Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / December 2004

Ed Babinski asked me to put this on the web, in regard to the _ the lies
(slm)_ by Answers in Genesis. (my note, not Ed's: To put lies on one web
page, and in fine print on another page, blathering your way out of your
lie, isn't qualified as truth.)
Nevertheless, Ed is always polite, and this is what he had to say about
AiG's misleading web page:

AiG's website ("A Whale of a Tale, Addendum 2 (4 January 2002)"
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i1/whale.asp#r1) admits that the
original article in which they criticized the fossil evidence for cetacean
evolution was merely based on discoveries reported at the time the
original AiG article was written. And AiG questioned whether the latest
cetacean fossil discoveries had been peer reviewed, or whether the new
evidence was anything more than a jumble of bones. For young-earth
creationists it's the same method of denial in every case, harkening back
to the days of Gish at ICR.  Take primate evolution.  We have primate
skulls with cranial capacities lying between higher apes and human beings,
skulls whose pedigrees even creationists can't agree on, are they the
skulls of "apes or men?"  Creationists can't agree which skulls belong to
which category. How inspiring!  Still, they are not going to admit that
ANY evidence for the transformation of living organisms over time is the
least bit "clear."  Perhaps if you could point a young-earth creationist
to a geological deposit in which one species of animal died directly on
top of its daddy/mommy, and that pattern continued indefinitely so you
could catalog evolutionary changes without a single "gap," they would take
note.  Though some would probably assert instead instead that the Flood
had miraculous sorting properties.  What they neglect is a sense of
proportion regarding geology and paleontology.  Cetacean fossils are not
found everywhere in the fossil record, but only in specific places. In
fact the geological records as a whole exhibits sorting to a far greater
degree than "Flood geology" can account for.  Fossils (from the most
microscopic fossils to large plant fossils to fossil fragments to "trace"
fossils to large complete fossilized organisms) are found in astonishingly
accurate relative orders around the world, and exhibit a degree of
relative sorting such that geologists before Darwin's day were doubtful
any "Flood" could sort things in such a fashion.  Young-earth creationists
are still only beginning to come to grips with their own "Piltdown and
Nebraska man" type errors of enthusiasm, and yet they have uncovered no
new startling evidence to replace the formerly enshrined "Paluxy
mantracks" or the "sightings of Noah's Ark" (the mountain on which Noah's
Ark searchers have concentrated their past searches is a mountain that was
formed volcanically! Mustta been pretty hot when Noah got there, and its
elevation hard to breath, and sides steep and dangerous).  Snelling at AiG
even despairs of finding the ark on Ararat and despairs that any
unequivocal evidence of "pre-Flood man" or his dwellings or tools or other
creations may ever be discovered in the geological record, though we do
find plenty of what he calls "pre-Flood" animal and plant remains.

Of course if young-earth creationists took the time, they might learn to
recognize why geologists are not wowed by "evidences of a young-earth,"
and might even learn to recognize the distinguishing differences displayed
in earlier forms of fossilized organisms when compared with later ones,
and see for themselves that various specializations did not all occur
early on, and in fact the earlier species of cetaceans resembled land
animals more than later cetaceans did, and the ealier forms of cetaceans
were less well adapted to living their entire lives at sea than the more
recent forms are.  But since they can't even get past the fact that the
geological layers are not as mixed up as their "Flood geology hypotheses"
assumes, how do you intend for them to also recognize the telltale
differences between early, mid, and modern cetacean species, and notice
the lack of specialization of the earlier species compared with later
ones?

Neither do they see any need to understand such matters, since they
"understand" Genesis just fine, and they are certain that is all they
really need to know, i.e., how to count up to "six days."

