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First off, are you going to acknowledge that you are essentially ripping your documentation entirely from Harun Yahya, the Turkish Creationist otherwise known as Adnan_Oktar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Oktar
He's a very talented fellow in his own right, unfortunately his talent is almost exclusively plagiarizing from the Institute of Creation Research (ICR) as well as threatening people in his own country who believe in anything but creationism:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rn..._12_30_1899.asp
Furthermore, this same interestin fellow and his network also depicts Darwinism as the true "ideological root" of terrorism:
http://www.harunyahya.com/evolution_specialpreface.php
So if this is the guy you're laying you're bed with, best of luck. But let's take a look at your/his claim anyway:
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
The first so-called ancestor of the whale, Pakicetus inachus, was a fully formed land animal. P. D. Gingerich discovered it in 1983, claimed it was a primitive whale, but only had a skull. Later finds established the fact that the animal was again, a fully functional land-animal, not a "walking whale". Yet, with a good artist, any animal can be turned into a transitional species...
Pakicetus inachus skeleton.
True artistic rendition of the animal.
Featured in the National Geographic as conveniantly a swimming mammal, a walking whale.
The differences are so great between this land creature and whales, that it's absurd to suggest ancestry. |
As I noted previously, the problem with your author's conclusions is not that he's merely incorrect, but I submit that he's being deliberately deceitful. I do not have full access to Gingrich et al.'s 1983 article on me (and it costs way too much $ to buy it), but I do have a coupla quotes I have utilized from it in the past. For example:
| quote: | The specimens were recovered from fluvial red sediments.... The fauna associated with Pakicetus at Chorlakki is dominated by land mammals. Nonmammalian remains include poorly preserved Planorbis-like snails [Planorbis is the common freshwater ramshorn snail], fishes (particularly catfish), turtles, and crocodilians.... Altogether this evidence indicates a fluvial and continental rather than marine environment for Pakicetus during at least part of its daily or annual life cycle.... Evidence suggests that Pakicetus and other early Eocene cetaceans represent an amphibious stage in the gradual evolutionary transition of primitive whales from land to sea.
Gingerich et al. (1983). Origin of Whales in Epicontinental Remnant Seas: New Evidence from the Early Eocene of Pakistan. Science 220: 403-406)
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So you see that your author changed a few things from the original article such as changing turtles to tortoises (thereby making it look more terrestrial), and claiming that snails and crocodiles are purely terrestrial (which some snail species are but not the ones mentioned). Furthermore, I emphasized that the sediments these fossils were found in are fluvial, i.e. river beds (and therefore NOT terrestrial).
Are you beginning to understand why you need to have a more critical view of the sources you are using from creationists?
So Pakicetus wasn't entirely fully aquatic as our modern day whales, and Gingrich's article also demonstrates the fossils were found in sediments deposited in fresh water, not just associated with terrestrial mammals but also with aquatic invertebrates and amphibious invertebrates. So if we go with a prediction of whales arising from land animals, then we would have to conclude that their ancestors arose from land with 4 legs with characteristics that were depicted here, and that is exactly what we find with Pakicetus.
| quote: | | I understand evolution enough to know its proponents have never proved evolution above the species-level now, or else the questions of our origins would be answered. |
As is the difficulty with your Turkish creationist who believes Darwinism is the root cause of terrorism, you are confusing the concept of abiogenesis with evolution. Unless you are merely discussing our origins (i.e. homo sapiens), which that has a wealth of evidence which supports it. The only individuals who have difficulty with such origins are those with pre-conceived religious notions that conflict with the research data, which consequently time and again have been found to deliberately distort and outright lie (which I've demonstrated a few times on this topic already).
| quote: | | Whales have always produced whales, and the same with Pakicetus inachus. |
Of course they have. If they actually produced anything else, that would actually disprove evolution much more than bolster it. Methinks you need to know a bit more about evolution from sources outside of creationists (i.e. actual scientific researchers) before making wild claims.
| quote: | | When confronted with this fact, evolutionists just go to their "God excuse" which is, "It takes millions of years |
That's a "God excuse"? Actually every single researcher I've ever known simply points me to the primary literature and says, "read". Funny you should argue that.
| quote: | | Then when you ask for the millions of transitional fossils that should clearly show relationships of ancestry, we get a few questionable examples of so-called transitional species, which hardly could be called scientific finds. |
Ummm, there's more than just a "few":
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
And that doesn't even touch the plants or microorganisms.
| quote: | Then I get the excuse, "Well, over the millions of years, a lot of fossils were lost, so we don't have a complete record, so we can't exactly show ancestry like you want (millions of transitional fossils). What pseudo-science.  |
Funny how you pose the countless hours of excruciating work by these researchers as merely an "excuse", while somehow pointing to creationists who outright distort the primary literature in hopes to gain gullible readers such as yourself.
That really doesn't bode well for you, sir.
| quote: | | I saw it the Gould quote, as its seen in the sig, and thought it was good, but if it is quote-mining, then I didn't realize it. |
Gullible indeed. Perhaps you should actually read Gould and others similar to him before finding those creationists who deliberately distort and misrepresent his works for their own personal propaganda.
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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