at most five to ten million years - about the same time as the
relatively trivial evolution of the first upright walking apes into
ourselves."
(Hitching F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong",
1982, Ticknor & Fields, NY, p90)
God bless.
Stephen