i admitted and ignored the fact? or i admitted to ignoring the fact? what? define "whale."the thing that creationists have a hard time wrapping their head around is that there really aren't clear lines of what's what sometimes. in this case, it's not exactly a whale, but it's not exactly a terrestrial ungulate either. that's what a transitional species is: something that is in transition between two groups.calling it a whale may or may not be "just for effect" but the point is that it's not a LIE. it can be defined as a whale, depending on where you draw the line -- currently, the scientific community draws the line AT pakicetus: everything afterward are whales, everything before are even-toed ungulates. mind if i quote on that in the nde thread? strawman. i don't think deception is ok -- ever. the problem is that you think there is deception going on, because, frankly, you don't know the first thing about paleontology or biology. it's obvious that you're taking issue with the drawings because you refuse to even try to comprehend the more academic arguments. and part of that objectivity is common sense -- the thing that tells us that drawings do not always equal statements of fact. clearly creationism is not guilty of indoctrination. if you're REALLY interested in education,

how about you read the article?

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אָרַח

This can be corrected by a biologist who actually understands the details. I'm willing to bet that it was called a whale because it IS a cetacean. Since most of the general public would go "huh" at cetacean but many living cetaceans are whales that is the word used. It could have been dophin as well I suppose but whale is the best colloquial term available.In the way that the man-on-the-street understands the term Pakicetus was a whale.

may i suggest a book?"darwin's black box: the biochemical challenge to evolution" by michael behe. not to mention the difference between hard science, pseudoscience, and art. *yawn*

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אָרַח

you're right, randman, you can't. that's why when it says "known only from a skull" most people read it as meaning the reconstruction is hypothetical.however, they weren't just making stuff up -- the drew from other known animals with similar skulls, such as ambulocetus. i'm sorry, i don't know of any whales with webbed feet. no, no, no. the case for it being an ancestral whale is in the actual preserved anatomy: the bones. not the drawing -- the drawing is JUST A DRAWING. they made it look a lot like a whale because from what they knew it was related to whales.and for god's sake, you don't know what soft features it had and what soft features it didn't have. there is not a lot of way to tell without footprints or a mummified corpse. it's not far-fetched. it's a guess based on similar known species. see, you don't know how little they were guessing. you think that abscence of a skeleton means that we're msising a lot of information: actually, you can tell what kind of animal something was from far more miniscule bones. in this case, we knew it fed primarily on fish, was related to whales, was not fully aquatic. we could guess on the body type fairly reliably based other such animals.and it says it's a guess. what more do you want, randman? your logic could be used to attack ANY reconstruction -- in the abscence of information, how do we know it had external ears and fur, and whisker? hmm? explain to me why you think guessing is ok in one way, but not in another? your favored illustration looks almost exactly like the one you were complaining about. did you notice that? or were you ignoring that post too?

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אָרַח

Arach, I'm not wasting my time with your excessively long posts if after the first line or so, you don't address my points properly. So large CAPS just get glossed over.Of course, I recognize as I think everyone does, that you have no interest in real discussion here, but post to lurkers and so after you cannot answer a point, resort to large CAPS, misleading points, diagrams, etc,...I think a smart lurker can see through your methodology, but maybe some do not.

no, i'm wasting my time here. you still haven't addressed my very first post in this thread. what point can't i answer? i've answered every point you've ever had in this thread.so far, you haven't answered, off the top of my head:

• whether pakicetus's skull looks more like a dog's or like a whale's
• how to tell from a skeleton whether or not toes are webbed
• why you think "known only from a skull" means "we know exactly what it looks like"
• why pakicetus has teeth that are adapted to aquatic hunting
• why pakicetus has eyes on the top of its skull, like a crocodile
• what to make of an animal with some distinctly whale-like features, and legs
• what the hell a drawing has to do with scientific study
• why you're so willing to accept science that agrees with you, but uses the same "tactics" of artistic interpretation as the things you disagree with
• why you think that ambulocetus looks significantly different from pakicetus
• why your favored reconstruction looks almost exactly like the one referred to in the op as disagreeable
• why it is impossible for pakicetus to swim
• and why it's only found near riverbeds

obviously you're not interested in real discussion. you just keep posting the same crap about how there's some big evo conspiracy to indoctrinate our youth, and how they keep lying with drawings like haeckel did, and how clearly they were jumping to conclusions. i think a severely mentally handicapped lurker can see through yours:

