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Is a Hippo a Pig or a Whale?
CEH ^ | March 24, 2009

Posted on 03/25/2009 9:29:08 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts

Is a Hippo a Pig or a Whale?

March 24, 2009 — Two teams of evolutionists are having a spat over whale evolution. Thewissen and team (Northeastern Ohio U) say the hippo is close to the pig, but Jessica Theodor (U of Calgary) and Jonathan Geisler (Georgia Southern U) say it’s in the whale family tree. Their arguments and counter-arguments were published in Nature last week...

(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creation; evolution; freepun; goodgodimnutz; hippo; intelligentdesign; oldearthspeculation; pig; pork; theotherwhitemeat; whale
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To: txhurl

My goodness, it’s clearly descended from a jellyfish.


41 posted on 03/25/2009 10:07:56 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: CottShop
Let me get this straight. From your comment, “...but as we KNOW from science, homological smilarities (sic) do NOT a descendant make...”, I'm lead to believe that you think science has some value. But if scientific conclusions don't support your opinions, they're crap, right? Also, why do you appear to RANDOMLY capitalize some WORDS?
42 posted on 03/25/2009 10:10:25 AM PDT by stormer
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To: Ira_Louvin
Scientists do not debate whether evolution (descent with modification) took place, but they do argue about how it took place.

Certain assumptions are sacrosanct, yes.

43 posted on 03/25/2009 10:10:58 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

[[Al Gore is beaming.]]

You mean Al Gore is basking- beached himself on a beach somewhere in the Arctic- but not to worry- the polar bears, whom he claims have all but vanished due to global warming ()Which hasn’t happened for over a decade now as we’ve been steadily COOLING- NOT warmign as Al Bore claims) will eat him for supper since they’re ‘starving’ because they can’t swim to the ‘dissappearing’ ice sheets anymore thanks to ‘man-caused’ global warming- which again doesn’t exist, which again is due to natural phenomena which Al conveniently keeps hidden fro mthe public.

Yay science!


44 posted on 03/25/2009 10:12:50 AM PDT by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: txhurl

I caught one of htose just last week- Didn’t taste like chicken or pork to be honest- but meh- when you’re starving, and since we’re reportedly the top of the food chain, we can eat any durn thing we like- I’m goign ot have a spotted owl egg omellette tomorrow me thinks- since I ‘teechnically’ won’t be aborting unborn spotted owls- I expect htough that some baby murdering environut will have a coniption stating that I ‘murdered’ future spotted owls-


45 posted on 03/25/2009 10:16:18 AM PDT by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: RegulatorCountry

Or Katie Couric.


46 posted on 03/25/2009 10:16:24 AM PDT by txhurl (ralph...history books will read: Lincoln freed the slaves & Obama enslaved the free.)
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To: stormer

[[I’m lead to believe that you think science has some value.]]

Absolutely!

[[But if scientific conclusions don’t support your opinions, they’re crap, right?]]

Golly Gomer- Read into statements much? Where di I state that? We KNOW from science that homological similarities do NOT a descendent make- It has been scientifically PROVEN that similarities can and DO arise from wholly disconnected biological systems between dissimilar species- which is precisely WHY homology can NOT be used as an argument for common descent- this isn’t ‘my opinion’- htis is established scientific fact- so apparently, IF my statements don’t agree with your a priori assumptions that homology shows descent, then apparently my statement- which again, isbased on scientific fact- must therefore be ‘crap’ in your opinion? Lol-

[[Also, why do you appear to RANDOMLY capitalize some WORDS?]]

They aren’t random- the whole concept behind capitalization is to give KEY WORDS the proper weight they desrve, and can imply menaing beyond the meaning- it’s a subtle way of saying more than what certain KEY WORDS appear to first indicate. You are free to read between the lines of my Capitalized words, but you are not free to ‘read between the lines’ and insinuate something that is not true as you did by insinuating that I think soemthing is ‘crap’ and falsely implying that I based that assumption simply on my own opinion when infact I state soemthing is not possible based on actual scientific conclusions.


47 posted on 03/25/2009 10:24:34 AM PDT by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: TADSLOS

You are a baddie and you beat me to my line. ROTFL!


48 posted on 03/25/2009 10:25:40 AM PDT by dforest
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To: GodGunsGuts

Evolution and Christianity are perfectly compatible.


49 posted on 03/25/2009 10:26:58 AM PDT by Buck W. (The President of the United States IS named Schickelgruber...)
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To: CottShop

Actually since whales were originally land mammals the nostril evolved into the blowhole………….but anyway this will help explain that process.

