Taylor wrote:In fact the Carolina find is yet more evidence of macroevolution, the find is what's called an intermediate species.

Isn't that what creationists and ID'ers are asking for?

I love the name, Echohunter. Good show, Taylor.

Here's another article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/scien ... whale.html

It makes sense that in a world with an atmosphere, vision would tend to be selected as an important trait. It would start as light-sensitivity and graduate eventually to full vision. You can also see why echolocation would be selected in environments where vision is obstructed, say in dark caves and in the depths of the ocean.

The content of the science is much more interesting than the content of the underlying debate.
Geo I give great credit to your participation as well as everyone else's.

geo wrote:Thewissen once sketched a Pakicetus fossil, which was known to share some characteristics with cetaceans and gave it to the Smithsonian. (He also published an article in Nature Magazine). Because they didn’t have a complete skeleton, they had to fill in some of the blanks i.e. they gave it a blowhole. Later they learned that Pakicetus was entirely terrestrial and not the “walking whale” they had imagined. So Thewissen published a new article in Nature magazine that corrected the first one. I would assume the museum eventually updated its exhibit.

If Thewissen or Gingerich ever need a public relations guy, I'm sure you would do a good job for them,Geo. They talk about Pakicetus' shared characteristics with cetaceans but what are they?

Gingerich was caught when it was noticed that the fossils did not match the drawings in the museum which had a fluketail and flippers. Rhodocetus has now been dropped from some textbooks and sources but Gingerich wasn't volunteering this information.It was only when the discrepancies were spotted and he was challenged on it,that he admitted that had just added them without any fossil evidence for them. Artistic licence no doubt.

The Smithsonian still has those 'proto blowholes' on Pakicetus and Ambulocetus on their animation for whale evolution which I checked.
I haven't checked other museums,but the Smithsonian seem to have now dropped Rhodocetus as an intermediate.

geo wrote:In the earliest embryonic stages of development, Cetaceans, have nasal openings that are still situated at the rostra tip like those of land mammals. (http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/200 ... ution.html) So even if Thewissen did publish his sketches prematurely, there’s absolutely no controversy about Pakicetus being an ancestor of the cetacean.

I'm not an expert on embryology, but I thought the theory of embryology supposedly showing re-enacted evolutionary history was discredited.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAC807DAXzY


Actually if you look in the comments section to that pandas thumb article you will find some good information and challenges to the land mammal to whales hypothesis.

Some of the reasoning about how Pakicetus is claimed to be a land mammal predecessor of whales based on morphology is of the cartwheel variety. http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v6i2f.htm

geo wrote:Encyclopedia Brittanica:”



Quote:
Pakicetus, extinct genus of early cetacean mammals known from fossils discovered in 48.5-million-year-old river delta deposits in present-day Pakistan.

And guess where they got their information from? Have they got rid of Rhodocetus yet,I haven't checked?

Flann 5 wrote:Gingerich was caught when it was noticed that the fossils did not match the drawings in the museum which had a fluketail and flippers. . . . Have they got rid of Rhodocetus yet,I haven't checked?

Flann, you have proven time and again to be a veritable font of misinformation. Was Gingerich "caught" or was he just wrong? I'm not going to go on an Easter Egg hunt based on Creationist willful distortion of the facts. Do your own research.

How quickly you are to assume that Gingerich is committing fraud, passing judgment when you a) do not have all the facts and b) do not have the training or knowledge to make such judgments. You base such accusations entirely on Creationist propaganda. You don't even bother to search outside of your own narrow worldview.

I have seen this tendency by Creationists to pounce on mistakes or early conjecture by scientists and twist this around to accuse them of deliberate hoax. It must be that Creationists are so used to distortion and dishonesty in promotion of their ideology, that they project that dishonesty on to others. You simply don't understand what it means to follow the evidence and see where it goes. Everyone else must have an ideological agenda because you do.

Have they got rid of Rhodocetus yet? According to Wikipedia, Rodhocetus is an "extinct genus of protocetid early whale known from the Lutetian (48.6 to 40.4 million years ago) of Pakistan." I'm not sure what your Creationist sources are telling you, but I don't care either. It's a fossil believed at this time to be an early whale. Do you have any evidence that disputes this?

