Mathematics and much more

I'd question whether the video even makes an adequately clear statement of the problem, at least for most of the cases.For instance the whole business of getting from a cow to a whale. Why a cow ? How are the differences counted ? Which differences are counted (it's subjective, so we need to know the rules)? How does the count relate to evolution ? Is there even a problem for evolution ? Unless these questions (and likely more) are dealt with in the 2nd or 3rd part there just isn't enough there for even a discussion.

I haven't watched the video. But just based on what you've posted...I would respond that whales didn't evolve from cows, but rather that they had a common, land-based ancestor. That the video makes very basic mistakes in its facts, and that these mistakes are extremely important distinctions. I'd explain how biologists actually believe that whales evolved, and draw the contrast between the actual scientific model and the version proposed by the video to point out the errors. And then I'd start showing the evidence that compels science to regard the evolutionary history of the whale as likely to be accurate.I think that would be an interesting discussion (despite the fact that we've seen whale-evolution topics on the site before, I never paid much attention, and could learn something from a rehash), but then that's just me.

Or you could try the [utube] dBCode, e.g.: --Percy

Well, this is the problem. It's not established what the purpose of this count of the differences is nor how they were counted (which could have an enormous effect on the figure). It's supposed to be a crude attempt to quantify evolution but all we are given is an almost meaningless number.Is it intended to deal with the theoretical number of changes needed for cows to adapt to aquatic life ? A rough estimate of the number of "changes" needed for whales to evolve from a purely land-dwelling ancestor ? Something else ?The first video doesn't tell us any of that. But any serious discussion requires all of it. And that is exactly why I feel that the video fails to offer a useful basis for discussion.

But it might prompt someone (who agrees with David Berlinski) to research DB's claims when trying to create a sufficiently robust PNT.
This, in turn, might make it obvious to them that DB's not actually saying anything of any worth.I think that DB's type of claims do not look good when written down, so getting people to write them down is a good thing.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

I was going to do that and know how. I just thought posting three whole videos on here was a bit much. I didn't want to shove it down anyones' throat. I thought by just posting links it was less intrusive.

Im still trying to figure out what to talk about. Im really interested (personally) in the morphological changes it would take and how many it would take for land to water mammals to evolve.To be honest it's a lot over my head. Im in no position to debate it. Debating this was not my intention but just trying to understand why it is evolutionist can accept such a leap with no problems. Mathematically speaking. Where all the transitional forms are that would result in these changes and why it is accepted without them.Maybe Punctuated equilibrium is the answer. If it is, then why do people have a problem with Noah and his family accounting for the worlds population now? Isn't PE the same stretch?Again, these are just questions so don't get all bat crazy on me. Thanks everyone (well, mostly everyone) for the suggestions and insight but im all over the board. Im trying to insert myself into some evolution talk here and not only subjective evidence, thor and bluegenes theory (as fun as that all is).Im not Aaron, so I can't argue for non whale evolution like he did. Im really a novice and don't understand much about biological evolution or how it works. What I believe is that evolution is a myth. Started by Darwin and so forth and here we are.I don't understand why everyone says there is evidence and evolution is a fact when we still see things producing the same things. Im sorry for my ignorance but again, im a novice and don't see what you guys see. Thats what im trying....to see.

Well for a land mamal to turn in to a watter mamal all you need is to hold your breath, be able to swim and eat the food provided in the watter.so lets say you star out like this then turn to something like this then Although i dont think the species in the pictures are that related i think they should provide you whit an idea how it could have happened. There are loads of transitional forms no blind faith involved like the magic man did it "theory" Well creationist math would say that given the growth of the population we would get 7 billion people in 4000 years from the 8 descendants of the Noah flood, the same math also says there would not be enough people to build the pyramids, Stonehenge, .... and otther stuff so i kinda think that math is wrong Dont you think you should at least read up on it before you say its a myth???? Edited by frako, : No reason given.

