The Problem of Marsupials & homology

Major Orders of Mammals:

http://rjfisherjoanides.pbworks.com/f/1299777618/a151-mammals_poster%282%29.jpg

• Prototheria Order Monotremata ( one opening for excretion and reproduction) (2 families of mammals that lay eggs with leathery shells and feed their newborn with mammary gland secretions. They lack nipples, but the skin over their mammary glands exude milk.
• Eutheria (Placental mammals): Most mammal species. Mothers carry their unborn children within the uterus where they are nourished and protected until an advanced stage is reached. This is made possible by the umbilical cord and placenta which connects the fetus to the uterus wall and enables nutrients and oxygen to get to the offspring as well as provides a means of eliminating its waste. At the same time, the placenta functions as a barrier to keep the blood cells and other components of the immune systems of the mother and her fetuses separate to prevent their destruction.
• Metatheria (marsupials, about 270 species of mammals whose young are in an immature state, most females have pouches). found mostly in Australia. The only living marsupial in America is the opossum. The Red Kangaroo is the largest marsupial alive.the developing embryo is isolated from its mother's body by the amniotic membrane. Following fertilization the embryo becomes a new organism, and the mother's auto-immune system will attack it. The amniotic membrane isolates the embryo from all biological interaction with the parent, thus protecting it from attack. However, no nutrients cross the barrier either, and therefore its growth in the uterus is limited to the quantity of nutrients contained within the egg. The short gestation period in marsupials is due to this type of yolk-type reproduction.Marsupials are best-known for and made most distinguishable by their method of nursing. All female marsupials give "premature" birth, wherein the young will stay until maturing. The nursing occurs within the mother's pouch, a structure designed by God to aid in nursing the child, by protecting the infant marsupial until it has completed it's nursing. the male uses it for carrying food and other items.

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Darwinian Placental/Marsupial split:

Darwinists say that the three major lineages of class Mammalia shared a common ancestor approximately 161 to 217 mya .

The egg laying monotremes represent the earliest offshoot of the mammalian lineage & marsupial-placental mammal evolutionary divergence occured about160 million years ago.
[M. J. Phillips, T. H. Bennett, and M. S. Y. Lee, “Molecules, morphology, and ecology indicate a recent, amphibious ancestry for echidnas,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106, no. 40, pp. 17089–17094, 2009 & Z. X. Luo, C. X. Yuan, Q. J. Meng, and Q. Ji, “A Jurassic eutherian mammal and divergence of marsupials and placentals,” Nature, vol. 476, no. 7361, pp. 442–445, 2011.]
http://www.popsci.co...marsupial-split

Darwinists consider this distinction to have come about early, and that each group lived its own evolutionary history totally independent of the other.

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The obstacle:

A most striking factor for consideration is the existence of numerous marsupial and placental mammals that are virtually identical to one another with the exception of the distinctions in their reproductive systems.
One of the most concrete examples of such an obstacle in the path of Neo-darwinian theory is that there are "pairs" in placentals and marsupials which are nearly the same.

In other words, according to the theory of evolution, mutations completely independent of each other must have produced these creatures "by chance" twice! This reality is a question that will give Darwinists problems even worse than dizzy spells.

Extraordinary resemblances and similar organs like these, which evolutionary biologists cannot accept as examples of "homology," show that homology does not constitute any evidence for the thesis of evolution from a common ancestor.

Examples:

1- Grey wolf & placental canids Vs Tasmanian wolf/thylacine:

Thylacinus cynocephalus, Greek for "dog-headed pouched one") was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger (because of its striped back) or the Tasmanian wolf. Native to continental Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, it is thought to have become extinct in the 20th century. It was the last extant member of its family, Thylacinidae; specimens of other members of the family have been found in the fossil record dating back to the early Miocene.



The gray wolf or grey wolf (Canis lupus) is a species of canid native to the wilderness and remote areas of North America, Eurasia, and North Africa.

