The best estimates are that it took place over a span of 70-80 million years, but the fact is that the exact amount of time is irrelevant, even if it were knowable. We don't know exactly when Jesus was born, either, and that took place only 2,000 years ago. Should we doubt that Jesus was born because we don't have an exact time and date? No, no more than we should doubt that the Cambrian "explosion" actually took place over a vast period of time just because we can't determine exactly how long it took. The big picture take-home message is that it was not a sudden process, and it took place over a sufficient period of time to account for all the phyla that appeared in that time.
And, as to how long did it take to develop eyes or skeletal systems? I don't know. Furthermore, such a question cannot even be answered without precisely defining what you mean by each term, and exactly which kind of eye or skeletal system you are referring to. By skeletal systems, do you mean the crystalline skeletal systems of single cell diatoms? Or are you referring to the exterior chitinous covering of insects? Or maybe you mean the single structure that helps to stiffen squids, which is often found in parakeet cages? By eyes, do you mean the light-sensing spot of unicellular euglena, or the eye pits of many gastropods?
Thanks for informing me that the experts can identify the entire line of horses back to the fish. Please do me a favor and just list 20 or so predecessor creatures down the chain of evolution for the horse, in the direction of fish. Just the names are fine. I can Google the pictures.
Try googling the phylogenetic trees. You're basically insisting that I provide a name for every point along a continuum, which no one can do. And then, maybe you can answer this question, which I found here:
Creationists who wish to deny the evidence of horse evolution should careful consider this: how else can you explain the sequence of horse fossils? Even if creationists insist on ignoring the transitional fossils (many of which have been found), again, how can the unmistakable sequence of these fossils be explained? Did God create Hyracotherium, then kill off Hyracotherium and create some Hyracotherium-Orohippus intermediates, then kill off the intermediates and create Orohippus, then kill off Orohippus and create Epihippus, then allow Epihippus to "microevolve" into Duchesnehippus, then kill off Duchesnehippus and create Mesohippus, then create some Mesohippus-Miohippus intermediates, then create Miohippus, then kill off Mesohippus, etc.....each species coincidentally similar to the species that came just before and came just after?
(I will point out that I do not use the term "creationist" as the word was used in the above quote without specifying that I only refer to those who believe the book of Genesis is a literal account of a creation event that occurred 6,000 years ago--eDM.)
I see convincing proof of microevolution, but not macroevolution. What happened to the fins, gill slits, scales, mud puppy legs, claws, feathers or whatever there was before it looked like a horse? They all look like horses to me. Also, the assertions in the quoted passage are just straw men. The author can't win the logical argument so he'll make the opposition look like morons by claiming they have beliefs that they don't.
Well, it's time for me to stretch my Neanderthal knuckles and drag them over to the wife and retreat to our cave. It's been interesting and I truly appreciate all the links that everyone was kind enough to provide. Thanks.
I figured that neither you nor anybody else could fill the massive holes in the theory of evolution that cause educated people like myself to doubt it.
That is some theory that can’t connect the dots between some 55 million year old ancestor of a horse and the predecessor fish that supposedly came from the primordial swamp.
Where you see an ironclad theory because you want to, I see massive assumptions that have to be made to believe this theory. It is definitely plausible, but goodness sake, you can drive a truck through any part of it, there is so much you have to simply take on faith.
To that extent, it is nearly like the theory of man made global warming. That you can’t trace a known fossil lineage of any animal on the planet makes the theory very weak. It takes a massive leap of faith to assume that because we know the horse evolved over the past 55 million years, than it must have evolved over the preceding 500 million years.
I’m just asking you to provide some evidence and you can’t. I didn’t expect you to. There isn’t any evidence. Nor for the tiger nor for the wolf. That’s my point.
So in the end, if you want to believe in the theory of evolution, which again it may be plausible, there is so much needed evidence missing, you can only believe it with a massive leap of faith on the scale that is needed to believe in man made global warming.
Sorry, but that is the fact of it. I’m not asking you to not believe it. I’m saying that the supporting evidence is extremely weak, so don’t tell me to accept it as fact when there is 500 million years of evidence we need to find before we can even hope to treat the theory seriously. Until then, we just don’t know what happened in that intervening 500 million years from fish to ancestor of horse do we?
I’ll be shocked if you can admit the fact that we can’t know what happened during this interval and that the theory of evolution could be completely wrong in explaining the rise of modern animals.