Animals with bad design.

The chicken wing and whale forelimb are not very different structures. They share a lot of homology, the same homology shared by all vertebrate tetrapods. It is the same analysis that allows me to deduce that every human has a bone called a humerus that attaches their arm to their torso. It's called homology. Can you name a homologous structure found in whales that is not seen in any mammal but is found in other animal groups? Mind you, I said homologous, not analogous.From everything I have read, whales do not just have mammalian features. It is much more than that. As it turns out, whales are mammals. Surely a design with gills would make much more sense. Being able to extract much needed oxygen from the environment in which you live seems like a big improvement over the current model. Even modern submarines use electrolysis to extract oxygen from the surrounding water. If this isn't a good design then it only indicates that fish are poorly designed. Pick your poison.

Hi, AaronYou sure are more fun to debate with than other creationists: I hope you stick around.Also, I can't really top Dr Adequate in practically any way, but I still want to participate, so here I go: Also interestingly, Basilosaurus is considered to be an actual whale. This means that some whales have hind limbs that seem to be homologous with the hind limbs of non-cetacean mammals, and some just have a tiny bone structure with nubbins on it that seems to be homologous with the pelvis of whales that do have hind limbs.And, going backwards in time, we see whale hind limbs slowly converge on mammal hind limbs in morphology. Surely this should be an obvious clue that whale hind limbs "shrunk" over time into the little nubbins that they are today.----- What "technical bone analysis" would you have us do?
For that matter, what kinds of "technical bone analyses" do you think there are?
What characteristics of femora and pelves would you have us examine to tell whether a given bone is a femur or pelvis?
How would you have us examine these characteristics?Isn't the homologous development of limb buds on embryos of whales and of land mammals just such a characteristic?
Isn't the observation that whale fossils from further and further back in time have hind limbs that are more and more similar to the hind limbs of terrestrial mammals also just such a characteristic?How much more technical do we need to get?----- Why should whales have mammal features at all?
Why live birth and mammary glands? Why lungs? Why 7 neck vertebrae?These are traits that are completely unrelated to the aquatic lifestyle of the whale. In fact, some of those mammalian traits (e.g. lungs) are traits that make the whale's aquatic lifestyle more difficult and less effective than the alternatives.It's like trying to power a car with a propeller or sails, and pointing out all the beautiful design features that make it more suitable for land travel than airplanes or boats as evidence that it's a good design for a car.----- Why must it be a mammal? Surely you don't think "mammal" is the optimal design for a marine animal?

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

Hi Aaron,Looks like I came a little late to the party, so I'll try to keep my comments down to the stuff that other members haven't already mentioned. For the record, I think that the answers given to you have been spot on. No, that's not true. The pelvis you show in the picture fits that description, but other whales have very much larger structures. This picture for instance, shows the pelvis and fused femur of a North Atlantic right whale; The femurs in this species are far larger than in the fin whale. Indeed, even within the fin whale species, there is considerable variation. Some individual fin whales pelvises look more like more familiar mammalian pelvises than others, as can be seen in this gallery;http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/whalepelvics/cgi-bin/page.cgiThere are many high quality pictures of pelvises and femurs from various species of whale here.That doesn't matter. They are still in the right place for hind limbs. If we found pelvis-like structures in, say, the head, now that would be a problem for evolution to explain. But no, we see them right were we would expect to see them if evolution were true and whales were descended from land-dwelling tetrapods.If you have an explanation for why God would be so abstruse as to put a structure that looks like a leg in the place where we would expect to see a leg, even though the creature never had legs, I would love to hear it. The expert that you cited calls it a pelvis. You were the one who cited James Mead as an expert in whale anatomy. Now you are disagreeing with him. So who do you think knows more about whale anatomy, you or Mead? And if you are happy to ignore Mead as soon as he proves inconvenient, why bring him up? You can't have it both ways. You misunderstand me. It really doesn't matter to me whether or not the whale's pelvis has a function. That's because I know that the ToE does not demand that it be functionless. Now you've read the Darwin quote that Taq cited, you know it too.It is creationists who are obsessed with finding a function for vestigial organs, as though that would be a knock-down argument against evolution (it isn't). What I was complaining about in the quote above is another creationist habit. Even when there is no clear function for a vestigial feature, the creationist will adamantly claim that a function will be found. Any day now... It's kind of annoying. Even if a function were found, it wouldn't mean that the feature was no longer vestigial. Which whale? If any one were perfect, then all the other whales, with different designs, would have been royally shafted. a) God did not "change" the shape. The creationist position is that God designed from whole cloth. He didn't change anything, he made it from scratch! Once again, you are attempting to place arbitrary limits upon God.b)I would not expect that an honest an benevolent god would choose to trick us. The presence of hind limb remnants in whales is smoking gun evidence of evolution. Surely you can see how this looks like the handiwork of evolution, even if you don't quite believe it. I mean, the tetrapod origins of whales were a specific prediction made by Darwin. Take a look at this;