• claim dishonesty
• avoid relevant points
• change the subject
• talk about haeckel and neanderthals
• repeat initial claim
• ignore questions about justification for claim
• attempt to prove claim by restating it.
• restate it some more
• come out and SAY you're going to avoid relevent points because your opponent is "snide" or "pathetic" or "wasting your time."
• sling a few adhominems
• continue to avoid relevant points

basically: claim, avoid, slander, repeat. how is this honest?This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 12-02-2005 03:07 AM

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אָרַח

Yes false depictions are a problem.For instance it is obvious why creationists believe that humans and dinosuars coexisted when you see images like this: And the insidious indoctrination starts so young ...It's all hollywoods' fault that people can't understand eh?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Quite. We know your objectivity standards.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

​

RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Please argue the topic and not the person. My sense is that you're failing to make your case because you believe you needn't go to the effort of building an effective and cohesive argument because the duplicity of evolutionists is self-evident. This causes you to repeat old arguments fairly frequently and to only rarely actually address your opponents.My advice to you, as it has been all along, is to focus on the topic and respond to what people say. Quoting what you're responding to would help others understand your rebuttal by placing it in context, and it would help keep you on topic since it would be there for you to review while you're typing.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I think everyone already understands you're trying to make the point that evolutionists tout false depictions in order to promote the fallacy of evolution. And the evolutionist position is that they are merely the best depictions that can be managed at the time to represent the understandings of evolutionary scientists based upon available evidence. I think if you took the time to read what people are telling you that you'd realize that such a conclusion is at best premature and at worst wrong. As I told you back in Message 178, Gingerich believes Pakicetus had webbed feet. I quote the same text I quoted before from his website (Philip D. Gingerich), and I include the artists conception paintings: Pakicetus is on the left, Rodhocetus is on the right. Note that Rodhocetus has webbed rear feet, and partially webbed front feet. So Gingerich still endorses the original Pakicetus depiction, and still believes it had webbed feet.I inquired earlier about how this depiction relates to the earliest one for Pakicetus:

This appears to be a clawed, not hooved, creature. Jar compares it to the difference between an otter in and out of water, but I've seen otters out of water, too, and I don't see it that way. If you look at an otter and an otter skeleton, you can see a resemblance: But I see little resemblence here, and no one has explained how Gingerich could still endorse the original depiction given what we now know about the skeleton: --Percy

In his reply to this in Message 238, Arachnophilia accepts the argument that Pakicetus had hooves, so I'm confused. Isn't this a Pakicetus skeleton: The appendages on the end of the legs look like claws to me.--Percy

Hey Percy. Hooves aren't allways a "horse hoove"Remember, paki is what is called an even toed ungulate. This includes piggs, hippoes, and other creatures. These are "hooved" animals in that their feet have that structure. Here is a little illustration showcasing different forms of ungulate feet (hooves): For some more context, think of the early horse, eoehippus:

Please remain focused on the topic.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

There's a large industry out there that packages science into forms that laypeople can understand. And there's the textbook industry that packages current scientific views into a form students can understand. When the current understanding changes because of new data or improved insight you seem to be concluding the previous understanding was some sort of fraud, while ignoring the tentative nature of science, and also ignoring the history of science as one of gradually improving understanding.I think most here acknowledge the problem that textbook publishers tend to get locked into certain views and presentations that eventually become dated or misleading or wrong, but you'll find few defenders of the textbook industry here. My daughter took biology last year, and her textbook was a huge compendium of useful information but also of poorly explained and misexplained and misrepresented information. Scientists don't write the textbooks used in public schools, laypeople familiar with science do. The textbooks at the college level are much better because they tend to be written by professors who are engaged in actual research.But the public representations of biology in magazines and books and textbooks are no different in character and accuracy from any of the other branches of science. Biologists are no more engaged in a conspiracy to convince the public of a false theory than are physicists or cosmologists. You won't find many to agree with you that the best conclusions drawn from available evidence are falsehoods.--Percy

I don't think so. But Arachnophilia's interpretation seems to be that when Ginerich says "these animals were less different", he means that Pakicetus was much closer in appearance to Rodhocetus, and looking at the long legs of Rochocetus you can see that it does bear a very close resemblance to the Pakicetus skeleton. Here are all those pics: So I guess Arachnophilia has convinced me that Gingerich *is* admitting the original depiction is no longer accurate, but he sure isn't doing it in any overt way. For context, here's Gingrich's coments on the paintings (not the skeleton) from his website: Given that he gets into enough detail to mention the hands and feet, I don't he's basing it on superficial similarities.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 12-02-2005 10:05 AM