Japan Captures Dolphin with Vestigial Legs!

I'm a bit vexed as to why all the excitement over this dolphin. The "vestigial legs" clearly look more akin to supernumerary fins. There is nothing even remotely leg-like about it. If anything, its like any other mutation that, like a two headed snake, a five limbed goat, a fruit fly with four wings, or any one of us with superfluous nipples.Pretty much all researchers agree that a mutation is the cause, however, those of the evolutionary persuasion say that the mutation brought out a dormant trait that is now anatomically represented as an atavism.I would like to know why some people feel we are dealing with a vestigial rather than, perhaps, a mutation taking place in a homeobox.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

We would need to know more specifics about this particular case but being that cetacean's of many varieties have been found with lower limb atavisms that DO have distinct homology with mammilian legs lends credence to the idea that these are actually atavisms rather than homeobox mutations.Futhermore, being that dolphins develop lower limb buds NORMALLY in utero also suggests that these are not homebox mutations.At some point do you actually ever even notice how much creationists like to ad-hoc explain to the most unlikely and obtuse conclusions even if only to give the mere effect that there MIGHT be a plausability that does not give weight to evolution?P.S.Hey! Maybe these are stump-like appendeges that will eventually become wings!Edited by Jazzns, : Add cheap-shot.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Certainly. I agree that cetaceans have specially designed bones in the pelvic region that aid in copulation. What I would argue is that they are atavistic legs. I mean, we are talking about a five inch protrusion on the underbelly of 100 foot creature, the Blue Whale. That's hardly a case for vestigial legs. Aside from which, if those are the atavistic legs, then where exactly does the enormous tail come in to play? Where did that develop from? Furthermore, those spurs on the underside of a whale do not girdle to the pelvis, which is found in every land-dwelling animal. And since evolutionists quite enjoy making anatomical arguments, I think this one problematic to the whole situation.The spurs/atavistic legs is conveniently located near the genitalia, which makes a better case for copulating by design than it does for atavisms by some naturalistic happenstance, IMO. Do to the routine misconstrual of virtually all creatures in utero, even in recent times, but many pro-evolutionists, I'd like to read up on the supposed limb buds of any cetaceans. Do you have a resource for me to view? I see possible errors on both sides as personal opinion and favored hopes tend to lead to a wide array of misinterpretations. I certainly could say that evolution is possible, but so far in my journey, I find it implausible. I find both creationism and evolution largely unattractive due to their desire to hold up their beliefs by dogma that might compromise the integrity of any given experiment. This is why I prefer Intelligent Design, though one could make the argument that it is just as dogmatic. Heh. Only if the vestigial fins were feathered.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

Why not? Since most dolphins and whales do not have protuberant hind limbs one would expect that a occasional vestigial hind limb would be small, reflecting the recent evolutionary past. Check out Pakicetus and Basilosaurus - recent discoveries of fossil whales with hind limbs. Evolutionary biologist predicted such discoveries.Here is Basilosaurus with a fully formed femur and fibula. And Pakicetus with pelvis... Google Basilosaurus or Pakicetus or Whale EvolutionTop Cash Earning Games in India 2022 | Best Online Games to earn real money
Edward T. Babinski - Cetacean Evolution

Yes you are correct that large morphological changes can occur via a mutation. For example, polydactylism or a mutation in a Hox master, forming a leg where an antenna should be.I guess I was assuming that Randman was thinking that these legs/fins were a completely new innovation.

Due to the laziness and inability of creationists to do research, especially in recent times, I'll provide you with a recent example.Thewissen et al. (2006) detail the development of and subsequent loss of hind limb buds and the expression of genes required for limb development, i.e. Sonic hedgehog, FGF8, in the spotted dolphin.They also go on to suggest that the fossil record of cetacean and putative cetacean ancestors hind limbs shows a gradual reduction rather than a sudden loss. Consequently we might expect an atavistic reocurrence to be of something not resembling a fully formed vertebrate hind limb, in the same way that the forelimbs of dolphins, which are clearly anatomically connected to other mammalian forelimbs as has been mentioned, don't look like arms. As I think has been suggested what we really need to see is what bone structure the thing has.They also mention a couple of homeobox genes in the paper. Why do you think a mutation in a homeobox gene could not lead to the reocurrence of an ancestral trait, after all at least two of your examples (supernumerary nipples and four winged fruit flies) are thought to be examples of atavistic traits, although I'm not sure if the supernumerary nipples are directly associated with homeobox genes.TTFN,WK

I think you are having a hard time distinguishing something that is atavistic from something that is vestigial.A trait that is vestigial is something that exists commonly among a species that no longer serves a primary purpose.An atavism though is a trait that no longer exists in the common population that occasionally pops out that just so happens to match up pretty well with that species evolutionary history.The cetacean pelvis is analogous to every other mammal pelvis except in that it no longer serves the primary function of assisting in lang locomotion. All mammal pelvises have a secondary function of anchoring the creatures "goods". Cetaceans mantain the pelvis for this purpose. This makes them vestigial.Full on hind limbs though are an atavism becuase normally they don't exist. They develop partially in the womb only to be reabsorbed before birth. Another example of an atavism is the "true" tail in humans. Creationists often like to dismiss true tails because there does exist such a thing as a psudo tail in humans and creationists are not smart enough or honest enough to realize that there are two different kinds of tails a human can be born with. A true tail in a human is anatomically similar to other tailed primates including bone, connective tissue, and nerves.Atavisms are also identified as such because they line up with with what we know from the fossil record. We have fossils of cetaceans with legs and get smaller and smaller the closer higher up we go in the geologic column.If there was no evidence that cetaceans came from land creatures, then the existence of these hind fins as some kind of mutation as you suggest may be more plausable. Lucky for us we have this evidence and it put any notion to try to dismiss the evolutionary history of cetaceans as coming from land mammals to shame.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Why would we expect that? Even if the remnants of hind limbs remained it still supposes so much. I could tell you how those protrusions are for mating purposes. You then could say, "Yes, they are, but the whale learned to co-opt his ever-depleting hind legs." But see, its only through evolutionary glasses that any one assumes vestigial limbs from a land dwelling ancestor. Because, if evolution is true, how else, where else, and who else took to the sea except for mammals? I know all about Pakicetus and Basilosaurus and Rhodocetus, and Ambulocetous. The discoverers of Pakicetus assumed from the beginning that it was a primitive ancestor of Eocene whales. The basis for the belief was based on the skull, which the positioning of the inner ear was similar to that of whales. When they found more of the skeleton, they realized that this was a land-dwelling creature, but they already had it in their minds that it must somehow be connected.In the surrounding areas, they found with it the remains of partially aquatic animals, like turtles and crocodiles, typically found in marshy areas, and came to the conclusion that Pakicetus was a land-dweller who spent a large portion of its life on the banks and even experimented with swimming. And so, Pakicetus would here on out be intimately associated with Mesonychids.The next in line was Ambulocetus, which literally means, "walking whale." Ambulocetus is often illustrated as having webbed feet that aided it in swimming, however, there is literally no evidence that it swam at all, least of all, that its feet were webbed.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

Can someone tell me if they have tried the link in my above post and got the article, a couple of times I have been sent to a registration page instead and I was wondering if other people had had similar problems.I'd especially like to know if NJ has managed to have a look at this paper yet.TTFN,WK

I am able to link directly to the abstract and from there to the full text.Now, if I read it all, I may ask you to do a bit of translation. ABE:No, I haven't gotten to full text yet.ABE**2:
Now I did.Edited by NosyNed, : No reason given.Edited by NosyNed, : Corrections to corrections.