Killer Whales Are Evolving Into Two Different Species

Washington · Jan 10, 2010

Xavia said:
I've always wondered why people seem to believe the Lord is so weak He could not be the creator of evolution, that it is beyond His power to create life forms that seemingly come from nothing, to progress, to shift, to change, would this not point towards a far more talented God than one who simply went "let there be life" and unleashed a plethora of species which we have since failed to look after?

(and by people I mean Christians, since it doesn't apply to those who don't believe)

How can you dismiss something with so much solid, touchable evidence and then take the word of a book written by mortal men, translated over and over again since the time it was written, modified, added to by several different men ... it may well of started as the word of God, He may of spoken to individuals who wrote down everything, but people change things, it is in the very nature of humanity to twist everything to suit them. Is it easier to think of the Lord as being so churlish as to whip up species and place them here without the ability to change, look at humans, did we not change our ways, discover new technology?

I do not even understand the problem with cetaceans. Splitting off to be reclassified as a new species by humans, yet still within the same general taxonomic area is not exactly cause for arguments revolving around "fake" fossils and such nonsense.

Can someone point out to me the exact verse where it says no new species shall come into existence, nothing vague like they were created, but something that says creation of new species is not plausible? Have I missed it?

Perhaps not the "exact" verse, but verses (many are cited).

The Biblical Evidence Against the Theories of Evolution

"As Christians, many of us have found the scientific evidence for the Big Bang, evolution, etc., to be quite convincing. So convincing, in fact, that we try to combine these theories with our belief in God. Some people believe that God probably created the universe by causing the "Big Bang," and then He allowed the universe to evolve for the next 15 billion years exactly as science describes. In addition, some people believe that God probably created the first single-cell lifeforms in the primordial soup, and then He allowed them to evolve for billions of years until humans developed, exactly as science describes. The "problem" of the six days of Creation is solved by assuming that they refer to six eons of time, each lasting billions of years. This seems like a nice, neat way to believe in God and to believe these scientific theories, both at the same time. Other Christians have similar views (such as "progressive Creationism," "theistic evolution," etc.) which attempt to combine these scientific theories with Biblical facts.

But there's a problem with all of those views. In a few moments we will compare the Creation account and the scientific explanations, point by point, and we will see quite clearly that they contradict each other on essentially every point."

source

The article then goes on to address each of the points, concluding with the following reasoning.

"If we call ourselves by the Name of Christ ("Christians"), then the Bible, not science, should be our final authority, right? Let's don't just say we trust God, let's trust God!"

Washington · Jan 10, 2010

bibleblevr said:
Ignorance or feigned ignorance like this makes Christians look silly and neive, so lets not discredit ourselves it only serves to make non-Christians mad and it gives them a distaste for our faith.

From what I've seen here and elsewhere, I don't think any creationist ignorance, feigned or not, makes non-Christians mad, although some of what they try to do with it, such as trying to push ID into a school curriculum, certainly does.

Obzocky · Jan 10, 2010

Ok, verses XD

To my detriment as a christian I do believe the Bible to be essentially flawed, a humans attempt at making sense of the world around them and should not be cited as truth. It may indeed of been "godbreathed" but people can hear things direct from anothers mouth and still twist it. It is hard for people to understand a period of time longer than a generation or two, just as it is difficult for many to understand that humans are not all that special.

Having faith and the belief in it is fine, but openly mocking those who do not? I struggle with that.

AV1611VET · Jan 10, 2010

Hi, Xavia ---

Xavia said:
To my detriment as a christian I do believe the Bible to be essentially flawed, a humans attempt at making sense of the world around them and should not be cited as truth.

Didn't Jesus cite His Word as truth?

John 17:17 said:
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

Lord Emsworth · Jan 10, 2010

bibleblevr said:
cool speciation in action

I would be willing to bet that the southern whales don't fail to reproduce if they don't have the mutation for bigger teeth, a bet they just migrate north for food and breed with similar whales. it is not really evelution at all because natural selecton is not happening. the whales are selectivly breeding themselfs by segragating those with teeth mutations. it is not based on the idea non-mutants die but rather mutants move to easier areas to live and breed.

I don't think that natural selection necessarily involves "non-mutants" (I just coply over your terminology here) dying as a result of being a "non-mutant", but rather that the "mutants" in the end have better success wrt reproduction.

Naraoia · Jan 11, 2010

SkyWriting said:
I can't fight your imagination. I can simply say that you
don't have any tools to accomplish the creation of life.

