Saith Fish3:
my response:
Some evolutionists have it tough. Not believing in Creation or Science cannot be very gratifying.
Like any other theistic evolutionist, I believe in both. Any more strawmen you'd like to swipe at?
1. The first fish to grow lungs drowns.
Except, of course, for the millions of lungfish alive today and with a fossil history going back millions of years. But of course, you know nothing about that do you? Ignorance is the best basis for overturning existing models, is it?
I'm going to get harsh. Creationists who know naff all about biology (and demonstrate it daily by, for example, ignorance of the existence of lungfish) but think they know more than degreed scientists who have made it their life's work are arrogant [insert your own verboten expletive]-wits.
2. Looking at 2 similar but different fossils and making up a story of how the "scientist" thinks one "evolved" from does not sound like science.
There is no proof that the skeletal features of amuloceutus and rodhocetus are transitional. Making a claim that they are and then saying "it must be true or proove me wrong" is not proof. Zero reproducable experiments have produced a new species. That is one thing Darwin was able to prove.
This is how it worked.
(1) Find Pakicetus. Features of this skull indicate it is related to modern cetaceans (tooth features)
(2) Develop hypothesis - "If Pakicetus is the ancestor of modern cetaceans (or is closely related to the common ancestor), then cetacean evolution probably took place near where we found Pakicetus. Therefore, if we look in rocks in this area slightly younger than those in which we found Pakicetus, we should find more whale-like transitional forms between Pakicetus and modern cetaceans". If these are not found, the hypothesis is probably false. If they are, it is vindicated
(3) Did the digs, and found Ambulocetus etc.
This is the point. It's not a series of random skeletons. It's forms that were predicted and
found in the rocks they were predicted to be found in that makes the case.
If a copper finds a knife it doesn't mean I killed someone. If a copper finds a knife with the victim's blood and my fingerprints on it hidden under my floorboards, guess what?
Exactly the same tale underlies the discovery of Acanthostega. But you knew that, because you know more than mainstream professional scientists, which is why you're able to tell them they're wrong and you're right.