Part 7: Children of Poseidon

And so we arrive at the inevitable riddle awaiting any earnest seeker of Truth through science — and, ideally, plain English. (Seriously: have you ever heard a paleontologist describe the tympanic part of the temporal bone?) All aboard — and take a deep breath — as we dive headlong into Darwin’s deep-sea rabbit hole. Within its murky depths lie purported transitional fossils that supposedly vindicate the random evolution of whales. But is this narrative really the slam dunk it’s made out to be? Let’s find out.

Episode Transcript

(00:21):
The Delicious Theory of Reincarnation, Partseven, Children of Poseidon. When pigs

(00:49):
fly or leap out of water,Museums of natural history, textbooks, and
popular media are awash with renderings andmodel reconstructions of the skeletal systems of alleged
transitional forms, all purportedly amounting toevidence that whales and to borrow a phrase

(01:10):
from American biotist doctor Jerry Allen coynquote almost certainly evolved end quote, and
now back to us truly through anundirected, unplanned, dragged out, and
unguided fashion from a land dwelling animalthat paleontologists referred to as an ardiodactyl.
That is, and as defined byEncyclopedia Britannica, any member of the mammalian

(01:30):
order archiodactyla, or even towed ungulates. Ungulate, by the way, means
having hoofs, which includes pigs,pekerees, hippopotamuses, camel, chevrotains,
deer, giraffe, spronghorn, analopes, sheep, goats, and cattle.
Now what manner of rock solid evidencewould lead to such end quote almost certain
unquote assertion. Since we're just gettingstarted, and as a warm up,

(01:55):
exercise. Let's review some of whatdoctor Coin revealed in his highly claimed two
thousand nine book, Why Evolution IsTrue? Chapter two written in the Rocks,
subchapter Back to the Water, TheEvolution of Whales, page forty eight.
At one point, we learn thatbecause they are prone to sunburn and
should they graze ashore in the daytimeinstead of feeding at night as they would

(02:19):
usually, hippos evolve an adaptation thatprotects them from the scorching sun. Basically,
their skin secretes hippostiudoric acid, whichis a red pigment often mythologized as
blood sweat, though neither blood norsweat, that acts as a natural sunscreen
and as an antimicrobial agent. Coinwrites, quote, Hippos are obviously well

(02:40):
adapted to their environment, and it'snot hard to see that if they could
find enough food in the water,they might eventually evolve into totally aquatic whale
like creatures. End quote. Allright, First, as a modal verb,
might implies a low proper ability.You know, something will happen versus

(03:02):
something may happen versus something might happen. But I suppose it takes only one
random, successful, non debilitating geneticmutation to be fixed, passed on and
built upon, so on and soforth, for a quote unquote whaleike creature
to be born, well, twowhailike creatures to be born, actually,

(03:23):
because how else would this new speciesthrive? Easy? Peasy right, sure,
antelo, I don't know. Yougrow up, you go to college
as an architecture major, and youbegin to wonder if you might not have
been told a white lie. SeeI can be nice, and that in
actuality, untold, non deleterious,blind, undirected, random and coordinated mutations

(03:46):
might not even be enough. Andthat brings us to the main problem projecting
a public image of Darwinian evolution asa foregone conclusion rather than a debate worthy
hypothesis, thus removing the need todemonstrate, through at least one blessed,
falsifiable algorithm, how blind, mindlessnature can manage to assemble a never before

(04:08):
seen body plan within a span ofsay, ten million years, which would
be a geological blink of an eye. By the way, his tantamount to
proselytizing in the name of scientism,a religion whose apostles, disciples and apologists
truly believe that mindless, thoughtless mattercan self organize into complex living machines.

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Personally, I don't have a problemwith evolution, but mindless, blind,
devoid of any level of intelligence,evolution, despite what the science is,
may or might be saying that Ihave a problem with. Now, let's
analyze Jerry Coinn's statement from the pointof view of Darwinian logic. First,

(04:53):
the fact hippos are well adapted totheir environment is by Darwinian rules, due
to a sequence of random mutil thatperfectly matched again by sheer dumb luck the
prevailing environmental conditions. I mean,it's not as though nature custom ordered the
adaptation. That would be implying teleology, which is a proverbial piniata to materialists.

(05:15):
And let's assume there are no deleteriousmutations to worry about. These chance
mutations could just as well have resultedin hippos evolving bileen instead of teeth,
or beanie hats with propellers. Okay, maybe not beanie hats, but certainly
propellers. And why are you laughing? Just take a look at the bacterial
flagellum and prepare to be amazed.It's a sophisticated nanoscale molecular engine. Assembled

(05:39):
ooh sorry, self assembled from manyprotein components. It's equipped with things such
as a stater ring that generates torqueusing electrochemical gradient of photons or sodium ions
across the inner membrane and whatnot.So what says this ingenious nanoscale machine could
not or might not be scaled up? So yes, using that logic,

(06:00):
which amounts to a totology, anythingcould or might be possible, and therefore
it shouldn't be hard to see thatif they could find enough food in the
water, they might eventually evolve intosomething totally aquatic, perhaps with an inboard
or off board motor that's driving apropeller like appendage. And by the way,

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should you ever be made to feelit isn't your place to contradict an
expert quote unquote who is quick toflash their credentials and thus intimidate you into
believing you lack the wherewithal to doso, just remind them that you don't
need a degree in rocket science toknow that the payload goes in front of
the propulsion system. Once again,in Darwinism, anything could or might be

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possible. All is fluid. Toquote Richard Dawkins, who, in his
two thousand and nine book The GreatestShow on Earth made it clear there are
no archetypes, and that quote descendantscan depart indefinitely from the ancestral form,
and each departure becomes a potential ancestorto future variants. End quote. Not
to freak you out, but thatalone should keep you up at night anyway.

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Jerry Coin continues by saying, quote, but we don't have to imagine
how whales evolve by extrapolating from livingspecies. Whales happen to have an excellent
fossil record courtesy of their aquatic habitsand robust, easily fossilized bones. This
is one of our best examples ofan evolutionary transition, since we have a

(07:26):
chronologically ordered series of fossils, perhapsa lineage of ancestors and descendants showing their
movements from land to water. Endquote. And so, according to standard
issue ubiquitous talking points, over fiftyfive million years ago, and presumably because
it is yet to be found,they lived a four legged, cloven hoofed

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animal and audiodactyl whose evolution would causeone of the branches of Darwin's Tree of
Life to bifurcate, resulting in twoseparate tree branches, one leading to the
modern hippopotamus of today, and anothermajor branch that also so bifurcated some thirty
five million years ago into two subbranches, a top of which sit on
one side baleen whales and on theother toothed whales. Now process wise fossils

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nature's rare sculptural and lithographic handiwork,given that they are not the remains of
the organisms themselves, but quite literally, rocks are discovered, dug up,
deconstructed, then reconstructed, and,as in the case of the whale,
evolution's story, woven into a narrativeshoring up I materialistic worldview, with the

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added irony that not all Darwinians necessarilysubscribe to the scientific materialism doctrine. Furthermore,
and with all help from the massmedia, this narrative becomes so deeply
entrenched that any attempt to scrutinize orchallenge it publicly has all the markings of
an exercise and futility, with theadded bonus of potential repercussions ranging anywhere from

(08:56):
mild scorn to catastrophic loss of income. And, just in case you didn't
know, I certainly didn't. Paleontology, which deals with the fossils of long
deceeased animals and plants, is aninterdisciplinary field, just like architecture, I
suppose, involving geology, archaeology,chemistry, biology, and anthropology. And
you know what, let's throw inspeech therapy for good measure. And so

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it is a demanding discipline and paleontologistsfor sure have their work cut out for
them. After all, something asmodest as a fossilized tympanic part of a
temporal bone can be challenging to drawor sketch, let alone to identify and
place in context of the larger skeletonor story. And that's just the beginning
of trying to reconstruct how the organismmight have lived or died and ultimately how

(09:43):
the earth has changed. For example, the fossils of ancient marine animals called
ammonites that had been on earthed inthe Himalayas in Nepal is how we know
that the rock formations that would ultimatelybecome the Himalayas once lay at the bottom
of the ocean. And the discoveryof an ancient giant shark called megalodon as

(10:03):
how we know that the state ofUtah was probably underwater, as discussed in
episode five. This is textbook abductivereasoning. If I see a live turtle
stuck atop a fence post, mymost logical rational conclusion is that, well,
somebody must have put it there.So, in the case of Meglodon,

(10:24):
either some alien species played a practicaljoke on us or Utah was submerged.
And by the same token, whenI see a fascinating series of fossils
that implies an evolutionary process, why, when I factor myriad insurmountable challenges in
should I feel compelled to cling tothe notion that this evolution had to have

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been the result of a random,blind, and undirected mechanism, all the
while dismissing with prejudice an alternative thatmakes more common sense. And so my
goal here is to hopefully persuade you, dear willing participant, that the the
so called whale fossils are a doubleedged sword, and by extension, that
the whale evolution narrative is not theslam dunkets cracked up to be. And

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if you happen to identify as dashistand are wondering what on earth pilliontology or
this business of debunking Darwinism has todo with Dashism, then you really need
to listen to episode six. Andwhile you're at it, please ask yourself
what the most important gift you canbestow upon your fellow human being is.
Is it to prosthetize that has inducedsomeone to convert your faith? Of course

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not. As I've said in aprior episode, I can attest to the
fact Doctor Deahesh left written instructions thatexpressly forbid Dashists to do so. Dashists
are obligated to respect a person's choice, even if that person believes that a
piece of rock represents their God.Doing otherwise and star Trek speak, that
would be an egregious violation of theprime directive. Again, remember that divine

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prophets visited primitive civilizations and relate tothem instructions and knowledge compare with their intellectual,
emotional, and spiritual even development.Now, I'm not suggesting you hold
your tongue regardless. On the contrary, I've asked, speak your piece,
and when challenged, maye be ontheological or scientific grounds. Challenge back.
Furthermore, one of doctor Dash's missionsin life was to expose Charlatan's and educate

(12:18):
the public and so, and thisis my opinion. Daheshists are obligated to
debunk what scientific materialists are claiming,which I maintain is nothing more than smoke
and mirrors. Why must we doso, particularly in the light of the
quote unquote Dash as prime directive asit were simple. As I said in
episode three in his book called Words, doctor Dash wrote, quote, it

(12:41):
would be a disgrace if you diedbefore performing good deeds to word humanity end
quote, a statement he tempered byalso writing in that same book, quote
it would be insane to burn yourselfin order to eliminate the path for others,
Which is why, at this stageof my life, I just lay
it all out on the table forthose whom may be searching for answers.

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Secondly, it would be one thingfor someone to choose to be an atheist,
which is their god given right,but many are tricked into becoming atheists
with pseudoscience. And as though itweren't bad enough that some members of the
clergy are causing congregants to lose faithin God, the scientific materialists, many
of whom are proud self confessed Miltonatheists, to boot are distorting science and

(13:24):
consequently unleveling the playing field. Inthe words of doctor David Berlinski, who
is a self professed agnostic, quote, if it should come to pass,
in the fullness of time, thatwe discover that there is no explanation for
life, we will have to acceptit. If it should come to pass
that we discover, in the fullnessof time that the only explanation for life

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is that it is a process designedfor transcendental purposes by a transcendental figure,
we will have to accept that too. And if that should come to pass,
I would like to ask who amongus will genuinely feel diminished? End
quote Darwin's Temple of Cards. OnSeptember eight, twenty twenty two, I

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traveled to the Smithsonian National Museum ofNatural History in Washington, d C.
Once I made an inside and passedthe security checkpoint, I headed straight to
the sant Ocean Hall. There,I looked up and came out to I
with a forty five foot long lifesized model suspended at the center of the
exhibit space, touted as being quoteperfect down to the placement of every hair

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and scar end quote And frankly,who might argue that claim. This culmination
of a four year endeavor pays homageto Phoenix, the North Atlantic right whale,
one of what is believed to befewer than five hundred remaining on the
planet, born to her late mother, Stumpy, who was killed in a
collision with a ship. We learnedthat Phoenix has been tracked inner Atlantic Ocean

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environment by marine biologists at the NewEngland Aquarium in Boston ever since she was
born off the Ghost of Georgia innineteen eighty seven. And in a crue
ironic twist, this species of whaleis aptly named right whale because for whalers,
they were the right whale to hunt, given that they swim slowly and

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they do so in coastal waters,and to add insult to injury, they
rest at the surface and float whenkilled. And even though hunting has been
banned for more than seventy years,factors such as pollution, habitat degradation,
and declining prey may be impacting theirnumbers now. Aside from recognizing Phoenix wherever

(15:37):
she might be, I'm sharing allthis to underscore the fact that, unlike
rabbits, whales have a relatively longgeneration time. Consequently, this renders any
prospect of coordinated, random, blind, undirected mutations beating unimaginable odds that much
more difficult read impossible. And yetarchitects of this materialist worldview deem these mutants

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capable of naturally falling into elegant,near flawless, holistic design configurations that would
eventually transform a pig like mammal intoa whale. See where I come from.
That is reality, the smacks ofthe miraculous. Let me finish.
Even bacteria, which to the bestof our knowledge, possessed the fastest generation

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time in the known universe, areyet to provide evidence that Darwinian macroevolution is
not science fiction. But Hault thatthought again. The sticking point here is
not whether macro evolution is a realthing. I mean, the fossils,
imperfect as they are, certainly begif not scream for us to draw such
an inference. I'll give you that, But macroevolution without the intervention or guidance

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of some sort of intelligence. Frankly, considering how potentially lethal it could be,
there had better be some sort ofintelligent agent monitoring micro evolution. On
that front, From a dash's perspective, there certainly is an Every outcome is
the result of our thoughts and deeds, whether in this life cycle prior life
cycles. Again from the perspective ofbeings that are bound to be dimension molded

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by space time or parallel concurrent lifecycles. Anyway, and back to the
realm of plain, mundane reality.As it turns out, there's a wealth
of empirical data and rational arguments thatchallenge atheism, naturalism, materialism, reductionism,
and scientism. That is, andto paraphrase paleontologist doctor Gunter Beckley,

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whom I will be telling you moreabout in a future episode, it is
possible for a staunch neo Darwinian atheistor otherwise to change their views because of
science, and not in spite ofbeing a scientist. Once again, and
for the record, though the majorityof neo Darwinists I know of are atheists,
though not necessarily militant atheists or antitheists for that matter, the Vatican

(17:56):
has endorsed Darwinism. In fact,there are prominent neo Darwinianians who identify as
Catholic, and by the same tokenyou will find atheists and agnostics who flat
out reject Darwinism. Now, formy part, and with regard to the
Dayton between Darwinists and the Vatican.I've already touched upon that interesting plot twist
in part six when arguing how reincarnationcan solve, albeit asymptotically, the problem

(18:21):
of theodicy. I will provide afollow up when discussing theistic evolution, which,
and if you will please update yourschedules, has now been moved to
episode nine. You see, afunny thing happened following my visit to the
Smithsonian. Somehow the original episode sevenscript evolved into two separate episodes. Well,
it was either that or serving youa five hour long extravaganza. And

(18:44):
while I am at it, Iprobably should also mention that the follow up
anthropic principle discussion has been moved toepisode ten. Now, you know.
Anyway, back to the topic ofWales. In episode five, you might
remember my sharing with you highlights froma short story repented by doctor Dash on
the night of February two, nineteenseventy nine, at nine twenty pm be
Root local time called Journey of amusk Rose, which he included in his

(19:08):
book titled Strange Tales and Wondrous Legends, Part two and in whose introduction,
he had written, quote the storiesin which I mentioned incidences of reincarnation are
not imaginary. End quote. Well, it might interest you to know that
in the Journey of the musk Rowswe learn that Wales are practically human.
They are spiritually aware, capable oflove, loyalty, honesty, and they

