(April 16, 2012 at 11:41 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: They are talking about the descendants of one species evolving into a different species, like eohippus into the modern horse. 'Family' has a specific meaning in taxonomy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_(biology)
ALTER2EGO -to- MISTER AGENDA:
That bit from Wikipedia about the evolution of "eohippus into the modern horse" is pure fallacy that was discredited more than 40 years ago. It never happened.
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/horse.html
According to one source, eohippus resembled a dog or a fox and the creature supposedly lived 50 million years ago. Where they got the 50 million years is anybody's guess. In any event, explain to me how a dog/fox-looking animal could end up looking like a modern horse! Some of these people calling themselves scientists will write anything to get their names mentioned in scientific journals.
Quote:The origin of the modern horse is believed to be the Hyracotherium, also called the Eohippus or "dawn horse." This ancient horse ancestor existed during the Eocene period (about 50 million years ago) and although paleozoologists believe the Hyracotherium was the origin of the horse, the creature resembled a dog or fox much more than it did the Equus we know today.http://www.alphahorse.com/horse-evolution.html
The Hyracotherium was about 10-20" tall at the shoulder, and it possessed a short snout/face, a short neck, compact legs, an arched back and a long tail. The feet were padded like a dog, and the front feet possessed four toes while the back possessed three. Although the Eohippus dined on fruit and foliage, its teeth were omnivorous in nature, possessing incisors, canines, premolars and molars suited to grinding vegetation.
Now, if you believe that crap you will have to explain to me how they figured out the diet of an animal that died about 50 million years ago. Are we to believe the animal's stomach contents survived 50 million years when they could barely find enough bones to reconstruct the creature? And how did they know the creature had padded feet when no soft tissue could possibly have survived 50 million years in the ground? Keep in mind that atheists consistently accuse theists of being dumb enough to believe in fairy tales from the Judeo-Christian Bible. Well, guess what: evolution theory should be confined to the pages of Grimms Fairy Tales.