Frank:"The hierarchy of living things is a system of recognition and grouping by common traits with segregation driven by different traits. The explanation for such an arrangement is descent with modification from a common ancestor.

Thanks. The ordering in biology is merely an after-the-fact approximating construct attempt, there, it seems to me. I see a parallel in the intelligently designed Dewey decimal system in some of the libraries. But there, with books, (products of some intelligence) logical groupings are just known to be imposed by the "great" central librarian/bystander/investigator/observer. The books in various categories from various printers largely could emerge/occur in any sequence. Absurdity: Did the Dewey Decimal system evolve out of nothing, then?

In "brief": We don't exactly know how, why and when each distinctive characteristic of animals sequentially originated. So, it seems only roughly possible to know by rock layers that a presumed evolution sequence occurred. As to being a "natural" process, that's not really knowable from some hard old rocks, no time machines sitting on the Jurassic Park movie set. Appearance in rock layers has nothing to do with presence or absence of "intelligence", IMO. Anyway, it's NOW known/believed in the science community, traits are added *and* subtracted in populations. Somehow, that would tend to muddy up the sequencing "waters", who came first, IMO.

Risking absurdity, (on retreat?) it could seem that accidental genetic drift events, if that is the case, are filtered, then, by the intelligently designed life entities, possibly in/under the stock watering tank. Be a nice tyrant, take a rest, drink some spiked lemonade, and agree with me. Heheh.

How many times did the first brave or desperate crawler lungfish go back into the water, before finally staying out for good? Understanding "junk" DNA might tell us? I think so, possibly, with a "complete" picture of the primal landscape. Likewise, for the anaconda, how many times did "they"/us try losing their/our legs before finally settling on that "snake" design, for the altruistic betterment of the whole biosphere? I will confidently continue to presume for now that detailed high resolution empirical fossil evidence in many, many lines of descent is scarce and incomplete, and not reposing in any "library" within 100 light years of this sun.

More absurdity games: By the popularizing press "chicken is a T. rex" "logic", the anaconda is actually a T. rex, too, and has its own reserved "lizard" spot on the twisted "evolution" theory/hierarchy/cladism tree. What precludes an anaconda from eventually descending from a T. rex that got stranded in the Sargasso Sea without water wings? Impossible? There's a feathered boa, isn't there?

Conclusion: Chicken=anaconda=tyrannosaurus rex. Okay? Right?