Page 142 - The Evolution Impasse 2

140 Origin of Whales

ter me di ate form be tween Ambulocetus, a Mchedlidze, a well-known ex pert on
typ i cal ter res tri al an i mal, and whales, dis a grees with the de scrip -
Basilosaurus, a typ i cal whale. tion of Pakicetus, Ambulocetus na tans
● Basilosaurus and sperm whales and sim i lar quad ru peds as pos si ble
(cach a lots) have small bones in de pend ent an ces tors of the whale, and re gards
of the back bone in their low er bod ies. Some them as a com plete ly iso lat ed group.
ev o lu tion ists claim that these are shrunk en 157
leg bones. However, the bones in ques tion This sum ma ri zes the in va lid i ty of
as sist with as sum ing the mat ing po si tion the ev o lu tion ist claim that ma rine
in Basilosaurus, where as in cach al ot they mam mals evolved from ter res tri al
sup port the re pro duc tive or gans. 155 To de - life forms. Scientific find ings show
scribe skel e ton com po nents that per form a no link be tween ma rine mam mals
very im por tant func tion as the ves tig i al and the two land mam mals
or gans of an oth er func tion is sim ply ev o - (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus na tans)
lu tion ist prej u dice. that ev o lu tion ists place right at the
In con clu sion, it is clear that ma - be gin ning of this sce nar io.
rine mam mals ap peared with all In the re main ing part of the sce -
their unique struc tures and with no nar io, the the o ry of ev o lu tion is al so
in ter me di ate form be tween them at an im passe. The the o ry seeks to
and ter res tri al mam mals. Robert es tab lish a fam i ly re la tion ship be -
Carroll ad mits this, al be it re luc tant ly tween the ex tinct, gen u ine ma rine
and in ev o lu tion ist lan guage, that mam mal known as Archaeocetes ("ar -
there is no chain of ev o lu tion here.: cha ic whale") and liv ing dol phins
It is not pos si ble to iden ti fy a se quence and whales.
of mes o ny chids lead ing di rect ly to The fact is that ex perts in the field
whales. 156 think dif fer ent ly. The ev o lu tion ist pa -
Some rath er more un bi ased sci - le on tol o gist Barbara J. Stahl writes:
en tists, on the oth er hand, open ly The ser pen tine form of the body and
ad mit that the an i mals that ev o lu - the pe cu liar ser rat ed cheek teeth make
tion ist sour ces re fer to as "walk ing it plain that these ar chae o ce tes [i.e.,
whales" are ac tu al ly a com plete ly Basilosaurus and re lat ed crea tures]
could not pos si bly have been an ces tral
sep a rate group and have noth ing to
to any of the mod ern whales. 158
do with true whales.
The Russian sci en tist G. A. With re gard to the or i gin of ma -

The Evolution Impasse II