We know the basic facts of the whale's evolution from a terrestrial species. This is without debate. There is not a shred of evidence that suggests otherwise. I'm sure you will continue to pick apart the minutia of evidence (and impugn the character of scientists whenever it helps to promote your false worldview). There are enough gaps there to keep you busy for a long time. Have fun with that. But I'm done with this nonsense.

Taylor wrote:The content of the science is much more interesting than the content of the underlying debate.
Geo I give great credit to your participation as well as everyone else's.

Thanks, Taylor. Whale evolution is certainly a fascinating subject. Until about 30-40 years ago, we knew almost nothing about how or when whales emerged. Only in the last few decades have we come upon the fossil evidence that shows the transition from an earlier terrestrial species. Now the whale is considered one of the best-documented examples of large-scale evolutionary change in the fossil record.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... gBpJlvp.99

I keep going back to this web site, which has a handy evogram.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... vograms_03

I wonder how the newly found Echohunter will fit in.

geo wrote: the whale is considered one of the best-documented examples of large-scale evolutionary change in the fossil record.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... gBpJlvp.99

Many thanks for sharing this excellent article geo. I am writing a novel about future human evolution to develop symbiosis with whales, and this information is immensely important to me.

Below I have quoted the part of the Smithsonian article that I particularly wanted to highlight regarding a superb example of the predictive power and elegance of evolutionary biology. The vacation of the seas by the marine dinosaurs opened the field for rapid evolution of the protohippos into this empty niche after a ten million year gap.

I was also pleased to read the quote from Darwin speculating about how whales could have evolved from bears, and how jeering by morons caused him to edit his initial ideas. As an example of a mytheme, this one could be an illustration of how Darwin's reasoned hypothesis based on limited data created a myth of whale evolution from bears, which only the recent evidence has shown to be an incorrect hypothesis, given the evolutionary links discovered between whales and hippos and their relatives.

The Smithsonian wrote: A startling discovery made in the arid sands of Pakistan announced by University of Michigan paleontologists Philip Gingerich and Donald Russell in 1981 finally delivered the transitional form scientists had been hoping for. In freshwater sediments dating to about 53 million years ago, the researchers recovered the fossils of an animal they called Pakicetus inachus. Little more than the back of the animal’s skull had been recovered, but it possessed a feature that unmistakably connected it to cetaceans.

Cetaceans, like many other mammals, have ear bones enclosed in a dome of bone on the underside of their skulls called the auditory bulla. Where whales differ is that the margin of the dome closest to the midline of the skull, called the involucrum, is extremely thick, dense, and highly mineralized. This condition is called pachyosteosclerosis, and whales are the only mammals known to have such a heavily thickened involucrum. The skull of Pakicetus exhibited just this condition.

Even better, two jaw fragments showed that the teeth of Pakicetus were very similar to those of mesonychids. It appeared that Van Valen had been right, and Pakicetus was just the sort of marsh-dwelling creature he had envisioned. The fact that it was found in freshwater deposits and did not have specializations of the inner ear for underwater hearing showed that it was still very early in the aquatic transition, and Gingerich and Russell thought of Pakicetus as “an amphibious intermediate stage in the transition of whales from land to sea,” though they added the caveat that “Postcranial remains [bones other than the skull] will provide the best test of this hypothesis.” The scientists had every reason to be cautious, but the fact that a transitional whale had been found was so stupendous that full-body reconstructions of Pakicetus appeared in books, magazines and on television. It was presented as a stumpy-legged, seal-like creature, an animal caught between worlds.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... v02tyiD.99
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geo wrote:

Flann 5 wrote:
Gingerich was caught when it was noticed that the fossils did not match the drawings in the museum which had a fluketail and flippers. . . . Have they got rid of Rhodocetus yet,I haven't checked?



Flann, you have proven time and again to be a veritable font of misinformation. Was Gingerich "caught" or was he just wrong? I'm not going to go on an Easter Egg hunt based on Creationist willful distortion of the facts. Do your own research.

How quickly you are to assume that Gingerich is committing fraud, passing judgment when you a) do not have all the facts and b) do not have the training or knowledge to make such judgments. You base such accusations entirely on Creationist propaganda. You don't even bother to search outside of your own narrow worldview.