Evolutionary biologists believe that these two different species have completely separate evolutionary histories. (Since the continent of Australia and the islands around it split off from Gondwanaland (the supercontinent that is supposed to be the originator of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America) the link between placental and marsupial mammals is considered to have been broken, and at that time there were no wolves).

But the interesting thing is that the skeletal structure of the Tasmanian wolf is nearly identical to that of the North American wolf. Their skulls bear an extraordinary degree of resemblance to each other.


The skulls of the Thylacine (left) and the Grey Wolf, Canis lupus, are similar, although the species are only very distantly related according to neo-darwinism. Caninae that led to present-day canids (wolves, foxes, coyotes, jackals, and domestic dogs)appeared only (about 0-5 Mya) while the last imaginary common ancestor was about 160 Mya !!!

2- flying squirrels & Sugar gliders


3- Placental mole & marsupial mole


4- lemur & spotted cuscus


Common spotted cuscus -a marsupial



Lemur



5- bobcat & tiger cat


Tiger cat -Marsupial:



6- wombat & woodchuck








7- wolverine & Tasmanian Devil










8- thylacosmilus & smilodon

Both are extinct.
The darwinian scenario:



All this animals have an imaginary independent evolutionary history.

Ad hoc:

An ad hoc explanation is an unfalsifiable explanation provided in an effort to account for an inconsistency in a theory.

For example:
A child says that he turned his homework in to the teacher. The teacher then confronts him with the fact that the homework is not in the box. The child responds, "Somebody must have stolen it!" The child has no evidence to support the allegation that someone stole the homework -- he has simply manufactured an unfalsifiable explanation to deal with a difficulty in his story.
Ad hock

In response, evolutionists say that these organs are not "homologous" (in other words, from a common ancestor), but that they are "analogous" (very similar to each other, although there is no evolutionary connection between them). However, the question of which category they will put an organ into, homologous or analogous, is answered totally in line with the theory of evolution's preconceptions.

The explanation is ad hoc in the sense that it was invented in order to explain away a difficulty in a theory, and is not itself supported by experimental evidence.

And this shows that the Darwinist claim based on resemblances is completely unscientific. The only thing Darwinists do is to try to interpret new discoveries in accordance with a dogmatic evolutionary preconception.

Analogous structures multiply the difficulties in the common descent model. The extraordinary series of random mutations and survival pressures had to occur not only once -- but independently, in a very similar way, three separate times in the case of wings, and a dozen times in the case of marsupials. In other words, if the development of wings required 100 fortuitous events at a probably of 1/1M each, the development of convergent requires that same highly improbable series of events to reoccur independently and repeatedly.

Human-chimp DNA similarities

Human-chimp DNA similarities

Claim: Human DNA is 99 percent similar to chimpanzee DNA, so, they have common ancestor.

What you need to know:

1- The claim itself is a logical fallacy (Jumping to conclusion) (Fallacy of Reification) as well as being inaccurate, read below.

2- Genetic information in all living creatures is encoded as a sequence of only 4 nucleotides (guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine) recorded using the letters G, A, T, and C. It is surely natural for the human body to bear some molecular similarities to other living beings, because they all are made up of the same molecules, they all use the same water and atmosphere, and they all consume foods consisting of the same molecules. Certainly, their metabolisms and therefore genetic make-ups would resemble one another. This, however, is not evidence that they evolved from a common ancestor. It is possible to explain this matter with an example; all construction in the world is done with similar materials (brick, iron, cement, etc.). They are constructed separately by using common materials. The same holds for living beings as well.

3- We know that DNA in cells contains much of the information necessary for the development of an organism. In other words, if two organisms look similar, we would expect there to be some similarity also in their DNA. The DNA of a cow and a whale, two mammals, should be more alike than the DNA of a cow and a bacterium. If it were not so, then the whole idea of DNA being the information carrier in living things would have to be questioned. Likewise, humans and apes have a lot of morphological similarities, so we would expect there would be similarities in their DNA. Of all the animals, chimps are most like humans,1 so we would expect that their DNA would be most like human DNA.


4- Similarity (‘homology’) is not evidence for common ancestry (evolution) as against a common creator. Why ?
Whether similarity is morphological (appearance), or biochemical, is of no consequence to the lack of logic in this argument.

5- Humans and chimps share about 96 percent of their sequence.¹ so the difference is about 120,000,000 base pairs , The similarity isn't something unexpected. We already knew there was a vast amount of similarity between humans and primates both in terms of physical characteristics and structure. It is a mistake to assume that observing similarities necessarily brings you to the conclusion of common descent. Taxonomy based on physical characteristics was already a very well established science when the idea of common descent came on the scene.Would it mean that humans could have ‘evolved’ from a common ancestor with chimps? Not at all! The amount of information in the 3 billion base pairs in the DNA in every human cell has been estimated to be equivalent to that in 1,000 books of encyclopaedia size.²

6- About 35 million DNA base pairs differ between the shared portions of the two genomes, each of which, like most mammalian genomes, contains about 3 billion base pairs. In addition, there are another 5 million sites that differ along with a much smaller number of different chromosomal arrangements.¹

7- As many as 3 million of the differences lie in crucial protein-coding genes or other functional areas of the genome.¹


8- Moreover, the basic proteins are common vital molecules present in various other living things. The structure of the same kinds of proteins present not only in chimpanzee, but also in completely different living creatures, is very similar to that in humans.
For example:

• Cats have 90% of homologous genes with humans, 82% with dogs, 80% with cows, 79% with chimpanzees, 69% with rats and 67% with mice. ³
• Cows (Bos taurus) are 80% genetically similar to humans⁴
• 99% of mouse genes turn out to have analogues in humans ⁵-75% of mouse genes have equivalents in humans⁶ , 90% of the mouse genome could be lined up with a region on the human genome ⁷
• The fruit fly (Drosophila) shares about 60% of its DNA with humans ⁸
• About 60% of chicken genes correspond to a similar human gene.⁹

9 - Telomeres in Chimpanzees and other apes have about 23 kilobases (a kilobase is 1,000 base pairs of DNA) of repeats. Humans are unique among primates with much shorter telomeres only 10 kilobases long.¹⁰

10 - The Y chromosome in particular is of a different size and has many markers that do not line up between the human and chimpanzee. Page's team found that the chimp Y chromosome has only two-thirds as many distinct genes or gene families as the human Y chromosome and only 47% as many protein-coding elements as humans. The remainder of the chimp and human genomes are thought to differ in gene number by less than 1%. More than 30% of the chimp Y chromosome lacks an alignable counterpart on the human Y chromosome, and vice versa, whereas this is true for less than 2% of the remainder of the genome.

11- If humans were entirely different from all other living things, or indeed if every living thing was entirely different, would this reveal the Creator to us? No! We would logically think that there must be many creators rather than one. The unity of the creation is testimony to the One True God who made it all.

- Biochemist Prof. Michael Denton made the following comments;

Each class at molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology… At a molecular level, no organism is "ancestral" or "primitive" or "advanced" compared with its relatives… There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available a century ago… the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. London: Burnett Books, 1985, p. 290-291)

http://creation.com/...-dna-similarity
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Ref.