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may even be prone to pathological jealousy. And if you think this is absurd,
which for the record, I don'twait until I tell you quote why
some Wales lost their teeth end quote. According to the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural
History, which might as well becalled the Scientism Temple, there you'll find
a statue of Charles Darwin and aquote from the last couple of lines from

(19:52):
On the Origin of Species. Itis prominently emblazoned, along with other select
references, celebrated Darwinian evolution, asthough to exercise the demon of creationism.
And it reads quote from so simplea beginning, endless forms, most beautiful
and most wonderful have been and arebeing evolved end quote. In fact,

(20:18):
it almost feels as though the powersthat be at the Smithsonian went to great
lengths to make themselves believe something thatsounds great in theory but is highly improbable,
if not impossible in practice. Andthis is right off one of the
back lit displays. Quote. Ancientwhales probably moved to the ocean in search

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of food. Once there, somedeveloped a new way to eat. About
thirty eight million years ago, theevolved baileen, netlike plates hanging from the
upper jaw that strained small prey fromthe water. It was a radical shift
end quote as to quote why didwales develop baileen in place of teeth?
End quote? According to the museUseum, quote, the ocean cooled and

(21:02):
upwelling increased, enhancing the growth ofphytoplankton between parentheses tiny plant like organisms,
small animals feeding on plankton, suchas krill, flourished baleen whales between parentheses
mist seats may have evolved to takeadvantage of this rich new food supply.
End quote. Huh, Well,I suppose in hindsight, it's a good

(21:25):
thing whales. More specifically, themist seats didn't develop baileen before there was
an abundance of krill. I meanthat would have been awkward. Seriously,
though, over the past forty years, populations of adult Antarctic krill have declined
by seventy to eighty percent, accordingto an August twenty nine, twenty sixteenth
Scientific American article by Andrea Thompson titledkrill are disappearing from Antarctic waters and whose

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subtitle reads Whales, seals, andpenguins could be hurting as this tiny creature
fundamental to the food web declines.Now do we really believe if these marine
mammals and flightless seebars will eventually quoteunquote adapt in response to these dire environmental
pressures. Don't laugh. In theoryand by Darwinian rules, this could happen,

(22:11):
and yet no scientists worth their saltis willing to take that bet.
On the contrary, they will alltell you that if the situation worsens,
these animals will go extinct, andthat common sense conclusion should make any starch
Darwinists wonder why in this case,the early whales, who first lost their
teeth ouch and underwent major structural reorganizationto boot double ouch before blind undirected mutations

(22:37):
finally equipped them with bileen never wentto extinct between these painful transitions. Seriously,
think about it. How did theanimals that had to wait millions of
years for just the right adaptation tofinally stick the landing. If you will
manage to survive, let alone reproducewhile the body plans have selected read unfortunate
offspring endued a parade of what doesn'tkill you makes you stronger mutations and not

(23:02):
for nothing. But shouldn't the planetbe littered with these fossilized fiascos, you
know, the kind of stuff thatMother Nature could never lift down? I
mean people still talk about the fordEtzel for crying out loud. I'm sorry,
what was that? Oh? Theywere probably too fragile to be fossilized.
Oh you mean like those fossilized microscopicsponge embryos. I'll be telling you
about an episode nine when discussing theCambrian explosion duly noted anyway, and as

(23:26):
a recap, Design is all aboutcoordinated alterations and adjustments that lead to creating
a solution to a problem, somethingthat could never ever occur in our Winian
universe, where design is purportedly anillusion and nothing is created on purpose,
and everything happens randomly, and onlythose random mutations that manage to be fixed
will be passed on. In directdefiance of the second law thermodynamics read entropy,

(23:51):
more on that later in the nextepisode. In any case, you
need a heck of a lot moretime and resources read evolution fodder. Remember,
folks and Darwin, Nature is outto get you. Have a nice
day. But let's indues the museumand imagine that the only way this could
have gone down is for the teethto Baileen transition to have occurred gradually,
progressively, adaptively, randomly, andslowly, as in over a long,

(24:15):
very long period of time, solong in fact, that you could never
ultimately test macroevolution not microevolution in alab an attempt to falsified Arwanism. How
convenient now I should mention doctor RichardLensky, an American evolutionary biologist and a
John A. Hanna Distinguished Professor ofMicrobial Ecology at Michigan State University, who

(24:37):
on Feby twenty four, nineteen eightyeight, launched what would be called the
E. Coli Long Term Evolution Experiment, which is last I checked, still
an ongoing study and experimental evolution atMichigan State University and currently overseen by doctor
Jeffrey Barrick at the University of Texasat Austin. To make a long story
short, This experiment, which wasa practical solution to the fact evolution takes

(25:00):
a prohibitively long time, produced theequivalent of over a million years in the
history of a large animal species likehumans. To paraphrase what doctor Michael B.
He had written in his twenty nineteenbook Darwin Devolves, which I've cited
in episode six. Quote so notonly are there the big numbers of organisms
from which to get real answers toevolutionary questions, there are more than enough

(25:22):
generations for profound changes to occur too. End quote. Well, and here
I am vulgarizing an otherwise thorough andfascinating chapter. They found out that the
bacteria would undergo degradative mutation, thatis, quote one in which the loss
of a pre existing genetic capacity improvedthe bacteria survival end quote. Now this

(25:48):
is a big deal, and weneed to talk about this again. The
operative term here is pre existing geneticcapacity. Think about it. Devolution for
the sake of improving survivability flies inthe face of the new u Darwinian claim
that we're constantly progressing, that isincreasing in complexity. Why because well,
for one thing, and imagine you'rea bacterium if you must quote unquote shed

(26:11):
weight, as it were, andreduce your existing bacterium's DNA codes complexity.
Again, you're a measly bacterium,not a human or fruitfly for that matter.
Where did the original more complex DNAcome from? To paraphrase an analogy
offered by be He, imagine youhave this great looking, fully equipped heavy
car, but little fuel left,and you have to make it from point

(26:32):
A to point B. So whatdo you do? You strip down the
vehicle to its bare essentials. Thereforeyou'll lessen the weight, you dump ballast
if you will, and consequently conservefuel. Anyway, And as I've indicated
before, microevolution is a scientific fact. Dashism, of course, tells us
that there's an intelligence switching on andoff the appropriate genes, which are ultimately

(26:55):
made of spiritual fluids. Dasism alsotells us that nothing is random. I
mean, consider that every progeny isthe result of quot unquote random mutations,
that is, quote unquote copying mistakes. Otherwise would all be exact replicas of
either our fathers or mothers. Imean talk about send then the clones.
And as we shall learn in afuture episode, dashism also supports the notion

(27:18):
of extraterrestrial beings, upgrading if youwill, human DNA in any case,
and back to the Ecoli experiment thatstarted in nineteen eighty eight. The bottom
line is there's still bacteria. Butnevertheless we're made to believe that if we
could observe em replicating over millions ofyears, who knows what they might evolve
into. In fact, by Darwinianstandards, many of us will have eventually

(27:41):
spawned progeny with wings, because althoughadmission to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
is free, parking is a definitenightmare. A wail of a tale.
In the first edition of On theOrigin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

(28:03):
or the Preservation of Faviord races,in the Struggleful Life, published in eighteen
fifty nine, Charles Darwin made abold extrapolation based on an observation by English
explorer Samuel hearn pertaining to black bearsin North America. The black bear was
seen by Hearns swimming for hours withwidely open mouth, thus catching like a

(28:26):
whale insects in the water. Evenin so extreme a case as this,
if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not
already exist in the country, Ican see no difficulty in a race of
bears being rendered by natural selection moreand more aquatic in their structure and habits,
with larger and larger mouths, tilla creature was produced as monstrous as

(28:48):
a whale. End And so Darwinfloated the idea that the whale might have
had a terrestrial ancestor, an ideaIncidentally, he would begrudgingly omit in subsequent
additions due to critics wailing on it. Now, well, all you persnicketty
purists out there, kindly note thatI didn't say Darwin claimed that bears could

(29:10):
become whales or give birth to them. One, that's clearly not what Darwin
actually wrote. Two, there issomething called the law of monophyly which basically
says, and if you'll forgive mylayman's interpretation, a bear cannot produce a
non bear. I mean, sure, a bear could give birth to a
horribly disfigured mutant bear courtesy of randommutations, remember those, But a whale,

(29:36):
no, because of all things that'sforbidden. Apparently, mindless blind nature
suddenly has standards anyway, be readyto be called out by Darwinian apologists.
Should you dare suggest Darwin claimed bearscan, could, may might become whales,
instead say something along the lines ofquote Darwin speculated that distant descendants of

(30:00):
of bears could give rise to creaturesthat are more aquatic and be similar to
whales. End quote. Now,if you're thinking you're kidding me, right,
how is that, at least inpractical terms, not a distinction.
Without a difference, you'd be spoton. After all. The bottom line
is that we're basically talking about areally slow, really incremental bear to whale

(30:22):
transition, assuming, of course,the ancestor of wales was bear like,
which it wasn't. But that's atechnicality. As I mentioned a little earlier,
it was purportedly pig like. Butplease don't let a pilliontologist ever hear
you say it was a pig Listen, I get it. We architects have
our pet peeves too. Seriously,whenever I'm within earshot of someone saying cement

(30:44):
instead of concrete or amphitheater instead oftheater, I'm like, oh my t
square. So And to recap,the official story is that the ancestor of
the whale had specific traits that areonly found among what pialiontologists call artiodact More
on that later. In the meantime, the bottom line hears that we've got
the case of a terrestrial animal which, through successive generations, altered by blind,

(31:10):
undirected random mutations and fixed by naturalselection, would gradually schlep back to
the water. Whence it came toparaphrase John Nobel Wilford's May three, nineteen
ninety four New York Times article titledHow the Whale Lost its legs and Returned
to the Sea, Wilford writes,quote ages after some adventurous or misadventurous fish

(31:33):
left the sea and planted the flagof vertebrate animal life on land, their
descendants had it both ways as amphibians, and then completed the epic transition evolving
into terrestrial reptiles, mammals and birds. But something about the water must have
kept beckoning until a few irridentists amongthe mammals did eventually reclaim a place in

(31:55):
the sea. Most prominent of thesemammals are the whales. End quote.
According to this lavishly illustrated New YorkTimes article, whose opening paragraph was clearly
waxing poetic. New fossil discoveries wouldreveal quote several of the critical evolutionary steps
in the earliest history of wales endquote. More than that, we learned

(32:16):
that quote scientists have identified some intermediatespecies as land mammals steadily changed physical form
while adapting to swimming, diving,feeding, and otherwise thriving in their new
habitat end quote, with one surprisebeing that the purported quote transformation of four

(32:36):
legged land mammals into an animal completelyadapted to marine life took only ten million
years, hardly any time at allin evolutionary terms. End quote. Then
the article cites what Harvard University paleontologistdoctor Stephen J. Gould had written in
Natural History magazine. Quote the embarrassmentof past absence has been replaced by a

(32:58):
bounty of new evidence and by thesweetest series of transitional fossils and evolutionists could
ever hope to find. End quote. One discovery in particular was quote a
remarkable smoking gun end quote. Accordingto doctor Gould, an amphibious species quote
clearly intermediate between a terrestrial ancestor ofwhales an aquatic modern whales. End quote.

(33:21):
More on that in just a momentin the meantime, And because this
is a crucial plot point, Ishould mention that although Stephen J. Gould
was an evolutionist through and through,he was not of the Darwinian persuasion in
the sense that he believed in theradical concept he and Niles Eldridge proposed in
nineteen seventy two called punctuated equilibrium,which is the polar opposite of Darwin's gradualism,

(33:45):
that is, the hypothesis that evolutionprecedes chiefly by the accumulation of gradual
changes. In contrast, punctuationism statesthat and here I am dramatizing. Quote
No, the record, for themost part is not quote unquote incomplete,
thank you very much. Rather,these so called gaps clearly show evidence that

(34:07):
life on Earth undergoes long periods ofstability punctuated by rapid evolutionary bursts end quote.
Therefore, three or four fossils asevidence of four legged land mammals becoming
whales in merely ten million years.Once again, a mere geological blink of
an eye would have been exactly whatGould hope to fined, as it corroborated

(34:30):
a diametrically opposed worldview of evolutionary biology, in which evolution undergoes periods of stasis
punctuated by brief periods of rapid change, and by quote unquote brief periods we're
talking only several hundred thousand years.In any case, Unlike the Darwinian model,
it does not proceed at a steadypace. Be that as it may,

(34:51):
and to date, no one hasever demonstrated or replicated how such an
accelerated evolutionary rate could occur, forone thing, without the interference of a
human programmer, where computer simulations designedto wowus are involved. And as we've
learned in episode six, computer simulationsthat supposedly mirror the Darwinian mechanism and consequently

(35:14):
vindicated only succeed when at their corethey are not Darwinian. And for sure
we'll be revisiting punctuated equilibrium in episodenine. Anyway, and back to that
one fossil Stephen J. Gould dubbeda remarkable smoking gun. This purported intermediate
between a terrestrial ancestor of whales andaquatic modern whales, measuring around ten feet

(35:37):
from snout to tail, was justquote what scientists would have expected to find
end quote, Basically quote, itstill had four limbs for walking on land,
though probably with diminished agility. Itcould also hunt in the sea,
probably swimming by kicking its big feetend quote. In other words, we're
talking about an alligatorlike creature, probablydesigned by a committee on account of its

(36:01):
being a tad goofy looking. Asan aside, please keep in mind that
the dashest position is that every creatureis an amalgam of spiritual fluids that have
merited their assignment and, as maybe the case, their predicament. But
fair enough, we'll get to whatpurportedly made this fossil animal named Ambulacetus natans

(36:22):
aka the walking whale quote clearly intermediateend quote a little later. For now,
I would like to recognize that itwas excavated from sediments in an ancient
sea bed in Pakistan by a teamled by doctor j. GM quote unquote
Hans Tausen in January nineteen ninety four, shortly after paleontologist doctor Philip D.

(36:45):
Gingrich would report in the journal Naturethe finding of Rhodacetus casrani, an animal
that quote was the earliest known transitionalwhale with an anatomy adapted for swimming like
a whale, it had a morestreamlined body and a fully flexible rear spinal
column, which could have produced themotions for the powerful beat of a horizontal

(37:06):
tail fluke that propels modern whales endquote. And for the record, although
doctor Gingrich said that Rhodacidus could havehad a fluked tail, and although John
Noble Wilford states in the article thatquote, whether Rhodacitus had indeed made this
important advance cannot be determined until morecomplete tail fossils are uncovered end quote,

(37:27):
we learned that doctor Gingrich and hiscolleagues concluded that the evidence quote shows that
tail swimming evolved early in the historyof cetaceans end quote. Quicksidebar Cetaceans are
the marine mammals of the order Cetacea. They include whales, dolphins, and
porpoises. But soon enough Rhodacetus wouldend up sporting a fluked tail. Talk

(37:50):
about expeditiousness, although one can't reallyblame doctor Gingrich for fast tracking Rhoacetus to
whale status after all, and toquote doctor Tawison from its two thousand and
seven Nature video quote, ever sincethe time of Darwin, scientists have known
that whales were descended from land mammals. But until very recently, about fifteen
years ago, the ancestors of waleswere not known, and creationists had a

(38:15):
field day because there were no intermediates. In the last fifteen years, then,
a number of remarkable transitional forms havebeen found that document the transition and
morphology of these early whales very nicely. End quote. Now, before I
continue, I must cry foul onaccount of Taosen's assertion that quote. Ever

(38:36):
since the time of Darwin, scientistshave known that whales were descended from land
mammals. End quote, and Iswear expert pialeontologists unwittingly sounding like subpar philosophers
of science. Is why we can'thave nice things? Correct me if I'm
wrong. But isn't there a differencebetween knowing that something is true and believing
that it is now? The wayit's always been drilled into my head is

(38:59):
as followed, knowledge implies a situationin which we perceived directly or something we
have direct cognition of. Now,granted, scientists have known since the seventeenth
century that whales and their kin aremammals. But again, while they might
have believed they were evolved from landmammals. This business of knowing there were

(39:19):
quote almost certainly evolved from a speciesof adodactyls end quote, according to Jerry
con would come much later. Indeed, Coin writes in his again two thousand
and nine book, quote, howthey evolved has emerged only within the last
twenty years end quote. In fact, according to a two thousand and one
PBS video documentary, in about nineteenseventy eight and Pakistan geologists turned paleontologist doctor

(39:44):
Phil Gingrich found a peculiar fossil whichwas the back of the skull of an
animal he couldn't identify. That fossil, which he eventually christened Pakastus, was
very similar in terms of morphology andscale to Wolfe skull. In fact,
to Gingrich's expert eyes, this fossilhad surely belonged to a creodante, that

(40:06):
is, an extinct carnivorous land mammalconsidered to be ancestral to modern carnivores,
or so he thought. Apparently,there was something strange about this skull.
On its underside there was a walnutsized bump which was part of Packacetus's inner
ear, and according to the documentary, it quote had a distinctive shape,

(40:28):
a shape found today in only onekind of animal, whales. What was
the ear of a whale doing onthe skull of an animal that resembled a
wolf? Gingrich was intrigued, sohe constructed a model of what the creature's
full skull might have looked like.End quote. Gingrich then wondered if he
had found a crucial missing link,that is, quote the first fossil evidence

(40:52):
ever found for one of Darwin's mostdaring claims that whales had evolved from land
mammals. To know for sure,more fossils needed to be found, so
that they constitute transitional forms showing eachstage of the quote unquote whale transformation.
Quote. I want to line themup. I want anyone to be able

(41:14):
to see it and believe it becausethey've seen it. End quote, said
a resolute Gingrich. Then in thevideo we learn about Basillosaurus, a forty
million year old creature already known toscience, which lived full time in the
water, and, as it turnedout, had small vestigial bones, a
pelvis, a kneecap, and toes. Even that suggested at one point it

(41:35):
had legs. Therefore, and forall intents and purposes, and according to
Gingrich, quote, for the firsttime, we've got whales that have legs
end quote. We'll get back toBasillosaurus, because the Darwinian narrative states that
if whales had indeed evolved from landmammals, they must have done so long
before Basilosaurus, which, despite questionableevidence, is officially considered a disas descendant

(42:00):
of much older Amphibian proto whales asthey are called, that lived some fifty
three million years ago and whose fossilshad been found in South Asia and other
warmer latitudes. Is Basillosaurus a descendant, though will take a closer look at
that claim in moments. In themeantime, the official story is that since

(42:21):
doctor Gingrich first discovered Pacacetus quote,the list of known transitional whales has grown
end quote to include, in orderof appearance on Earth, Ambulacetus, Rhodacetus,
Duridon, and Basilosaurus. Not onlythat, but these transitional forms purportedly

(42:42):
reveal quote another element of whale evolution, the gradual migration of nostrils to the
top of the head as whales adaptedto breathing in the water end quote.
All right, So, in additionto fins and flukes for swimming. The
nostrils gradually became blowholes, all withoutthe help of any sort of intelligent agent.

(43:04):
Now, if that's not a triumphfor Darwinism, I don't know what
is. Well, perhaps making surethat every school child believes that nature alone
was able to pull off such afeat, requiring lord knows how many coordinated
mutations. In fact, in thataforementioned PBS video, we see a group
of eager young students on what appearsto be a field trip to Museum of
Natural History, standing before doctor Gingrich, who can be heard asking, quote,

(43:28):
how did Wales lose their legs?End quote. The camera cuts to
close up of a student who answersquote, As the years went by,
they evolved into newer types of shapes. End quote. The camera cuts the
closeph of Gingrich. He's beaming withpride. The narrator goes quote Gingrich's work
demonstrates what Darwin himself insisted, thatthe evidence for evolution is all around us,

(43:52):
if we choose to look for it. End quote. If we choose
to look for it, listen,PBS. Nothing's says this purported evolution wasn't
directed by some sort of mind whosefingerprint is clearly visible in DNA if we
choose to look for it. Again, this is not about whether or not

(44:12):
evolution happened. Rather, this isabout whether it is conceivable for molecules to
not only self organized, but todo so in such a fashion as to
allow scientists to make predictions as tothe type of fossil even DNA evidence,
they should expect to find, andwhich in turn would corroborate read vindicate,

(44:34):
a scenario even more absurd than oneinvoking the necessity of a creator. Despite
we're told they're not being any builtin preordain logic or predictable pattern to the
mechanism, all of which would behallmarks of mind perish the thought. In
other words, we're talking about amechanism that is unpredictable, I mean talk
about chaos, and yet allows oneto hypothesize and boldly posit something to the

(44:58):
effect of quote. We predict thatif Darwinian evolution is true, then whales
must have evolved stochastically from a landmammal, because these leviathans possess anatomies that
retained vestiges of four legged land mammals, and unlike fish, which swim by
flexing, their spine from side toside. Mammals do so by undulating their
spine up and down end quote.And the proceeding was based on the work

(45:22):
of doctor Frank Fish, who quotestudies how today's mammals swim and looks for
their evolutionary heritage in the way theymove in the water end quote. According
to that aforementioned PBS video on whaleevolution, and another thing, the mass
media, namely PBS, keeps presentingthe story of whales as though the debate

(45:43):
were settled, and in a mannerthat belies how puzzling, if not bewildering
and frustrating the fossil record is.That's why if you want to know what's
really going on, you best readthe peer reviewed papers, such as the
December twenty seven, two thousand andseven Nature article by the aforementioned doctor Tayvisin
at al. Titled Whales originated fromaquatic audiodactyls in the Ucene epoch in India.

(46:08):
So picking up where we left offa little earlier, Audiodactyls are group
of animals that include hippos, pigs, and deer. And although there's definitely
a link between cetaceans and audiodactyls.Things are not as slam dunk as the
popular media makes it sound. Granted, the fossil known as indohyas the closest
non cetacean relative of whales, whichwe'll get back to a little later quote

(46:31):
shares with cetaceans several snapomorphees that arenot present in other arteodactyls. End quote.
By the way, snapomorphies, inthe context of Darwinism are those traits
that are shared as the result ofevolution from a common ancestral form. More
precisely, and according to Merriam Webster'sdictionary, a snapomorphe is quote a character

(46:54):
or trait that is shared by twoor more taxonomic groups, and it derived
through evolution from a common ancestral form. End quote. Please note the circular
definition. I mean good luck gettingMerriam Webster to the finest anapomorphi as merely
a character or trade that is sharedby two or more taxonomic groups without adding

(47:16):
the bit about evolution. Anyway,what are those similarities that make paleontologists insist
that audiodactyls became as it were whales. Here's one paragraph from that paper.
Please brace for impact as the languageis a bit on a technical side,
but fear not, I'll be elucidatingas we go along. So here goes

(47:36):
quote. Most significantly, Indohias hasa thickened medial lip of its auditory bullah
the involucrium, a feature previously thoughtto be present exclusively in cetaceans. Involucrium
size varies among cetaceans, but therelative thickness of medial and lateral walls of
the tympanic of Indohias is clearly withinthe range of that of certaceans, and

(48:00):
as well outside the range of othercitartiodactyls. Okay, So first, what
are citartiodactyls which are not to beconfused with guitar teodactyls In a nutshell?
At one point, experts suggested thatthe cetaceans, which are divided into two
major classifications, the ondanti seats ortoothed whales, and the mysticeits or baleen

(48:22):
whales, be grouped with their closestterrestrial relatives, the artiodactyls. That is,
even told ungulates, including animals suchas cow's camels en deer. That
way, two superficially quite different ordersof mammals Artiodactyla and Cetacea would form the
order known as Citartiodactyla. Really,oh is that and how is any even

(48:45):
relevant? Well, for one thing, this goes to show and if not
to show, at least seriously hintthat behind paleontology's public image of sanguinity lurks
an identity crisis. In fact,last I checked, scientists were still debating
over the con concept of species.More than that. Apparently we are spoiled
for choice when it comes to theold question in biology, what is a

(49:07):
species? The answer to which isthat there are over twenty six definitions at
play. Apparently there's a debate overwhich concept of a species to settle on.
Some, like geneticists of illusiary biologistand author Jody Hay, who has
written about the philosophical and historical aspectsof the species problem, think that species

(49:28):
only exist in the minds of biologistsand their public owing to people's motivations and
tendencies with regard to categorization. Youknow, pigeonholing. There's a punchline and
here I will quote verbatim what doctordaesh All smiles and feeling sorry for the
cardiologist who was examining him at theNew York City apartment a couple of days

(49:49):
following the heart attack he had suffered. While he and I were trapped in
the back of a taxicab amid bumperto bumper times square traffic, whispered to
me mobia fushi translation, they don'tknow anything. So, and this is
the Dash's perspective, neither paleontology orany human endeavor for that matter, will
ever uncloak the mystery of existence.Great glad we cleared that up all right.

(50:12):
Next, the paragraph mentions the auditorybullah and the involucrum before going over
what makes them crucial to the story. Here's an overview of what those are.
First, we have the tympanic cavity, which is an air filled compartment
surrounded by bone that is separated fromthe external ear by a thin tympanic membrane
that is the ear drum, andis in direct communication with the pharynx through

(50:36):
a tube called the station tube,which incidentally we'll get back to a little
later. But anyway, it's thathollow, bony structure on the ventral posterior
portion of the skull that encloses partsof the middle and inner ear that is
of special interest to us, andit is formed by the tympanic part of
the temporal bone. In many species, we find a highly complex bulbous,

(50:57):
hollow bony structure on the ventral bosteriorportion of the tympanic cavity, called the
tympanic bullah or the auditory bullah.And now I'm not making this up anyway.
In Layman's terms, it looks likea lopsided ball with a cavity in
a center, almost reminiscent of aHenry Moore sculpture, with one really bulging
side called the involucrium. Opposite whichthat is, on the much thinner side

(51:22):
facing it, you'll see a squigglybony extension called the sigmoid process. So
we have two noteworthy characters in theauditory bullah plural bully, consisting of one
thick, bulging side called the involucrium, and another thinner side featuring a squiggly
extension called the sigmoid process. Withme so far, I'm so proud of

(51:45):
you. Now, let's talk aboutthe involucrium first. As defined in Merriam
Webster's Dictionary, the involucrium is aquote surrounding envelope or sheath end quote,
but it can also be a layerof new bone gris growth outside existing bone.
So this particular bowl shaped bony growthis thought to be exclusive to whales.

(52:08):
Thus, according to Hans Tewisson,the involucrum is quote diagnostic for whales
and their relatives dolphins and porpoises,and is also present in all fossil whales
and not in other mammals end quote. Now, what about the squiggly bony
extension called the sigmoid process according toTaosan and in reference to the fossil of

(52:29):
Ambulacidus, let's not forget him,for he's our quote unquote smoking gun quote.
That character is a little bit moretricky because it's present in all whales
for its own reasons, but it'salso present in some animals that are not
whales end quote. Yet, don'tsay. We'll get back to the sigmoid
process and Ambulacetus shortly in the meantimeand moving along the paper reads quote.

(52:52):
Other significant derived similarities between Indohyus andcetaceans include the antrooposterior arrangement of incisors in
the jaw and the high crowns,and the posterior premolars end quote. All
right, So the bottom line isthat Indohias has two characteristics, one in
its ear and the other in itsteeth, that we only see in Wales.

(53:15):
Thus, and so far this seemsto be a slam dunk, until
we precede that the next paragraph titledcharacterizing Cetasia quote. Until now, the
involucrium was the only character occurring inall fossil and recent cetaceans, but in
no other mammals. Identification of theinvolucrum in Indohias calls into question what it

(53:38):
is to be a cetacean. Itrequires either that the concept of Cetacea be
expanded to include Indohias, or thatthe involucrum cease to characterize cetaceans. End
quote. Then the author's right quotecharacter is identified as synapomorphies for Cetacea and
some of our most parsimonious trees includelong external auditory emiatus quote. Incidentally,

(54:06):
emiatus is a fancy name for apassage or opening leading the interior of the
body anyway, and so on andso forth. That is, they list
some characters, then they write quote, none of these features characterize all modern
and extinct cetaceans. The dental characters, for instance, cannot be scored in
toothless misd seats. Again, misdeseats are the Baileen whales, and they

(54:28):
write quote. In addition, allthese characters are found and some mammals unrelated
to cetaceans end quote. So thereare characters which are identified as synapomorphies for
Cetacea and some of their most parsimonioustrees that are found in some mammals unrelated
to whales. And so, asidesfrom assuming common ancestry, how do they

(54:51):
actually demonstrate it? How is theirconclusion that these are indubitably whales not based
on their selecting or favoring the evidencethat confirms their presuppositions, that is,
their a priori beliefs. In otherwords, this is a textbookcase of confirmation
bias. I mean, talk aboutpulling the whale over our eyes. Oh,
I'm picking on paleontologists, am I. I'll tell you what. Let's

(55:14):
get back to this business of thesigmoid process and, come to think of
it, the apparent migration of theblowhole up the snout. In one December
eight, twenty fourteen video segment publishedon YouTube by Tawoson, himself titled Doctor
Hans Tawoson, introduces the walking whaleAmbulacetus Natans. Hans Tawoson reveals to Jeff

(55:35):
Saint Clair, host of nprs AllThings Considered, who had co written this
script for the aforementioned video, thatthe skeleton of Ambulucetis that was hanging from
the ceiling was in fact a reconstructedplastic copy of the original heavier fossil,
which was come to find out incomplete, As common with fossils, we did
not find all of it, Tayosensaid, adding quote, we didn't find

(55:59):
the tip of this. We onlyfound part of the fore limbit, part
of the hind limb, and wedid not find much of the tail end.
Quote. You know this calls foran instant replay. We didn't find
the tip of the snout. Pleaseput that on the back burner if you
don't mind. Well, if youdidn't find all of it, how did
you build this? How do youknow what to reconstruct? Asks Saint Clair,

(56:21):
to which Tayoson replies, quote,right. What you do is look
at closely related animals and you usetheir shapes to infer what those parts should
look like end quote. So onceagain Tayoson never found the tip of Ambulacidus's
snout, which is why when SaintClair asked him asked for the script,
they both had written quote, youknow, I don't see any blowhole.

(56:42):
I mean, whales have a blowholeend quote, to which Tayoson responds,
quote that's true, modern whales haveblowholes, which is clearly not in this
guy. But we don't actually knowwhere the nose opening is in this whale
end quote. How interesting that doctorTayoson would say that we'll get that later.
In the meantime. How do weknow this is a whale? We

(57:04):
know this is a whale because ofits ears, says Taosan, who proceeds
to place on the table a smallquote unquote lump of bone which is supposed
to be the auditory bullah that is, again the tympanic of ambulacetis, which
supposedly features both the involucrium and sigmoidprocess, and for clarity's sake, he
places next to it the auditory bullahof a bowhead whale and proceeds to point

(57:28):
out how they identify that it hada sigmoid process, which I repeat taosin
qualified as being quote more tricky becauseit's present in all whales for its own
reasons, but it's also present insome animals that are not whales end quote,
so to recap, Ambulacetus hailed asthe walking whale. Definitely, we're

(57:49):
told, although it's not so clearfrom that quote unquote lump of bone had
an involucrium like all whales, aswell as a sigmoid process like all whales
and some mammals, though we're notclear on whether or not it had a
blowhole because and let's hear that instantreplay again, we didn't find the tip
of this snout. Now, let'scontrast this with an earlier May nineteen,

(58:12):
twenty fourteen YouTube video segment featuring aninterview actually shot in twenty thirteen titled doctor
Hans Taosen Interviewed about Walking Whale Ambulusseatus, and which is an excerpt from
a television series called Evolution the GrandExperiment, whose executive producer is doctor Carl
Werner, who had authored a bookalso called Evolution the Grand Experiment, first

(58:36):
edition two thousand seven, third editiontwenty fourteen, and who had received his
doctoral degree in medicine at the ageof twenty three. In the video segment,
which again was shot in twenty thirteen, Taoissen discusses, among others,
the finger like sigmoid process that allwhales, dolphins and purposes possess, and
this time, thanks to the extremeclose up shots, we get a closer

(58:59):
look at that same quote unquote lumpof bone upon which the whole case seemed
to rest well as it turned outin this particular case, because and in
reference to the volucrum quote, thisone is somewhat crushed. Usually it has
a cavity in the middle end quote. We can't actually discern the bowl shaped
cavity and the outside ridge. Thealleged sigmoid process is not fingerlike. Then,

(59:23):
doctor Werner asks, quote now,is that sigmoid process unquestionable? Because
on Pacacetus there was some questions aboutthat one. It was more like a
plate or something end quote. Again, and if I may jog your memory,
the discovery of pacacetas the wolf likefossil with quote the ear of a

(59:43):
whale end quote by doctor Phil Gingrichis what led to the assertion at whales
couldn't have been created or were theresult of directed evolution. But had to
have evolved according to Darwinian rules fromland mammals within a span of only around
ten million years. Yeah, Iknow, the PBS documentary says, why
did it take so long? Well, believe it or not, and in

(01:00:04):
the big scheme of things, itdidn't anyway. What was doctor Werner referring
to meet Doctor Zenzi Low as wespeak, Professor of organismal biology and anatomy
at the University of Chicago, whofrom May nineteen ninety five to January twenty
twelve was curator and Associate Director ofSection of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum

(01:00:29):
of Natural History. In nineteen ninetyeight, he contributed chapter nine titled Homology
and Transformation of Cetacean ectotympanic structures,which you can find in the nineteen ninety
eight book titled Emergence of Wales's EvolutionaryPatterns in the Origin of Cetacea edited by
J. G. M. Tausen. In section three point one titled paka

(01:00:52):
Setid's page two eighty three, paragraphthree, doctor Low confirms that quote cetaceans,
including package seateds, have only oneunambiguous bullersynapomorphe that is absent from all
non cetation mammals the involucrum end quote. So it's official. If it looks

(01:01:12):
like a duck, walks like aduck, quax like a duck, but
has an involucrium, it's a cetacean. To paraphrase doctor Taosen, the invlucrium
is a very diagnostic character. Next, doctor Lowe writes quote, other diagnostic
characters, such as the sigmoid process, as discussed below, are now open
to question in the wake of thenew fossil evidence from Pacastus and Ichtholestes end

(01:01:36):
quote. Xelestes, by the way, means fish thief. In paragraph four,
he writes, quote, the presenceof the sigmoid process has been widely
accepted as a major diagnostic character forcetaceans, end quote, and he references
the sources which include Gingrich at owland taosin at owl. But at the

(01:01:57):
beginning of paragraph five he writes,quote this this character is equivocal end quote,
and he goes on into detailed comparativedescription, briefly explaining why the sigmoid
process has become a more prominent independentprojection in cetaceans, and then we read
quote in view of the new evidencefrom Ichthilestes and pacacetis, open parenthesis that

(01:02:21):
the sigmoid is a simple plate,not s shaped and lacking the involuted margins.
Close parenthesis. End quote. Soon and so forth until we get
to the following statement, quote,the sigmoid process should be redefined as a
systematic character and its value as acetace sinnapomorphy should be reconsidered. End quote.

(01:02:44):
And on page two eighty four,paragraph two, the first sentence reads,
quote, the sigmoid process in pacacetidsis a simple plate. Its edge
lacks the involuted and thick margins ofbesilosaurids and extant cetaceans. By the way,
extant means existing. It does nothave a quote unquote sigmoid outline as
an extant on Dante seats and misdeseats. End quote again. On Dante

(01:03:08):
seats are the toothed whales and themisty seats are the baileeen whales. Anyway,
I hope this puts things into perspective. That is, it's not a
slam dunk, and the popular mediahas this tendency to cherry pig oop,
sorry pick and sensatialize academic papers,although scientists being human are partly to blame
as well for enabling them. NowI'd like to go back to doctor Zenzi

(01:03:30):
Lowe's chapter nine, or more specificallythe title Homology and Transformation of Certation Ecto
Tympanic Structures. Why well, becauseI'd be remiss if I didn't broach one
of Darwinism's hallowed topics, namely homology. And although technically speaking you'll have heard
me mention homology in context briefly bythe time this presentation is over, it

(01:03:52):
merits a quick sidebar. Now I'llbe deferring discussing it in depth until episode
nine. However, the following tidbitshit hold you over. The long and
the short of it is that speciesthat look pretty different on the outside,
while sharing a unique physical feature suchas a complex bone structure or body plan,

(01:04:13):
may all have inherited this feature froma common ancestor, and so physical
features such as the forelimbs of humans, whales, birds, and dogs that
are assumed to be shared due toDarwinian evolution are described as homologous. Therefore,
though decidedly different on the outside,if we look at their respective bone
structure we find similarity across these species, which suggests that it would be unlikely

(01:04:38):
such similar structures had evolved independently ineach of these species. Ergo the likelihood
of a common ancestor of humans,whales, birds, and dogs. Well,
it's either a common ancestor or acommon designer. And who wants that
right? As to why it wouldbe unlikely for such homologous structures to have

(01:04:58):
evolved independent in each of these species, consider the odds of getting one tree
of life going. Furthermore, pleaseconsider that this tree of life purportedly started
off from one universal common ancestor,that original life form. Whence all life
forms evolved, which then grew amultitude of major and minor branches and sub

(01:05:19):
branches and what have you, whichthen led to the introduction of many distinct
subsequent common ancestors, which in turnwere responsible for the panoply of creatures possessing
physical similarities that are not necessarily homologous, but wait for it, analogous,
being that they evolved independently in differentorganisms in different parts of the same tree.

(01:05:43):
And yes, my head is spinning. Two. The upshot is that
homology is cited as evidence of evolutionand evolution is cited as evidence of homology,
and so for Darwinists it's either promulgatingthe sort of circular definition and as
we've learned an episode five, remainingsteadfast in their a priori commitment to materialism,
or once again run the risk ofallowing quote the divine foot in the

(01:06:08):
door and quote the paraphrase Richard C. Lewinton. Anyway, and back to
the matter at hand, evolutionists reallywant these so called whale fossils to be
evidence of random, undirected evolution thathappened in around ten million years, which
is highly improbable. Asides from that, and as we learn shortly, there
might be a slight issue with thetemporal sequence. But back to the peer

(01:06:31):
reviewed paper. To my mind,and I encourage you to read that Nature
article by doctor Tayoson at al.This is a clear case of and here
I'm dramatizing, this is what wethink. But you'll be the judge again.
Don't let us influence you or anything. We just want you to decide
for yourself that we're right. Please, because research funding doesn't grow on trees,
well not yet anyway. So letme tell you where we're headed in

(01:06:55):
this episode based on the odds offailure, you would have to come to
the conclusion that fifty fifty five orgazillion million years are nowhere near enough for
land dwelling, grass eating cloven hoofedpurported ancestor to eventually, through natural selection
acting on random mutation, give riseto the cloven hoofed animals of today,

(01:07:16):
and that later split into two branches, with one lineage leading to whales and
another lineage leading to the modern hippopotamuses. By the way, that bit about
hippos is true, as though thefossil record weren't mystifying enough. In nineteen
eighty five, when you see Berkeley'sVincent Sarich, a pioneer of the field

(01:07:38):
of molecular evolution, analyzed blood proteins, he saw a close relationship between hippos
and whales. Therefore, and toquote Jerry Coyn again quote, biologists now
believe that the closest living relative ofwhales is you guessed it, the hippopotamus.
So maybe the hippo to whale scenariois not so far fetched after all.

(01:07:59):
End quote. But then again,was this purported evolution directed or desulatory?
And we can just simply conclude itwas desolatory because the alternative sounds absurd
because we simply don't want it tobe true, and then concoct computer simulations
that rely on the very thing theyare supposed to disavow. For example,
computer simulations where we try to simulatehow nature allegedly brings about gradual, progressive,

(01:08:25):
and adaptive change blindly no less,that is, without the help of
an intelligent agent, only to findourselves forced to intervene and ultimately guide along
the program or simulation, because surprise, unless we did that, nothing but
a proverbial chaotic mess would result,therefore falling short of providing a less absurd

(01:08:45):
option. Nor should we attempt tosweep the math under the rug, despite
mathematics not being on their side.Please hold that thought. Darwinians keep pointing
at three or four fossils and say, see, here are the transitional forms.
What more do you want glossing overthe fact that, oh, I
don't know, aliens might have beeninvolved. And if you just snickered,
please refer to my talk in episodefive about the theory called directed panspermia,

(01:09:11):
which was co authored in nineteen seventytwo by Francis Krick. Who a couple
of decades prior, and along withJames Watson, elucidated the structure of the
oxyibalonucleic acid that is DNA in directedpan spermia, which was championed by Carl
Sagan. Of all people, JamesCrick and Leslie Orgel posited that DNA had
to have had alien origins. Oh, and get this. In the December

(01:09:34):
four, twenty twenty Science News updateby Maria Timing we learned that in the
years since, scientists confirmed that theMerchison meteorite contained amino acids, primarily glycine,
and that those organic compounds likely camefrom outer space. As per Science
News March twenty, nineteen seventy one, page one ninety five, Maria Timing

(01:09:55):
Wright quote, amino acids and otherchemical precursors to life have been on cover
and other fallen space rocks. Recentdiscoveries include compounds called nucleobases and sugars that
are key components of DNA and RNA. The amino acid glycine even has been
spotted in outer space in the atmosphereof Comet sixty seven p churiumov Jiusmenko.

(01:10:16):
Such findings bolst of the idea thatlife could exist elsewhere in the universe.
End quote. Now you can haveall the amino acids rained down from the
sky and then some. That stilldoesn't solve the problem of how they assembled
into the first biological living cell,thus making the leap from inanimate molecules to
self replicating life. Furthermore, asI intimated episode six. Although the still

(01:10:41):
unsolved origin of life mystery and itsalleged subsequent blind and undirected evolution are two
distinct areas of research, the twoare often confused. Plus and putting aside
the fact that the simplest biological cellbewilders biologists. Just think of how complicated
a problem it would be for engineto convert a car into a submarine.

(01:11:02):
Better still, just ask missus Blandingshow unexpectedly complicated and costly it was.
Just install her quote unquote little flowersink if you've never seen it. In
the movie, mister Blandings builds hisdream house. One day, Murial Blandings
played by Myrna Loy, spots fourpieces of flagstone left over from the construction

(01:11:24):
of the porch that were just goingto be thrown away, and she asks
the contractor mister Wretch if he couldlay them down on the floor of the
flower sink and poke a little cementbetween the cracks and give her a nice
stone floor where it quote might bewet with flowers and things. End quote.
That was absolutely all I did.She kept pleading. Once she and
Bill, her husband played by CarrieGrant, were presented with the exorbitant amount,

(01:11:46):
mister Wretch ended up having to chargethem due to cascade of structural,
plumbing and electrical changes that were neededfor the floor to support all that additional
dead load and for the drain tobe placed. Now, I wouldn't want
to spoil the movie for you,and so you'll have to watch it to
find out what happens. In fact, as an architect myself, I highly
recommend you watch this movie. Ifyou're contemplating building or renovating your house,

(01:12:13):
you're welcome. But let's get backto this pesky math problem facing Darwinians.
First, for land mammal to successfullytransition to a fully aquatic environment, you
quote have to have the coming togetherof a number of adaptations, and that
is unfathomably complicated end quote. Accordingto doctor Richard Sternberg, whom I spoke

(01:12:35):
about at length in episode six.So the scale of these adaptations is just
massive. Yes, I know,it's gradual. It happens in small,
tiny steps. Hang on, letme finish. First, we would have
to remodel the skull and muscles andmove the nostrils so now they become blowholes.
Then we need flippers instead of legs, and to reconstruct the skeleton in

(01:12:58):
such a fashion as to clued andplease remember that important detail for later,
a ball joint that allows the tailto move up and down. Then,
and in the case of the bayleenwhales, we've got to convert the teeth
into balen, basically as sieve,so that the whale can eat. Oh,
and we need specialized kidneys to accommodatefor the intake of salt. The

(01:13:19):
lungs have to be redesigned for extremeskin diving. After all, it's not
as though whales can carry scuba TACson their backs in order to breathe compressed
air. Speaking of which, allthis repeated deep diving whales and other marine
mammals do must certainly put them atrisk for decompression sickness DCS for short,
which is typically associated with scuba diving. And is the result of nitrogen build

(01:13:41):
up in the blood due to breathingcompressed air. However, given how deep
and for how long whales dive,and aside from the fact they eat professional
deep divers for breakfast, lunch,and dinner combined, they most definitely at
a minimum qualify as scuba divers andthus are potentially prone to dcs. Basically
DCS also known as the bends,owing to the fact you will soon find

(01:14:02):
yourself lying on the ground bent ina fetal position, writhing in excruciating pain
should it afflict you, which iswhy you should never dive without proper training
and certification. And welcome to anotherepisode of Mario Ruins. Everything is an
illness that is the result of therapid release of nitrogen gas from the blood
stream, which causes bubbles to formin the blood and other tissues when a

(01:14:24):
diver either ascends to the surface ofthe ocean too rapidly, halds their breath
while ascending stays too long at certaindepth, or any combination of the above.
The main culprit here is the necessityof breathing air that is pressurized to
more than one atmosphere. When scubadiving by the way, when skin diving,
keep that precious air in your lungsand don't blow bubbles underwater for crime

(01:14:48):
out loud. It's what's keeping yourlungs from collapsing, which would be bad.
Remember that when diving to depth,the external pressure in our bodies,
which are naturally equipped with gas filledspaces in creases around one atmosphere for every
ten meters or fourteen point seven poundsper square nged for every thirty two point
eight feet, which can lead tomechanical distortion and tissue compression. And divers

(01:15:11):
know that the smallest instance of tissuedistortion can result in something called quote unquote
the squeeze. For that reason,it is vital for us to breathe pressurized
air when scuba diving, or tokeep the air in our lungs when skin
or free diving to prevent our chests, lungs, sinus cavities unless we forget
our ear drums from either collapsing ortearing. And in the case of our

(01:15:34):
human ear drums and sinuses, thisequalization occurs thanks to the station tube,
which is a small passageway that connectsthe throat to the middle ear and because
equalized pressure is needed on both sidesof the ear drum for the proper transfer
of sound waves and not to feelexcruciating pain. It is crucial to safely

(01:15:54):
quote unquote pop your ears. Onetechnique often used is to pinch the nostrils
through the diving mask and lightly blowout against the pressure. Now, although
most marine mammals lack the frontal cranialsinuses present in terrestrial mammals, they do
have inner ears and inner cranium sinuses. And according to an August twenty one,

(01:16:15):
two thousand six, Scientific American articletitled quote, how do deep diving
sea creatures withstand such huge pressure changes? End quote, in some cetacean species,
the general consensus seems to be thatthe middle ear cavity is quote lined
with an extensive venus plexus, whichis postulated to become in gorge at depth
and thus reduce or obliterate the airspace and prevent development of the squeeze end

(01:16:38):
quote. And according to the article, cetaceans also have large estachian tubes communicating
the tympanic cavity of the ear andthe large terragoid sinuses of the head.
Quote. These air sinuses of thehead have an extensive vasculature which is thought
to function in a manner similar tothat of the middle ear and facilitate equilibration
of air pressure within these spaces endquote. So basically, the insides are

(01:17:02):
surrounded with the fleshy material that itis believed swells up as the whale dives,
thus buttressing the cavities, as itwere, preventing them from collapsing.
And most of us know how nearlyuseless our human ears are below the surface
of the water, which is fivetimes denser than air. According to the
Woodshole Organographic Institution's web site. Quote. Baileen whales have a wax plug filling

(01:17:27):
their external ears. This plug isthought to transmit sound to the inner ear
from the water because the density ofthe plug is the same as the water.
Baileen whales are probably deaf in air. End quote. Anyway, and
back to the problem of the bends. As human beings, we unfortunately are
ill equipped to handle pressurized air becauseat higher pressures in the lungs, gases

(01:17:51):
such as oxygen and nitrogen, evenhelium, when used in diving gas mixtures,
become increasingly soluble in the blood.Now while oxygen is metabolized excess pressure
will result in nitrogen and helium buildup throughout the body. Incidentally, and
as an aside, helium is usedin deep sea diving as it reduces the

(01:18:12):
narcotic effects at high pressure depths thatare otherwise induced by both nitrogen and oxygen.
You see, narcosis literally makes youdrunk and potentially fearless, and so
you are drawn to dive deeper anddeeper. Hence the term rapture of the
deep the diving pathology not to twothousand and five album by Deep Purple you
know, featuring Steve morson lead guitar. Anyway, adding helium to the breathing

(01:18:36):
mix reduces the effects so that professionaldeep sea divers, also known as saturation
divers, can think more clearly.Now, all divers returning to sea level
pressure, which itself fluctuates, thoughby small amounts, must do so in
a way that does not result inbubbles forming as the nitrogen and helium re
equilibrates. In the case of saturationdivers, some of whom must conduct saturation

(01:19:00):
dives at more than a thousand feet. According to Jaden Anderson, a visiting
instructor at the Divers Instative Technology,they must be protected from instant grizzly death
by being shuttled back and forth viapressurized bells, first to where they will
be working for six hours at atime, and then back to a small
chamber on the surface which is alsopressurized to storage depth. And they must

(01:19:23):
remain under these extreme conditions for twentyeight days at a time while breathing an
oxygen and healium mixture and sounding likeDonald Duck or a Jaua when speaking on
a very serious somber note. Andjust to illustrate how risky a career saturation
diving is, there's a June thirty, twenty twenty one Daily Record online news

(01:19:46):
article by Emma Grit whose headline readsquote deep sea divers blood boiled in seconds
as bodies explode in grizzly disaster endquote, with a following subheading quote the
harring the Biffer Dolphin accident of nineteeneighty three saw five men lose their lives
in the most horrifying way, fivehundred and eight feet below the surface of

(01:20:10):
the North Sea when a compression mechanismmalfunctioned, causing their bodies to explode instantly
end quote. And so consider whatfollows as a public service message that will
hopefully dissuade once again some of youfrom ever scuba diving without proper training and
certification. To that end, pleaseallow me to illustrate with a familiar analogy

(01:20:31):
what getting the bends involves. Youknow how when you pop open a bottle
or can of soda, it vizziesbingo. Similarly, and in this case,
nitrogen gas forms bubbles, accumulates andsaturates the muscles and blood, triggering
excruciating pain and bringing on the bends, a condition that can also cause injuries

(01:20:51):
involving the nervous system read permanent paralysis. And once again we're going over the
physics behind the bend because we're tryingto turn a land dwelling herbivore into a
full time carnivore by a imagining thatDarwin never made a mistake in assuming that
small genetic differences are somehow preserved sothat over the millennia intergenerational differences would accumulate,

(01:21:15):
thus eventually transforming one species into anotherand b and in the case of
whale evolution, there was enough timefor that to happen. In other words,
we're playing devil's advocate anyway. Thereare three ways divers can get the
bends. One by ascending too fast, which causes the otherwise compressed gases to
be turned loose, as it were, which can lead to some of these

(01:21:38):
gas bubbles being released into the arterialcirculation and cause arterial gas embolism. Two,
if the diver holds their breath afterbreathing compressed air while ascending or swimming
towards the surface, even if theydo so slowly, the air and their
lungs will expand and rupture lung tissue, causing pulmonary barotrauma, which can lead

(01:21:58):
to again arterial gas embolism. Now, let's say as a recreational scuba divery,
you do everything by the book exceptthat you stay too long at a
particular depth. Whoops, you've justentered decompression diving territory. Were Just like
technical divers, you're required to makeone or more stops during your ascent to
give your body time to safely releasethe gases such as nitrogen that dissolves into

(01:22:21):
your tissues during the dive. Andso if you ascend without abiding by the
strict protocol that professional divers are trainedto follow, is the decompression chamber for
you, assuming there's one nearby.You survive the intolerable pain and are not
permanently disabled by the time you're placedI mean shoved inside one. Again.

(01:22:42):
The deeper you dive, the quickergas dissolves into your tissues, which is
amplified by how long you stay atany given depth. Under normal no stop
or no decompression diving conditions, Asyou ascend slowly, the nitrogen gas in
your tissues undergoes off gasing. Itdissolves into your lungs and is expelled from
your body through normal breathing. Now, provided the amount of dissolved gases within

(01:23:06):
certain limits, you can ascend tothe surface without any required stops. That
being said, even in no decompressiondiving, it is recommended you hover at
fifteen feet for three to five minutesas a safety practice. Now, like
I stated earlier, whales don't scubadive, rather they free dive. And
while it has generally been accepted thatfree divers need not worry about the bends,

(01:23:29):
please be aware that one is potentiallyat risk of getting the bends when
free diving. That is, asidefrom the problem of the lungs collapsing due
to an increase in pressure. Infact, both human and whale lungs,
which had been inflated to capacity atthe surface, will have collapsed by the
time a depth of two hundred metersis reached. And yet, sperm whales,

(01:23:50):
for example, which feed on giantsquid, regularly dive one thousand to
two thousand meters deep. Wow,that's deep, you say, Hold on.
The twenty fourteen study that used satellitelinked tags to follow the dives of
eight beaked whales off the coast ofsouthern California revealed that the deepest whale dive

(01:24:11):
recorded so far was made by aqva's beaked whale, whose normal dive depth
would be two thousand meters that sixthousand, five hundred and sixty one feet,
eight and three sixteenth inches. However, this bad boy broke the record
for diving mammals by reaching a depthof two thousand, nine hundred and ninety
two meters or nine eight hundred andsixteen feet three hundred quarter inches. Also,

(01:24:35):
according to that same study, thelongest dive lasted one hundred and thirty
seven minutes. And if you thinkthat's impressive, According to a twenty three
September twenty twenty study published in theJournal of Experimental Biology, which analyzed thirty
six hundred eighty dives from twenty threesatellite linked tags deployed on qva's beaked t
Wales. The researchers recorded two extremelylong dives from one individual of one hundred

(01:25:00):
and seventy three and two hundred andtwenty two minutes. In her article Secrets
of the Deepest Diving Whales, publishedon London's Natural History Museum's website, Katie
Pavid writes, quote, around twothousand meters below the surface, the water
is freezing black and seemingly unpenetrable.No light reaches the murky depths, and
no human could survive the crushing pressurefrom the water above. It is easier

(01:25:25):
for a person to exist in spacethan it is to explore the ocean floor
at such depths. End quote.Now, I don't particularly agree with that
assessment. Based on my research,it seems to be a wash. Although
and according to August seven, twentyfourteen, the press and journal Evening Express
article titled Diver Versus Astronaut quote saturationdivers do eat better than astronauts. Their

(01:25:48):
food is prepared freshly on the outsideand delivered into the chamber through a pressurized
handlock, though many divers report tasteis affected under pressure end quote. Again,
it's a wash anyway. And backto whales, they have to face
two challenges, storing enough oxygen tohunt successfully andwithstanding the enormous pressure. Again

(01:26:10):
you have to imagine your mother natureand your designing, although not really because
that would imply intelligence the next bestthing to a demigod or a Marvel's avenger.
Now, in terms ofwithstanding the crushingpressure and dealing with their body tissues
becoming overly saturated with harmful levels ofnitrogen, scientists do not fully understand how

(01:26:31):
whales deal with these problems Katie Pavidrights quote. One theory is that marine
mammals collapse their lungs in a waythat forces air away from the alveolie the
tiny air sacks in the lungs thattransfer gases like oxygen and nitrogen into the
blood end quote. Now, thissolves the problem of nitrogen bubble formation leading

(01:26:55):
to decompression sickness. As to howwhales can survive without air for so long,
thanks and overabundance, if you will, of hemoglobin and myoglobin. Whales
can store oxygen in their blood andmuscles, whereas humans, on the other
hand, must store it in theirlungs. In addition, whales have the
ability to reduce their heart rate andstop the blood float at certain parts of

(01:27:17):
the body, temporarily shutting down organssuch as their kidneys and liver while they
hunt. All right, Next,we need to equip the creature with the
mother of all dry suits, thatis the layer of blubber for insulation in
cold water. Plus we have tofigure out where to place the ears.
We have to modify the eyes,the skin, and, in the context

(01:27:40):
of Darwinian evolution, reconfigure the malereproductive system, the most crucial and challenging
adaptation of them all, because whales, which have streamlined bodies can't wear high
performance swimsuits in order to reduce dragon the body in water, nor can
they wear boxer shorts for that matter, we would have to move their reproductive
organs from the exterior of theirs toinside their abdominal cavities. Once inside the

(01:28:02):
body, we are faced with yetanother design challenge given their placement, which
is a position where there are largemuscle packages driving the fluke in order to
afford whales on the water locomotion,which consequently generates heat, which is detrimental
to fertility. That's right. Withoutsuccessful reproduction, natural selection has nothing to

(01:28:23):
select. Quote sterility means it's nogo. You don't count in the race
of life, so to speak.End quote, says doctor Sternberg, speaking
on camera in a YouTube video calledWhale Evolution versus Population Genetics. Once inside
the body, these vital, reproductiveorgans must be cooled and kept below core

(01:28:43):
body temperature. Plus, consider againthat when whales swim, they generate heat,
which in turn will cost sterility unlesssome sort of refrigeration mechanism is designed
into the circulatory system. The solutiontransport and cool the blood in the non
insulated region of the dorsal fin andthe tail through a network of veins and
arteries, forming a countercurrent heat exchangesystem. And so, to paraphrase Sternberg,

(01:29:10):
could we explain this remarkable, anatomicallycomplex solution which involves a quote unquote
miraculous web of arteries and veins bysome quote smooth, gradualistic textbook scenario.
Little change, little change, fixation. No, it doesn't fit the Darwinian
model. End quote, Sternberg opinesthat we're looking at quote just a suite

(01:29:30):
of characters that had to have beenintegrated from the get go, and it's
not a gradualistic type of change endquote. He says, why, well,
consider that, on the one hand, the cooling system makes sense because
we have the internalized reproductive glands,and on the other hand, the internalized
reproductive glands are useless unless we've gotthe countercurrent cooling system. Doctor Sternberg asserts

(01:29:53):
that we can't explain the emergence ofone without the other. According to the
video, since two thousand and one, Sternberg, who I mentioned in Part
six, holds two doctorates, onePhD in biology and another PhD in system
science, has quote used widely accepteddata on mutation rates and population genetics to
study the Darwinian model for whale evolutionend quote. In particular, he has

(01:30:15):
focused his research on natural selection andthe probability of coordinated mutations. And as
a reminder, mutations are the geneticerrors in a DNA molecule that ultimately bring
about macro evolutionary change. To Sternberg, it all boils down to a numbers
game where one would have to explainit in terms of coincidence mutations that quote

(01:30:39):
just happened to arise and be putin the ride combinations to reshape the vertebral
column, to reshape the musculature,the nervous system, the eyes, ears,
and on and on and on andon end quote. All right,
let's simplify the task and imagine thatall we want to achieve is transforming a
leg into a flipper. Let's saywe need mutation A to affect the bones.

(01:31:02):
However, and according to philosopher ofbiology doctor Paul Nelson, who also
appears in the aforementioned video, whenwe think of our own limbs, quote,
it's not just bones. There aremuscles and tendons and nerves and associated
behaviors. End quote. He says, then pointing out that while one mutation
let's call it A, may startthe transformation, it still won't be able

(01:31:23):
to handle the task on its own. We'll need for example, and again
we're keeping the simple mutations BCDF aswell, he says. Quote. So
the challenge of cooperative mutations is tohave these events occur in space and time
in such a way that they canjointly work together cooperate to bring about the
transformation that you need end quote.Great, let's dial up those mutations and

(01:31:45):
get the ball rolling. You say, no problem, coming right up here.
Check this out. It's a biomorphslot machine. Make sure you have
enough coins, read resources, andtime. Now, what's that Life doesn't
work this way? Oh but itdoes according to Darwinism. Plus, you

(01:32:05):
have no choice. You have toplay, So go ahead, pull the
lever to your heart's content, andgood luck getting just the right sequence of
mutation accidents into genetic material. Thefact of the matter is that population genetics
calculations, which are highly technical andmathematical, so there isn't anywhere near enough

(01:32:28):
time for just two coordinated mutations totake place, let alone ten million years.
In fact, there's a peer reviewedpaper you can look up on National
Institute of healths that is nih dotgov's National Library of Medicine website by Rick
Durrett and Dina Schmidt titled Waiting fortwo Mutations with applications to regulatory sequence evolution
and the limits of Darwinian evolution.This paper was published in two thousand and

(01:32:53):
eight and subsequently corrected in two thousandand nine. First, let me briefly
mention why was correct than by whomin their abstract the author's right quote.
In addition, we use these resultsto expose flaws in some of Michael b
He's arguments concerning mathematical limits to Darwinianevolution end quote. As a result,

(01:33:14):
doctor Michael b He submitted his ownpaper to NIH in two thousand and nine,
in which he noted quote Dirton Schmidtwrite that one of their aims is
to quote expose flaws in some ofMichael Bhe's arguments concerning mathematical limits to Darwinian
evolution end quote. Their effort,however, is itself seriously flawed end quote,
and b He proceeds to show wherethey went wrong, and NIH published

(01:33:40):
the correction. Now back to theoriginal paper, whose manuscript was submitted by
Cornell University's Department of Mathematics and Centerof Applied Mathematics on September thirty, two
thousand and seven, and accepted forpublication on August nineteen, two thousand and
eight, and finally published in Geneticsin November two thousand and eight. Right
before Chia being Michael Beahe, theauthors wrote quote consistent with recent experimental observations

(01:34:04):
for Drusophala. By the way,that would be a fruit fly to you
and me. We find that afew million years is sufficient, But for
humans with a much smaller effective populationsize this type of change would take.
Then they use the mathematical symbol denotinggreater than followed by one hundred million years.
End quote. All right, Soif it takes over one hundred million

(01:34:27):
years or two just two cooperative mutationsto be established in a population of humans,
how does that square with a claimthat a mere ten million years are
enough for the theorized evolution of aland dwelling animal into a whale. You
don't have to be a math geniusor have a PhD in population genetics,
to paraphrase Paul Nelson, in orderto see where this is heading. He

(01:34:48):
says, quote, even if Igrant millions and millions of years five ten
fifty, one hundred million years tobring about this transformation, you still face
the very real limits of population size, mutation rate, generation time, and
the number of features that have tobe modified. End quote. The bottom
line, if this transition occurred,he says, quote, it did not

(01:35:12):
occur by an undirected Darwinian process Thatsimply is not possible biologically. End quote.
Sternberg ads quote Darwinism provided an explanationfor the appearance of design, and
argued that there is no designer,or if you will, the designer's natural
selection. If that's out of theway, that just does not explain the
evidence. Then the flip side ofthat is, well, things appear designed

(01:35:34):
because they are designed. End quote. Now, if you're a tempted to
invoke an argument like Darwin's finches,please refer to again episode six, where
I covered the topic of microevolution versusmacroevolution and debunked the notion that microevolution slash
macroevolution is a distinction that no actualscientist makes. Again, we're talking macro

(01:35:56):
evolution on that front, and inhis twenty seventeen book Darwin's House of Cards,
the late Tom Bethel wrote that quotesuch a transformation has never been observed.
No species has ever been seen toevolve into another. What scientists do
observe is something quite different, reversionto a mean. Reversion to the mean

(01:36:17):
implies that species and habit quote unquoteplateaus of limited space upon which variants are
free to home. Artificial selection canquote unquote push varieties to the edge of
the plateau. But they cannot bepushed off it or be made to invade
the terrain of adjacent species. Noexperiment has shown us otherwise end quote.

(01:36:40):
Granted, and in the interest offull disclosure. While it is true that
domesticated animals, which have been selectivelybred and genetically adapted over generations to live
alongside humans, gradually but certainly revertin character to their aboriginal stalks once they
run wild, and as Darwin wrote, quote, in many cases we do
not know what the aboriginal stock was, and so we could not tell whether

(01:37:01):
or not perfect reversion has occurred endquote, we shouldn't overlook the main issue,
which was perfectly summarized by Tom Bethelquote, it isn't necessary to observe
quote unquote perfect reversion to demonstrate thatthe characters enhanced by domestic breeding are quickly
lost in the wild. Darwin wantedto believe that he had discovered a process
comparable to a journey that could beextended indefinitely, not just one of a

(01:37:26):
few steps which are then reversed.Reversion to the mean suggests the metaphor of
going for walk or going to workand then returning home, as opposed to
wandering eternally, in fact, havingno home epitomizes the Darwinian worldview end quote.
A tale of a whale or howto get a paleontologist to hate you.

(01:37:49):
On December four, nineteen ninety seven, a debate moderated by Michael Kinsley
titled Resolved the Evolutionists should Acknowledge Creationtook place at Seatonhall University in South Orange,
New Jersey, and which would subsequentlybe telecast on PBS on December nineteen
ninety seven as an episode of theFiring Line. During the proceedings, doctor

(01:38:10):
David Berlinsky, who had made itclear his quote interest in divine creation is
negligible end quote, pose the followingquestion to philosopher of science and author Michael
Ruce, quote, where is thescientific theory of biology that you are proposing
to endorse? Where is the theory? End quote? In response, Ruce
asserts that, of course Darwinism isa scientific theory and the Mississippi is a

(01:38:30):
river, but where is the theorybeyond having named it? Berlinsky retorts,
where is the theory? Ruth asksyes, Berlinsky insists, where is it?
I've never been able to discern it, simply saying that things change is
not a theory, he adds,and after a couple of back and forth,
Berlinsky said, quote, with respectto the great aching global questions of

(01:38:51):
life, where is the theory thatyou propose as an explanation? Does it
go beyond the mantra random mutation andnatural selection? Or is there some some
solid theory that a physicist would recognizethat an engineer can implement. End quote.
Ruce retorts that, of course Darwinismis a global theory. By way
of evidence, he cites, amongothers, Darwins Finch's which, incidentally,

(01:39:14):
and once again, and as Ihave argued in episode six, pertains to
micro evolution and not macro evolution,which is what Berlinsky was trying to get
Michael Roose to shed light on.And if you remember, macroevolution is where
the purported generative power of the Darwinianmechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations
supposedly lies. That is the powerto introduce new body plans, which and

(01:39:40):
to paraphrase Richard Dawkins, reflect theevolutionary view of life as one in which
and I know I said this earlyon in this episode, but it bears
repeating. Quote descendants can depart indefinitelyfrom the ancestral form, and each departure
becomes a potential ancestor to future varianceend quote. Therefore, we're not just
talking about different breeds of dogs orcats or finches whose beaks change in shape

(01:40:03):
and size. Again, that's microevolution, whereas Berliski was expressing doubt in macroevolution.
The few whale fossils presented as evidence, notwithstanding couple of which, come
to find out, were apparently howshould I put this, creatively manipulated by
the paleontologists who discovered them in orderto maintain the continuity of the whale evolution
narrative, thus creating the illusion thatthese quote unquote missing links showed a complete

(01:40:26):
transition between land living ancestors and marinewhales. Surprised, Oh, don't be.
The practice of manipulating evidence to keepthe world safe for Darwinism is not
without precedent. In fact, let'stake the case of German zoologist and highly
gifted graphic illustrator Ernst Heckel, whoin the eighteen sixties proposed the biogenetic law,

(01:40:47):
which posits that the stages that ananimal embryo undergoes during development represent a
chronological replay of that species past evolutionaryforms. To quote Elizabeth Humes from her
May three, twenty fourteen article titledErnst Heckel's Biogenetic Law between Parentheses eighteen sixty
six, which can be found onArizona's State University's The Embryo Project encyclopedia.

(01:41:13):
Basically, Ernst Heckel was a ferventDarwinist and played a crucial role in spreading
Darwinian ideas in Germany, and hismotto was quote ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny end quote.
Essentially, ontogeny hence ontogenesis is theorigination and development of an organism.
As for the term phylogeny, itharkens back to the system of biological classification

(01:41:36):
still widely used by many, butnot necessarily all, evolutionary biologists and more
on that later, and which wasinvented by Carl Linnius, the father of
Lenean taxonomy. Incidentally, taxonomy,whose root word is taxon plural taxa,
is defined by Merriam Webster's Dictionary asthe quote orderly classification of plants and animals

(01:41:58):
according to their presumed natural relationships endquote now as a point of interest,
early on, Linius believed that thespecies was not only real, but immutable.
However, and according to a Universityof California Museum of Paleontology web page,
quote, Linaius observed how different speciesof plant might hybridize to create forms

(01:42:20):
which looked like new species end quote. Consequently, he quote abandoned the concept
that species were fixed and invariable,and suggested that some, perhaps most,
species in a genus might have arisenafter the creation of the world through hybridization
end quote. In any case,his religious beliefs led him to embrace natural

(01:42:41):
theology, which as a school ofthought dating back to Biblical times, would
especially flourish around seventeen hundred, andwhose core tenet was that it is possible
to understand God's wisdom by studying hiscreation, and so In Linnean taxonomy,
organisms are grouped according to similarity anddifferences. For example, humans same as

(01:43:02):
fruitflies, belong to the animal kingdom. Therefore, the kingdom is the highest
level of the hierarchy. One stepbelow is the phylum plural phyla, and
in the case of us humans,we belong in the chordate phylum. Then
one step lower. We have themammal class, than the primates order,

(01:43:23):
than the hominids family, than thehomogenous plural genera, and finally the sapiens
species. Hence, and in theinterest of brevity, we say that humans
are simply Homo sapiens. And onceagain, as I've intimated earlier, we
are still debating over the concept ofspecies. So in aside from trying to

(01:43:44):
get a perfect score on your biologyexam, deep down at a visceral level,
I wouldn't get too attached to thenomenclature. Now back to Heckel.
By saying ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, heessentially positive that if we were able to
carry uure the development of an organism'sembryo in a sequence of images, and
thus create a visual record of allthe stages that embryo undergoes a flip book,

(01:44:09):
if you will, we should beable to see a recapitulation, a
visual reel of sorts of its evolutionaryjourney. Therefore, according a Hackle,
who marketed this idea through its polishedillustrations, which can still be found in
biology textbooks today, human embryos,for example, undergo transformations that unequivocally show

(01:44:29):
characteristics of their ancestors, such asgills and tales. Essentially, the embryo
would display a recap of its evolutionaryjourney from fish to aped human. You
get the idea, and very importantlyclearly showing again and keeping with Darwin's ideas,
a progression from simpler to more complexforms. Fast forward to September five,
nineteen ninety seven, The Day Sciencemagazine published an article by Elizabeth Beonizi

(01:44:55):
titled Heckel's Embryos fraud Rediscovered. Thearticle reads, quote, Generations of biology
students may have been misled by afamous set of drawings of embryos published one
hundred and twenty three years ago bythe German biologist Ernst Heckel end quote,
according to Michael Richardson, an embriologistat Saint George's Hospital Medical School, who,

(01:45:18):
according to the article quote hopes onceand for all to discredit Heckel's work,
first found to be flawed more thana century ago. End quote.
When re examining and photographing embryos roughlymatched by species and age with those Heckel
drew, they often quote looked surprisinglydifferent. End quote. According to what
Richardson reported in the August nineteen ninetyseven issue of Anatomy and Embryology. Furthermore,

(01:45:43):
according to the same Science magazine article, quote, not only did Heckel
ad or omit features Richardson and hiscolleagues report, but he also fudged the
scale to exaggerate similarities among species,even when there were tenfold differences in size
end quotequote. As to the aforementionedtwenty fourteen article available on Arizona State Universities

(01:46:04):
the Embryo Project Encyclopedia's online page,it reads quote. Heckel's biogenetic law was
further discredited by the results of experimentalembriologists in the early twentieth century. Researchers
abandoned Heckel's theory when they couldn't confirmhis observations. Embryologists showed that cases of
recapitulation were less prevalent than wor theyinconsistencies between the developmental stages of normal organisms

(01:46:30):
from different species. End quote.Forgive and forget. What's the point of
dwelling on the past? You say, okay, first, Hi, have
we met? Second? Well,Aside from the fact that Heckel's images persist
despite the controversy they've stirred up,and with creationists at the gate, scientific
materialists are very worried, and consequentlysome, as we shall learn, played

(01:46:53):
fast and loose with the evidence.Now in terms of the materialists being worried,
I read an interview conducted by aMan Gefter in which was published on
December fourteen, two thousand and five, by New Scientists, in which she
asks the renowned doctor Leonard Suskan thefollowing question, if we do not accept
the landscape idea, are we stuckwith intelligent design? As a reminder,

(01:47:14):
the landscape is the name Suscan wouldlater use to refer to the multiverse,
and so Amanda Gefter was basically askingwhat will happen if no evidence of the
multiverse is found? Again? We'retalking about a landscape of billions upon billions
of non causally connected universes, eachwith its own settings as far as the

(01:47:35):
physical constants are concerned, and wherewe happen to find ourselves living in the
one that just happened to have theright calibration, if you will, of
those physical constants as to allow theformation and lest we forget the evolution of
life DT free all brought to youby nothing. Again, not at all

(01:47:57):
theest concept of the multiverse, whereeverything is interconnected, nothing happens by chance,
and every outcome is decided by adivine justice system. Anyway, Suskan
replies by saying, quote, Idoubt that physicists will see it that way
if for some unforeseen reason the landscapeturns out to be inconsistent, maybe for
mathematical reasons or because it disagrees withthe observation. I am pretty sure that

(01:48:21):
physicists will go on searching for naturalexplanations of the world. But I have
to say if that happens, asthings stand now, we will be in
a very awkward position. Without anyexplanation of nature's fine tunings, we will
be hard pressed to answer the IDcritics end quote, ID, of course

(01:48:43):
stands for Intelligent design. And nowonto the matter of the fudging of select
transitional weal fossils. It all startedwhen I noticed a discrepancy while watching a
June five, twenty fourteen YouTube promotionalvideo produced by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for
Reason and Science, whose full titleis Richard Dawkins Show Me the Intermediate Fossils

(01:49:04):
Nebraska. Vignettes number one, apparentlyand enduring Dawkins's two thousand and nine American
tour, he and members of hisfoundation visited Judy Diamonds Explore Evolution exhibit at
the University of Nebraska State Museum inLincoln, which as of June twenty fourteen,
had been quote replicated in six museumsaround the country end quote. In

(01:49:26):
that first vignette, Dawkins opens withthe following declaration. Quote people often say,
where are the intermediate fossils? Showus your intermediate fossils. There are
plenty of intermediate fossils, and oneof the best examples is Wales. End
quote. And Dawkins a good reasonfor being confident in his assertion, what
with the purported complete series of fossilsdiscovered in Pakistan and India in the early

(01:49:47):
nineteen nineties, namely our old friendsPakisidas, Ambulucidas, and Rhodeceidus, three
key reported whale fossils that finally filledthe gap between Indohias or India pig,
which was a raccoon sized animal thatlived forty eight million years ago in Cashmere
and whose fossil evidence suggests it wasfairly aquatic, and duradon or spirtooth,

(01:50:10):
which was an ancient cetacean that livedforty one to thirty three million years ago
in the Eocene. Therefore, asI mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
paleontologists finally had what they felt wasa complete transitional series that confirmed the
gradual, non directed transition between landliving ancestors and marine wales. In fact,

(01:50:31):
during the nineteen ninety seven The FiringLine Debate, doctor Kenneth Miller,
whom I mentioned in episode six,holds up a chart and says, quote,
we have heard over and over againthat there are gaps in the fossil
record, there are missing forms,and it's been implied the only reason they
could be there is because evolution isnot the explanation. I want to show

(01:50:53):
you a very famous gap. It'sa gap between mezzanikid mammals land dwelling carnivores
that lived oh fifty five sixty millionyears ago and arcuse seats, which are
the oldest whales we know from skulland Dentian patterns that, as it turns
out, these whales are very closelyrelated to Mezzenikid's end quote. At this
point, doctor Miller, still holdingup the chart turns his attention towards doctor

(01:51:16):
Michael Beahey, and he goes quoteand my colleague directly cross from me,
Michael beehe once wrote, if randomevolution is true, there must be a
large number of transitional forms between Mezzenikidand the ancient whale, and much in
the way that doctor Biliski has said. He said, where are they?
Well, they're right here end quote. Then Miller goes for the big reveal

(01:51:39):
one, two, three, hesays, as he sequentially removes the sheets
of paper, thus showing three transitionalforms, including a complete skeleton of the
aforementioned Ambulu seatus, which he characterizedas quote unquote an extraordinary intermediate thus echoing
Stephen Jay Gould's sentiment when he referredto it as quote unquote a remarkable smoking

(01:52:00):
gun. Therefore, nineteen ninety seven, the story was that, within a
relatively short span in terms of geologictime, three missing transitional fossils, and
here they are again, in caseyou've forgotten their names, pack Aceitas,
Ambulaceidis, and Rhotacetus somehow managed toappear on Earth through a process of random,
undirected evolution. That last one,Rhodacetus, was even officially depicted as

(01:52:24):
having a fluked tail and a blowholethat was midway along its snout. And
remember Ambulacidas, our extraordinary intermediate slashremarkable smoking gun. Well, it was
originally depicted as sporting a blowhole thatalso was midway along its snout, despite
doctor Tauison's telling Jeff Saint Clair andthat video whose script they both had co

(01:52:46):
written, that the tip of Ambulacidas'ssnout had not been found. But hold
on to that thought while we returnedto the matter of the discrepancy or discrepancies
rather. I noticed while watching thatYouTube promotional video produced by the Richardawkins Foundation
for Reason and Science. The firstthing I noticed was that ambulusciatus was conspicuously
missing from that large poster titled WhalesEvolution from Land to Sea and whose caption

(01:53:13):
reads quote Today's whales evolved from fourlegged land mammals that lived about fifty five
million years ago. Quote at whichRichard Dawkins was gleefully pointing, after all
this hubbub and hoopla about Ambulucetus natans, why wasn't it featured in that video?
And I might as well tell youthat the only reason I made that
special trip to the Natural History Museumin washing d C. Was to see

(01:53:35):
for myself how the museum curators presentedambulusiadas well guess what, aside from the
overhead fossils celtons, I really hadto look hard to finally stumble on a
three panel display titled Evolution of Whales, which, come to find out,
did not feature Ambuluceidis, although Idid find it mentioned briefly in the short

(01:53:56):
video playing on the other side ofit. That video starts off for an
animation of Pacacidas. The caption readsquote Pacacidas forty eight million years ago,
foraged in streams, six feet long, nostrils far forward, forelimbs function for
walking, hind limbs function for walking, no tail flukes end quote. Then

