Animals with bad design.

Hi Aaron,First, I'm glad you started this thread. We need more articulate creationist members. But that's not quite the whole story is it? Some whales have the vestigial remains of pelvic bones and even femurs, despite having no obvious rear limbs. Take a look at this image, which shows the skeleton of a whale, with clearly visible limb remnants. Note that they are not attached to the rest of the skeleton. So on the surface we have an oddity; a tetrapod with only two limbs. However, closer examination reveals clear evidence of the evolutionary changes that led to the loss of the hind limbs. What's more, fossil evidence gives us a very good picture of how whales evolved and lost those limbs. You can take a look at a a number of transitional fossils of early whales and proto-whales, along with an excellent detailed essay on whale evolution at this page;The Evolution of Whales, Adapted from National Geographic, November 2001Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Aaron, What? Are you saying that they are not pelvic bones? That's a new one.This is a doomed line of argument. They absolutely are pelvic bones and femurs too. They are exactly the right shape and they are in exactly the right place. Trying to pretend that these are not limb bones is futile. No, that is an irrelevant question. A vestigial feature need not be devoid of function to be counted as vestigial.The important observation here is that what appeared to be a real oddity, an exception to the nested hierarchy, in the form of a two limbed tetrapod, in fact fits right into the evolutionary picture. It has hind legs, just buried underneath the surface. Even you have to acknowledge the importance of this; whales have legs, their ancestors had rudimentary legs and their ancestors had fully functional legs. This is all plainly visible in the fossil record. This fits the ToE like a glove. Is that the same James Mead who has a Ph.D in evolutionary biology and writes papers with titles like Considerations Of Anatomy, Morphology, Evolution, and Function for Narwhal Dentition? I doubt that he is a big fan of special creation. Perhaps Mr Jim Pamplin (to whom Mead's comments above are addressed) might have mentioned that he was intending to use Mead's response afor creationist apologetics. Then Mead's comments might have directly addressed whale evolution. Of course, that would not have had Pamplin's desired effect, as Mead would simply have responded in the affirmative, that yes, whales evolved from tetrapods.I also note that Mead seems to have no doubt that these structures are pelvic bones. That rather undermines your earlier comments to the effect that they just look like pelvic bones. Nor do Mead's comments address the presence of vestigial femurs in some whale species.It really doesn't matter though if the pelvic bones have a function or not. They are limbs! Hind limbs, stranded in the middle of a creature that needs no hind limbs. I can accept that the musculature mentioned above needs to be anchored to something, but there is no reason why that should resemble a limb. There is no reason why an omnipotent god need design this way. He could have put any shape of bone in there. It is easily conceivable that he might have found a better design choice than the pelvis. Instead, we see a design that appears to have been cobbled together out of pre-existing parts. That's how evolution designs things! It is not what we would expect to see from a designer working from a blank slate.Again, we are back to the same problem that I have mentioned before. We are left wondering why God would choose to design something that looks so very clearly like the handiwork of evolution. The only consistent explanation is these structures really did evolve. Either that, or they were created by a deceitful god, who wanted to hide his presence by making all the life-forms he creates indistinguishable from the fruits of evolution.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Aaron,Looks like I came a little late to the party, so I'll try to keep my comments down to the stuff that other members haven't already mentioned. For the record, I think that the answers given to you have been spot on. No, that's not true. The pelvis you show in the picture fits that description, but other whales have very much larger structures. This picture for instance, shows the pelvis and fused femur of a North Atlantic right whale; The femurs in this species are far larger than in the fin whale. Indeed, even within the fin whale species, there is considerable variation. Some individual fin whales pelvises look more like more familiar mammalian pelvises than others, as can be seen in this gallery;http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/whalepelvics/cgi-bin/page.cgiThere are many high quality pictures of pelvises and femurs from various species of whale here.That doesn't matter. They are still in the right place for hind limbs. If we found pelvis-like structures in, say, the head, now that would be a problem for evolution to explain. But no, we see them right were we would expect to see them if evolution were true and whales were descended from land-dwelling tetrapods.If you have an explanation for why God would be so abstruse as to put a structure that looks like a leg in the place where we would expect to see a leg, even though the creature never had legs, I would love to hear it. The expert that you cited calls it a pelvis. You were the one who cited James Mead as an expert in whale anatomy. Now you are disagreeing with him. So who do you think knows more about whale anatomy, you or Mead? And if you are happy to ignore Mead as soon as he proves inconvenient, why bring him up? You can't have it both ways. You misunderstand me. It really doesn't matter to me whether or not the whale's pelvis has a function. That's because I know that the ToE does not demand that it be functionless. Now