In his interview, Dr. Berlinski puts forward the argument that generates a paradox for a Darwinian account of whale evolution, as follows:
If you were to take a Chevrolet Corvette built in 1954 and decide you want to make a Nautilus Class submarine out of the thing, [and] give it to a lot of engineers – “Fellas, go do this. Do it for me” – I think it could be done, but we all have a sense of the engineering complexities. To do it would be a big, big, big project. The question I’d like to ask in all of this is: give me a quantitative estimate of how many steps would be required to change that Chevrolet Corvette built in 1954 to a Nautilus Class submarine? I don’t want you to give me a quantitatively precise answer, but I want you to give me a ballpark estimate – say, it’s off by an order of magnitude from what I’m told. And I think if we were talking about Chevrolet Corvettes and Nautilus class submarines, the answer would ballpark be: 50,000 changes, 60,000 changes, maybe 100,000 changes, if it’s feasible at all. I kind of suspect it could be done.
Now, I want the same answer for the transition from a land-dwelling creature to a sea-dwelling creature. How many changes would we need? Now why would I be interested in that number? Let’s call that number the “X” number. And this is the point that the Darwinian community never finds curious. If we knew that number, which is an accessible number – we know enough biology to grasp that number – we could compare it to the fossil record. The fossil record has about ten intermediate fossils between a land-dwelling creature and an ocean-going whale. If there are ten, let’s say the tides of time have buried another hundred – perfectly plausible. But if there are 50,000 required changes, there should also be 50,000 intermediates, according to standard Darwinian doctrine. If there is an inequality, a strong inequality between those numbers – the number of fossils that we observe, padded with the number of fossils we might have observed were it not for the injuries of time, and the number of changes – morphological, cellular, biological, physiological, anatomical – that are required to make that transition, then we could assess the plausibility of what is one of the most interesting Darwinian sequences in the record. That’s never done. That’s just never done. No Darwinian paleontologist has ever said: “We expect there to be 50,000 sequences in the whale transition sequence, because we’ve computed the number of changes that are required. But wouldn’t you think, Darwinian fellow-seekers, that that’s an obvious first step to take in making your scientific claims quantitative – not rigorously quantitative, but ballpark quantitative? It’s not done.
To make matters worse in the Corvette to submarine analogy, each resulting vehicle must be operable and useful.
The many complex adaptations that would need to arise to convert a land mammal to a fully aquatic whale include:
All of this from a series of happy mistakes?
Whales were created for shark food and to carry nutrients back did to the seabed.
The problem with intermediates is that they have to have lived, reproduced and survived in the environment extant at the time, which as we know kills mutatants in the present.... Of course, we can kinda sorta interpolate what the environment may have been like some time in the distant past (if we initially accept the “old earth” theology), but that begs the point- when did a mommy “whale” give birth to a baby “whale” with a top-oriented blowhole when mommy breathed through her mouth? Or did baby decide he was better suited to life at sea whereas mommy , a mouth breather, was not and Junior ventured in to the sea never to return? Wow, radical change (birth defect huh?)
Yet we as humans decide to “terminate” babies in utero with diagnosed “birth defect”, is not the same as limiting human evolution, who knows when junior with a defect is really the next step up in the evolution chain? Maybe he will be able to live in a high CO2 environment where mommy and daddy would not? ( you get the sarcasm in this right?)
For those who don’t mind watching a short video at a theistic evolutionist site:
https://biologos.org/resources/audio-visual/where-are-the-transitional-fossils
Anyone see the holes in the practice of using fossils as proof of transitions?
How do you prove from a set of bones that a critter gave birth to a critter genetically different from its parent? You don’t even have dna to sample. You didn’t see it happen. You can’t sample large groups. You don’t even have precedent in current species.
Article about what evolution by a theistic evolutionist:
If evolution were a fact, every animal higher than the chameleon would have screwball eyes.
I am comfortable with the FACT that Mankind will never know as much as it doesn’t know.
The word “theory” was invented to cover any bases, but the newest incarnation being touted to get around the lack of factual information is “consensus”.
I am comfortable with the FACT that Mankind will never know as much as it doesn’t know.
The word “theory” was invented to cover any bases, but the newest incarnation being touted to get around the lack of factual information is “consensus”.
Monkeys are primates with tails. Apes are primates without tails. There are some fossil species that appear to fit the description of one-third ape, two-thirds human. And others two-thirds ape, one-third human.
Whatever they were, God created them. Whether He remodeled them into modern humans over countless generations, or let them die out and started over, they did exist.
The absence of transitional species is telling.
Thanks for posting the article. Berlinski is an intelligent guy. I’m more of a classic creationist myself although my dad is a devout atheist and a scientist. The following video from Zoologist Dr Marc Surtees explains the problems with the supposed evolution of mammals to whales.
http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/video/32
bkmk
this diagram of evolution of whales is supposed to show whale transitional fossils, but all it does is create 10 new gaps.
****Man has been searching for fossils, or stumbling upon them, for millennia.****
Still think it’s remarkable that for millennia - billions of humans and all other forms of life have lived and died. The earth should be filled with fossils. There must have been many historic, catastrophic land movements which buried the evidence.
You forget the rearrangement of the DNA...rna...different cell types....fugedaboutit. Changes in sperm....biochemistry....not just happy changes....but functional transitions
I’m a big fan of Berlinski.
In my very long objective journey, I can’t overcome the Mathematics of evolution. The numbers don’t add up no matter how much time is added to the equation.
So, it’s either Panspermia, Intelligent Design, Theistic evolution or Creation.
The “Time” factor is critical.
Dr. David Berlinski - Rebellious Intellectual Defies Darwinism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEXnq_tcM7c
An hour and 20 minutes with Berlinski.
Most of what we know to be civilization has only occurred in the last 10,000 years and most of that only in the last 4000 years. And most of the really wild stuff only in the last 500 years.
Say 60 million years from now an alien species comes to earth and in an effort to discern where humans came from —they start digging in the dirt.
What they will find is a layer without humans and right on top of that —a layer with humans.
No transition.
Nothing.
First our bones and our stuff are not there and then our bones and our stuff are there in the dirt.
That’s it.
No transitional forms.
it’ll look like maybe humans came from outer space because as quickly as our stuff appears in the dirt the spent cases of rocket ships will be there.
My point?
likely the vast changes in animal architecture happened very very rapidly in terms of geological time. Something set up a genetic cascading effect.