I don't know why you are defending this behaviour Geo,of adding whale like features to fossils that don't have them. The fact of the matter is that it's recorded on camera. They are not entitled to put blowholes on land animals or non existent flippers and fluketails and pass them off to museums as if the fossils actually had them,with these being the claimed basis that they are transitional to whales.

As to your defense of them, when they later found more complete fossils,it seems that they did not notify the museums or recall the models they had supplied them with. If they did then many museums must have simply ignored this. In fact Gingerich was based at the Michigan museum where the drawings were showing Rhodocetus with a tailfluke and fins,while he had the actual fossils without them at the same time.

As to the facts,the earbone part does not have the finger like sigmoid process or bowl cavity in Ambulocetus which is plain to see in the bone Thewissen is holding on camera which was the basis for the claim.

Pakicetus' earbone has a flat plate like structure. The Smithsonian are incorrect to claim that this is only found in Cetaceans and in the article I provided a Dr Luo who was a museum curator of vertebrate paleontolgy in Pittsburgh, pointed out that this plate like feature is found in another land mammal, an artiodactly called Diacodexis. Yet no one thinks it's an ancestor of whales. And actually all cetaceans have the bowl cavity and distinct finger like sigmoid process which is not a flat plate like structure as in Pakicetus.

Thewissen himself says in his Science article that Pakicetus' ears are designed for hearing through air, or close to the ground to pick up vibrations but are not at all suitable for hearing under water.

If you follow the Darwinian logic here,Pakicetus has ears totally unsuitable for hearing underwater but natural selection supposedly only selects traits immediately beneficial for survival.
However this is supposed to be the beginning of a trait totally unsuitable in the present for aquatic hunting by Pakicetus but will in ten or whatever milion years in the future develop into a wonderful underwater hearing trait.

So despite that fact that these things are clearly visible in the recorded video interviews you prefer to take an ad hominem approach because Werner is a creationist.
The facts speak for themselves. http://www.thegrandexperiment.com/whale-evolution.html

geo wrote: I have seen this tendency by Creationists to pounce on mistakes or early conjecture by scientists and twist this around to accuse them of deliberate hoax. It must be that Creationists are so used to distortion and dishonesty in promotion of their ideology, that they project that dishonesty on to others. You simply don't understand what it means to follow the evidence and see where it goes. Everyone else must have an ideological agenda because you do.

What's ironic here is that this is now turned into an attack on Werner because he is a creationist, and we're supposed to swallow the line that the unwarranted additions were just innocent mistakes.

I provided a link to Jonathan Well's critique of Haeckel's embryos. What's interesting is that these drawings were challenged as hoaxes by embryologists even in Haeckel's own day yet were used in textbooks for a century.

It's not that they didn't know they were fraudulent,as embryologists were well aware of this. What was the response to Wells pointing this out? Ad hominem attacks against him.
Those promoting the Darwinian line are the good scientists but anyone who challenges the perpetuating of fraudulent evidence is the bad guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAC807DAXzY

Flann 5 wrote:.
Those promoting the Darwinian line are the good scientists but anyone who challenges the perpetuating of fraudulent evidence is the bad guy.

Yes indeed, except that you do not seem to understand the simple spoonfeeding explanation that the scientific evidence is not fraudulent, but rather a speculative hypothesis to join the dots of the existing evidence in the most elegant way. Such findings are subject to review and improvement, which in the case of whales has occurred apace, due to use of scientific method, as you would have learned if you were interested in the truth rather than base medieval propaganda.

If only we could find similar evidence for the Garden of Eden, Adam, Eve and the talking snake. That would really put the inerrant cat among thems pigeons.

Robert Tulip wrote:
Flann 5 wrote:
.
Those promoting the Darwinian line are the good scientists but anyone who challenges the perpetuating of fraudulent evidence is the bad guy.




Yes indeed, except that you do not seem to understand the simple spoonfeeding explanation that the scientific evidence is not fraudulent, but rather a speculative hypothesis to join the dots of the existing evidence in the most elegant way. Such findings are subject to review and improvement, which in the case of whales has occurred apace, due to use of scientific method, as you would have learned if you were interested in the truth rather than base medieval propaganda.

So when the general public walk into a natural history museum and see these model 'reconstructions' and drawings of Pakicetus,Ambulocetus and Rhodocetus are they informed that this is a speculative hypothesis? No, they are told that these were walking whales and ancestors of modern whales, as if they are genuine reconstructions.

And if the key features are absent on the actual fossils this is very misleading information. So why did it take so long to drop Haeckel's embryos if the scientific method,and review occur "apace." I thought observation was a primary requisite for accepting evidence as scientifically acceptable.

While even Haeckel's fellow embryologists a hundred years earlier, publicly declared his drawings a hoax, apparently they were considered good enough for educational purposes in science textbooks for public consumption.

I've even seen Eugenie Scott lukewarmly defending them in a youtube video.

Robert Tulip wrote:If only we could find similar evidence for the Garden of Eden, Adam, Eve and the talking snake. That would really put the inerrant cat among thems pigeons.

Well actually even geneticists talk about mitochondrial Eve as at least pointing to an original single female ancestor for all humans.
But really you are trying to divert from the matter of evolution. I don't have a problem defending my beliefs.

Flann 5 wrote:. . .
I don't know why you are defending this behaviour Geo,of adding whale like features to fossils that don't have them. The fact of the matter is that it's recorded on camera. They are not entitled to put blowholes on land animals or non existent flippers and fluketails and pass them off to museums as if the fossils actually had them,with these being the claimed basis that they are transitional to whales.

As to your defense of them, when they later found more complete fossils,it seems that they did not notify the museums or recall the models they had supplied them with. If they did then many museums must have simply ignored this. In fact Gingerich was based at the Michigan museum where the drawings were showing Rhodocetus with a tailfluke and fins,while he had the actual fossils without them at the same time . . .

Again, you keep accusing both Gingerich and Thewissen of misdeeds, but you're relying entirely on distortions and fabrications by the Creationist community. I have already explored one of your links in great length, an article called "Whale evolution fraud" by Don Batten, and it would take me weeks to unpack of all of mistakes and outright lies.

Fortunately, someone else has already done it. Here's an excerpt:

The fossils of Pakicetus (a cranium and some teeth) described in the 1983 Science article were first described in 1981 by Philip Gingerich and Donald Russell, in a paper entitled "Pakicetus inachus, a new archaeocete (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the early-middle Eocene Kuldana Formation of Kohat (Pakistan)." In both the 1981 and 1983 papers, the authors are quite clear that nothing is known of the postcranial skeleton of Pakicetus (from the 1981 paper):

No postcranial remains can be referred to Pakicetus inachus at present.

However, the Pakicetus fossils did share some characteristics with other fossils believed to be cetacean at the time. So, clearly the editors at Science took some artistic license in representing a creature that was believed, at the time, to be an aquatic cetacean. But again, nowhere in the scientific descriptions of these fossils do the authors even speculate on the postcranial anatomy of Pakicetus.

http://marmotism.blogspot.com/2015/01/w ... onist.html

If these scientists really did commit fraud, it would be all over the news. Actual cases of science fraud do come up occasionally and they are rooted out ruthlessly and exposed with great fanfare. Such was the case when the "Archaeoraptor" was published in National Geographic (and later retracted after it was found to be a hoax). So why is there not a peep of all this fraudulent behavior in mainstream sources? Oh that's right. This is a conspiracy theory. So it's being hushed up by the establishment of "evolutionists" who are hiding the truth from the world.

And then you mention Dr Carl Werner, a physician, (so he must be eminently qualified to comment on paleontology, right?) and author of "Evolution: the Grand Experiment", who personally has checked out the claims, interviewing the researchers and others, and found that "none of the fossils holds up as transitional to whales." This man's uneducated opinion is enough for you to discount all of the findings from palentologoists, Flann?

None of this ultimately matters because it turns out the Pakicetus fossil is, in fact, a transitional whale ancestor, one of several as it turns out. Science wins again.

What's really funny here is that you are so bent out of shape because a couple of museums supposedly added a blowhole to a whale and, yet, there are Creationist museums with exhibits showing humans living with dinosaurs. Isn’t that far more egregious an error? You should be going absolute ape shit over that. Why aren't you?

How do you convince a creationist that a fossil is a transitional fossil? Give up? It is a trick question. You cannot do it.

http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/