you've read the Darwin quote that Taq cited, you know it too.It is creationists who are obsessed with finding a function for vestigial organs, as though that would be a knock-down argument against evolution (it isn't). What I was complaining about in the quote above is another creationist habit. Even when there is no clear function for a vestigial feature, the creationist will adamantly claim that a function will be found. Any day now... It's kind of annoying. Even if a function were found, it wouldn't mean that the feature was no longer vestigial. Which whale? If any one were perfect, then all the other whales, with different designs, would have been royally shafted. a) God did not "change" the shape. The creationist position is that God designed from whole cloth. He didn't change anything, he made it from scratch! Once again, you are attempting to place arbitrary limits upon God.b)I would not expect that an honest an benevolent god would choose to trick us. The presence of hind limb remnants in whales is smoking gun evidence of evolution. Surely you can see how this looks like the handiwork of evolution, even if you don't quite believe it. I mean, the tetrapod origins of whales were a specific prediction made by Darwin. Take a look at this;

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I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale,

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Now okay, Darwin got the bear bit wrong, but otherwise he was very close to the truth. The fossils have been found! Ambulocetus was a whale ancestor, an aquatic mammal and very close to Darwin's prediction. You have to admit that this appears to argue in favour of an evolutionary explanation.I cannot believe that a benevolent god would conspire to create such convincing evidence of evolution if it were not true. The only answer can be that our creator is a liar or that evolution is fact.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Doc, Yeah, I'm aware of that. Probably should have been more clear about it. That's why I say that it is a fulfilled prediction. The bear thing is just a suggestion. The important bit is that Darwin clearly predicted that an ordinary mammal could, through an aquatic lifestyle, become something as improbable looking as a whale.Your point about filter feeding is well made though. That is a more legitimate criticism.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Aaron, The one pictured, the North Atlantic right whale. It shows clear signs of ischium, ilium and pubis. Also, I think you comparing it to the wrong mammal pelvises. Here is indohyus, one of the oldest fossils in the whale lineage; Note the small, simple pelvis. It is similar to those of modern whales. It is perhaps also worth noting here that Indohyus had unusual structures in its skull, structures that are otherwise only found in whales. (More here.) Huh? You showed one that was 5mm long. That right whale's is about 18cm long. Look at the picture. No. There is more variation between individuals of the same sex than between the sexes in general. Look at these two pictures of fin whale pelvises; Both are from large male fin whales, yet they are strikingly different. This rather undermines your claim of sexual dimorphism. Not because he, as a professional anatomist, knows a pelvis when he sees one? Okay.It should be noted though that you were willing to take Mead's word for it when his ideas suited you, but now you find yourself unable to accept his ideas (for religious reasons) you simply dismiss him. I realise that you don't mean it to be, but nonetheless, this is a dishonest way to introduce expert testimony. This is wrong again. The whales differ from individual to individual, as well as from species to species. You cannot claim that any whales pelvis is perfect when they differ so much (see the two examples above). You cannot claim that the whale pelvises are perfect and that they also vary. The two claims are logically incompatible.Besides, not all whales even have these bones. Some lack much of the leg structures, with tiny pelvises, no femurs at all, no tibias, etc. How vital a function can these bones serve if they are not always found? No, I understand your position (I think), I just disagree.Forget the shape of the bone for a moment; consider the fact that many of the pelvis/femur combinations involve fused bones.Why would God, creating from scratch, need to fuse two bones together? Could he not make a single, whole bone in the same shape? If the shape is so vital (and I have demonstrated above that this is false), why not do it with a single original bone? Why fuse together two bones that can be recognised as being part of land-mammal ancestry?It just seems bizarre, pointless and dishonest to me. Well, I have to engage with the arguments you make don't I? I am an atheist, but if you argue for creation by the Christian god, I have to engage with that argument in order to help you see what I consider to be its flaws.As for my version of God, every Christian tells me that I have him wrong and always for different reasons. There are hundreds of Christian sects, each with it's own version. How am I supposed to tell which is correct? Do you believe that there are limits placed upon God (beyond the limit that prevents him from doing the logically impossible?)? I she incapable of creating lifeforms that do not resemble evolved life? But here you contradict yourself. The whale's pelvis is either perfect, or it is changing under natural selection. It cannot be both. Either the fin whale from picture one (above) has the perfect male fin whale's pelvis, or the whale in picture two does. It cannot be both. Do you see where I'm coming from?Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Aaron, You think? To me it looks far more gracile than the dog pelvis. Well yes. They have changed shape and position as they evolved. They are free to do so because they are relatively non-essential to the whale. That leaves mutation free to act upon them unhindered. There are not several species. B. physalus is a single species. There are at least two sub-species. And if the shape of the bones in question is essential to the whale, I would like to know how it can vary. a) So you have completely discarded the opinion of your expert witness? The bones are not similar. You state this as fact, despite it being denied by Mead.b) It has more to do with region? Really? Please provide some evidence for this theory. Yes, there are deep homologies between fish and tetrapods. Why you imagine this argues against the Theory of Evolution is beyond me. But you argued that the bones are necessary to the whales. I pointed out that not all of them are present in all cases.How can a bone be both perfect and necessary when the whale can function perfectly well without it? This is nonsensical.I also think that you are abusing the word "perfect". Previously you asked "What if the shape of the whale "pelvis" is the most ideal shape for its purpose? ". This is not the same concept as you are pursuing above. The shape is either perfect or it is not. You cannot have it both ways. And it would be equally unintelligent for him to fit two whales of the same species with differing pelves, but he apparently does. This is patently false. You can see quite clearly that this bone consists of two fused bones. So why would any honest god create so misleading a structure? And thus you make the entire idea of a creator God universally unfalsifiable.Looks created? Great! God created it!Doesn't look created? Great! God chose to limit himself!An idea that is consistent with any observation imaginable is not really an idea at all.In embracing such an attitude you have reduced your argument to no more than divine whim.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Aaron, You are not getting it. Not all whales even have femurs. Some individuals do, some (of the same species) do not. Now they may conceivably play a role in reproductive muscle, but since femur-lacking whales exist, it is clearly not a vital role.Reproduction is vital, but the femurs appear not to be. And the occasionally present tibia? Optional it seems. That does not alter the fact that individual variation is at least as big a variable, thus undermining the importance of sexual dimorphism. That doesn't mean that sexual variation has no impact, but it does mean that it must be rather minor. In this case, that is exactly what it means. That is why it bears that name. The only reason you deny this is because you are unable to reconcile the facts of whale evolution with your religious dogmas. No-one ever denied that. But the fact remains that whale's pelvis is more similar to its own ancestors than it is to the pelves of unrelated taxa. Flat wrong. In this case, it absolutely is because of that. But some fish did have four-limbed descendants - us included - and those bones are homologous to our pelves in much the same way as we have been discussing with whales. All you have done here is to point out another clear example of the evidence for evolution. Could it be that they are related random mutation operating in an environment that is relatively unconstrained by natural selection? Be sure to ask your biologist that. Also be sure to tell them that you intend to use their input in creationist apologetics. Scientists love that. Why not ask whether they think the evidence provided by whales supports evolution or special creation? Or are you only interested in some of their opinions, disregarding any pro-evolution input out of hand? Perhaps a tiny nub of vestigial pelvis helps a gigantic whale break through ice? You are getting desperate.Okay, perhaps it does. Then what? I have already told you that it does not matter to me if the pelvis of femur has a function or not. That does not argue against vestigiality in the least. There is nothing about vestigiality that demands lack of all function. Could you provide evidence for your claims instead of just scribbling out more theological IUOs?On second thoughts, no need. Maybe it does aid stability. Maybe it doesn't . It matters not. You are just obsessing over an irrelevance.Look at it this way; some sperm whales have been observed to have protruding limbs, actual mini-legs, quite visible outside the body. Not all sperm whales have these, indeed most do not. You could argue that they serve a purpose, but this is obviously not an important factor, since so few sperm whales have them. You could argue that the normal sperm whale pelvis/femur arrangement serves a purpose, but this is rather undermined by the existence of perfectly healthy sperm whales with these more developed limbs. Whatever purpose is there must be fairly minimal. You are getting a lot wrong here, and you even seem to know it. Curious.Evolution is not linear. Both modern toothed whales and modern baleen whales are descended from a common ancestor, an ancient toothed whale. All that this means is that before the evolutionary split between toothed and baleen, the overall whale group had larger pelvis/femur bones. This was retained in the baleen descendants, but not in the toothed descendants. I would predict from your observation that early toothed whale fossils would have bulkier pelves than modern toothed whales. That's an interesting, but quite wrong. From the paper you cited;

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Modern cetaceans have a strongly reduced hind-limb skeleton embedded in the ventral abdominal wall (Fig. 3). It consists, at most, of innominate, femur, and tibia (25), and at least just the innominate (e.g., in Stenella). Interestingly, mice lacking Shh expression are strikingly similar to the cetacean pattern: Both exhibit loss of distal limb structures, but retain parts of the remaining limb skeleton embedded within the body wall (26).

