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Originally Posted by Shades
Before I head out to find those books, a question: shouldn't the fossil record show billions upon billions of different fossils in various stages along the billions of billions of years of macro-evolutionary changes?
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Ideally sure, but in practice fossilization is actually an uncommon process, so while we do have tons of fossils (it's a big planet and there's lots of time), the nature of the processes means that there will never be a 100% complete record for every extant species.
Despite that there are lots of great fossil sequences, like whale evolution. Evolving from a land hippo like animal to a whale is clearly beyond the species level.
And that's why I suggested Shubin's book, even if there wasn't a single fossil, the genetic evidence for evolution is overwhelming.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shades
Why has everything found been essentially as we know species today, with only the minor micro-evolutionary changes seen?
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That's not true though, the are tons of fossils of species that do not exist today. Species appear and disappear through the geological record, and the geological record appears exactly as evolution would predict; from a few simple forms to more and more complex and diverse forms. You don't find out of order forms at all; when chordates were evolving if you found fully formed mammals that would disprove evolution easily, but we never find that.