Nor any scientific laws or principals to even suggest it.
Nor any engineering methods to accomplish the task.
Nor any models in the Cosmos to parallel it.

Gradualism is a dead science.

Can I please ask you what scientific qualifications you have to say so? If you don't have any qualifications, a bit of evidence would be fine. After all, science is about who has the most compelling data, not the most compelling credentials

SkyWriting said:
What we SEEM to have is a lack of information. The "tree" of life started out as a tree with a trunk & branches. It is currently much closer to it final form, a stand of reeds in a swamp with no branching top to bottom.

Citation please?

I fully support all scientific research, because while all the foam rises to the top and the girls squeal about whale legs, the lab coats very quietly, bit by bit cut off each branch and plant it back into the soil back where it belongs. In the end, no branching will be left.

What lab coats? If you fully support scientific research, maybe you can cite some...

Your cow, hippo things either were there and died out, or they lived right alongside of the thing they were supposed to have evolved from or into.

Did anyone you know, at any point in their life, live alongside their parents? What you seem to find so laughable is essentially the same thing...

Even as supporters cheer each other on, they undercut the theory by pulling down the branches. You should note that the only branches left are the larger fossils that are exponentially more rare. Another reason to focus all attention on a whale. Hey everyone...look over here at this whale

Except some of the BEST examples of documented evolution are in single-celled marine microorganisms. You can check out a few in this book. Some of the relevant text (alas, not the pictures) can be previewed at the link I provided. Look up the chapter "spineless wonders of evolution", or search the book for foraminifera.

And the reason there's more (public) attention on whales is the same reason dinosaurs are more popular than helcionelloids. Bigger, more spectacular, more vertebrate. (Do most people even know what a helcionelloid is? I'd bet no.)

SkyWriting · Jan 11, 2010

Naraoia said:
Did anyone you know, at any point in their life, live alongside their parents? What you seem to find so laughable is essentially the same thing...

Er..no. I'm referring to a species (or whatever label you make up) that is considered a descendant of an animal type, at any point in time, getting reclassified as contemporary. This has been the case in the past, and I predict it will continue until there are no branches left.

If my hypotheses is correct, you will continue to see news stories with headlines like Species found to be much "older than we thought." People who want to believe the stories about an ancient earth think this supports their blind faith in science but fail to note that this is another branch of evolution being ripped off the tree and moved farther down. Eventually reaching the bottom, nullifying everything Darwin suggests about origins.

If I remove the stories about old breakfast cereal I get
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,810,000 for "older than thought" -cereal
Results 1 - 10 of about 9,380,000 for "older than we thought" -cereal
Results 1 - 10 of about 991,000 for "older than previously" -mountains

Nice. About 10 million mistakes that I didn't make by thinking the world was complete on Day 7. I guess you guys don't see the Scientific value of a confirmed theory.

AV1611VET · Jan 11, 2010

SkyWriting said:
Er..no. I'm referring to a species (or whatever label you make up) that is considered a descendant of an animal type, at any point in time, getting reclassified as contemporary.

You're talking to people who like to reclassify behemoth from dinosaur to hippopotamus, then claim that hippopotamus DNA is closest to whale DNA, then claim that whales had legs left over from dinosaurs.

Is evolution cool or what?

SkyWriting · Jan 11, 2010

Naraoia said:
And the reason there's more (public) attention on whales is the same reason dinosaurs are more popular than helcionelloids. Bigger, more spectacular, more vertebrate. (Do most people even know what a helcionelloid is? I'd bet no.)

There is plenty to learn about living creatures. The older the data, the more it is subject to incorrect assumptions. We can't make decent 36 hour weather predictions. Its much more "fun" to focus on ancient snail fossil records because there are VERY few critics to dispute your work.

SkyWriting · Jan 11, 2010

AV1611VET said:
You're talking to people who like to reclassify behemoth from dinosaur to hippopotamus, then claim that hippopotamus DNA is closest to whale DNA, then claim that whales had legs left over from dinosaurs.Is evolution cool or what?

It could have legs, arms, a top hat,a cane, and a tuxedo. The only way to "prove" it evolved into the common whale or from the common whale is by LACK OF CONTRADICTING DATA. Which we know (from Science ) is not a valid proof. And eventually, the data turns up. See > "evolutionary trees" again.

