ves·tig·i·al (from dictionary.com)
1. Of, relating to, or constituting a vestige.
2. Biology Occurring or persisting as a rudimentary or degenerate structure.
Hmmm, I guess it doesn't mean useless, just like I said before.
Hmm, looks like I wasn't "half wrong" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. Near enough to useless as I've said before! You've stated these bones no longer serve their original function...which is assuming you know what these bones were, what their original function was and this is a "fact".
"Evolutionists often point to vestigial hind legs near the pelvis. But these are found only in the Right Whale. and upon closer inspection turn out to be strengthening bones to the genital wall." —John C. Whitcomb, Early Earth (1988), p. 84.
Now that you realise that these bones may actually serve a function (and a very important one at that), you are back-peddling and covering yourself as much as possible. Is this quote here near enough to what you believe? ---->
All animals that walk have pelvic bones. The pelvis is where the hind legs attach to the body. Some whales still have pelvic bones, even though the bones don't have any purpose now. There wouldn't be any reason to ever have a pelvis if you didn't ever have hind legs. And there wouldn't be any reason to have hind legs if you didn't want to walk on land....
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Here is a letter from Jim Pamplin to the Curator of Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian Institute:
What muscles are attached to the "pelvic" bones of whales? What are such muscles attached to at their other end? What function do the muscles serve? Are they used for reproduction?
Thank you in advance for any information and sources you might be able to share.
Sincerely,
Jim Pamplin
On June 10, 2003 I received the following reply from:
Phillip J. Clapham, Ph.D.,
Large Whale Biology Program
Northeast Fisheries Science Center
166 Water Street
Woods Hole, MA 025434, U.S.A.
tel. 508 495-2316
fax 508 495-2066
email: [Email]pclapham@whsun1.wh.whoi.edu">pclapham@whsun1.wh.whoi.edu</a>
Hi
I'm forwarding this to an anatomy expert, Jim Mead at Smithsonian...
Phil Clapham
Wednesday, June 11, 2003, I received the following reply from:
James G. Mead, Ph.D.
Curator of Marine Mammals, MRC 108
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
P.O. Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
mead.james@nmnh.si.edu(202) 357-1923
(202) 786-2979 fax
The pelvic bones of whales serve as attachments for the musculature associated with the penis in males and its homologue, the clitoris, in females. The muscle involved is known as the ischiocavernosus and is quite a powerful muscle in males. It serves as a retractor muscle for the penis in copulation and probably provides the base for lateral movements of the penis. The mechanisms of penile motion are not well understood in whales. The penis seems to be capable of a lot of independent motion, much like the trunk of an elephant. How much of this is mediated by the ischiocavernosus is not known. In females the anatomical parts are smaller and more diffuse. I would imagine that there is something homologous to the perineal muscles in man and tetrapods, which affect the entire pelvic area - the clitoris, vagina and anus. The pelvic rudiments also serve as origins for the ischiocaudalis muscle, which is a ventral muscle that inserts on the tips of the chevron bones of the spinal column and acts to flex the tail in normal locomotion. The only anatomical works on the pelvis that I known of are in large whales and as follows: Abel, Othenio 1908 Die Morpholgie der Huftbeinrudimente der Cetaceen. Denkshriften - Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenshaften, Mathematisch - Naturwissenshaftliche Klasse, Wein, 81:139-195.
Arvy, L. 1976 Some Critical Remarks on the Subject of the Cetacean 'Girdles'. Investigations on Cetacea, 7:179 -186,
Avry, L. 1979 The Abdominal Bones of Cetaceans. Investigations on Catacea, 10:215-227.
Hosakawa, H. 1951 On the pelvic cartilages of the Balaenoptera-foetuses, with remarks on the specifical and sexual difference. Scientific Reports of the Whales Research Institute, 5:5-15.
Howell, A. B. 1930 Aquatic Mammals. Charles C Thomas, Publisher, Baltimore, xii + 338 pp. [p. 302 - 309 deal with the pelvic limb in cetacea].
Lonnberg, E. 1910 The pelvic bones of some cetacea. Arkiv fo"r Zoologi, 7(10) :1-15.
Schulte, H. von W. 1916 Anatomy of a fetus of Balaenoptera borealis. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, new series, 1 (6) : 389-502, pls xliii-lvii.
