@klutedavid
Regarding whale evolution, it's also worth looking at the fossil succession of cetaceans.
Notice how cetaceans don't appear in the fossil succession anywhere in the hadean or archean, proterozoic, Cambrian, ordovician, silurian, devonian, carboniferous (Mississippian or Pennsylvanian), permian, Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous.
And nowhere in between any of these.
They appear at a later point in time that is consistent with the theory of evolution.
Triangular serrated sharp teeth, much like other aquatic proto whales, a long conical head, found in lacustrine prehistoric river beds of Pakistan. This is Pakicetus. 50 million years ago.
You mentioned larger aquatic predators, but this animals wasn't swimming in the deep ocean, it would have been near shallow streams and rivers where much like bears, it could take a brief dip in the water to catch fish.
Ambulocetus, the latter transitional of Pakistan (among several others), was much larger, some 5-10 feet in length, triangle shaped teeth much like Pakicetus, the long conical head, a long slender body like a crocodile. It's spine resembles that of prehistoric whales in that it could, much like a dolphin, undulate up and down through water. And again, wasn't a deep marine animal, but rather has been observed in freshwater environments and shallow marine environments (no battling of giant sharks necessary). We aren't just making up the animals environment, the animal is found in strata of their respective environments, so we know where these animals lived and clearly their sizes didn't affect their ability to live near and within lakes and streams, 45-50 million years ago.
The next popular of the group rodhocetus, again with the long conical head and triangular teeth, long slender body, but larger still growing some 10-15 feet in length. Only now it's vertebra and skull have fused (it has no neck). A clearly aquatic animal, yet it still has 4 limbs and could walk on land. Now more whale-like than terrestrial tetrapod-like. 40-45 million years ago.
And we could keep going. There are probably at least 10 popular transitional of the sequence. Basilosaurus, Dorudon, takracetus, dalanistes etc.
But the point is that, once again, we have fossils that fit into the theory. We aren't finding these fossils in the silurian, or Triassic. No, they're in the eocene, after terrestrial mammals came to dominate post k-t boundary.
And again, it isn't about the quantity of fossils (even though we have many), but it's about the succession and how it matches genetic phylogenies, viral dna dna studies, biogeographical sequences, comparative anatomical phylogenies, protein phylogenies, etc. The whale sequence fits the same pattern predicted by the theory of evolution. Indeed, it was through the theory that these fossils were predicted to exist to begin with at the geologic time and location that they were.
American scientists didn't just wake up in the morning and say "oh I want to go dig for fossils in Pakistan just for fun", no, they had an objective to find these fossils based on a prediction, ie whales existed around 30 million years ago, and animals with terrestrial anatomical features, hoofed mammals with long conical heads, ungulates in particular appeared around 60 Mya, so the answer to how whales came to be, according to the theory, was presumably somewhere between 60-30 million years ago. And so it was.
Find the right age, go to strata of ancient stream beds and lakes, and there it is. Much like the discovery of tiktaalik.
