Animals with bad design.

Hi, Aaron. Every scientific name promotes a theory. The name "Basilosaurus" also promotes a theory, but doesn't constrain what we think about that animal.----- We refer to this as a "consilience of evidence." Pakicetus is in the right timeframe and the right geographical location and of the right morphology to bridge the gap between whales and hoofed mammals. When we find a series of fossils that fit the evolutionary model chronologically, geographically and morphologically, it makes perfect sense to argue that they support the evolutionary model.And, "a few similar ear bones" is understating it. Don't you find it curious that the only time a whale-like ear bone has ever been found in a terrestrial mammal, it fits nicely (chronologically and geographically) into a series of fossils bridging the gap between hoofed mammals and whales?----- This is quite an astounding irony. You were just complaining about terminology being used to advance an argument, and now you're using terminology to advance your argument.You apparently see the word "hoof" and envision a horse, with a single hoof on each foot. This is simply not the case! Hooves are found at the tips of digits. In the case of Pakicetus there are either 3 or 4 digits (I'm not entirely clear), each with a distinct little "hoof" at the tip of them.These "hooves" don't seem to be all that different from claws. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only real reason we call them "hooves" rather than "claws" is because phylogenetic analyses indicate that they are related to the hooves of ungulates.----- You realize that this is just a description of the shapes of the bones, right?
What "analysis" do you think has happened here?Edited by Bluejay, : Reworded my ' "Basilosaurus" promotes a theory' bit after Dr A's comments about it.Edited by Bluejay, : Spacing.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Yes, but he has a point. It's no use telling him that Basilosaurus is considered a whale if he doesn't believe it; you might as well tell him that evolution is considered true.---What I should like to ask him is what animals he considers to be whales.

Hi Aaron, The one pictured, the North Atlantic right whale. It shows clear signs of ischium, ilium and pubis. Also, I think you comparing it to the wrong mammal pelvises. Here is indohyus, one of the oldest fossils in the whale lineage; Note the small, simple pelvis. It is similar to those of modern whales. It is perhaps also worth noting here that Indohyus had unusual structures in its skull, structures that are otherwise only found in whales. (More here.) Huh? You showed one that was 5mm long. That right whale's is about 18cm long. Look at the picture. No. There is more variation between individuals of the same sex than between the sexes in general. Look at these two pictures of fin whale pelvises; Both are from large male fin whales, yet they are strikingly different. This rather undermines your claim of sexual dimorphism. Not because he, as a professional anatomist, knows a pelvis when he sees one? Okay.It should be noted though that you were willing to take Mead's word for it when his ideas suited you, but now you find yourself unable to accept his ideas (for religious reasons) you simply dismiss him. I realise that you don't mean it to be, but nonetheless, this is a dishonest way to introduce expert testimony. This is wrong again. The whales differ from individual to individual, as well as from species to species. You cannot claim that any whales pelvis is perfect when they differ so much (see the two examples above). You cannot claim that the whale pelvises are perfect and that they also vary. The two claims are logically incompatible.Besides, not all whales even have these bones. Some lack much of the leg structures, with tiny pelvises, no femurs at all, no tibias, etc. How vital a function can these bones serve if they are not always found? No, I understand your position (I think), I just disagree.Forget the shape of the bone for a moment; consider the fact that many of the pelvis/femur combinations involve fused bones.Why would God, creating from scratch, need to fuse two bones together? Could he not make a single, whole bone in the same shape? If the shape is so vital (and I have demonstrated above that this is false), why not do it with a single original bone? Why fuse together two bones that can be recognised as being part of land-mammal ancestry?It just seems bizarre, pointless and dishonest to me. Well, I have to engage with the arguments you make don't I? I am an atheist, but if you argue for creation by the Christian god, I have to engage with that argument in order to help you see what I consider to be its flaws.As for my version of God, every Christian tells me that I have him wrong and always for different reasons. There are hundreds of Christian sects, each with it's own version. How am I supposed to tell which is correct? Do you believe that there are limits placed upon God (beyond the limit that prevents him from doing the logically impossible?)? I she incapable of creating lifeforms that do not resemble evolved life? But here you contradict yourself. The whale's pelvis is either perfect, or it is changing under natural selection. It cannot be both. Either the fin whale from picture one (above) has the perfect male fin whale's pelvis, or the whale in picture two does. It cannot be both. Do you see where I'm coming from?Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi, Dr A. I agree: I was trying to acknowledge that. I suppose I should be more obvious next time.----- But we believe it: we consider it a whale despite it being named a lizard. I presented it as evidence that, while we do make names to promote theories, we don't accept theories simply because of names.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

