I agree on the Bird and butter fly. Clear Analogs.
Bird and bat… probably homologs…
How do you distinguish between Homolog and Homoplasy, i would love to hear it.
As to common ancestry being the explanation for the “relation of sameness”, what do you do when you encounter a “sameness” without a relationship of inheritance? what do you call it?
The Hippo being the closest genetically is a relative term…
The Hippo is not a marine animal…
Besides, most evolutionists believe that the aquatic features of the Hippo convergently evolved.So the common ancestor should not have these phenotypes.
Blockquote
Overall, we find little support for shared ancestral aquatic adaptations in hippos and cetaceans. In particular, while many molecular adaptations thought to be important for the aquatic environment were recorded on ancestral cetacean branches (mysticetes, odontocetes or both) a comparison of coding sequences that were available for all focal members of the Whippomorpha revealed only a few cases of positive selection along the ancestral branch of the entire clade. Explanations for these findings, apart from the greater degree of morphological adaptation for aquatic existence in cetaceans, include the fragmentary nature of the hippo RNA-sequencing data as well as the relatively short evolutionary time separating the split of Whippomorpha from Ruminantia and the subsequent divergence of hippos from cetaceans. Consequently, our results seem to suggest that cetaceans and hippos evolved most aquatic adaptations separately.
“When there is similarity and cause is not thought to be common descent. Its called homoplasy.
For example, the camera eyes of the octopus and human beings.”
it clearly doesn’t accurately translate clearly into what we see in the image!:
Yes, 2 things can fly … . but that’s the extent of the similarity.
As you can see, they fly for totally different structural reasons.
The Bat flies with a membrane stretched across its fingers… while the bird flies with
a membrane stretched across his arms. There is no SIMILARITY in structure at all.
And yet it is homoplasy.
Do you understand where your description fails in today’s case?
And this is utter balderdash. Where do you get this stuff?
First of all… if all the intermediate forms have gone extinct, all you have to go on are the genetic comparisons to living populations. It’s not an answer… it’s a clue. Learning that the Hippo seems to have the closest affinity tells the researcher to start going backwards into the Hippo evolution … until you find a likely candidate as a “common ancestor”.
And once you start zeroing in on the common ancestor, perhaps we get the answer to your other question - - which is why does one population seem to create one kind of marine mammal… while other terrestrial populations seem to trigger walrus phenotypes or otters or what have you.
As for this final sentence in your blockquote … it’s completely redundant:
As soon as it is observed that Hippos didn’t begin their evolution for millions of years after proto-whales began their development, this conclusion becomes obvious! Hippos didn’t evolve from proto-whales… they evolved from a terrestrial population much older than the terrestrial population from which proto-whales came from.
The bird wing uses an airfoil with feathers with a lack of fingers. The bat wing uses the fingers as wings with a skin membrane stretched between them. They are clear analogs.
The question is , from what did the whale evolve from in 4 million year? The only fossil we have around that period is the Pakicetus which was a land based animal.
All the other “links” in the fossil chain are more recent than the fully aquatic whale fossil.
For example the ambolocetus, which is a “semi-aquatic” species. The fossil is 36mya…
While the fossil found in antartical is a Basilosaurid.
If you look at the picture shown by you, the fossil record tells us that the protocetidae and ambulocetidae were contemporaries of the Basilosauridae. Just as sea Otters are contemporaries of modern whales.
When we compare the blow holes/intermediate features of the various creatures, its important to not forget that the Basilosaurid which looke very similar to the modern whales was already roaming the seas when these creatures left behind fossils.
The closest modern analogue is that of Sealions, the manatee and cetacians roaming the seas today.
If the ambulocetus Looked like the picture given and existed today,i wonder whether it would be called an otter or a whale?
The Pakicetus in the picture would never be called a whale. probably a fox or a rat or maybe some hind of Hog.
All the suggestions of relationship are based on speculation driven by morphological similarities and the fact that we don’t have too many details in the fossils, leaving a lot of room for speculation and imagination.
Let me give an example of homoplasy… camera eyes of octopus and human beings… Echolocation in bats and whales…
It’s not always bat and bird wings…
Why should all the intermediate species be extinct…
Is it some rule perhaps? Did i miss a postulate in the theory that goes in the below lines?
“Natural selection ensures no intermediate species survive thus making it impossible to check if the stories told by scientists are true”.
