CREATIONISTS: why do dolphins have jointed finger bones in their flippers? (read more)?

Question

the jointed fingers do nothing. the flipper can not bend, and the fingers can not seperate. so essentially it is pointless to equip dolphin flippers with these sorts of bones.

eolvutionary theory can explain why this is. dolphins evolved from land mammals, and so they retain terrestrial features such as jointed fingers, lungs, and an up-down movement rather than a side-to-side movement. (the first of which is pointless, and the last two of which are actually detrimental to life in water.)

if you believe that an intelligent designer is responsible for making dolphins the way the are, then how can you explain why he didn't make dolphins with gills and a more efficient side-to-side swimming technique and why he didn't just completely leave out the useless jointed finger bones?? --- was it just his goal to make dolphins and whales LOOK like land mammals in order to trick us or something?

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GARY,

we're not talking about the cambrian explosion. we're talking about dolphins. stop trying to circumvent my question, you little weasel.

as for the cambrian explosion, it was not the start of life. we're just not likely to find very many animal remains from the pre-cambrian for three reasons.

1. - the animals before then lacked hard parts (bones, shells, cartilage, etc.), and soft parts do not fossilize well.

2. - the older a fossil becomes, the more deeply buried in lower strata it becomes., making it much harder to find.

3. - the older a fossil becomes, the more likely it becomes for that fossil to break and fall apart.

frankly, we're lucky we've found the fossils that we have. if we'd never found the burgess shale, you'd just be bragging instead about the obscure origins of the "ordovician explosion".

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A_BLVR,

uggh, you're an idiot, man. we humans didn't go back to the sea., only the cetaceans and certain other tetrapods did. where did you get from my question that humans went back to the sea???

all tetrapods did in fact "come" from the sea. (more accurately we gradually evolved organisms who used to live in the sea, actually, probably fresh water lakes, but yeah, before that, the sea.) so, to answer your embarrassing misconception, yes, dolphins "came" from the sea and then "went" to the sea. -- i'm glad you think that's funny.

in the mean time, i think we can all agree that dolphins do in fact live water. so,, why do they have finger bones? i didn't ask about tonsils. i asked about dolphins' jointed finger bones., so don't change the subject. damn, you people are such conversational worms.

oh, one more thing,,, did you actually just say that the purpose of tonsils is to "filter out food"??!! what is wrong with you??

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IMW8ING,

that's really not any better than the "apparent time" argument used by christians to explain why we're able to see the light of starts that are more than 6,000 light years away.

you said:
"I don't actually know, but if I did would that change the way you think anyway? or would you come up with an excuse why my answer is bogus?"

it depends on whether or not your answer is good. i don't come up with excuses. i weigh things out objectively. that's why i believe in evolution and not creationism, because evolution provides good answers for why life on earth is the way it is, and creationism provides either no answers or in some cases, just unsatisfactory answers that ignore the problem at hand and often times introduce new problems.

i think you are the one who needs to look at your own beliefs to see if they are being held together only by excuses.

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VICSIKIX,

back up your claim. this is why you people are losing the battle., because ultimately all you have are "arguments" like these. (i'm using the word "argument" very loosely.)

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BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN,

once again, is this your argument? why not just answer the question if creationism is so true??

furthermore, what you're talking about doesn't even apply to evolution., it applies to abiogenesis. and the only thing that francesco redi proved with his experiment is that advanced life (like maggots) can't evolve out of rotten meat. he did not prove that replicating macro-molecules can't act as templates in order to assemble copies of themselves. as a matter of fact, it's pretty much a property of chemistry for large molecules to behave in this sort of a manner.

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AFTERBIRTH07,

right, one could answer with either of those. which one do you think is a better answer though? do you really think that blind faith is a good means for deducing truth?

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BOOTH G,

i'm sorry, are you claiming that the fossils from 3.8 billion years ago are fully formed? what exactly do you mean? --- all organisms that have ever lived have of course been "fully formed". there were never any "half animals" or anything like that. --- but so you know, animals did not exist that long ago. and things like fish, reptiles, or mammals are actually quite young compared to the fossils you're speaking of.

Answer 1

Creationists can't answer this kind of question. In fact, they're geared not to ask questions at all. That's the trap that we call "faith". Remember "blessed are those who believe though they have not seen"? That's what they've been indoctrinated to believe. I don't see how asking your question is going to get any answer other than "Because God made dolphins that way" from a creationist. When you believe in an invisible man in the sky, you're apt to believe almost anything. And no amount of evidence can change that. I wish I were wrong, but I'm not.

Answer 2

Dolphin Bones

Answer 3

God and his buddies had just finished smoking a fat one. They had this "amazing" idea - why don't they fu*ck with our heads a little and add redundant bones and organs in all the creatures(amongst other things) just to make it LOOK like evolution is real...so they can all jump out at you later and shout "Nah-nah! Fooled you! Fooled you!!"

Or it's just Satan's doing(THK sound effects - "Evil Laugh_04.mp3")? The dolphins are really his minions, sent to draw you from the path of his 'ACME' arch-enemy - God, to comply with his dastardly scheme for world domination.

Or maybe you just read it wrong...? Perhaps it stated dolphins DON'T have jointed bones in their flippers?
Or a millionaire geneticist with a serious grudge against christians, designed some mutant dolphin(that by pure coincidence, match perfectly with the theory of evolution) to discredit the (obvious) infallibility of the holy words?

I don't know. I'm clutching at straws. But, evolution...it can't be! HOW could something that when properly studied, makes absolute sense and provides accurate means for predicting new strains and breeds of lifeforms for the future, be believable in any way!? I mean come on! That would mean that I would have to actually USE my brain to attempt to incorporate this into my rigid belief system and I'm sorry, but that's just too much mental exercise for the average creationalist to cope with!!!

Hail God and all that...

;)

Answer 4

Far out "Gary" do you know what vertebrates were in the Cambrian - microscopic worms!! It was numerous PHYLA that appeared in the Cambrian - what did you think fully formed fish????

And once oxygen and multicellular organisms took off, it makes perfect sense that the major body plans (ie. PHYLA) appeared suddenly. It's very difficult to evolve a whole new body plan at a later stage in evolution!

And the fossil record is chock full of transitional forms, iteration from one species/genus/family to the next throughout the geological record.

Typical creationist misinformation and lies.

Answer 5

Don't you love the cut and pasters (like Gary). Actually, the oldest known fossils are in the Vendian strata of the earths crust, which is much older (110 million years) than the Cambrian. Before that the kind of life that would have existed would (generally) leave no fossils. Plenty of transitional forms exist, like the transitional form of human known as Homo Irrationalis, who are largely creationists.

Answer 6

Let's be clear on something here. The term "Intelligent Design" was coined by a very unintelligent person, George W. Bush. If a God made mammals, why do they all die? Evolution makes more sense to me than anything else. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Answer 7

You can either answer this with "evolution" or "because God let them have jointed finger bones". As with love, faith is blind too.

Answer 8

Well,back to our regularly scheduled program.

Answer 9

No, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was just drunk when he made the universe. It's Unintelligent Design.

Answer 10

hmm...good question....

Maybe God made them without gills and a up-down movement so we could see the dolphins and they're beauty as they jump through the sea.

I don't actually know, but if I did would that change the way you think anyway? or would you come up with an excuse why my answer is bogus?