I wasn't aware of that.It doesn't seem that any fish is truly warm blooded. Warm blooded animals are characterized by endothermy, homeothermy, and tachymetabolism. Tuna have mechanisms to attain a level of endothermy - which allows them to swim faster in cold waters - but they don't enjoy the full benefits of being "fully" warm blooded. They are unable to regulate body temperature within a very narrow range.Tuna can swim in water down to 43 degrees, but whales can swim in much colder water - as cold as 0 degrees. Warm blood enables whales to inhabit extreme ecological zones - unlike fish of comparable structure. Are you aware of the role whales play in the circle of life?It's not just about what creatures whales eat - its about what eats whales.Dead whales are a critical source of nutrients for a host of ocean bottom creatures which can survive off a rotting corpse for up to 100 years. One of the crucial beneficiaries of these whale falls is phytoplankton, which supply up to 40% of the earth's oxygen. See "What is the worth of a dead whale?"I'm sure every creature played a crucial role in the echosystem. That's not to say that there wasn't any overlap. Which makes sense - not to place all your crucial eggs in one basket. I heard one ecologist explain it like this: you might not realize a difference when one or ten species goes extinct, due to ecological overlap - but if too many species go extinct, you will reach a critical minimum level where widespread collapse of ecological systems is soon to follow. Once God determined what the physical and chemical properties of the universe would be, his creation in that universe followed those guidelines. In essence, everything is drawn on the same universal sheet of paper and must follow the guidelines of that paper. Under the current properties of chemistry and biology, embryos develop in a stepwise manner where certain body parts and signals induce the formation of other body parts and signals.The question is more about why God chose this universe over some other version. I've already given some suggestions to that answer -and even if they aren't adequate to you, do you think anyone would have total insight into the mind of God and why he would choose one way over another?So, as suggested previously, perhaps it was necessary for whale embryos to have a transient structure to assist in the development of other body parts. Transient structures are not uncommon in development.I suppose you would prefer that God chose to use a single bump instead of two so you wouldn't be skeptical. And a better solution would have been.... velcro? What should the appendage look like to keep you from thinking it's a tetrapod remnant?This is kind of a losing battle for me. You have doubts about the purpose of certain structures. I provide some potential insight - and your answer is "That can't be the best way. Why didn't God do it a different way?" This takes the discussion away from science and into your subjective opinion of why God doesn't act in a way that you find logical. The same reason he didn't give Dorudon wings - it was a shallow water predator who didn't need them and could have been costly chemical baggage.It goes back to the very first post - an assumption that God must give every creature every possible survival tool. God was creating ecological niches with unique creatures. Why do you think he would create them all the same?Do you think the absence of echolocation in Dorudon is an indictment on my position?Look in the mirror and try just to explain the evolution of echolocation. It's a complex process with multiple structures working together in a symphony. Without the properly tuned sending organ or receiving organ, the system would be a wasteful piece of metabolic junk.That's all I have time for tonight.