BananaSlug · Jan 11, 2010

AV1611VET said:
You're talking to people who like to reclassify behemoth from dinosaur to hippopotamus,

We are not reclassifying it. It never specifically says what type of animal the behemoth was. BTW, "tail"= penis.

then claim that hippopotamus DNA is closest to whale DNA,

Because it is.
Analyses of mitochondrial genomes strongly support a hippopotamus-whale clade.
Molecular evidence for the inclusion of cetaceans ... [Mol Biol Evol. 1994] - PubMed result
Evidence from milk casein genes that cetaceans are... [Mol Biol Evol. 1996] - PubMed result

Oh wait, you believe all of this is just made up! How convenient for you!

then claim that whales had legs left over from dinosaurs.

We never claim such a thing. Must be nice to resort to such tactics when backed up into a corner. I guess your last tactic is usually to "/thread", isn't it?

Is evolution cool or what?

It does help us in medicine, agriculture, and increases our understanding of the world around us and ourselves. I would have to agree that evolution is cool.

SkyWriting · Jan 11, 2010

BananaSlug said:
Oh wait, you believe all of this is just made up!

I don't think the issue is whether it's fabricated or not.
(It may just be. The more expensive it is to duplicate, the fewer skeptics you'll find duplicating the research. And why stir the pot? You applaud my research and I'll applaud yours. Also referred to as "peer review")

The issue is that just because 2 cars use the same tires, the same brand of batteries and the same trip computers....does that mean one evolved into another? Does it even mean they are the same make or family? Or RELATED in any way?

Not if the premise of evolution is wrong to start with.

Assyrian · Jan 11, 2010

AV1611VET said:
You're talking to people who like to reclassify behemoth from dinosaur to hippopotamus, then claim that hippopotamus DNA is closest to whale DNA, then claim that whales had legs left over from dinosaurs.

Is evolution cool or what?

Reclassify from dinosaur to hippopotamus? Scripture scholars were interpreting behemoth as a hippo long before long before modern creationists came along claiming to was a dinosaur. If you want a reclassification, the margin notes in the AV 1611 suggested it was an elephant.

Naraoia · Jan 11, 2010

SkyWriting said:
Er..no. I'm referring to a species (or whatever label you make up) that is considered a descendant of an animal type, at any point in time, getting reclassified as contemporary. This has been the case in the past, and I predict it will continue until there are no branches left.

If my hypotheses is correct, you will continue to see news stories with headlines like Species found to be much "older than we thought." People who want to believe the stories about an ancient earth think this supports their blind faith in science but fail to note that this is another branch of evolution being ripped off the tree and moved farther down. Eventually reaching the bottom, nullifying everything Darwin suggests about origins.

Aaaah, I see.

In all that pushing back that's been going on, can you name one example that's been pushed so far back as to be incompatible with evolution? I can immediately think of one where the pushing happened in the right direction. For a long time, Archaeopteryx was pretty much the oldest maniraptoran. Since then, several contemporary and older - and less birdlike - relatives became known. (Pedopenna, Anchiornis, Eshanosaurus, off the top of my head)

Nice. About 10 million mistakes that I didn't make by thinking the world was complete on Day 7. I guess you guys don't see the Scientific value of a confirmed theory.

10 million hits =/= 10 million facts. If that were the case, Rabindranath Tagore would be 900 000 different people.

SkyWriting said:
There is plenty to learn about living creatures. The older the data, the more it is subject to incorrect assumptions. We can't make decent 36 hour weather predictions. Its much more "fun" to focus on ancient snail fossil records because there are VERY few critics to dispute your work.

Can you rephrase? I haven't a clue what your point is here.

Oh, and I can assure you there are very well-studied fossil organisms that still get little press. For instance, the aforementioned marine microorganisms, with their wonderfully detailed transitional series that may sometimes represent true ancestor-descendant relationships on the population level*. Foraminifera + evolution returns 30k hits on Google Scholar. Dinosaur + evolution also returns about 30k (whale + evolution yields 56k, same order of magnitude). Yet how much more dinosaur-related stuff do you see in popular media?

*as opposed to organisms that are more or less similar to inferred ancestors, which is more often the case for organisms with less detailed fossil records - eg. vertebrates.

sandwiches · Jan 11, 2010

SkyWriting said:
I don't think the issue is whether it's fabricated or not.
(It may just be. The more expensive it is to duplicate, the fewer skeptics you'll find duplicating the research. And why stir the pot? You applaud my research and I'll applaud yours. Also referred to as "peer review")

HAHAHA
You think peer review is easy? Wow... you have obviously never seen, the viciousness and rabid attacks your work gets by your own 'peers' and 'colleagues.' My father who's an industrial chemical engineer having done research and work for La Universidad Autónoma de México and Dupont, respectively, had to endure the pressure of having his work dissected, chewed, stitched up, and dissected, again and again, to try to see if his work was correct. My father has always been very open with his family and he would tell us about objection after objection after question after question he had to endure in the process of getting some ideas accepted in his field. He'd spend hours in his lab behind our house typing who knows what in his calculator, cleaning and refilling tubes, and beakers and writing about his results. He'd come home smelling like a combination of insecticide and cigarette smoke, his hands tinted by his continued use of dilluted hydrochloric he used to wash his hands after work.

