Horse fossils don't show evolution
From EvoWiki
Contents |
Claim
The fossil record does not show a gradual development from a small animal to the large modern horse. The horse family tree is not simple and direct; some scientists say Eohippus was not an ancestor of the modern horse; and the different types of fossils show stability, not gradual change. Somehow the number of toes and ribs in the "line" changes sporadically.
Source
- Anon, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., pp. 66-67.
Responses
- Any look at the fossil evidence for horses shows gradual change over 50 million years as different fossil species show progressive changes in things like number and size of toes, balance of skeletal structures, and so on.
- Creationists misunderstand how fossil evidence is used and what it implies: whether or not a given fossil is a direct ancestor of modern horses is irrelevant: the fossils are painting an entire family tree of branching ancestries leading in a certain developmental direction over time, not one single line of ancestry which only in hindsight proved to be the only surviving species.
Links
- Hunt, Kathleen, 1995. Horse Evolution. [1]
Further Reading
- Gould, S.J., 1991. Life's Little Joke. In: Bully for Brontosaurus, New York: W.W. Norton, pp. 168-181.
