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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Horse D'oeuvres  (part 5 of 6)
Message-ID: <345@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Feb-85 13:36:17 EST
Article-I.D.: psivax.345
Posted: Tue Feb 26 13:36:17 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Mar-85 05:40:56 EST
References: <733@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley friesen)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 56
Summary: 

In article <733@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes:
>
>> Chapter 13 to this subject.  Ray claims that all these species were 
>> contemporaries of each other.  The facts: Eohippus is found in the Eocene, 
>> Mesohippus in the Ogliocene, Parahippus in the Miocene, Pliohippus in the 
>> Pliocene, and Equus (modern horse) does not arise until the late Pliocene. 
>
>
>Hitching [1982] comments:
>
>(ii) The first horse (Eohippus) didn't look much like one - in fact it
>looks a lot more like an animal that lives *today* - the Hyrax (or
>daman).  Also, Eohippus fossils have been found alongside two modern
>horses (Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis) in surface strata.
>
	Exactly as expected under evolutionary theory! the first of
a series of intermediates will *natuallly* resemble the source group
more than the end group! All this says is that the Hyrax is a modern
member of the horse ancestral group. It is also perfectly acceptible
for an ancestral form to continue along side of its decendants. The
only evidence which would contradict the basic series is for a modern
horse(Equus) to be found in Eocene sediments. Also has the possibility
of "reworked" fossils been ruled out in the "modern" Eohippus specimens.

>(iii) Trends are not so pretty as often depicted.  The first three horse
>fossils (Eohippus, Orohippus, Epihippus) decline (not increase) in size.
>The sequence from many toes to one toe is similarly irregular - replete
>with regressions and contradictions.
>
	Again, *exactly* as expected!! Evolution is based on direct
natural selection, thus at any given time it procedes in the direction
appropriate to the immediate environment, there is *no* mechanism for
anticipation or long term co-ordination.  Trends are nothing more
than time averages of succesive short term changes, and mainly
indicate consistant environmental change over time.
>
>Davidheiser notes [pp. 325-326]:  "The brains of living horses are
>highly convoluted.  Therefore, evolutionists who believe that only
>modern horses (including zebras, etc.) evolved from these 'early horses'
>must logically admit that any similarity between the convolutions of the
>brains of horses and of other animals is coincidental or a case of
>'parallelism'.  For example, Sisson and Grossman in their book _The
>Anatomy of Domestic Animals_, diagram and describe the brains of the
>horse and cow.  Of fourteen fissures named, all but two have the same
>name in both horse and cow and correspond in location.  The other two
>also correspond in location but are given different names."
>
	You forgot an alternative, the convolutions could be inherited
from a common ancestor, perhaps the basic pattern of brain convolutions
was established *before* the split between horse and cow.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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