(01:54:16):
Pacacidas morphs into Ambulacetis. Caption readsquote forty seven million years ago end quote.
So in the space of only onemillion years, Nature is able to
somehow figure out how to orchestrate thecooperative mutations necessary to result in goofy old
ambulacedis, although honestly I wouldn't wantto be anywhere near him if he still

(01:54:38):
existed. That thing had jaws anywherethe caption reads quote alligator like fed in
the water, fourteen feet long.Fore limbs function for walking. Hind limbs
function for walking. End quote.And although that video at a Smithsonians does
show Ambulacetus's nostrils to be further backon the skull about one throad up the

(01:54:58):
way, it'll mention it or drawattention to it, whatsoever. Back to
Dawkins, he explains, quote,here's a series of fossils back in time.
Deurrodon about thirty six million years ago, Rhotacetas about forty seven and a
half million years ago, Pacasidas aboutforty eight and a half million years ago.
And you can see they form alovely series of intermediates. As you

(01:55:20):
go from Oti young Pacacidus, Rhotacetus, you're gradually losing the hind legs to
Durdon, which has almost lost thehind legs completely. Modern whales have completely
lost the hind legs. There aresome vestigial bones, some remnant bones buried
deep inside the body. End quote. All right, so instead of Pacasidas,

(01:55:41):
Amulacetus and Rhoacetus, then Duradon,we now only have Pacasidus Rhotocetus,
And then Durdon. So that's onediscrepancy. The second discrepancy has to do
with the fact that whatever Dawkins wassaying did not match the image he was
pointing at. Again, Dawkins wassaying, quote, as you go from
otiung pac Acidas Rhodacetus, you're graduallylosing the hind legs to Durdon, which

(01:56:05):
has almost lost the hind legs.End quote. Now, obviously based on
the verbal account, only when youhear me say that the fossils named pac
Aceitus and Rhodacetus are gradually losing thehind legs to Durdon, you'd expect to
see just that if you were standingthere looking at the poster, a gradual

(01:56:25):
transition, that is, things gettingsmaller and smaller and smaller again, expecting
them to be losing their hind legs. Except that in the video vignette,
not only both Pacacidas and Rhodacetus aredepicted with rather large hind legs that don't
seem to be shrinking. Rhodacetus,which is supposed to be the intermediate between

(01:56:45):
pac Acidus and Durdon, appears tohave hind legs that are all but identical
to Pacacidas's I don't know. MaybeI'm not clear on what the term intermediate
means. And dar we in evolution, and yes, I did scale up
pac Asidas to matro to Cetus isbreadth and girth, trust me, I'm
an architect. That's the first thingI did. Anyway, technically they're identical.
Then, puff there's Duridon I beslosauridthat lived alongside Besilosaurus forty point four

(01:57:12):
to thirty three point nine million yearsago in the Eocene, and which is
starting to look closer to whale,the silly tiny hind legs notwithstanding, and
particularly in the tail section. Inthis case, Duridon, unlike its ancestor
Rhodacetus, sports a tail with thefamiliar flukes. But wait a second,
how come in this particular two thousandand nine whale evolution chart, Rhotacetus no

(01:57:33):
longer has flukes? What happened tothe flukes? Why am I saying that?
So? Glad you asked? Isay this because I distinctly remember seeing
older illustrations in which Rhodacetus is depictedas having a long fluked tail and flippers.
In other words, Rhodacetus, theancestor species, was made to look

(01:57:55):
more like Duridon, the descendant species. Plus let's not forget that year's p
doctor Gingrid said that Rhodacetus could havehad a fluke tail according to John Nobl
Wilford's May three, nineteen ninety fourNew York Times article, and that this
is a fast tracking Rhodacetus to whalestatus. So what gives? What happened
to Rudacidus's fluketail and the flippers thatmuseum diagrams used to show in the Dawkins

(01:58:18):
video? Pac Asidas and Rhodacetus havehind legs, ending with webbed feet and
another thing and picking up the matterof temporal sequences where I left off?
What's the deal with chronological inversions alsoknown as ghost lineages? That is the
common practice of ignoring where a speciesactually shows up and inserting it out of

(01:58:41):
sequence. For example, the drawingson page fifty of Jerry Coin's aforementioned two
thousand and nine book Why Evolution IsTrue features a quote unquote tree depicting the
evolutionary relationships of six chronologically ordered transitionalforms or fossils, starting with Indohias and
n with Billina. That is,the genus consisting of the greenland whale as

(01:59:03):
defined by Merriam Webster's dictionary. Firstoff, doctor Coin writes, quote,
there is no need to describe thistransition in detail, as the drawings clearly
speak, if not shout, ofhow a land living animal took through the
water. End quote. Fair enough, although I probably should describe it anyway.
So we learned that the sequence beginswith again that raccoon sized animal called

(01:59:28):
Indohias, which lived forty eight millionyears ago and is clearly closely related to
whales quote because it has special featuresof the ear and teeth seen only in
modern whales and their aquatic ancestors.End quote. Again fair enough. And
incidentally, nothing that Coin has saidso far precludes there be a designer that

(01:59:48):
directed the genetic mutation that would allowthe transition from Indohias forty eight million years
ago to pack a Sidus which livedfifty two million years Go wait what that
can't be right? Okay, Holdon a second. How can Pacastus,
supposed to need the descendant of Indohiosbe the ancestor of Indohias. How's that

(02:00:09):
work? Help? Oh? Isee, Coin says, quote, although
in the Ohios appears slightly later thanthe largely aquatic ancestors of Wales. It
is probably very close to what whaleancestors looked like. End quote. Then
we learn that Indohias was positioned onCoin's evolution tree two to four million years

(02:00:30):
before two of its ancestors, namelyPacasidus and ambulusidis. Is quote not the
ancestor of Wales, but was almostcertainly its cousin end quote. Yes,
I know I sound as dumb.I'm about to set forth the inane why
are there still monkeys around if we'redescended from monkey's argument? By the way,
technically speaking, that's not correct,because, as I've mentioned in episode

(02:00:54):
five, both humans and chimpanzees purportedlyevolved from a common ape like ancestor.
But I digress, and sure nothingsays an ancestor species can't coexist alongside its
descendants. However, if I don'thave proof positive that this or that particular
species is in fact ancestral, andall I have is a fossil that is

(02:01:15):
younger than its supposed descendants, andI up and move that fossil down that
is earlier in the geological timeline thanwhere it actually belongs, because morphologically it
would fit the Darwinian narratives, suchas the case with Indohighis, which again
might have been the ancestor of themall, but we can't be sure until

(02:01:35):
actual fossils dating back to the appropriatetime are found. My argument would be
weak at best, especially that myonly line of defense would be to say,
go ahead, prove that Indohias isnot the ancestor, or for that
matter, that unicorns don't exist.And if you think that challenging you to
prove a negative is bad form,if not bad science, as it would

(02:01:58):
be tantamount expecting you to accomplish theimpossible, don't blame me, because if
I did expect you to prove anegative, I would be simply emulating Charles
Darwin when he wrote, quote,if it could be demonstrated that any complex
organ existed which could not possibly havebeen formed by numerous slight modifications, my
theory would absolutely break down. Endquote. And yet Indohires is placed right

(02:02:25):
at the very bottom of that evolutionchart. That aside, and at this
point I have to ask, whenJerry Coyn says almost certainly, what does
that mean in quantifiable scientific terms?And what about the depiction of the transition
from small bipedal dinosaurs to birds onhis books Dust Jackets front panel. How
reliable is that considering the book's backflapfeatures a disclaimer printed in a red typeface

(02:02:47):
that reads, quote, the jacketdepicts a chronological sequence of fossils showing the
evolution of birds. We do notknow whether the actual line of descent included
the first three speed, but theorigin of modern birds almost certainly involved a
sequence very much like this one endquote again with the almost certainly honestly with

(02:03:10):
a theory that is touted by materialistsand militant atheists to boot as the path
intellectual fulfillment, to paraphrase Richard Dawkins, can we at least have a paper
that describes the mechanism which purportedly onlythe insane would disavow? Is that too
much to ask? Meanwhile, andon the back panel, Dawkins is quoted
as saying, quote, I oncewrote that anybody who didn't believe in evolution

(02:03:33):
must be stupid, insane, orignorant, and I was then careful to
add that ignorance is no crime.I should now update my statement. Anybody
who doesn't believe in evolution is stupid, insane, or hasn't read Jerry Coin.
I defy any reasonable person to readthis marvelous book and still take seriously

(02:03:54):
the breathtaking inanity that is intelligent designquote unquote theory or its cuntrey cousin Young
Earth creationism end quote. And here'sChristopher Hitchins's endorsement quote. Its ignorant opponents
like to say that the process ofevolution by natural selection is quote unquote only
a theory between parentheses. That's howthey prove their ignorance. Jerry Coin shows

(02:04:17):
with elegance and rigor that it isa hypothesis that meets and withstands all tests
and strengthens itself as a theory.Thereby, one could almost say that it
had the distinct merit of being trueend quote. Again and save for the
unfalsifiable, though highly creative and imaginativeextrapolation based on a gap riddled record that

(02:04:40):
these fossils almost certainly form a transitionalsequence. What tests was Hitchins referring to
that confirm the hypothesis that claims,for example, that birds almost certainly descended
from therapods through an undirected, blindand random process. I mean, once
again, and not to put toofine a point on it. Directed mutation
is scary enough, let alone onethat has left to the whims of dumb

(02:05:00):
luck. The fact remains that notone, not a single soul, knows
what manner of unguided mechanism could havemade that happen, and if they did,
and to paraphrase the late Philip Johnson, the law professor of the Architect,
I wish they'd publish the paper onit, because I'd love to see
it torn to bits. Let megive you another example. We've all been
told that archaeoptrics is an intermediate fossilbetween solurosaurs, which are theropods, that

(02:05:24):
is, small bipedal dinosaurs and birds. In his two thousand and four book
Missing Links, Evolutionary Concepts and Transitionsthrough Time, page one fifty three,
in the section titled Origin of Flight, doctor Robert A. Martin writes,
quote, the small sluosaurian dinosaurs relatedto archaeoptrics all occur in the fossil record

(02:05:44):
after archaeoptrics, and so cannot bedirectly ancestral. Although, as Kevin Padian
has shown, small delicate theropods existedin North America about the same time as
archaeoptrics in the old world. However, no early generalized archosas are known that
could be a common ancestor to bothdinosaurs and birds. So the dissident camp,

(02:06:04):
those who are against a dinosaur birdbetween parentheses ground up ancestry, cannot
point to obvious bird ancestors either endquote. In other words, the jury
is out. Furthermore, apparently,the official story that Bascillosaurus remember him lived
forty million years ago, which meansit was a descendant of proto whales,

(02:06:26):
is not necessarily accurate. Can Isay almost certainly inaccurate? Anyway? First,
let me share with you highlights froman October eleven, twenty eleven Associated
Press press release by Michael Warre entitledancient whale jawbone found in Antarctica quote Buenos
Airis, Argentina. The jaw boneof an ancient whale found in Antarctica,

(02:06:47):
maybe the oldest fully aquatic whale yetdiscovered, Argentine scientists said Tuesday. A
scientist not involved in the find saidit could suggest that whales evolved much more
quick quickly from their amphibian precursors thanpreviously fought. Argentine paleontologist Marcello Riguero,
who led a joint Argentine Swedish team, said the fossilized arc se jaw bone

(02:07:11):
found in February dates back forty ninemillion years end quote. According to Riguero,
this jawbone belongs to the best illosauridgroup of fully aquatic whales. Thus
quote, the relevance of this discoveryis that it's the oldest known completely aquatic
whale found yet end quote. TheAssociated Press article states that in evolutionary terms,

(02:07:33):
forty nine million years is not faroff of even older Amphibian proto whales
from fifty three million years ago thathad been found in South Asia and other
warmer latitudes. And so, toparaphrase University of Chicago paleontologist doctor Paul Serino,
who wasn't involved in the research,if the new fine quote withstance the

(02:07:53):
scrutiny of other scientists, it willsuggest that arcu seats evolved much more quickly
than previously thought from their semi aquaticorigin in present day India and Pakistan end
quote. Now aside from the factthat this begs the question as to how
such an accelerated, undirected blind evolutiontook place, without oh, I don't
know a miracle. This clearly torpedoesthe claim that Basileusaurus went into service after

(02:08:18):
Rhotecetus and de Rodon, and ifI may jog your memory, indohig As,
the purported ancestor of them all livedforty eight million years ago. Therefore,
the assertion that cetaceans began as moreterrestrial than aquatic is not supported by
the evidence. But let's say,for whatever reason, you're dubious about getting
your information from popular media, evenif that means getting it from the associated

(02:08:41):
press, because you feel it's outdated. Fair enough, in that case,
you can always study papers published byother experts in the field, and there
are plenty out there. One inparticular is in March twenty sixteen paper by
doctor Monica Romino Buono at al.Titled eusen basilusorid Whales from the Seta Formation
Mirambio, symour Island, Antarctica.It's very thorough and where are you going?

(02:09:03):
Sit down? We're about to getto the good stuff anyway. In
that paper, the authors make itclear that there are several possible dates for
the basilisaurid fossil found in Antarctica,and depending on the study, and here
we learn about research done by Duttonat ol Ivan at al, Douglas at
al Brinkwis at al Bilan al.On others, we literally are spoiled for

(02:09:24):
choice. Some studies, such asthe dutt In two thousand and two study,
is very broad and covers anywhere fromfifty five to forty six million years
ago. Others are more constrained andhover around the vicinity of forty nine million
years which is again problematic given thatit would make it impossible for Basillosaurus to
be a descendant. And others placethe basilosaurids where evolutionists expect to see them,

(02:09:46):
and it ultimately comes down to whichdating method is used, biostratigraphy that
is, a relative dating method,or the more reliable absolute dating such as
radiometric dating or magnetostratigraphy, which incidentallyis because I'm sure you're dying to know
a technique that uses the record ofthe polarity reversals of the earth magnetic field
registered in sentimentary and or volcanic rocksas a correlation and dating tool. To

(02:10:11):
quote what Giovanni Mutoni wrote in Volumeone of Encyclopedia of Geology, second Edition,
twenty twenty one. Now, beforeI get to the punchline, I
should mention that I originally learned aboutthis paper from a July one, twenty
twenty YouTube video produced by Discovery Sciencetitled Whale Evolution, a rebuttal, which

(02:10:31):
was created to respond to some critiquesto their long story short video on whale
evolution. I highly recommend you watchthem if you haven't done so already.
And for the record, I couldn'tfind any information about the videos quote unquote
animator. However, in an evolutionnewsdot org April twenty three, twenty twenty
article titled Whale of a webinar debutsa delightful long story short video, David

(02:10:56):
Klinghoffer writes about a quote surprise guestthe videos animator who here goes by a
first name only Evan, for reasonsyou can imagine even an animator has to
worry that Darwinists will try to destroyhim professionally, as they sought to do
to doctor Sternberg end quote. Incidentally, you might remember my telling you about
what happened to doctor Sternberg and othersin episode six. Anyway, and back

(02:11:22):
to the video, Evan, weshall call him who conducted a thorough review
of the Buono paper and took allthe numbers representing myriad ranges of possible dates
and the various geological dating methods forgranted, lined up the studies that were
referenced to Bono paper and others,and what he found was that almost all
of them converged on that forty ninemillion years date quoted in the Associated Press

(02:11:43):
article. And that is a problemfor the Darwinian model because quote fully aquatic
whales should not have lived that earlyend quote. And according to Evan,
the authors of the Buono paper chosequote the dates of forty to forty six
million years ago, not necessar sssarilybecause that's where the data converge. It
isn't, but because, as theysay, it is quote more consistent with

(02:12:05):
the published trigraphic record of basileosaurids everywhereend quote. As Evan put it,
quote, their conclusions are being skewedby evolutionary presuppositions end quote, concluding that
quote, this fossil still casts ahuge shadow over the entire timeline. They're
overly optimistic conclusions, notwithstanding end quote. Anyway, I promised you a punchline,

(02:12:28):
so let's get back to why weno longer see flukes on the tail
of Rhotacetus and this business of whateverhappened to Ambulacetas for that, I'll first
give you some highlights from in Aprilseven, twenty fourteen. Updated August twenty
eight, twenty seventeen, press releaseavailable on the Grand experiment dot com.
Quote. Whales with four legs walkingon land are currently considered one of the

(02:12:52):
best fossil proofs of evolution, butnow this evidence has collapsed. According to
science documentary maker doctor Carl worn Afterinterviewing the two scientists who reconstructed the fossils
of the three famous walking whales,Rhodacetis, Pacastus, and Ambulucetis, doctor
Werner has concluded that scientists created falsemodels of these skeletons and skulls and passed

(02:13:15):
them off to museums end quote.That list includes the American Museum of Natural
History in New York, the CarnegieMuseum in Pittsburgh, the National Museum of
Nature and Science in Tokyo, theParis Natural Museum, and others. And
incidentally, this may no longer bethe case, and all these museums might
have taken the necessary corrective measures infact, and in the interest of full

(02:13:37):
disclosure, the press release states thatquote, when doctor Werner began questioning doctor
Tewison about the shape of the skulland missing fossil parts, Taywissen retracted the
entire blowhole idea, even though hehad supplied the world's top museums with skeletons
having blowholes. End quote. Now, why does that ring about? Oh?
That's right. Has the Smithsonian pickedup on this because that short animation

(02:14:01):
I saw on their video display needsa little bit of editing. Next,
let's talk about Rhodacetus, which youmight remember was discovered by doctor Gingrich in
nineteen ninety four, and that,according to the official story, he was
a walking whale equipped with a flukeand front flippers. Now, when in
two thousand and one, the aforementioneddoctor Carl Werner, author and executive producer

(02:14:24):
of Evolution the Grand Experiment, visitedthe University of Michigan at ann Arbor,
he noticed a discrepancy between museum renderingsof Rhodacetus and the actual fossils. Basically,
the reconstruction showed Rotacetus having a tailfluke, whereas the fossils clearly didn't.
Consequently, in a May nineteen twentyfourteen YouTube video clip titled doctor phil

(02:14:46):
gingridch interview about Rhodacetas, doctor Wernerposes the following question to doctor Gingrich.
Quote what was the reasoning that thescientists think there was a fluke on Rhodacidas
based on the other pieces of anatomyend quote. Doctor Gingrich responds, quote,
well, I told you we don'thave the tail in Rhodacetas, so
we don't know for sure whether ithad a ball vertebra indicating a fluke or

(02:15:09):
not. So I speculated it mighthave had a fluke. End quote.
Then the narrator of the video ads, quote scientists Gingrich also acknowledged that these
flippers were drawn on the diagram withoutthese fossils. Now he does not believe
this animal had flippers end quote.Meanwhile, and at the time of this
interview, the museum diagrams on displayat the Museum of Billiontolsia at the University

(02:15:33):
of Michigan, which had been directedby doctor Gingrich and whose notable student,
I might add was Hans Tawissen,still had flippers on them. Once again,
on camera, Gingrich says, quote, now, since then we found
the forelimbs, the hands in thefront arm, the arms in other words,
of Rhodaceitas, and we understand thatit doesn't have the kind of arms
that can be spread out like flippersare on a whale. End quote.

(02:15:58):
Then the camera does a split secondcrossphade to the same close up of Gingrich
saying quote, and if you don'thave flippers, I don't think you can
have a fluketail and really powered swimming. And so I now doubt that Rhotocetus
would have had a fluke tail endquote. So, once again, Wales
are supposed to be the best fossilevidence for evolution despite these discrepancies, and

(02:16:20):
even if these discrepancies didn't exist,and considering the odds stacked against the spontaneous
chemical origin of life and it's allegedsubsequent evolution through an undirected, blind,
random, mindless, stochastic shuffle ofelements, I failed to see what would
preclude creation or directed evolution and tothink that professional lives were ruined because of

(02:16:41):
shenanigans such as these. So howunreasonable would it be to inquire about the
sort of undirected, blind, andmindless mechanism emphasis on mechanism that could induce
a landwelling grass eating animal to undergothrough reproduction, thus descent with modification,
slow cumulative changes that would all leadto the introduction of an ocean roaming,
grill eating baileen whale. Well,let's find out, shall we, and

(02:17:07):
now back to our regularly scheduled proverbialboxing match. At some point during the
aforementioned the firing Line debate, doctorBerlinsky asked palleontologs doctor Eugenie Scott, the
then director of the National Center forScience Education, the following first question quote,
would you agree as almost everyone elseaffirms that the overwhelming pattern of the

(02:17:30):
fossil record is sharply discontinuous end quote? Sure, it's discontinuous. Scott responds
Brilinsky, Okay, so we agreeon that. Could I ask you to
give us your best estimate of thenumber of changes required to take a doglike
mammal to a seagoing whale. Now, instead of remaining on topic, never
mind providing an answer, doctor Scottpivots and deflects by referring to an earlier

(02:17:54):
exchange with the late philipp E Johnson, who at the time was a law
professor at UC Burr and whose nineteenninety one book Darwin on Trial argued that
the neo Darwinian theory of evolution wasnot shored up by scientific evidence, rather
by a philosophy of naturalism, andso Eugenie Scott felt this sudden urge to
disambiguit the term evolution because obviously peoplelike Michael Beahey, David Berlinsky, William

(02:18:20):
F. Buckley Junior, and PhilippyJohnson needed to be edumicated on the matter.
Funny really when you consider that justearlier she coyly declined when prompted by
the moderator to define the term adaptivedifferential reproduction, which she alone employed during
the almost two hour long program.For context, In that instance, David
Berlinsky was debating Barry Lynn, thethen executive director of Americans United for Separation

(02:18:45):
of Church and State, who notonly was a lawyer, but a United
Church of Christ ordained minister and waitfor it, a Darwinian. Again.
As stated in the last episode,not all Darwinians are atheists, anti theists
or agnostics. Many in fact arebelievers, and in the case of Kenneth
Miller, self professed Catholics. Inany case, a puzzle Barry Lynn was

(02:19:07):
asking Berlinsky why he didn't quote seemto understand that different ecological environments in the
distant past as well as today producedifferent adaptations end quote, to which Berlinsky
said, quote, You're right,I don't understand it. It makes no
sense scientifically incredulous. Berry Linn presseson, with Berlinsky pushing back, finally
saying quote, it's always easy topersuade yourself that you've understood something when you

(02:19:28):
haven't understood a thing. The issuebefore us is not whether retroactively we can
explain an adaptation, but whether wecan draw that adaptation from general principles end
quote. He added that this iswhat Darwinian theory cannot do, though it
is the requirement of normal science.Berlinsky then said quote, if I'm doing
astrophysics, I have a dynamical theory, I can simulate the evolution of the

(02:19:50):
universe, and I know where thetheory agrees with the data and where it
does not. I cannot do thatin biology. Whatever happens happens en quote.
Barry Lynn retorts, insisting that randomselections which make a species more likely
to survive are beneficial and quote that'sa very simple idea, and it explains
why, in fact, some speciessurvive and others do not. End quote,

(02:20:11):
thus effectively missing Berlinsky's point, whichshe had expressed in his opening statement,
That is, quote, the mechanismthat Darwin proposed, that of random
search or stochastic shuffle, is knownto be inadequate in every domain in which
it supplied. It's known to beinadequate in linguistics, and it's certainly inadequate
when it comes to the overwhelming complexityof living forms. There is no reason

(02:20:33):
on earth to believe that this mechanismis adequate to the task that it sets
itself. End quote. Consequently,Eugenie Scott jumps in and exclaims, quote,
I mean adaptive differential reproduction is thedefinition of natural selection. Why is
this a problem? Why is thisa problem? End quote. Berlinsky retorts
quote, Kah, what will happen? Will happen? That could not be

(02:20:54):
the locust in which you repose yourtrust. What will happen? Will happen?
Big d D quote. Eugenie Scottretorts back, no, no,
no, that's not no. Adaptivedifferential reproduction is not what will happen?
Will happen? Berlinsky goes, that'sjust a large latinate construction. At that
point, moderator Michael Kinsey cuts in, explain, why don't you explain what
that term means. Eugenie Scott,who felt it necessary to use the term

(02:21:18):
twice, responds, well, Idon't know, may just it may not
necessarily enlighten our listeners actually because itis technical. But that's the whole point.
Berlinsky goes, it's not technical.It just means what survives survives we
know that. Eugenie Scott, then, into my ears, makes a declaration
implying that David Berlinsky, a selfprofessed agnostic who unapologetically defends intelligent Design's right

(02:21:41):
to be heard without ever actually endorsingit, is a creationist. She says,
quote one of the reasons, oneof the reasons why people like me
who deal with the creation evolution issueall the time get frustrated dealing with say,
Institute for Creation Research people and soforth, is because they are constantly
saying X didn't happen, and thenit takes a great deal longer to explain

(02:22:01):
why X didn't happen, Gaps inthe fossil record or whatever. End quote.
Then, using mild sarcasm. DoctorScott tries to turn the tables on
Berlinsky by reminding him that in hiscommentary article The Deniable Darwin, he mentioned
that the major transitional sequences in thefossil record were incomplete based on quote Roemer's
hot off the Press nineteen sixty sixarticle end quote, Doctor Scott Romer is

(02:22:26):
a very great man and very knowledgeablenineteen sixty six is not exactly cutting edge
paleontology. Are you familiar, sir? Doctor Bolinsky interjects, You're absolutely right.
Let's turn to Carol. Doctor Scottcuts him off and asks him if
he was familiar with the research that'sbeen done in the last thirty one years.
Doctor Blinky goes m hm. DoctorScott, who was clearly unfamiliar with
Berlinsky's apparent photographic memory, says quote, I can't imagine that, audience chuckles,

(02:22:52):
because you would realize that the majorargument going on among paleontologists dealing with
the reptile mammal transition is where thehell do you draw the line? These
things great insensibly into each other.Berlinsky, Is there a question that I
can answer, Scott? And theyhave no ability to say these guys are
mammals. These guys are reptiles becausethey roll into each other. Berlinsky,
who is neither reading off his notesor a telprompter, answers the non question

(02:23:16):
by saying, quote, yes,I agree with the tail end of your
question. Late reptilian transition to mammalis well documented in the record, although
nowhere near as well as Darwinian theoryrequires. That's a big distinction. But
if you dislike the citation to Romer, who's a great figure in paleontology,
Let's look at Carol's new book oncoordiate Pelliontology, Hot off the presses,
page four, left side of thepage, evolution heading, third paragraph,

(02:23:39):
second sentence, What does he say? He says, the evidence shows that
major transitions are missing from the fossilrecord, just as Eldridge, Gould,
and Stanley claim end quote. Now, in the interest of full disclosure,
and because I simply had to seefor myself, I looked up Robert Lynn
Carroll's nineteen eighty eight book Vertebrate Pilliontologyand lone behold on page four. Though

(02:24:01):
on the right side of the pageevolution heading, the third paragraph reads quote,
perhaps we should not be surprised thatvertebrate paleontologists did not support the prevailing
view of slow progressive evolution, buttended to elaborate theories involving saltation, orthogenesis,
and other vitalistic hypotheses end quote.Now, before I continue quoting that

(02:24:22):
third paragraph, let's go over someof the terms. Saltation is basically leaping
or jumping, and in the contextof evolution, that goes against a doctrine
of gradual, cumulative, step bystep transformations. Orthogenesis, also known as
straight line evolution, is where andaccording to Encyclopedia Britannica, quote, the
features developed in the orthogenetic group appearto have little if any adaptive value,

(02:24:46):
and may even be markedly disadvantageous endquote. In other words, and according
to Merriam Webster's dictionary, there isa predestined direction resulting in progressive evolutionary trends
independent of external fact As for vitalism, Merriam Webster's Dictionary provides two definitions,
one a doctrine that the functions ofa living organism are due to a vital

(02:25:09):
principle distinct from physico chemical forces,and two a doctrine that the processes of
life are not explicable by the lawsof physics and chemistry alone, and that
life is in some part self determining. In other words, and if I
may paraphrase, life is a mystery, although we really can't say there's a
creator, and Darwinism doesn't really makea lot of sense. I mean,

(02:25:31):
sure, as a work of sciencefiction, it's fantastic, but scientifically speaking,
look, Bunny's what I mean.It is a rabbit hole. That
said Carol, whose academic advisor wasAlfred Sherwood. Roma incidentally continues quote,
most of the evidence provided by thefossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic

(02:25:54):
interpretation, as pointed out by eldridgenGould nineteen seventy two, Gould and Eldridge
nineteen seventy seven, Gould nineteen eightyfive, and Stanley nineteen seventy nine,
nineteen eighty two end quote. Bythe way, this all goes to what
I will cover in episode nine formallyepisode eight, namely punctuated equilibrium. Anyway,
back to Eugenie Scott. Pivoting awayfrom Berlinsky's question about whales, she

(02:26:18):
claimed that the argument that has beenpresented so frequently on Berlinsky's side of the
table is all one has to dois disprove Darwinism and they will have disprove
an evolution, which to her wasnonsense. Yeah, but not if Darwinism
equals undirected evolution. I mean,nobody on my side of the table is
trying to disprove evolution, which isshe lacking Darwinism. Meanwhile, Berlinsky,

(02:26:39):
was unable to get a word inedgewise, was going, no, no,
no, I'm trying to answer thediscussion to something factual and concrete,
like a number, unabated and nowfilibustering. Doctor Scott goes, why do
you assume that the fossils are theonly source of data for evolution? Berlinsky,
I certainly don't. You're absolutely right, But I'm talking about the whale,
all right, large seagoing mammal.The thesis is that there's a Darwinian
progression and the evidence is three orfour intermediates. I'm asking you to give

(02:27:03):
us your best estimate of the numberof changes required to take a dog like
mammal to his seat, Scott,the number of genetic changes, Berlinsky,
morphological, physiological, Just give usa number. Is it three? Is
it ten Scott, that's an absurdquestion. Berlinsky. Why Scott. None
of us, none of us onthe evolution side of this argument, has
ever proposed that we can come upwith the number of changes. That's a

(02:27:24):
ridiculous question, Berlinsky. Then howon earth can you commend the mechanism if
you are unsure whether it's adequate tothe result. Scott, Why are you
so fixated on the mechanism of naturalselection? Berlinsky, Because that's the heart
of your doctrine. It's a theory. It's a scientific theory. Scott,
once again pivoting and reflecting. Quoteit is would you agree with me that

(02:27:45):
if you disprove evolution, excuse me, if you disprove natural selection, you
therefore disprove evolution end quote. Berlinsky. Sure, Scott, you're wrong,
Berlinsky. Why Scott? Because evolution, Because natural selection is only a way
by which evolution can take place,the evidence would still be there. Berlinsky,
There is no other attribute of thetheory. Go back, Scott,
apparently trying to run out of theclock. Close ahead from homology, from

(02:28:07):
anatomical homologies, biochemical homologies, andthe fossil record. We're not dependent on
the fossil record. Berlinsky. Nowit is wits end. Doctor Scott,
focus on my question. I'm beggingyou. We have a theory, Scott.
I answered it, Berlinsky. Thetheory is a theory of random mutation
and natural selection. I'm asking youto apply it to the case of the
progression from a dog like mammal toa sea going whale. Moderator Michael Kinsley.

(02:28:31):
I'm begging you not to, andthat brings us to the end of
the Theory of Reincarnation, Part seven, Children of Poseidon. For a transcript,

(02:28:54):
please visit doctor dash dot com.That's doc E t U R D
A H E s H dot com. You may also visit dash dot org
or dash dot d V. Thisis Mario Henry Shakour saying goodbye until next time.