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I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale,

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Now okay, Darwin got the bear bit wrong, but otherwise he was very close to the truth. The fossils have been found! Ambulocetus was a whale ancestor, an aquatic mammal and very close to Darwin's prediction. You have to admit that this appears to argue in favour of an evolutionary explanation.I cannot believe that a benevolent god would conspire to create such convincing evidence of evolution if it were not true. The only answer can be that our creator is a liar or that evolution is fact.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

He wasn't actually claiming that whales were descended from bears, it was just an illustration of the sort of thing descent with modification might achieve.If you want to criticize his example, say rather that the earliest whales were not filter feeders.

Hi Doc, Yeah, I'm aware of that. Probably should have been more clear about it. That's why I say that it is a fulfilled prediction. The bear thing is just a suggestion. The important bit is that Darwin clearly predicted that an ordinary mammal could, through an aquatic lifestyle, become something as improbable looking as a whale.Your point about filter feeding is well made though. That is a more legitimate criticism.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

Can you give me some specifics about what whale species went extinct because it couldn't breathe underwater?The lung breathing of whales goes hand in hand with being warm blooded, having large hearts and large brains. These features allow whales to occupy territory that equivalently shaped gill breathing fish could not.Whale sharks occupy relatively shallow waters near coastal areas. Whales, on the other hand, roam the deepest parts of the ocean. If God was looking to fill every ecological niche with the right mix of predators and food species - whales seem to have the right body features to fill the role they are filling - roles that could be hindered by being cold blooded gill breathers. In general, I don't think the shape of embryos is strong evidence for evolution. Bulges come and go. The forming of an embryo is like shaping a piece of clay - it involves both a subtractive and additive process.Some pieces seem to act as a type of scaffolding or as temporary induction centers.This study here mentions that while the "limb buds" are present, they express the protein Fgf8. This protein is an important embryonic growth inducer utilized in the proper alignment of the anterior-posterior axis and shape of the embryo. It is also involved with mesoderm develoment. Far from useless, these buds induce the formation of important parts of the body.On the other hand, the study showed that none of the specialized proteins that go towards the building of limbs were found in the nubs. In fact basilosaurus and dorudon are very similar in structure. Scientists believed that dorudon were just baby basilosaurus at one time.I'd hypothesize they were uniquely created shallow dwelling mammals of the same lineage. Basilosaurus was just bigger and longer than its dorudon cousin - similar to how elephants have historically come in a variety of sizes - from large African to dwarf size island dwellers - yet certainly came from a common ancestor. Dorudon fossils are limited to one specific coastal region - probably representing an isolated group of mini-sized basilosaurus.Unlike modern whales, Dorudon and basilosaurus lacked the melon organ used in echolocation. They also had much smaller brains. The long serpentine shape of basilosaurus would have made underwater mating difficult. Most reports I read of their hind leg use say they would have been used in mating to help clasp the male and female together.The same probably goes for dorudon. If it was a shorter offshoot of basilosaurus it would have retained its hind legs even if they weren't as necessary for its shorter body.The "pelvic" bones and "leg-like" nubs of modern whales are muscle anchors for reproductive organs and assist in tail movement (as I've said before) - so they are essential to their lives.You wonder why other aquatic creatures don't have them? They reproduce in a different way and swim in a different way, so they would not be necessary. That's a near direct quote from our friend Jerry Coyne: "the evolution of whales from land animals was remarkably fast: most of the action took place within only 10 million years."Why do you think otherwise?Of course, Dr. Coyne also says in his book that Dorudon were fifty feet long -so he does seem a little confused at times.This chart from a 2009 evolution textbook shows that most of the major body changes took place between 50 million and 40 million years ago.
http://openparachute.files.wordpress.com/...hale-fossils.jpg

One quick thought on the vestigial argument.As several have pointed out, vestigial doesn't necessarily mean "useless" - it just means "it doesn't do what it originally did." Certainly, none of the structures you mentioned are useless.So then, without an empirical way of determining whether something used to do something completely different - the "truth" of vestigiality is hung on the "truth" of evolution.It seems that an assertion like "The existence of vestigial structures is evidence of evolution" is begging the question.Its like saying "Evolution predicts vestigial structures. This structure is vestigial - so evolution is true."However, something can only be termed vestigial in the first place if evolution is true.This is the same as saying "Evolution predicts common ancestry. Apes are the ancestors of humans - so evolution is true."

RAWR said, Even packicetus is called a whale. There's something wrong with that picture. The nomenclature is promoting the theory.Same goes with calling a nub, whether it be 5mm or 15mm - a limb.You're not calling it what it is - you are calling it what it supposedly was.You don't call packicetus a whale because it looks even remotely like a whale - you call it that because of a few similar ear bones and because of a supposed ancestry.The homology of basilosaurs legs to packicetus legs only goes so far. One ends in digits, the other in a hoof. Here's some help from a pro-evolution article on whale evolution:

Ah, my mistake. I was thinking of whaling, which relies on whales surfacing to breathe, but no whale species has been driven to extinction by whaling, though some have come mighty close. There are warm-blooded fish, notably some species of tuna. Where the "right mix" is determined how?Were species now extinct necessary or unnecessary to this "right mix"? But again, you're tacitly assuming that things have to be that way. A creator God starts with a blank sheet of paper. And yet somehow the best way that omnipotence can come up with to make a whale involves giving it what look just like vestiges of terrestrial ancestry. Why?Now, I do know why they're there. Evolution offers a simple answer. I have yet to hear your answer. And again, God starts with a blank sheet of paper. And yet when designing organs to clasp serpentine whales together during sex, his mighty omnipotent brain told him that the best solution would be a variation of the hind legs of tetrapods as used by them for walking.Why was this the best solution?Again, evolution makes the answer simple. I know why these structures look like itsy-bitsy hind legs of land mammals, but I want to hear your answer. Yeah. It's like they were primitive whales.Now let's hear your explanation of why God in his wisdom withheld the melon organ from Dorudon.'Course, I know why early whales wouldn't be so well adapted to the whale lifestyle as modern whales --- the question is trivial --- but let's hear the creationist view. You didn't say that you were only talking about land-animal-to-whale evolution, and I misunderstood you.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Granny M said: Which example exactly do you think looks more like a mammalian pelvis? The examples are all pretty similar - flat with some curves.Mammal pelvises have much more three dimensional structure and more parts.The North Atlantic Right Whale's "femur" is a whole 10mm larger than the one I showed.There is even variation between the sexes of a single species. Male and female whales have different shaped "pelvic" bones - suggestive of current functional differences related to the different sex organs to which they attach. Certainly Mr. Mead knows more. But this is a question of nomenclature, not function. Mead knows more about the function of whale anatomy, but He calls it a pelvis because he rests on an evolutionary paradigm - not because it looks like a pelvis. The shapes differ because the whales are different. Take any bone from two different whales and the shape will be different. Why pose such a narrow idea that a designer would only have one single ideal shape and put that same shape in very differently structured whales.It's like saying that a designer would only create one ideal finch beak and that any finch without that exact shape would be "royally shafted." Certainly their is flexibility within a "perfect" design. I think you misunderstood my point. You were saying that God is dishonest for putting a bone in a whale that looks like a pelvis. I was saying that you seem to be suggesting that God should have deliberately made the whale "pelvis" look completely different (say like a zig-zag or an x shape) just so there would be no confusion - even if the current shape is better suited for its function.I'm not sure why you are trying to make definitive statements about God's nature when you don't seem to even believe in God. I think you have a false idea of the Christian God in your head. Perhaps it is a failure of the church to properly represent him - and for that I apologize.Still, when you make statements like "God has no limits" you are presenting a strawman version of God. And when you say things like "God didn't change anything, he designed from scratch" - you seem to assume that the central tenet of creationism is stasis - that creatures look exactly the way they did when they were created a long time ago. That's a strawman version of creationism. Any creationist will agree that natural selection has influenced the body shape of organisms. The difference in "pelvic" shape of whales is likely the result of natural selection.

