Page 178 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism
P. 178
Once Upon a Time
There Was Darwinism
the genera displayed as the
stages of this sequence included
Eohippus, Orohippus, Miohippus,
Eohippus
Hipparion and finally the modern-
day horse, Equus.
In the next century, this sequence was
taken to be proof for the so-called evolution of
the horse. The decrease in the number of toes
and the animal's gradual increase in size were
enough to convince evolutionists, who for
some decades hoped to assemble similar fos-
sil sequences for other creatures. But their
Mesohippus
hopes were never fulfilled: They were never
able to assemble a sequence for other creatures,
as they supposedly had for the horse.
Moreover, some contradictions be-
came evident, with the attempt to insert
newly-excavated fossils into the horse se-
ries. Characteristics of the new finds—
where they were discovered, their age,
the number of toes—were incompatible
Miohippus
with the sequence and began to undo it.
Merychippus
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