It’s more probable that they never existed (in the way imagined by scientists)and so we never find them among extant species… But with fossils where we often only have a skull, or a few bones and no soft tissues… a lot can be imagined and attributed to the species.
And its even better with imaginary common ancestors!
Thanks for the clarification. agreed. I was thinking of the bone structure. My bad.
Yes, all vehicles fit into nested heirarchies.
you can classify based on wheels, drives etc.
For example a motor cycle would have a lot of transient features similar to a four wheeler . (such as pneumatic tyres, head lamps, petrol engine etc).
Head lamps would be a homologous feature which also developed convergently… like eyes.
Closed metal frame would be a feature that differentiated the clade of motor cycles from that of cars/vans/buses. (open roofs in cars would be a later feature convergently “evolved”)
Then you could have large clades based on drives.
Internal combustion engines would be a family.
Vehicles driven by Electric motors would be another.
Hybrids would be an intermediate variety,
Animal drawn vehicles would be a primitive variety.
And of course, there would be ahuge ammont of convergent/parallel evolution… for things like leds, sterio systems, brake systems etc.
sounds familar?
Edit: i Just want to add a disclaimer that the levels of tech between us mere human beings and “mother nature” are vastly different. Perhaps if we start making self programmed, self replicating nano machines; we would have a more realistic comparison.
Was referring to the blow hole pics. Called it an ambulocetus by mistake. My major point is that these creatures (Ambulocetids)are contemprories of basilosaurids. (see quote from my earlier comments below) and the blow hole morphology appeared after the Basilosaurids (Hence it cannot be an intermediate feature).
I already admitted i made an error in typing.
However, do you have an problem with the statement that the ambulocetus and basilosaurids were contemprories?
If so, you will readily agree that the ambulocetus could not be an intermediary form?
Well it seems to be a pretty big mistake since you seem to be arguing that Basilosaurids predate Ambulocetids.
Ambulocetids appear in the record before the Basilosaurids. Even if they didn’t that wouldnt make them a non intermediate. It would just most likely mean they aren’t direct ancestors. You also need to be careful thinking that appearance in the record equals appearance on earth.
Contemporaries. So what? I’m contemporary with my grandfather and father. This doesn’t mean they aren’t in my direct line of descent. Ancestors can live alongside their descendents.
You seem to completely misunderstand what we are proposing and how we go about our business. The way you think it happens makes us sound stupid.
Sorry it’s not letting me quote. You said: If the ambulocetus Looked like the picture given and existed today,i wonder whether it would be called an otter or a whale?
“The Pakicetus in the picture would never be called a whale. probably a fox or a rat or maybe some hind of Hog.”
Please explain to me in detail how you think we do comparative anatomy.
A nested hierarchy has branches and shared derived features at the nodes of those branches. I’m not seeing that. For example, you classified cars by drive. Would you group all hybrids in one group, unleaded gasoline (petrol) in another, ffull electric in another, and diesel in another? If so, you will grouping trucks and cars together for diesel, and then putting electric scooters and electric cars in one group. Those seem like clear violations of your proposed nested hierarchy.
I know that you can’t put vehicles in a nested hierarchy because they are a mix and match of parts that will not fit into a nested hierarchy.
That is false. You can find identical engines in a car and truck model. Those would be homologs, and not analogs. That would not be convergent/parallel evolution.
I don’t think you read a word anyone writes. You even quote my correction, and then ignore my correction:
And then you proceed to argue about how cladograms are assembled, or what their purpose is.
The point of whale cladograms is to show that whales didn’t just appear out of the blue with all their modern features. Some whales and proto-whales show the “intermediate” traits one would expect over millions of years of evolution. Whale cladograms are not about proving exact lineages… they are about proving intermediate forms.
And I made an exhibit specifically for you - - which you also have ignored.
I don’t believe you are in any position to pose this objection! Just look what happened to these creatures in your Flood Theory!
@Ashwin_s, do you suppose God created all these proto-whales and whales, not to prove the flood, but to convince the average scientist that whales evolved from mammals?
Or does it make more sense that he would use special creation to make all these proto-whales, and then wipe them all out before humans ever got a chance to even discover they existed? Why did He even make them… in their various grades of intermediate forms - - unless it was to intentionally leave evidence for evolution?
