Replies

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