Hi Chuck, Well, there are transitional fossils that are part of the whale evolutionary story. This makes it sort of redundant for Berlinski to come along and say that it couldn't have happened because it would have been too improbable; we know that it did happen and we have the fossils to prove it.One thing worth pointing out is that we ought not expect to find a complete fossil record of every generation between the basal form and a modern whale. Fossilisation is, by nature, a rare event. Most animal corpses are destroyed and lost to the scientific record. When you ask why whale evolution is accepted without "all the transitional forms", you should realise that we would never expect to have all the transitional forms. What we do have though is enough intermediate fossils to provide an overall picture of how ancient whales took to the seas. No. Different thing entirely. All that PE says is that evolutionary changes take place in fits and starts, with long periods of relative stasis being interspersed with short periods of rapid change. It doesn't really have anything to do with small population sizes, as in the case of Noah and his family. The objection to the Noah myth is that the population size is too small to account for modern human variation, and the lack of the genetic markers that we would expect to see if the human population had ever sunk so low. Nothing to do with PE. With all due respect to Aaron, who did a great job on that whale thread, he was a novice as well. It is also worth remembering that Aaron failed. He could not make a case against whale evolution, at least not one that could be called a better case than the wealth of evidence in favour. It's interesting that you use "myth" as a pejorative term, given that you base your own opinions on what is an undeniably mythic story.NB. "myth" is not merely a synonym for "untrue story". That's not true. Darwin did not originate the idea of evolution. It existed well before his day. Darwin's insight was to describe how natural selection acts upon a population that exhibits variation. What we see is that offspring exhibit variation from their parents. That is exactly what evolution depends upon. Forgive me if I fail to see the problem.Mutate and Survive

As leaps go these are the slowest of the slow, comparing it to the timeline for the Ark you are probably looking at ~40-45 Million years ago for a most recent common semi-terrestrial ancestor for modern whales as opposed to a YEC version of the Ark story where you are talking about ~4000 years.I'm not sure why you focused on the population issue, I would have thought that a much more relevant comparison would be all the speciation and adaptation that the various breeding populations on the Ark would have needed to do to get to the variety of life forms we see in the world today. Fitting all that into 4000 years is some truly impressive leaping, evolving a whale from a land based mammal in 10,000 times as long seems almost trivial in comparison.A better question might be why some YECs are prepared to accept the hyper-evolution required for the Ark narrative but not the much more gradual evolution that current evolutionary theory puts forward.One common reason often put forward is that there are some sort of barriers which make certain types of interspecific evolution possible, i.e. the changes between 'kinds' that creationists characterise as 'macroevolution', but these are almost entirely ad hoc proposals and no clear explanation is forthcoming of what such barriers might actually be or how they would operate. Most of the time the creationists fall back onto the argument from incredulity, much as Berlinski is with his off the cuff 'mathematical' estimates concerning whale evolution.There seems to be a belief that there is a magical value that if it can be reached, regardless of how tortuous the logic to get there, will cause everyone to throw up their hands and finally the impossibility of any gradualist evolutionary theories explaining the diversity of life. Another example of this would be the 'Universal Probability Bound' which Dembski uses as a really fairly arbitrary value which if his wacky statistics can hit will be proof positive of life not being evolved without intelligent intervention. Why do you think that every single transitional form should have been fossilised, let alone fosilised and subsequently discovered? There are several extinct species which are considered transitional in the terrestrial to modern cetacean lineage. To expect us to have one for every single thing that Berlinski can think up as what he considers a necessary change is a ludicrous standard of evidence. PE is the answer, but to a totally different question.TTFN,WK

Chuck, I have to say that I don't think you have got a good grip on the facts at all. So as not to dog-pile I will simply ask you if there are any of these subjects that you actually feel that you are able to discuss ?If so, start a topic on P.E. or on how Darwin came up with the theory of evolution or even on how you feel the evidence supports a major genetic bottleneck in recent human history.

Well, because unless you live an extremely sheltered life zoologically-speaking, it's as plain as day that we're all hip-deep in living transitional forms. Almost nothing in the natural world happens only once. If we're curious about how a family of species can transition from being land-based to being water-based, it's sufficient to examine the myriad of species that inhabit various graduations between "terrestrial" and "aquatic." What you probably see is a bunch of species reproducing "after their own kind", or some such. That species are basically immutable and independent of the individuals that comprise that species is an assumption that you've probably never questioned. But if you think about it, you'll see how flawed species essentialism really is.Think of a dog. You're either thinking of a specific dog you know or once knew, or you're thinking of some generic "dog" that's basically average in all ways. Well, but how do you know it's a dog?Does it say "dog" somewhere on it? No, of course not. Maybe you say "well, it's a dog because both of its parents are dogs." And that's a good place to start, but who says those were dogs?Maybe you think there's some defining characteristics of dogs that the dog you have in mind has. Floppy ears, likes to chase cats, goes "woof." But what about dogs with perky ears or dogs afraid of cats or dogs that go "yip" instead? For any "defining characteristic" you can try to determine for dogs, you can probably find a dog that doesn't meet it.Maybe what we mean is that there's some essential dogness that all dogs possess, and that no non-dogs possess. That there's a kind of Platonic dog, which all real dogs are a reflection of. That's a philosophical idea that has been popular throughout the centuries so you wouldn't be the first to have pondered it. And when DNA was discovered, many people thought that we had finally discovered where in an organism these essential qualities would lie.But what we discovered instead is that, instead of a dog's DNA being unique to dogs, it was actually shared among a wide variety of species. Species that were doglike in some ways but very much different than dogs in other ways. And that every single species was like that - there was no gulf of separation between different species, but rather, all species were deeply related to all others - but more related to some species than others. And that there really wasn't ever a line you could draw under every dog and say "ok, these are dogs; nothing else are dogs."In many ways, classifying species is like trying to determine whether or not it's raining. Sure, when it's sunny and dry out, it's not raining. When it's pissing down, clearly it's raining.But suppose it's cloudy and you get hit on the head by a raindrop. Is it raining? One drop isn't rain, is it? Is it two drops? Is that "rain"? Ten? You really can't tell when the rain actually starts. Species are a lot like that.

I think most of them are in museums. But why are you interested in where we keep them? But we don't see things producing the same things. We see reproduction with variation. Now it is trivially the case that enough mutations will turn any genotype into any other genotype.Obviously we do not see, in our own lifetimes, the quantities of evolution which (given the rate at which mutations occur) must necessarily take millions of years. But we do see exactly what we would see if this had occurred, in terms of morphology and genetics and embryology and biogeography and the fossil record and behavioral ecology and so forth. The inference is as clear as, for example, inferring that a man with a bullet in him, and an entry wound in a corresponding position, and power burns on his clothing around the wound, and a smoking gun lying next to him, has been shot. We don't need to have seen it. We see the evidence. Now if someone wanted to assert that the man had been struck down by a miraculous act of God, he would also have to assert that God had deceitfully covered his tracks to make it look like an ordinary shooting.

Ok, so fossilisation is very rare indeed. The precentage is miniscule of what we've found compared to what has existed.So, how LUCKY it must have been to come across these perfectly formed intermediates. The odds of finding fossils are rare but how about these "supposed" sequences? LOL. It's laughable.Just because something is lables "transitional" or "intermediate" doesn't make it so.

You know frako, I couldn't have come up with a better way to actually demonstrate how absurd this whole notion of "transitional forms" could be.This is exactly what could take place. Just like if someone 10,000 years from now finds a Pengiun that are extinct at that point would label it a seal to bird or bird to seal intermediate.Sure, find some fossils that look alike exactly how you just did, label them "transitional" and voila! frako you're a true evolutionary scientist.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.