--------------

Addendum 2 (4 January 2002)
Some evolutionists have tried to counter this paper by charging me with
faking the information presented.
There is no deceit (faking), or contradiction, in the article. As stated
at the beginning of the article, the article on the web was originally
published in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now simply [
fcp://@furman.edu,%238400599/home/area/magazines/technical.asp ]TJ) in
1994, the year Thewissen et al. published their original article. The
material referred to is that published by Thewissen in 1994. It is now
claimed, on Thewissen's web site, that more material has been found. As
far as I am aware, none of this extra material has been subjected to peer
review. That is, it has not been published in a refereed scientific
journal. As such, it is not admissible as scientific evidence
(evolutionists are quick to demand this of creationists). However, even if
it is so published in the future, I don't have much confidence in the peer
review process when it comes to paleontology-there seems to be a different
standard applied to these papers, compared to experimental (operational)
science. So many false claims have been given credit in prestigious
peer-reviewed journals that I have become rather sceptical of all the
claims. For example, Gingerich's Pakicetus story, published in the
prestigious journal Science in 1983, was based on some skull fragments.
Science even published, on the front cover, an artist's reconstruction of
the whole creature, with legs becoming flippers, swimming in the sea
chasing fish for its lunch. It is illustrative to compare this with a more
recent reconstruction based on a much more complete skeleton-it is now
clearly a terrestrial creature. See [
fcp://@furman.edu,%238400599/MailBox/whalenova/0926ep2.asp ]Whale
evolution?
Even if the extra Ambulocetus material on Thewissen's web site is
legitimate, it does nothing to confirm it as a transitional form between
whales and land animals. For example, there is no evidence of the
development of the horizontal tail flukes so characteristic of whales, or
the unique hearing system of whales (i.e. with no opening to the
exterior), or the blow-hole, etc., etc. Indeed there is nothing that is
uniquely 'whale' that identifies Ambulocetus as related to whales.
Furthermore, the robustness of the femur, and presence of hooves confirm
the creature as a land animal. See [
/link.asp?http://www.trueorigin.org/ng_whales01.asp ]A Whale Fantasy from
National Geographic for more [by a Muslim creationist posted on the
Christian creationist True Origins website].
The supposed sequence from land animal to whale is so clear (I speak
ironically) that evolutionists are now contemplating 'switching horses'
regarding whale ancestry. Mesonychids were long touted as the 'sister
clade' of whales, with fossils being so interpreted (mainly on the basis
of ambiguous tooth and skull characteristics). Now the mesonychids are
being questioned as the sister clade, based largely on molecular
comparisons of living animals (Nature 404(6775):235-237, March 16, 2000).
Of course in all this, one has to allow for the immense propensity of
paleontologists for story telling. In a short paper in Nature (395:452,
1998), for example, Thewissen, et al., finished their discussion of
whether or not the mesonychians should be considered a sister group to the
whales by saying, 'in any case, extensive convergence or reversals must
have occurred in the dentition, basicranium and/or tarsus.' In
paleontological jargon, I interpret this to mean that you can make up any
story you like, invoking 'convergence' (similarity not due to common
ancestry), 'reversals', etc., to get the phylogeny you want. If something
does not fit the proposed sequence, then it can be dismissed as due to
convergence, a reversal, etc. Basically, Thewissen is saying, with a bit
of story jigging, they can accomodate the new molecular data.
Interestingly, in this paper Thewissen and co discuss similarities in
ankle bones in various extant and extinct creatures and how this relates
to the phylogeny of whales. But the whole discussion is predicated on the
assumption that Pakicetus and Ambulocetus are in the whale phylogeny-and
calling something a whale-'cetus'-does not make it a whale!
Luo, in the other paper cited above, said:
'Both morphological and molecular data are vulnerable to the problem of
homoplasies-reversals to ancestral conditions or parallel changes in
different lineages that can camouflage the true phylogeny .. For example,
the ear region of the skull, traditionally considered to be a good source
of highly stable characters, shows some glaring homoplasies among the
ungulates and cetaceans [refs].'
In other words, the supposed whale transition is not at all clear-unlike
the propaganda pronouncements intended for public consumption. TJ 16(1)
will have a thorough analysis of the supposed phylogeny of whales by [
/link.asp?http://www.rae.org/johnw.htm ]John Woodmorappe. He exposes the
extent of the story telling in this tale of tails (or is it a tale of
teeth?).
http://edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/whale_evolution.html