@RyanBebej reviews and addresses the misconceptions in the new series of the Discovery Institute’s videos attempting to debunk whale evolution evidence. Grateful to have an expert like him to explain things for people like me!
Does the Disco Institute have an alternative explanation for whales? Did God the Intelligent Designer just drop new whales in the ocean?
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I might mention that I love whale evolution. In 2013 I saw a fantastic exhibition called Whales: Giants of the Deep which was developed and presented by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. It featured more than 20 skulls and skeletons from various whale species (ancient and modern) and showcases many rare specimens. It included a real skeleton of a male sperm whale measuring 58 feet long (or about 18 feet longer than a school bus); etc. What struck me was the ridiculous tiny vestigial hind limbs of the Basilosaurus.
I saw this traveling exhibition at the AMNH. Just the logistics of moving around these fossils was pretty amazing to think about.
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Thanks for posting this!
Due to the vast topic of evolution, it helps greatly to focus in on a species that has ‘strong’ evidence.
That said, to the novice whale evolution hardly comes across as 'overwhelming’to me. E.g. On a scale of convincingness; On the high side, we are convinved that ‘Dinosaus’ existed due to overwhelming fossil finds etc.
The transitial fossils that show the hind legs are great, but it is hardly ‘amazing’ when i consider all the stuff that needed to change for a species to transition from land to water, and to continue to be out there right now. To know that the current blue whale is the largest living ‘animal’ ever known in all of history, is gobsmacking.
So, insert EC as a reasonable conclusion i guess.
I find evolution a bit like asking, why did God create dinosaus? I need to be creative to come up with some ideas.
Anyway, just having a ramble.
I’ll read this for sure in the morning when I wake up. When I saw the title, i completely thought this was a defense of Jonah being literal xd.
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Well, it’s a good piece which talks about the uncertainty over the period of evolution, but why and how do you think it justifies creationism?
Are you talking about the DI video this article is critiquing or the BioLogos article? If the former, the DI is all about throwing shade on evolution, while insisting it’s not defending creationism, so that is to be expected from them.
I was talking about the article. I went through the whole of it and 2-3 related links of the author, maybe I misinterpreted by combining the two articles. I’ll go through them once again and get back if I find something problematic.
I am reminded of an article Dawkins wrote:
The sad part is that for every fossil we find there are two more gaps.
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This seems common with DI arguments. They miss the purpose and practice of science and scientists, claiming that any gap equates to no evidence at all. And like in the whale video, no other alternative is offered. A tactic that is used, as seen in The Genesis Impact movie, is that a non- related theory is brought up to prove evolution false. Scientific communities work via peer review, and if someone who disagrees cannot propose a more effective experiment or bring up new evidence using their own experiments that holds up to the peer review process, how do I say this…in the words of Mace Windu,
“Take a seat.”
Seeing the amount of people who cheer on the DI videos and articles and proceed to slam evolution, I think it’s important to point out the weaknesses of this approach to people who share it as evidence.
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yahh, my favorite topic in the evo/creation debate. Created or evolved?. I’ll see if anyone responds before I join in.
Welcome to the forum, @Rhythmic_supercat , Anything specifically about whale evolution that interests you or you would like to discuss? Of course, many around here think we are both created and evolved, though ID tends to feel we are created sequentially over time, I think. Which on a molecular scale might be indistinguishable from evolution, I would think.
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Thanks Phil, glad to be apart of the forum. Nothing specifically I’m looking at, Just happy to put my pov on the topic and raise the main thoughts that I do have on both creation and evo, that being they are both unverifiable. It seems from where I sit anyway, if I was to be an atheist again as in my old days, the best I can do is accept and believe that whales evolved from land dwelling dog like animals based on the information that is available to read or listen to from the scientist. Even if it’s true, I can on accept and believe it. As a creationist this is what we asked to do. Belief is key in the creationist paradigm.
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I don’t think that accepting evolution is as loose as believing in a faith concerning evidence. All scientific evidence points towards the theory of evolution. Genetics. Fossils within geological strata. Field biology and so on.
Assuming you meant “can not accept and believe it”, you have adopted a position similar to that held by Todd Wood. It’s hard to chop up his blog post into quotable bites, so please excuse the long quote:
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A telling statement. In my paradigm, I would rather say truth is key. and Jesus being the Way, Truth, and Light, means integrating that into my belief system. To believe something that is untrue is to venture into cultish behavior. Perhaps we all are in danger of that, as we all certainly have some beliefs that are less than true, as we have incomplete understanding, but is a bug, not a feature.
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“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”–Galileo Galilei
“If the tenets of young earth creationism were true, basically all of the sciences of geology, cosmology, and biology would utterly collapse. It would be the same as saying 2 plus 2 is actually 5. The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?” – Dr. Francis Collins
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If belief isn’t key than john 3:16 becomes weakened or pointless. The difference here is I believe Jesus being the Way, Truth, and Light, as jesus as a person is not verifiable , nor is his death and resurrection. john 20:29 confirms this.