“The evidence that whales descended from terrestrial mammals is here divided into nine independent parts: paleontological, morphological, molecular biological, vestigial, embryological, geochemical, paleoenvironmental, paleobiogeographical, and chronological. Although my summary of the evidence is not exhaustive, it shows that the current view of whale evolution is supported by scientific research in several distinct disciplines.”

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


50 posted on 03/25/2009 10:28:41 AM PDT by Ira_Louvin
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To: CottShop
Homology?

Vaguely worth studying....he is true to type.

51 posted on 03/25/2009 10:28:48 AM PDT by txhurl (ralph...history books will read: Lincoln freed the slaves & Obama enslaved the free.)
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To: GodGunsGuts

Thanks for the ping!


52 posted on 03/25/2009 10:29:54 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: CottShop
So if as you've stated, “It has been scientifically PROVEN that similarities can and DO arise from wholly disconnected biological systems between dissimilar species”, then you clearly believe in convergent evolution and (gasp) Darwinism!

Side note - spell check is your friend.

53 posted on 03/25/2009 10:30:41 AM PDT by stormer
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To: GodGunsGuts

Perhaps it’s a pale whig? ;-P


54 posted on 03/25/2009 10:31:53 AM PDT by MortMan (Power without responsibility-the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. - Rudyard Kipling)
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To: Ira_Louvin

The Overselling of Whale Evolution

Conventional wisdom among evolutionists, at least at the popular level, is that whales descended from Mesonychidae, an early and diverse family of land mammals that were well adapted for running.[1] It is hypothesized that some mesonychid species began feeding on creatures inhabiting shallow waters and that over many generations the selective pressures created by this change of diet transformed one or more of the species into an amphibious archaeocete. The selective pressures of amphibious living in turn generated a variety of archaeocetes and eventually transformed one or more of the species into a fully marine archaeocete. Marine existence then shaped further adaptations to produce the 75 to 77 living species of whales, porpoises, and dolphins.[2]

Some evolutionists believe the fossil record has established this claim beyond a reasonable doubt. One writer went so far as to pronounce that “the evolutionary case is now closed.”[3] The purpose of this article is to suggest that the fossil evidence for the mesonychid-to-whale transition is not persuasive, let alone conclusive

Mesonychids to Archaeocetes
The first claim in the evolutionists’ scenario is that archaeocetes descended from a mesonychid species. The ancestral status of Mesonychidae was first proposed by Leigh Van Valen in 1966 on the basis of certain dental similarities between the mesonychid Dissacus navajovius (which is Dissacus carnifex of Cope) and some archaeocete specimens. His rather cautious statement of the claim is worth recalling:

To my knowledge the family of Mesonychidae is one of the relatively few groups of mammals (and even of reptiles) that has not been specifically suggested as ancestral to the whales, but in my opinion the preceding argument establishes them as at least the most likely candidate. . . . Dissacus navajovius is possibly directly ancestral, but little is known of the early history of the mesonychids, especially outside North America.[4]
In a more extensive analysis published three years later, Frederick Szalay suggested that both hapalodectines (which was then considered a mesonychid subfamily) and archaeocetes probably “derived from either early or middle Paleocene mesonychids, species more primitive than known mesonychines” [emphasis mine].[5] In other words, Szalay concluded that both Dissacus and Ankalagon, the only middle Paleocene mesonychids known at that time, were too derived (evolutionarily advanced) to be in the archaeocete lineage.[6] He saw them as “sister groups” of the archaeocetes, not as actual ancestors.

Since publication of the Szalay article, three more genera of middle Paleocene mesonychids have been identified in Asia (Dissacusium, Hukoutherium, Yangtanglestes), but none is known from anything more than fragmentary crania.[7] Information on Hukoutherium, the best known of the three, is limited to a crushed and broken skull with lower jaws.[8] No one has nominated any of these genera for ancestor of the archaeocetes, and thus mesonychids continue to be classified in the more technical literature as a “sister group” to the archaeocetes.[9]

There are major differences between the archaeocetes and cetaceans (e.g., body shape, thoracic fin structure, and skull arrangement) which have led many experts to deny that archaeocetes gave rise to odontocetes or mysticetes.[29] As George Gaylord Simpson concluded:

Thus the Archaeoceti, middle Eocene to early Miocene, are definitely the most primitive of cetaceans, but they can hardly have given rise to the other suborders. The Odontoceti, late Eocene to Recent, are on a higher grade than the Archaeoceti and, on the average, lower than the Mysticeti, middle Oligocene to Recent, but apparently were not derived from the former and did not give rise to the latter.[30]