Struthers, J. 1881 On the bones, articulations and muscles of the rudimentary hind-limb of the Greenland right-whale (Balaena mysticetus). Journal of Anatomy and physiology, 5:141-176 (bones and joints), 301-321 (muscles), pls. XIV-XVII.
Struthers, J. 1889 Memoir on the anatomy of the humback whale Megatera longimana. Maclachlan and Stewart, Edinburgh, [iv] + 188 = [1], 6 pls. Reprinted from the Jouranl of Anatomy and Physiology, 1887-89.
Turner, W. 1870 On the sternum and ossa innominata of the Longniddry whale. Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 4:271, ill.
Washington, DC 20013-7012
mead.james@nmnh.si.edu(202) 357-1923
(202) 786-2979 fax
Bottom line is:
Not only do the “pelvic" bones serve a very useful purpose in reproduction, but they also function as anchor points for muscles used in swimming. So much for vestigial bones in whales!!
They are there for SPECIFIC purposes, not some vestigial leftover function and they are vital to the whale's way of life and reproduction.
You, of course, can find quotes from biologists that say these organs are useless? And since vestigial means rudimentary or reduced, the coccyx bone is a vestigial tail, even though it has other uses.
I think the above should be more than enough for now <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. The coccyx bone was a tail? Oh yes, where is the fossil evidence that we had tails? The coccyx serves as a point of insertion for several muscles and ligaments including the gluteus maximus and many functions that come from this (need I go into details, this has been repeated before also). The fact they think it was a tail, once again is based on mere assumptions, not fact. The coccyx is just the end point of the tail bone.....at what point do you think it ought to end to have not once been a tail, could you have designed it better? Have yours removed Linear and then see how it feels to sit and perform certain functions <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It's there for a reason, it ends at the right place, it's designed that way.
What? The Hackel stuff? That was declared incorrect by evolutionist biologists back when Hackel was still alive. But, of course, if one evolutionist tries to perpetrate a fraud then all of us must be frauds. It's a good thing that type of categorization only works for evolutionists. I would hate to think of the problems Christianity would have if all Christians' reputations depended upon the actions of a few like Haggard, Phelps, and Swaggart.
Yeah it seems so ludicrous doesn't it? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> The fact they all accepted it as fact and had it in science textbooks for years and guess what? Apparently, it's still turning up. This makes sense, one young guy I debated awhile back started giving me examples of embryo evolution based on Hackels' fraudulent drawings. So it's not a problem when stuff like this gets preached and written as a scientific fact and kept there for as long as possible before they decide to do anything about it? These things were totally fictitious and had nothing to do with honest science or even anatomy, yet somehow it got through to science textbooks, how does this happen Linear? What kind of people are screening these things and allowing fiction to be passed off as fact? I don't see the other vestigal examples today as being any different. Just more of the same. You're just more willing to buy into it than I am, no different from those in Hackel's day.
Right, I forgot that all evolutionists are liars and frauds. I don't recall calling you a liar or a fraud. Why do you want to paint me with that brush?
I think a great deal of denial, assumptions and wishful thinking is involved yes. And they have certainly been caught in the past with hoaxes/lies. Track record is far from reliable. Are you calling me a liar and a fraud, because I believe in 7 day creation? should I assume that you imply this because you do not agree with my beliefs and instead challenge them? Then please stop putting words in people's mouths on here.
That's because all organisms are transitionals. Crocs are on their way to something else. They have changed some since we've known about them. If you look at croc fossils you can see that even though they are very much the same as now, there are differences.
So....croc fossils are very much the same as now....but there are differences? What are those differences? Are they just the same types of variations we see in every kind of animal today? Where is the transitional forms showing crocs becoming something else? Sounds to me like they were always crocs and <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> looks like they still are! I seem to recall, and I hope I can find this somewhere. A recent article of a rat that was found (fossilised of course) and how the evolutionists were quite excited by this and passed it off as a transitional earlier form....until they found out the very same kind of rat was being sold in pet shops. If I find the article, I'll be sure to put out all the facts <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Small changes occur in species over time. If the environment around that species changes then the changes in the population that help the species in the new environment become more dominant. Small changes over small time eventually lead to big changes over big time. It's like walking. Even if you only walked one mile a day, in 6 years you would have walked across the country.