The Flood Theory? Why would these sea-going monsters even drown? Flood theory says they drowned because … ? Oh, wait … there is no explanation for why these creatures would drown along with the triceratops, while the proto-whales would last much longer … only to drown before Noah opened the ark!
There are no proto-whales or whales mixed in with the dead and drowned marine reptiles associated with dinosaurs. Of all the dinosaur-associated marine creatures, why would these drown at the same time as all the stegosauria, triceraptops, and all the other famous “dumpy” terrestrial dinosaurs… and even drown before the millions of humans that should have been entombed with all their dinosaur playmates?
[[ Below are many of the terrestrial dinosaurs who apparently could swim just as well as the marine reptiles depicted in this posting - - because according to the Flood theory, they both drowned at the same time! … while proto-Elephants, proto-horses and proto-sloths could dog-paddle significantly longer than the marine reptiles could swim! ]]
Is it your plan to forever use and re-use the images you find that you think are flawed?
Or do you think you could start using the latest, most up-to-date diagrams and schematics that show what you say can’t be shown?
Try this exhibit from a journal article that is only 4 years old.
[[ Be sure to click on the image to maximize the zoom for full comprehension! ]]
NOTE: I’d be surprised if you could even tell us where the 3-image nose comparison ultimately comes from? Are you going to try to prove Evolution is erroneous based on a poorly conceived illustration that’s been on the internet for decades?
Since we are discussing the claims at the Berkeley site. Lets review it point by point-
Blockquote
The first thing to notice on this evogram is that hippos are the closest living relatives of whales, but they are not the ancestors of whales. In fact, none of the individual animals on the evogram is the direct ancestor of any other, as far as we know. That’s why each of them gets its own branch on the family tree.
So let us acknowledge before hand that no scientist seriously makes the claim that any of the organisms mentioned is an intermediary/ancestor of the modern whale.
Blockquote
These first whales, such as Pakicetus, were typical land animals. They had long skulls and large carnivorous teeth. From the outside, they don’t look much like whales at all. However, their skulls — particularly in the ear region, which is surrounded by a bony wall — strongly resemble those of living whales and are unlike those of any other mammal. Often, seemingly minor features provide critical evidence to link animals that are highly specialized for their lifestyles (such as whales) with their less extreme-looking relatives
Things we can say for sure about the pakicetus:
Top left is the initial reconstructions made by evolutionary “Scientists” based on the initial fossil evidence.Later fossil evidence forced them to correct their imaginations and shows the pakicetus is a typical 4 legged mammal. What we can say with certainty about the pakicetus is as below:
It was mainly a terrestrial animal.
The pakicetus looks like a fox. Its skull is quite similar to that of a modern day coyote.
There are supposed similarities in the ear, However, this was not functional. i.e Pakicetids did not hear in water the same way whales do!
Blockquote
Results suggest that these earliest whales probably used normal land mammal hearing in air, where sound vibrations reached the tympanic membrane through the external auditory meatus, and were transmitted further by the ossicular chain to the cochlea. Pakicetids most likely used bone conduction for hearing in water, given the close contact between the periotic bone and the skull, and the relatively massive incus. The lack of a mandibular fat pad and the close connection between the periotic and the skull indicate that the lateral tympanic wall was not functionally significant in their hearing mechanism in water, and the modern odontocete hearing mechanism was not present. Directional hearing in water was poorly developed.
Source:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.20528
Pakicetids heard in water pretty much the same way many mammals do… Through bone conduction.And their ears had many similrities to land living mammals.
Now lets do a few pictures …
The above is a coyote skull placed next to that of a Pakicetus… yet we call the pakicetus a whale. (Why not the Pakicoyote?)
This one is a mosasaurus (Platecarpus coryphaeus) placed next to a Dorudon atrox (a middle eocene whale). They do not share a common ancestor. If this can happen by accident, whats so special about a little pakicetus ear which is not very similar to a whale anyway?
and final picture:
The artistic impression of a platecarpus…(A mosasaurus)
Pretty similar to whales… except that they are thought be close to reptiles and moved their flukes differently…
There are similarities in ear structure too.
Observations such as the above (if viewed from the evolutionary perspective) tell us that environmental/functional requirements corresponds to similarity between creatures which are not related by lineage. So how can we be sure that the Pakicetus didn’t develop its ears through convergence and the vague similarity to the whale ears is coincidence?