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In other words, mice (an animal that I think we can agree is supposed to have hind legs), when lacking in the appropriate regulatory molecules, will develop rudimentary hind limbs, much like those of the whale. This is smoking gun evidence in favour of tetrapod-to-whale evolution! And you cited it! Bloody hell Aaron! What does it take to get past your powers of self-deception? So you have changed your tune. You claimed that the pelves were perfect, now you acknowledge that they are not. Thank you.Please bear in mind though, I am not interested in perfection. I do not call a single feature of biology "perfect". Evolution does not concern itself with perfection. Theology does, but we do not see evidence of perfection in biology. And they could be used to repel mermaids, but they're not. Please, can we stick to what can be evidenced instead of just making up desperate excuses.Thank again though for acknowledging that the bones are fused. As I have said before, this is important. The bones are very good matches for tetrapod bones. For your creationist arguments to be correct, you need to assume that God did not evolve whales from tetrapods, but he did make them to look exactly as if they had evolved from tetrapods. I don't know how you can bear to worship such a deceptive deity. Yes. The argument is the same. A fused, multi-bone skull is evidence of the skulls haphazard evolution. To design like this from scratch would be perverse and deceptive. Yes I know. I understand what you're saying. But I think that you have failed to appreciate the flaws in your own reasoning.If God produces imperfect beings, that precisely resemble evolved organisms, then you have no way of making predictions for your theory. You have created a theory that could be applied to any situation, and still look equally valid.Imagine for a moment that life evolved entirely independently of God. For any observation that could be made, your theory would match it perfectly, despite being utterly false.Now imagine instead that God created all life from scratch, in the blink of an eye. Again, your theory would be a perfect match for the facts.A theory that can equally agree with any set of facts is a poor theory. That kind of unfalsifiable theory is anathema to science and it is very bad logic in any situation. The kind of theory that you are building seems unconcerned with explaining the evidence. In fact, it seems much more preoccupied with explaining away the evidence, whatever it might be.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Aaron,I don't want to but in - you have enough on your plate already - but I just couldn't ignore this. WTF? We are only calling these features "bad design" because it is your argument that they are designed. We are addressing your argument, as I have said before.You claim that living things are designed. Okay. We, as debating opponents, are taking your premise of design and running with it, seeing where it leads us. We are asking questions that are intended to shine a light on the flaws in your argument, questions such as "If biology is designed, what kind of design is it? Good or bad?", "What does life tell us about this alleged designer?" and "Is what we see in biology consistent with design by the Christian god?".For you to point to our accusations of bad design and say "See! You think it's bad design! You accept design!" is outrageously dishonest. If you were arguing that rocks were designed for a purpose, that is exactly what I would be doing.Remember, none of your interlocutors on this thread believe in design. Only you are promoting that idea. Everyone else is just arguing your premise. You can't then throw that back at us and claim that we are implicitly assuming design. We are not. We are explicitly assuming design to be true, but only for the sake of argument.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage