A Whale of a Tale

randman, The fossil record does show transitions. Not as many as you would like. But they are there. The fossils line up cladistically with stratigraphy. I addressed this in my last post. If you are going to reply please go to the trouble of reading what you are responding to.

quote:

---

And just to head you off at the pass, no, it is not evolutions job to exclude all the possibilities, no other science has to. It just has to support it's own position in a way that isn't contradicted by evidence. You have made a positive assertion, it is your job to support it. Given you can't, then you have provided no evidence, just subjective speculation.
  —mark

---

But tens of millions of years yielding a few thousand cetacean fossils doesn't sound like fossil abundance to me.MarkThis message has been edited by mark24, 01-05-2006 07:35 PM

---

There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

We understand that is how you see it. You are mistaken. As currently practiced, they are outside science.Randman, can you take a look at Intelligent tree growth. It is a discussion of what makes for good science. I would be interested in your comments, reaction, participation in that thread.

What we might like to see is the affect this has on the evolution of whales.Does this view invalid the unfolding of events as I described? Or does it mean that when it was time for Jonah to be swallowed God realized he didn't have a whale handy and went back and fiddled with the past to produce whales? Fiddled several times it appears.If you have made your position known please point out the posts where you did this?Saying the past is not static and there is some non-linarity doesn't say much. The response is "So what?". What does that say about whale (excuse me, not whales) cetacean evolution?

Please describe how you come to this conclusion? What does "serpent-like" mean? What does "whale-like" mean? How is Basilo closer to one than the other.(guessing that you've looked at a few small pictures only I might remind you that is not enough to conclude anything. If you have done more then you can answer the above questions. )

This is, as we painfully learned, too big a topic to allow it to spin off in this thread. IIRC, there is a thread for it and it could be picked up again.You were referred to the study of taphonomy. It appears you have read nothing on the topic. When you do you will find that some of your questions have been answered.I don't recall that you have offered your explanation for fossil rarity anywhere.I thought I built that into the describtion of whale evolution I gave earlier. The fossils are rare because there are time periods when there were not cetaceans in existance. These are the time periods where God is thinking it over or reading the instruction manual.If you don't like that explanation perhaps you could offer one with a bit more relevance and detail than "time is not static".

Before claiming that I am contradicting myself, why don't you instead quote the part that you think is saying one thing, then quote the part that you think is saying the other thing. As you've provided me nothing to go on, I can't even imagine how you could arrive at such a misinterpretation. All I can do is repeat my explanation in different terms, but I will quote precisely what I am responding to. This is not exactly wrong, but it's not exactly right, either, and it's also not what I said. I said that in order to replace evolution you have to produce a theory which has greater explanatory and predictive power. To quote myself, I said, "Scientists don't create successful theories by badmouthing other theories. They do it by demonstrating the theory's explanatory and predictive power." I never said any such thing. Please quote the part where you think I said that. And I've been able to support my views with facts while you haven't. Even the Discovery Insitute disagrees with you. Their wedge strategy openly concedes that ID doesn't fit within the accepted scientific framework, which is why they want to replace methodological naturalism with their own definition of science. What are you bringing this up here for? Evolutionary fraud is not the topic of this thread. I suggest you focus on the topic of this thread, which is whale evolution. It has been described for you in detail in a number of recent posts that your views on whale evolution and the fossil record are incorrect. I think you should reply to those posts.--Percy

Randman, people are getting sick and tired of your accusations. No one is expressing false charges. No one is expressing dishonesty. No one is smearing you. Everyone is just expressing their opinions. If you cannot tolerate a difference of opinion while maintaining civility, then please just go away. Otherwise, just stop with the accusations and focus on the topic.I just have to stand in awe at the chutspah it must take to fling about baseless charges of abuse while at the same time abusing all who disagree with you. You jumped all over Jar for explaining that we hold creationists to lower standards, claimed it was an insult, then you come here and demonstrate why we have to do that. Were we to hold you to the same standards we hold evolutionists, you would have been suspended long ago.Randman, please stop acting like a child. You wouldn't behave this way in public, please don't behave this way here. Keep your attention focused on the topic. Stop accusing people of lying. Stop accusing people of dishonesty. Stop accusing people of false charges. Just stop all accusations. Period.Now, getting to the issues you mentioned, no one is trying to turn this into a thread on ID. We're just trying to fill in the blanks because you refuse to. This explanation that you just gave tells us nothing at all: The question we've been asking is that if you believe evolution is not responsible for the origin of species, in this particular thread for the origin of whales, then how do you believe they came about? Ned's post was poking well-deserved fun at you for refusing to answer this simple question. I suggest you respond to the substance of his post and tell us how you actually think this happened. As I said before, your unwillingness to provide an explanation for the origin of species is fatal to your theory.--Percy

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You have done no such thing. There are a raft of posts from yesterday alone on this very point where you either did not respond to the post, or if you did you ignored the issue altogether. Your misunderstandings and misimpressions were carefully described. Many possibilities that you failed to consider were listed.Randman, the discussion does not start from scratch at the beginning of every day. This discussion has a history that you are having a very hard time remembering. Please stop this behavior and begin contributing constructively to discussion. This is off-topic. Please keep your contributions on-topic. No one is keeping you from discussing evolutionary fraud in the right thread. This is not that thread.--Percy

Was I poking fun? Perhaps some of the side comments were a bit. But that was my best attempt to get a semi coherent picture out of what IDists and RM might be thinking. If it sounds humorous maybe that is not my doing.I was just going form the evidence available; including the "missing" or "non-existant" fossils and describing a scenario which I think fits with RMs statments todate. It may well be way off his thinking but that is because I haven't seen much to go on from him.It offers a clear statement for him to disagree with and fix. I'm sure we are all interested in the corrections.

Isn't that how science works? Make a claim (state your hypothesis), examine the evidence, does any of the evidence contradict the claim? If not your hypothesis is tentatively true. Does your hypothesis have the power to make predictions? If so your hypothesis is tentatively true and has utility. Given that it is tentatively true and has utility, it will be used.To maintain integrity, and to assure others that the hypothesis and its conclusions are valid science, ways in which the hypothesis (or certain conclusions drawn from the hypothesis) could be falsified are openly discussed.To paraphrase you:

quote:

---

The stance of science is to make the claim, and then challenge others to disprove it.

---

A crude wording, but effective enough, I feel. This happens to pretty much all disciplines, evolution, creationism, ID, nuclear physics, history, religion, everything really. The good thing about science is its self-correcting mechanisms, the bad thing is that those mechanisms are operated by imperfect humans.Once again, to paraphrase:

quote:

---

People accept on faith all sorts of myths, hoaxes, overstatements, etc.

---

A system needs to be developed that can help minimize this inherent flaw of humanity. One possible system is to define what is true and to dogmatically stick to it, anyone that disagrees is simply wrong. This would be a system similar to religion, but the system has its weaknesses, and what is defined as true tends to drift and change due to the aforementioned failings of mankind.Another system would be accepting that what we think of as true one day could be shown to be false the next. As such all truths are tentatively concluded, and open to falsification. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you...Science!

Me: "I would expect this creature to have features that we find present in both Basilo and in modern whales - blow hole, tail fluke, maybe teeth similarities, ear components, "Rand: Well, "serpent-like" to me would mean that, like a snake, it swam by sending ripples down it's body - as opposed to fish which swipe their tails from side to side, or mammals which undulate.I don't think there is any evidence for basilo being the first and only serpent swimming mammal. Additionally, the tail vertibrae (specifically the fact that the end ones are wider than the ones preceding them) indicate that it likely had a fluke.Was basilo's fluke big like a sperm whale? No, probably not.There are websites (some science ones that actually use the term "serpent like" to describe basilo. This, I can only assume, is a reflection of the creatures overall length, as snakes clearly don't have limbs, pelvis bones, etc. which obviously basilo did.I even found one site that had both in the same sentence: On Teeth -
My bad. I misread the source material. Basilo teeth show a distinct relationship to earlier forms. Basilo teeth differ from modern toothed whale teeth. (I got ahead of myself).On Blow Hole -
Ditto, but in the other direction.On Ear -
Basilo had a ear virtually identicle to modern whales, though I will grant you that both modern whales and basilo lived in the water and the ear morphology is for underwater hearing.A couple good catches on your part. Some bad late night reading on mine. Not to jump on the "you're a creationist" bandwagon - even I feel browbeaten for you - but I do have a question.There are quite a few marine and semi-marine mammals - walrus, seal, sea lion, dolphin, whale, manatee, sea otter, etc.Is it your belief that these animals "began" in the sea? In other words, do you feel that basilosaurus (and whatever immediately led up to it) existed first in the ocean, rather than decended from something on land?Subsequent question: Why is it that the fossil record of times in the very distant past show many types of fish, mollusks, etc. but no aquatic mammals? The aquatic mammals don't show up until after the regular mammals show up on land.

A gray whale skeleton: Basilo: Durodon: Whales don't have bones in their fluke. So ALL whale skeletons look serpentlike.This message has been edited by Yaro, 01-06-2006 12:24 AM

wait, i swear i've seen this before..this had be told to randman a few times before hasn't it?
and sadly it seems to not sink in

alas.i "won" the last thread. i think i'll sit this one out for a while.

---

אָרַח

Percy, show me the studies that predict, within a range, the numbers of transitional forms either at the species level, or major features at the family level or anything, that would need and would be likely to have evolved to evolve a land mammal to a whale.Please cite specific studies, not reasons or excuses for their being none.Show me then a study comparing this estimate with the actual numbers of transitional forms we see in the fossil record for this range.Show me then studies showing that the numbers of both fossils per species or forms, and the number of forms indicates a pattern reflective of ToE.Over and over again, you guys think merely presenting a potential half-way or intermediate point validates evolutionary models. It does not, for a variety of reasons. I have given specifics on how to predict fossilazation rates, and a range per numbers of transitional forms. To this date, neither you nor any evo has ever responded to the specifics of my posts in that regard, but merely repeatedly ignore entirely the specifics and spout vague generalities.I am sorry, but anyone not a biased evolutionist can see you are dodging the point. Take, just as one example, my point on Basilosaurus being found in the same region as whales, but none of the theoritical intermediates in between in the geologic layers between the 2. This shows that the geologic column in regards to whale evolution does not support evo models.You just completely ignored that point, and present a bunch of hypotheticals on why potentially the fossil record could be incomplete. You present no actual specifics, no analysis related to whale evolution, no clear answers as to what could have been occupying the ecological niche between Basilosaurus and whales, for example, nada, and then you have the gall to act like I am dodging you guys.Show me the studies or admit they have never been done!