2.12.2008

Indohyus - A Two-Fold Victory for Creationists!

Woo! Creationism is on the march! For a long time, intelligent design supporters like Dr. Geoffrey Simmons have argued that we do not have any transitional fossils between whales and mammals that walked on land. If that is true, we have to wonder why Dr. Hans Thewissen, an expert is whale origins, is still drawing a paycheck. However, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the long awaited for missing link between four-footed mammals and whales has now been found.
Missing Link Between Whales and Four-Footed Ancestors Discovered
Scientists since Darwin have known that whales are mammals whose ancestors walked on land. In the past 15 years, researchers led by Hans Thewissen of the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM) have identified a series of intermediate fossils documenting whale's dramatic evolutionary transition from land to sea.

But one step was missing: The identity of the land ancestors of whales.

Now Thewissen and colleagues have discovered the skeleton of Indohyus, an approximately 48-million-year-old even-toed ungulate from the Kashmir region of India, as the closest known fossil relative of whales.
"Wait-a-minit," you say. "How can this be a victory for the creationists?" Ahhh...let woo show us the way! Before Indohyus reared its furry little snout, we had

Land Mammal--->Missing Link--->Whale

or, two intelligently designed creatures and a missing link. However, now we have

Land Mammal--->Missing Link--->Indohyus--->Missing Link--->Whale

which, from where I sit, gives us three intelligently designed creatures and two missing links! And, as Dr. Simmons is fond of pointing out, not a blow-hole among anyone of them other than the whale. At this rate, he will have to re-title his latest book, Billions of Missing Links, to Bajillions of Missing Links.

As a side note, Dr. Simmons recently suffered a withering attack on his woo from the acerbic ridicule of Dr. P. Z. Myers of Pharyngula in a debate on KKMS Christian radio (listen). However, a week later and away from the critical stare of Dr. Myers, Simmons was offered redemption and his wounds were personally licked on air by the radio show's hosts (they're such nice Christian boys) (listen).

1 comment:

Ida said...

This is cool!