“the TOE suggests that some land mammal had to have decided to become a water dweller and slowly change”
I’ve never heard of that. I have heard of sea creatures emerging from the water.
Millions of years ago, ancient land-dwelling mammals returned to the sea. Their bodies became streamlined for swimming, articulated fingers turned into flippers and fins, hypnotic songs slowly filled the oceans—and, somewhere during the evolutionary process, the newly evolving marine mammals lost a particular gene called Paraoxonase 1, or PON1.
Perhaps that gene was no longer necessary for organisms adapted to life in the water; as evolution streamlined aquatic bodies, it may have similarly streamlined genomes. But whatever the reason, PON1 ceased to function in each of the three marine mammal lineages that are today’s whales and dolphins, manatees and dugongs, seals and sea lions.
Yes, me too. But it is believed that animals evolved up to mammals on the land. It was a simpler critter that crawled out of the water.