Jesus said unto him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.”
I personally can’t say Jesus is the truth as only Jesus can say that, as he does know who he is. We can only accept and believe these statements of jesus to be true, which I I do, but because it is a belief, that belief could also be false. That is what belief is.
What is your belief system that you integrate Jesus into it?
Interesting statement, I think I’m a bit different in this regard . I’ll explain. My 1st interaction I had with God was the holy spirit, but I had no knowledge of godly things or jesus at that initial time. I then proceeded to make my own understanding of what was happening. A very dangerous thing to do I realised later. This type of thinking can lead to cultish behavior… Eventually, I was led to a church by this spirit to learn about Jesus. Once I understood more about him and his teaching it gave me a clearer understanding. One thing for certain I didn’t do was integrate Jesus into my belief system as my belief system, that being the holy spirit was Jesus. I connected the 2 together.
To believe something that is untrue is to venture into cultish behavior. Perhaps we all are in danger of that, as we all certainly have some beliefs that are less than true, as we have incomplete understanding
True, we can never be 100% certain that what we believe to be true, is truth. This is where the holy spirit kicks in him with guidance to gain that deeper understanding and to keep us inline and to guide us. It is a fine line though and one I certainly tread with the utmost caution as I originally come from a non understanding of such things, so listening has become my No one tool these days. Mainly to the holy spirit and people who teach of it.
Sorry my writing was incomplete. I’ll rewrite it so it is clear. “I can only accept and believe it.”
That is different to “can not accept and believe it”
My position is that I personally cannot verify scientific claims of evolution, mainly historical evolution eg, Life from non life, the split from a common ancestor 7 mya that lead to humans or modern apes as some like to call us.
I’m not disputing any of that as I accept it could be true, my position is I can’t verify it and no-one can. Supporting evidence is one thing, but verification is another. So from where I sit, I can only accept and believe in evolution as it is told by the scientist
Unless you have a verification process for it and all the papers scientist put forward to the general public, than this is how It is. It falls into a belief system, regardless if it’s true or not. Because if we could verify historical evolution, no-one would be arguing against it. No-one argues against speciation or adaptation. These are all observable in nature. A 4 legged land animal becoming a whale over a 10mill year period is a belief. It maybe true, but it is a belief. It is unverifiable.
One question. Do you accept and believe what scientist tell us about our origins or historical evolution, or can you verify it?
I’m motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure.
Who might that be?
First off, I am the friendly neighborhood atheist. I am not anti-theist or hostile to religious belief, and I support the voice of Christians in the scientific community. I am also a scientist with a bachelors degree and decades of experience in a research setting. With that out of the of the way . . .
First, life from non-life is not a part of evolution. If God created the first simple replicators and all life evolved from that point then nothing in the theory of evolution would need to change. It’s kind of like the Germ Theory of Disease where germs have to come from somewhere, but it doesn’t have to be life from non-life in order for us to understand infectious disease.
As to sharing ancestry with other modern apes, there is mountains of evidence that verify it. Fossils are probably the most sought after by non-scientists, and we have those in spades:
A. Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
B. Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
C. Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
D. Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
E. H. habilis, OH24 , 1.8 My
F. H. ergaster (H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
G. H. heidelbergensis, " Rhodesia man," 300-125ky
H. Homo neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70ky
I. H. neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Sts, 60ky
J. H. neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45ky
K. Homo sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30ky
L. Homo sapiens, modern
For scientists, the smoking gun evidence is found in genetics, most notably in the comparison of genomes between species. For example, retroviruses insert randomly into the host genome, yet we find that more than 99% of the 200,000 retroviral insertions in the human genome are found at the same spot in the chimp genome. This is smoking gun evidence of shared ancestry.
There is also the spectrum of mutations that separate ape and human genomes, as discussed by another scientist here at BioLogos (@glipsnort):
Dr. Francis Collins was the head of the NIH Human Genome, former director of the NIH itself, founding member of BioLogos, and a devout and outspoken Christian. In his essay “Faith and the Human Genome” he wrote:
“Arguments against macroevolution, based on so-called gaps in the fossil records, are also profoundly weakened by the much more detailed and digital information revealed from the study of genomes. Outside of a time machine, Darwin could hardly have imagined a more powerful data set than comparative genomics to confirm his theory.”–Dr. Francis Collins
I would suggest you check out that essay, if you have the time. It is written by a Christian for Christians.
The transitional fossils verify it, as does the overall evidence from genetics, the nested hierarchy, and so forth.
For a general list of evidence for evolution you may want to check out TalkOrigins:
In the eyes of scientists, evolution is one of the most verified theories in science.
If we could verify that the Earth was a globe there wouldn’t be Flat Earthers, right?
Added in edit: A good article on some of the transitional features in earlier cetaceans.
https://www.science.org/content/article/evolving-ears-whales-got-wet
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