Well, yes and no.Properly speaking, if we're arguing for evolution we ought to talk about "things that look exactly like vestigial structures" or some such phrase. (You will note that I have been using such phrases). They are evidence for evolution, and stand as evidence for evolution without having to presuppose that they are the products of evolution.Once we have been convinced by this and other lines of evidence that evolution has in fact taken place, then we can interpret them as not merely looking, but actually being, vestigial.But the problem you raise is merely linguistic, and not (as you seem to think) substantive.

So you are telling us that an all knowing and all powerful supernatural deity who lives outside of space and time could not come up with a way for whales to extract oxygen from the water they live in, even though this same deity was able to do it for fish? When you make a vase you don't make a teapot first and then take the spout and handle off. So you are telling us that an all powerful and all knowing supernatural deity could not figure out a way to align the mesoderm properly without first giving the whale embryo leg buds that will never develop into legs? That is still a vestigial function. Both of which are vestigial functions. This is like using an extra transmission as the back seat of a car.

The empirical method is to compare the same features between two species and to compare this to phylogenetic relationships. For whales, the pelvis is vestigial because the pelvis supports the weight of the animal on land in the whales' closest cousins and in it's ancestors. The theory of evolution makes specific predictions as they relate to vestigial structures. For example, you should not find a species with feathers and vestigial nipples or a fish with vestigial patches of fur. The vestigial structures should fall into the nested hierarchy predicted by the theory, and they do.The same applies for embryonic atavisms. You should not see mammal embryos start to grow a beak and then reabsorb it. All of the atavisms fall into the expected lines of descent. False. All you need to do is compare the functions between species. The human appendix is vestigial because it does not function as part of a caecum used in digesting plant matter. This is true whether or not evolution is true.

I'm sorry Aaron, but you obviously don't quite understand. There is no theory to promote. Evolution as both theory and fact is so established by the world community of scientists that there is nothing left to promote. The only people who disagree are Abrahamic fundementalists. Strange that. Do you really think that your tiny minority have ANY impact whatsoever on how scientists pick and choose their nomenclature?The evolution vs creationism debate has relevance only in so much as it affects the education of children. Outside of that, creationism is merely one amonst many laughing stocks of the Western civilised world.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Hi, Aaron. I'm very skeptical of this argument, for a few reasons:

1. By restricting your analysis to "equivalently shaped" organisms, you've introduced an artificial constraint that holds no meaning for the comparison that's being run. There is no conceivable reason why the Designer had to have an animal with that specific shape. An animal shaped like a manta ray could also do the same job (such animals do, in fact, do the same job).
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2. I think you're mixing toothed whales in with baleen whales to make the case the whales can occupy more territory than whale sharks. In actuality, I don't think baleen whales dive any deeper than whale sharks or manta rays, so this is false comparison. It would be more proper to compare a toothed whale to another predator, such as a "classical" shark or even a giant squid. These animals are generally thought to be able to dive at least as deep as sperm whales (though I'm not sure anybody actually knows how deep any of these animals dive), and can obviously stay down there much longer. So, again, the mammal-like features of whales do not seem to afford them any advantages in terms of the depths they can plumb.
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   However, it seems that manta rays and whale sharks are restricted to warm waters, so it's possible that there is a thermoregulatory constraint on these plankton-feeders that whales have overcome. This could feasibly support the notion that whales are a better design for cold-water plankton feeders, but it still doesn't explain why they had to have mammal features.
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3. I think you're also mixing a bunch of things together that don't really seem to be related. For instance, I'm not sure what a large brain has to do with filter feeding. And, I'm skeptical of the idea that lungs and warm-bloodedness are correlated. I'm also skeptical of the idea that warm-bloodedness is a particularly important characteristic of the design of plankton-feeding organisms.

----- But "bulges" don't come and go willy-nilly: they come in go in the exact same pattern for all tetrapods!----- You've seriously misunderstood how animal development works. You've read somewhere that Fgf8 has a number of functions, and then, upon seeing that Fgf8 is in the limb buds, you conclude that limb buds are important for the function of Fgf8. This is not true. Furthermore, Fgf8 apparently does all of these things in mouse and human embryos too; so, once again, all you've uncovered is more homology with mammals.----- Fgf8 is involved in the building of limbs, Aaron.

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