The point was reiterated two decades later by A. V. Yablokov, who wrote, “It is now obvious to most investigators that the Archaeoceti cannot be regarded as direct ancestral forms of the modern cetaceans.”[31] This was the consensus opinion until relatively recently.[32]

http://www.trueorigin.org/whales.asp

Thanks- but I’ll take my research from htose hwo don’t automatically make cavernous leaps and conclusions based on skull fragments, and who don’t automatically ASSUME a connection despite great heaps of missing data- As I metioned above, it simply is not scientific to assume common descent based on a few scant homological similarities despite the fact that science can’t show the billions of changes that must have occured in the species that are MISSING from the fossil record and which seperate two dissimilar species entirely.

By the way- Trueorigins has exposed many blatant outright lies, half truths, and intentional misrepresentataions by talkorigins- Talkorigins has consistently proven htemsevles unworthy of serious scientific concideration


55 posted on 03/25/2009 10:43:18 AM PDT by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: stormer

[[So if as you’ve stated, “It has been scientifically PROVEN that similarities can and DO arise from wholly disconnected biological systems between dissimilar species”, then you clearly believe in convergent evolution and (gasp) Darwinism!]]

Nope- not at all- once again you are assuming more than was stated- not an uncommon trait amoung macroevolutionists- don’t feel bad- Any form of macroevolution is biologically, mathematically, chemically impossible as well as violating natural laws- not just once or twice- but trillions of times supposedly-

[[ide note - spell check is your friend]]

Spell check is the Devil!


56 posted on 03/25/2009 10:46:41 AM PDT by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: RegulatorCountry

Evolution is far from sacrosanct. Since Darwin’s formulation of it, there have been several significant revisions of important aspects of it:

· Mendelian heredity: Darwin thought genes were both blending (not particulate) and influenced by the environment of the organism, a kind of Lamarckian inheritance he called “pangenesis.”

· Speciation: For a long while Darwin’s own view on what caused new species to rise (natural selection) was rejected by most biologists in favor of geographical isolation. Only recently has Darwin’s view come back into favor as one cause among many.

· Jumping genes: Barbara McClintock won the Nobel Prize for showing that genes can move from one place to another within the genome.

· Symbiotic origins of organelles: Lynn Margulis proposed that the ancestors of eukaryotic cells arose from prokaryote cells joined together in “symbiotic consortiums” (Margulis 1981).

· Genetic drift: This idea from Sewall Wright says that much genetic change in populations is due to random drift rather than natural selection.

· Neutral theory, proposing that most generic variation is neutral, not subject to selection (or nearly neutral, in Ohta’s extension of the theory; Kimura 1983; Ohta 1992).

· Prions: The discovery of an entirely new kind of “life” form that replicates without genetic material via a catalytic change of molecular configuration. This also yielded a Nobel Prize for Stanley B. Prusiner.

· Lateral gene transfer: Some genetic material is not inherited from an immediate ancestor but from distantly related organisms (e.g., Woese 2000).

Challenges to parts of evolutionary theory continue today. However, they are the sort of thing one rarely encounters below the graduate level.

Evolution has undergone a tremendous amount of testing, some of which has shown that correction is necessary. Correcting a scientific theory makes the (corrected) theory stronger. The testing and correction account for evolution’s strong reputation today

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA611.html


57 posted on 03/25/2009 10:47:21 AM PDT by Ira_Louvin
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To: Ira_Louvin
Evolution is far from sacrosanct.

The most basic assumption of macroevolution, that of common descent, cannot be questioned ... sacrosanct.

58 posted on 03/25/2009 11:02:19 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: GodGunsGuts

By gene sequencing hippos are also related to cows, sheep, giraffes, pigs, camels, and whales according to Japanese researchers of a few years ago. (www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199908/0289.)

By those measures how could anyone be wrong about what the hippo is related to?


59 posted on 03/25/2009 11:13:36 AM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: CottShop

The article that I referred to originally appeared in Reports of the National Center for Science Education, a publication of The National Center for Science Education and was reviewed by Phillip D. Gingerich Ph.D. Ermine Cowles Case Collegiate Professor of Paleontology, Professor of Geological Sciences, Professor of Biology, Professor of Anthropology, and Director Museum of Paleontology — The University of Michigan

And your article was written by an attorney

Having a lawyer write a scientific paper, is that not like having a plumber perform your root canal?

Also what examples do you have for talkorigins misrepresentations?


60 posted on 03/25/2009 11:16:04 AM PDT by Ira_Louvin
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