Time is not going to make one kind of animal into another. Changes in environment don't make one kind of animal into another. Thicker coats go back to being thin again as the weather changes from cold to warm. This is not one kind of animal becoming something else. Breeding can only create variants, so far nothing has shown macro evolution. No amount of walking will change me into another kind of being. Even if I tone my body, if I cease exercise, my body goes back to being untoned. None of these things equal evolution of one kind of being into another kind. Such a comparison doesn't make sense linear. I decide to walk by using my legs.....If I had evoluton on my side, I'd evolve flippers and swim across the ocean to get their faster, or perhaps evolve wings and fly. Funny, no matter how much walking one does, or how slow and frustrating, nobody evolves wheels or anything else to get their quicker. We have to design ways of doing that! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Will a mastiff breed with a toy poodle if not helped by some kind of artificial method? Since they would not naturally breed, does this make them different species?
If you ask a child to point to a dog and you only provide a coyote and a pug to choose from, will the child point to the coyote or the pug? Is a coyote a dog? So much for the taxonomic skills of children.
Good luck to the Mastiff, thanks to the breeding, the toy poodle is now too small for him/her to have a successful coupling. I'm sure the toy poodle aint too chuffed either, but he/she can probably go and find a terrier some where and do just fine. Size difference can be a problem in any kind. Humans are lucky, we have ways of bridging those gaps. We create ways around it if it poses a problem. Nope, no evolution there. Just variation through breeding. Kids don't usually have problems pointing out any dogs once they know what one looks like. Most dogs pant and bark, be it a deeper or yappier bark, they're all dogs. It doesn't seem to matter which way you try and word your arguments, you can never really get passed the fact you can't prove that these animals evolved at all, let alone evolved through nature. But keep trying!
Why isn't it evolution to select certain traits and only allow breeding between animals that exhibit those traits? Do you think that someone just bred 2 random dogs and got a toy poodle? That breeding took years and decades of selection by the breeder. Just because the traits were decided upon by a human, you decide it is not evolution? It's not natural selection but it is change in the allele frequency in a population of organisms so it is artificial evolution
Let me know when evolution does this, I've not seen it happen yet. I've only seen the results of deliberate breeding and some of those results can be (at least in my eyes) pretty bad and rather sad at times. I think they get further and further away from the original and this can create problems. It's people who interfere to develop and exaggerate certain traits and often to a rather ludicrous degree. If you want to believe that evolution could do this, by all means you're free to believe that.
You're right. God could have done it in 7 seconds at 10 am last Thursday. Why don't you believe that? Is it because the evidence you agree with says that He did it 6000 years ago? So you use some evidence, the Bible, to say God didn't make the universe last Thursday. I use more evidence to say that God made the universe around 13 billion years ago and the Earth around 4.6 billion years ago. According to you, your God that can do anything, cannot do that. Why not?
I believe what the God of the bible has pointed out. If He said it was 7 seconds, I'd have no problem with it, because I believe by faith and believe He's omnipotent. But He said it was a 7 day week (6 days of creation, and He rested on the 7th day). Setting us an example and it has been observed ever since. I cannot be sure how long ago it happened, but following back through each generation, some have have worked out that it appears to be around 6000 years ago (or up to 10,000). God can do anything Linear, if He wanted to evolve the world and use billions of years, that's His perogative, but the bible does not even SUGGEST this. In fact, the opposite! You can try all you want to reconcile the two, but I'm afraid that both beliefs are in total opposition. I believe it both by faith, but also what I observe around me that I feel fits in with the bible. I am in no way obliged to believe in evolution, neither biblically nor scientifically, even if you think I should.<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/taz.gif" alt="" /> And please, once again, can you quit putting words in my mouth?
Another reason you won't preach it as science is because you can't show evidence that it is true. I can't show evidence of God's hand in evolution so His involvement shouldn't be preached as science. Only the mechanism of evolution, and the evidence that supports the theory can be taught as science. Science cannot be about what people believe unless they can support those conclusions with the available evidence.
I wouldn't preach anything as science, unless I could prove beyond doubt that it was and is a fact. Evolutionists do it anyway! Your arguments and comments here are leaning towards being theological and emotional, rather than scientific. You seem to be attempting to fit any "idea" of God into your belief system (If He exists right?) - rather than understanding how others have no problems accepting Him at His word. Is this because of your un-dying faith in evolution and those that propose it? (Man's ideas of how the entire universe came into being). You believe it's science, knock yourself out. Don't expect me to do the same.
I am not interested in claiming any nobel prize for anything are you? I'm just on a debate forum challenging the evolution idea of how everything came into being.