Hi, Aaron. Yeah, I read that Wiki article, too.I just got my baccalaureate in biology a couple years ago, and, on multiple occasions, I was advised rather strongly to avoid the terms "warm-blooded" and "cold-blooded," because they don't actually mean anything and aren't used consistently by biologists.----- "Warm-bloodedness" actually has little to do with why an animal can or cannot survive in a given climate zone. It only has to do with internal temperature, which only becomes a problem if it becomes so low that ice crystals begin to form, or so high that heat damage occurs.Interestingly, many "cold-blooded" animals have found ways to prevent ice crystals from forming even when their body temperature becomes very low (e.g., antifreeze proteins), allowing them to survive at much lower temperatures than whales can manage. Also, at very deep depths, water pressures are so high that ice crystals can't form anyway, so deep-sea "cold-blooded" animals don't have to have antifreeze adaptations.My assessment, then, is that there really isn't a good reason why a tuna, or a manta ray, or a whale shark couldn't have been made to survive water as cold as whales can survive, and to therefore take on the role of the whale.----- Insects have some pretty effective genitalia-locking mechanisms. Damselflies, for instance, have multi-part pincers/grabs that allow them to lock on to their mates pretty solidly and prevent other males from stealing them away. These would likely be quite effective on whales, too---I suspect they would work better than what Basilosaurus and Dorudon had---and there would be little mistaking them for tetrapod limbs.A sucker of some sort that fit over the vulva would also be quite effective: it would not only prevent disconnection, but also keep the area protected from the environment in an otherwise rather vulnerable moment.A curious observation about sexual claspers is that they tend to be made out of parts that already exist in the group of organisms. For instance, in sharks, claspers are made of piscine pectoral fins. In whales, they're made of tetrapod hind limbs. In cephalopods, they're made of tentacles (well, they are tentacles). In damselflies (and in spiders, actually), they're made of exoskeletal sclerites.My assessment is that suckers or fin-claspers or sclerites would have worked just as well in basilosaurs as they do in cephalopods, sharks and damselflies; and would likely outperform the limb-claspers of basilosaurs, anyway.Edited by Bluejay, : pluralize the verb!

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Gills tend to leak a lot of body heat. So, if God purposed to have whales inhabit cold climates - gills would have been a disadvantage - since they would have to be very large gill openings to support the oxygen needs of such a large animal.And here is where you ask:
"So why didn't didn't God create a miraculous new organ that defies the laws of chemistry that he put in place?" You also don't grow a teapot from a single cell. That analogy really doesn't translate well to biology. That only makes sense if you think I'm proposing that God individually forms every embryo miraculously by hand like a piece of clay. Again, your analogy doesn't translate well. That only makes sense if the bones that attached to the whales muscles looked exactly like a fully formed limb with all the joints, cartilage, and all the digits. Then you could say God was using a bone for a function that it wasn't designed for.

I don't think my statement was false.Vestigiality assumes a unique evolutionary ancestor by definition.I could propose that the human appendix used to play a larger role in digesting plant matter - but that it no longer performs that role.A digression in ability does not logically necessitate a unique evolutionary ancestor with an increased ability. It could just as easily be said that fully human ancestors had an appendix that played a higher role - but for mutational reasons, that role has been diminished.I maintain that vestigiality is based on evolution.Loss of function doesn't have to be based on evolution.

Only if the main job was to eat plankton or squid or something that a fish could do just as easily. But, if the job was also to be eaten by a host of other deep ocean creatures and spark deep sea echosystems, then a very large deep ocean creature performs that role better than a manta ray or a whale shark. Not exactly. Fgf8 acts as both a building block protein and a signaling protein. Truth is that certain regions in an embryo's body send signals to induce the formation of other parts. I suggested that what are considered limb buds could be temporary signaling lumps.Just for information's sake, I emailed the author of the paper to ask if this was a reasonable hypothesis. All he could say was he wasn't sure if the limb buds were responsible for inducing other body parts. The fact that Fgf8 is used in more places than just limb development makes it at least a feasible possibility. That Fgf8 has to come from somewhere. It's not as if every cell in a developing embryo is producing every possible protein all at the same time. Certain regions specialize in producing specific proteins.In reality, it's not something that could be fully tested for. It sounds like the dolphin embryos were hard to come by. I don't imagine that a research lab would be enabled to do a series of experiments with a host of dolphin embryos. Right you are - that is one of its functions. But, I was specifically referring to the SonicHedgehog protein and Hand2 protein, which are involved in limb and digit development respectively. Neither of these were found in the limb bud.

