[_ Old Earth _] Dolphins Never Had Legs

[Lewis]

Dolphins are one of my most favorite animals, and I always wish that I could have 1 or 2 or 3. But anyway I was watching Nova and National Geographic today and both shows said that millions of years ago Dolphins had legs and walked into the water and the legs turned into fins through evolution. Now this is a great big lie, and there is no proof of this whatsoever. God made everything just like it is' after it's own kind. Dolphins have never walked on land from the time that they were created in Genesis 1. And it makes me angry that this is what they teach our children in school. And if they don't follow evolution in school they will not pass exams. So they have to put down a lie to pass exams.
Dolphins: The Wild Side

NOVA - Private Lives of Dolphins

 

[Mike S]

I see lots of legs, Lewis.

 

[Barbarian]

Very occasionally, we still see a cetacean with legs. All whales and dolphins still have the genes for legs, and sometimes, the suppression of those genes doesn't happen, and...

Probably the most well known case of atavism is found in the whales. According to the standard phylogenetic tree, whales are known to be the descendants of terrestrial mammals that had hindlimbs. Thus, we expect the possibility that rare mutant whales might occasionally develop atavistic hindlimbs. In fact, there are many cases where whales have been found with rudimentary atavistic hindlimbs in the wild (see Figure 2.2.1; for reviews see Berzin 1972, pp. 65-67 and Hall 1984, pp. 90-93). Hindlimbs have been found in baleen whales (Sleptsov 1939), humpback whales (Andrews 1921) and in many specimens of sperm whales (Abel 1908; Berzin 1972, p. 66; Nemoto 1963; Ogawa and Kamiya 1957; Zembskii and Berzin 1961). Most of these examples are of whales with femurs, tibia, and fibulae; however, some even include feet with complete digits.

For example, Figure 2.2.1 shows the bones from the atavistic legs of a humpback whale. These bones are the remnants of one of two symmetrical hind-limbs found protruding from the ventral side of a female humpback whale, captured by a whaling ship from the Kyuquot Station near the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in July 1919. Two officials of the Consolidated Whaling Company were understandably impressed by this discovery, and they removed one of the legs and presented the skeletal remains to the Provincial Museum in Victoria, B.C. (The other leg was evidently taken as a "souvenir" by crew members of the whaling ship). The museum's director, Francis Kermode, presented the bones to Roy Chapman Andrews from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. Andrews reported the findings, along with photographs of the whale from the whaling crew, in American Museum Novitates, the journal of the AMNH. Andrews identified in the remains a shrunken cartiliginous femur, tibia, tarsus, and metatarsal. Both legs initially were over four feet long and covered in normal blubber and skin.

 

[reba]

Mike S

 

[turnorburn]

Evolution is the doctrine of Atheism, Communism, and Humanism the we people spoken of in this thread the ones that write these books that draw the pictures are faithless they insist on proof, even though they don't have any concrete proof.. With our creator its a different story, without faith its impossible to please him, but evolutionists aren't concerned with pleasing God they are concerned with pleasing self.. Evolution is a necessary sign of the end time religion.. Yes there are people in high places religious people that preach about the absurdity of a 6 day creation and that I'm afraid hurts Jesus in the worst way stripping away the glory of the one that died to save us all by putting Him in the same category as four footed beasts.. and creeping things

Romans 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

tob

 

[Barbarian]

Evolution is the doctrine of Atheism

Doesn't seem like a credible claim:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of The Origin of Species

Communism

Stalin imprisoned and killed Darwinian biologists for teaching evolutionary theory.

It was due to Lysenko's efforts that many real scientists, those who were geneticists or who rejected Lamarckism in favor of natural selection, were sent to the gulags or simply disappeared from the USSR. Lysenko rose to dominance at a 1948 conference in Russia where he delivered a passionate address denouncing Mendelian thought as "reactionary and decadent" and declared such thinkers to be "enemies of the Soviet people" (Gardner 1957). He also announced that his speech had been approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Scientists either groveled, writing public letters confessing the errors of their way and the righteousness of the wisdom of the Party, or they were dismissed. Some were sent to labor camps. Some were never heard from again... Could something similar happen in the U.S.? Well, some might argue that it already has. First, there is the creationist movement which has tried, and at times been successful, in banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
http://skepdic.com/lysenko.html

Humanism

Christian humanism saw an explosion in the Renaissance, emanating from an increased faith in the capabilities of Man, married with a still-firm devotion to Christianity. In this regard, Petrarch (1304–1374) is also considered a father of humanism, being one of the earliest and most prominent Renaissance figures. In his letter "The Ascent of Mt. Ventoux" he states that his climb of the mountain was inspired by Livy, but found its true meaning in St. Augustine's Confessions. His masterful contributions to language and literature triggered the development of studia humanitatis which began to formalize the study of ancient languages, namely Greek and Latin, eloquence, classical authors, and rhetoric. Christian humanists also cared about scriptural and patristic writings, Hebrew, ecclesiastical reform, clerical education, and preaching.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_humanism

There is no humanism without the Gospel
Karl Barth 5 Ency. Brittanica 199 (Micropaedia) (1982)

With our creator its a different story, without faith its impossible to please him, but evolutionists aren't concerned with pleasing God they are concerned with pleasing self..

That is a most uncharitable and unwise claim:

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.
Francis Collins, evangelical Christian, and director of the Human Genome Project
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html?iref=allsearch

Evolution is a necessary sign of the end time religion..

Seems very unlikely. We have evidence of evolution billions of years old. Rather long "end times", I think.

Yes there are people in high places religious people that preach about the absurdity of a 6 day creation and that I'm afraid hurts Jesus in the worst way stripping away the glory of the one that died to save us all by putting Him in the same category as four footed beasts.. and creeping things

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.
That's what the Bible says. I believe it. You should, too.