He now does quality control and has since left research and development but this is all etched into my memory very clearly. To say that peer review is nothing but a bunch of scientists patting each other in the back is to reveal that you have no idea what you're talking about.

This caricature illustrates the point well enough:

SkyWriting said:
The issue is that just because 2 cars use the same tires, the same brand of batteries and the same trip computers....does that mean one evolved into another? Does it even mean they are the same make or family? Or RELATED in any way?

Not if the premise of evolution is wrong to start with.

How badly you understand evolution, then. Are cars biological organisms that inherit traits and self-replicate with variation? If not, then as I said before, you've no idea what you're saying.

AV1611VET · Jan 11, 2010

sandwiches said:
This caricature illustrates the point well enough:

Unless it's Pluto --- then this poor guy wouldn't have to walk this gauntlet.

It would just be voted on.

SkyWriting · Jan 11, 2010

Naraoia said:
Since then, several contemporary and older - and less birdlike - relatives became known.

See, here's the problem. If you and I go to a grave yard, and we dig up people who look more like you than me, It doesn't mean we've just found some of your relatives.

No matter how many graves we open, and no matter how many scientists gasp! at the similarities. No matter how many "peer reviews" approve the methodology. I don't care if your LAST NAME is on the headstones, and I don't care if you have WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION that a SAM SMITH was indeed your great-grandfather.

If you say that SAM SMITH was a sex offender I am NOT going to accuse you of being a descendant based on the bone structure of the corpse. So don't try the "relatives" ploy. Even if I'm motivated to, I won't go there.

And you should have picked up on this by now, New research is subject to trashing over time. I get to use it because you believe in it. But I only trust the old research that's been properly shot down.

sandwiches · Jan 11, 2010

AV1611VET said:
Unless it's Pluto --- then this poor guy wouldn't have to walk this gauntlet.

It would just be voted on.

Please research the subject before you say nonsense. There was a lot of research and peer review into stellar bodies, their composition, mass, density, size, etc. And all this research and new evidence, such as the fact that Pluto is only one of around 70,000 similar stellar bodies in its region, including some larger ones, is why the IAU had a vote on the matter.

AV1611VET · Jan 11, 2010

SkyWriting said:
See, here's the problem. If you and I go to a grave yard, and we dig up people who look more like you than me, It doesn't mean we've just found some of your relatives.

No matter how many graves we open, and no matter how many scientists gasp! at the similarities. No matter how many "peer reviews" approve the methodology. I don't care if your LAST NAME is on the headstones, and I don't care if you have WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION that a SAM SMITH was indeed your great-grandfather.

If you say that SAM SMITH was a sex offender I am NOT going to accuse you of being a descendant based on the bone structure of the corpse. So don't try the "relatives" ploy. Even if I'm motivated to, I won't go there.

And you should have picked up on this by now, New research is subject to trashing over time. I get to use it because you believe in it. But I only trust the old research that's been properly shot down.

Check your reps ---

sandwiches · Jan 11, 2010

SkyWriting said:
See, here's the problem. If you and I go to a grave yard, and we dig up people who look more like you than me, It doesn't mean we've just found some of your relatives.

No matter how many graves we open, and no matter how many scientists gasp! at the similarities. No matter how many "peer reviews" approve the methodology. I don't care if your LAST NAME is on the headstones, and I don't care if you have WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION that a SAM SMITH was indeed your great-grandfather.

If you say that SAM SMITH was a sex offender I am NOT going to accuse you of being a descendant based on the bone structure of the corpse. So don't try the "relatives" ploy. Even if I'm motivated to, I won't go there.

And you should have picked up on this by now, New research is subject to trashing over time. I get to use it because you believe in it. But I only trust the old research that's been properly shot down.

I don't even get the point of this post. Are you saying that sex offenders have no descendants or relatives?

Killer Whales Are Evolving Into Two Different Species

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SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE

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Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)

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Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.

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Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE

Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.

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