The information I can find on this subject on the internet is confused, contradictory, unreferenced and included the following little gem of stupid: I'll let you know if I can find anything not made up by idiots. Yes.That doesn't answer my question.How are you determining the "right mix"?Will you tell us that if there were no whales, you'd be going around saying: "Well, clearly there's no Creator, because there was he'd have made these, like, big blubbery aquatic mammals that eat krill"?Or if there were unicorns, would you be saying: "Ah, there's no Creator, because he definitely wouldn't have made those"? It can't have been that crucial, because apparently we can do without them. And yet we can apparently do without the trilobites, the ceratopians, the giant ground sloths, the ichthyosaurs, the Small Shelly Fauna of the Tomotian, the pelycosaurs, the brontotheres ... But again this is all very ad hoc. You can always postulate (though, I will wager, never demonstrate) some as yet undiscovered law of biology that means it has to be whatever way it is, or isn't. If whales gained and then lost vestigial feathers, you could answer me in just the same way.Again, you are just adding unevidenced postulates under which what looks like bad design is unbeknownst to us good design. Anything at all that doesn't look exactly like a tetrapod remnant.Why, out of all the conceivable things that can clasp things together, does it have to be something that looks exactly like a pair of itty-bitty legs?Suppose we find a man using what looks exactly like a bicycle, minus its wheels, as a boat anchor. I say: "Look, that man is using an old bicycle as a boat anchor". You say: "I have reason to believe that that man is the greatest mechanical genius who ever lived; after spending many decades studying what shape would be the best possible boat anchor (given the laws of nature obtaining in our universe) he designed that". I say: "No, I think it's an old bicycle because it looks exactly like one, and, really, what are the odds that the ideal boat anchor would be exactly that shape, down to the little bell and the grocery basket?" You exclaim in disgust: "What should the anchor look like to keep you from thinking it's an old bicycle?"Well, like anything but an old bicycle. I don't think I said that it "can't be the best way" about anything.What I want to know from you is why it should be "the best way" and why "the best way" is always consistent with the theory of evolution. Shallow water predators don't need echolocation?Tell that to river dolphins.Also I would point out that as their fossils have been found in North America as well as Egypt and Pakistan it seems unlikely that they were confirmed shore-huggers. I think he'd create them all "the best way". But what is that? Blind people can do it without growing any special sending or receiving organs. I think the whole darn natural world is an indictment of your position.From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense. From a creationist perspective, you just have to keep reaching after more unproven hypotheses. Maybe Dorudon didn't need echolocation ... maybe tiny legs make the best sexual claspers ... maybe the laws of the universe are such that it's impossible to have whales without embryos having hind limb buds ... maybe ... maybe ... maybe.Here's another one for you. Baleen whale embryos grow and then lose teeth in the womb. I'm sure that you will protest that there must be some reason why that should be a good idea. But you would make exactly the same argument if they grew and then lost antlers.Why are all God's wonderful, ineffable, unbeatable ideas consistent with evolutionary biology?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

See post #86.

You evidently are talking Fahrenheit. Have you ever seen 0 degree water. It is a chunk of ice. I don't think a Whale can swim through 0 degree water.Instead of just copying the crap you see on fundie sites maybe you should actually research the subject.

Ever hear of salt water?

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

I have to admit a little confusion to this part of your statement. It may even be nitpicky, but describing the ecological niche that a species has as a 'job' seems to suggest some kind of ordination. Whales, through the process of evolution, came to exploit the niche they occupy. This ecological niche wasn't handed to them or offered to them by some job placement agency. That isn't apparant at all. It happens to be that they can be a rich resource, but within the immensity of the ocean, there is a lot of competition to find these resource pockets and traveling from one dead whale to another is no easy business. Whales travel over thousands of miles and those species that feed on the dead carcases of whales must travel to them, through some pretty barren areas. A god would have made things much more efficient of he split up the 'job' of a whale between a multitude of creatures. That would have made it much easier for those poor creatures at the bottom of the ocean.

Sure have and it freezes well before 0 F.

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Away from rivers and glaciers, the ocean has a salinity of about 35. The Atlantic is about 1 salinity units saltier than the Pacific. So ocean water freezes at about -1.91 degrees C.

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Source

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The freezing point of seawater is about 28.4F (-2C), instead of the 32F (0C) freezing point of ordinary water. Why do you think the freezing points are different? Right, because seawater has salt in it! As seawater increases 5 ppt in salinity, the freezing point decreases by 0.5F.

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SourceI still want to see a Whale swim in 0 F water.I wonder if Aaron will ever reply to this point. Maybe he is scrambling back to his fundie sites to try to find some sort of counter.
Nah, he will just move onto some other inane, unsupported argument.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts