Why do we only find fossils?

That's where you are wrong. We do see Basilosaurus for example in large numbers, and then we see whales in large numbers, but we don't see the in-between species.You want to have it both ways. You say, well, we don't see dinosaurs in the tar pits so they probably were not alive then, but the fact we don't see the transitionals is to you evidence not that did not exist, but evidence in some twisted fashion that they must have existed anyway.Your evidence is thus your imagination, not real data.Think of it this way. What if you claimed during the time of La Brea tar pits, that dinos emerged and then went extinct evolving into something else, but we see none of them in the tar pit. The fact we don't see them in the tar pit suggests they did not in fact emerge at that point. We don't see them so we reason they were not there.So we see plenty of whale fossils and plenty of Basolosaurus, but don't see the in-between species. The logical conclusion is that they were not in those locales and considering the locales of both whales and Basilosaurus spanned the globe, it becomes somewhat clear the in-between species that we have never observed any fossils for probably just never existed.

Wrong. I never asserted dinos existed at that locale at all, period. You are the one with the confused logic here.

Uh, Modulous use your mind. The in-between species would have to be aquatic, right? Just like the tar pits, we cannot find any of these in-between species in any formerly aquatic environment at all.We find the other aquatic species in fairly large numbers, but none of the species evos claimed must have existed.What you are claiming would be the equivalent that dinos did live during the time of La Brea tar pits, but we just haven't found them in the tar pits yet!

That's wrong. You need to spend time studying the list of 8 you gave and really dig into the research. Listing dolphins as transitional with whales when we have dolphins today is wrong, and evo twisting of the dates to fit their models is wrong.There are not 8 whale transitions between Basilosaurus and modern whales. There a whales all pretty much very close to modern whales, and nothing transitional prior between the time of Basilosaurus and whales.More educated evos have begun to recognize this which is one reason they no longer claim Basilosaurus as an ancestor to whales.

I guess they went to the same place as all the 99% of transitionals never materializing.

Modulous, I will try once again. If dinos had died off or were declining, one would not expect to see them, right?Let's think of it this way. You have Xbillion members declining to either 0 or maybe Xmillion members. That is a declining scale. That does not mean that they do not exist. That is my point.But considering whale ancestors, supposedly and whales, we have presumably a more constant, Xbillion. So since there is no decline, we should expect to see this group well-represented at all points in aquatic environments.So there is no excuse to claim thousands of species existed in the "tar pits" of aquatic environment without any evidence they existed.Do you understand the point now?

Yaro, I don't have to answer because I am not claiming to be a YECer. In fact, you know full well I stated I accept an old earth.I pointed out areas that I think you guys need to deal with, not the other way around.What's your problem? The fact life has changed in the earth is not inconsistent with any paradigm out there, whether ToE, theistic evolution, ID, or creationism.

That could be a possibility if there was some way for the transitional species to occupy a different habitat other than aquatic, but unless you are claiming they could have evolved back onto land and then back to the water, it is a moot point.I thought you would have seen that.Can you address the fact that the necessity of aquatic habitats is a limiting and defining factor, kind of like La Brea tar pits.

Couple of corrections. First off, there is reason to think more animals could coexist together than do today, including mega-fauna, and the reason is the earth was not as populated by people and destructive development so the regions for populations would be much bigger, and certainly with more prey, that means more and larger predators would be able to be supported. The YECers have a perfectly valid point there.I think evaluating extinction rates compared to rates of observed new speciation is another fact demonstrating the same point. We see plenty of species going extinct and next to none forming anew. If extinction rates were constant, that alone disproves ToE models.On to the next point, some IDers propose a progressive creation and/or aided evolution. It appears at this juncture to me, that the evidence most backs ID models of one form or another. We see species seeming to emerge anew, although it is possible perhaps some of them existed prior as the creationists argue, but let's stick with the maxim if we don't see it in the fossil record at a given time, it probably wasn't there. Can we do that?So that suggests species emerged somehow as you suggest. Well, just being consistent with this maxim, if they had evolved or emerged for the most part based on ToE mechanisms, not ID mechanisms, we should expect to see the transitional forms present in the fossil record.We don't so that suggest ToE is wrong, and points to some sort of ID mechanism, or perhaps to metaphysics, which we will leave off for now.

The problem is we can't find any aquatic ocean attached environments where whales are not present so all the areas are represented. So there are not areas A and areas B for a wide difference in form. We may see some different whale and dolphin species, but the basic forms are present everywhere.So you don't have different areas.

OK, let's put this to the test. Deer also roam about, right? How about moose? cattle? horses? bear (though not just grasslands?, lions? elephants? sheep? etc,....Are you claiming that because bison lived in the North American grasslands that no other grazing species could co-exist on the same earth?I guess all the deer, catttle, sheep, moose, horses, elephants, giraffes, lions, etc,...don't exist.Nuff said on that point.On the other point, I specifically mentioned ID as seeming to be the most plausible alternative at present.

The fact bison grazed the North American grassland does not negate the fact other creatures grazed other grasslands.Got it?In terms of explaining theoritical mechanisms for ID, I think we would have to get into physics and see what is physically possible, the nature of information specifically within QM and GR and physics in general, the entanglement phenomenon, etc,....I would be glad to get into all of that.Ned has threatened to ban me if I discuss these issues on the BiologicalEvo forum, but perhaps it is suffice to say, I believe modern physics indicates an ID mechanism present, and one that we ourselves may be able to harness and employ as well in direct engineering of reality.Unfortunately, there is a lot of contention about certain physics discoveries, especially once they are applied to ID.

I've posted about this in the past. You can look on some of the physics threads, or some old ID threads.Basically, Ned said he would ban me, and I've been banned before. So unfortunately, the topic is more or less off-limits for the EVC.I think there was someone else that listed some similar ideas on a Proposed topic, but the mods wouldn't take it up. A couple of us asked to have it released, but no luck.If you google "entanglement", you can find some references to experimenters that beleive that it can hold the key to explaining how life began. Not sure if that means ID, but it sort of seems in that direction.You may want to read up on some of John Wheeler's ideas. He argues that physical states do not exist as any one state until observed, and then definite form occurs. I think the best way to describe what physical things are is information which has the ability to and does manifest into a physical form. John Wheeler was and is a giant in the field of physics, now retired from teaching, but active still.This message has been edited by randman, 11-11-2005 02:10 PM

What you are not getting Yaro is that different animals can occupy similar niches in different locales. So you cannot use one location to say that such and such creature did not exist anywhere else.It's a very simple concept.As far as mechanism for ID, I answered already. Maybe you don't realize that the term "mechanism for ID" refers to how new forms of creatures can come to being.I will only add that no one claims some speciation does not occur via micro-evolution, speciation defined under modern terms of "species." Take some time to learn about what others think, and I would be glad to talk with you about it, as much as the mods allow.This message has been edited by randman, 11-11-2005 02:23 PM

You didn't see my references to an ID mechanism?What gives Yaro?Let me ask you this. Who put the rocks there?