1. New Genome Comparison Finds Chimps, Humans Very Similar at the DNA Level,2005, national human genome research institute http://www.genome.gov/15515096
2. Michael Denton, 1985. Evolution: Theory in Crisis
3. Initial sequence and comparative analysis of the cat genome, 2007, http://genome.cshlp....17/11/1675.full
4. The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle, 2009, http://www.sciencema...4/5926/522.full
5. the mouse genome, Nature 420, 509 (5 December 2002) http://www.nature.co...ll/420509a.html
6. Lineage-Specific Biology Revealed by a Finished Genome Assembly of the Mouse, 2009 http://www.plosbiolo...al.pbio.1000112
7. The Mouse Genome And The Measure of Man December 2002 http://www.genome.go...pageID=10005831
8. Background on Comparative Genomic Analysis December 2002,http://www.genome.gov/10005835
9. Researchers Compare Chicken, Human Genomes: Analysis Of First Avian Genome Uncovers Differences Between Birds And Mammals Dec. 10, 2004 http://www.scienceda...41208230523.htm
10. (Kakuo, S., Asaoka, K. and Ide, T. 1999. ‘Human is a unique species among primates in terms of telomere length.’ Biochem Biophys Res Commun 263:308-314)
11. The fickle Y chromosome http://www.nature.co...ll/463149a.html - http://creation.com/chimp-y-chromosome - http://johnhawks.net...osome-2010.html

Pseudogenes & Junk DNA

Pseudogenes have been defined as nonfunctional sequences of genomic DNA originally derived from functional genes. Pseudogenes have long been labeled by Darwinists as “junk” DNA, failed copies of genes that arise during the evolution of genomes.

But, pseudogenes that have been suitably investigated often exhibit functional roles, such as gene expression, gene regulation, generation of genetic (antibody, antigenic, and other) diversity. Pseudogenes are involved in gene conversion or recombination with functional genes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/14616058

http://rnajournal.cs...658311.abstract

http://www.hindawi.c...jg/2012/424526/

http://www.scientifi...res-in-junk-dna

http://healthland.ti...less-after-all/

http://www.guardian....junk-dna-encode

http://www.nytimes.c...wanted=all&_r=0

http://science.nbcne...k-dna-myth?lite

Can the so-called "Vestigial Organs" Be A Proof Of Neo-Darwinism ?

A vestigial organ, by evolutionary definition, is an organ that was once useful during a previous stage of your evolution for a supposed ancestor, but in the course of time, that organ was no longer needed, but continued to remain in the body.

Analysis:

1- Devolution Not evolution !

If vestgial organs would prove anything, they prove devolution, NOT evolution !
Darwinists claim that some of our organs are falling into disuse. Yet, in contrast, they provide us with no one NEW, developing organ. The "vestigial organs" idea, if it could be true, would only prove the opposite: devolution!

2- Not for survival ! 

Not all organs are necessary for survival,this doesn't mean they are useless!
You have 2 lungs, you need one to survive. You have 2 kidneys, you need 1/10 for survival. No one claimed the other lung may be 'just for fun'.
you will survive if your eyes and arms are cut out, and they are not "vestigial," or useless organs.

3- Causing problems ?!

people have far more problems with their lungs, hearts and stomachs, than they have with 'vestigial' organs. Almost any organ in your body can kill you if is it sufficiently diseased. How many people die of heart attacks vs. appendicitis? The heart, the physical or the spiritual one, is far more troublesome. If your lungs become infected, you can die but no one suggests removing the lungs as a preventive measure during surgery for another reason.

4- Affirming the consequent !

[If we ignored the fact that they actually prove devolution] For this type of argument to be used, one has to assume evolution to be true in the first place! So, if vestigial organs are obviously left over from our evolutionary heritage, then evolution must be true. Here evolution is assumed to be true in order to make the argument. This is a logical fallacy.


5 - FOUNDED ON IGNORANCE:

How did such an idea become accepted in the first place? It happened in a time of great ignorance. The whole idea of "vestigial organs" was originally conceived back in the early 1800s, at a time when physicians were still blood-letting in order to cure people of infection. But since that time there has been an immense quantity of research in every imaginable field. There is now no doubt by competent biologists that every large and small part of the human body has a special function during the life of the individual.

It strongly appears that the true "vestigial organ" in earlier times, was an ignorant mind; a mind that did not know why organs were in the body, and was too impatient and lazy to do the laborious work needed to identify functions. But we should not want to call ignorance a proof of evolution.

Just because someone doesn’t know the function of something, that does not mean there is none, which means:If none of our organs nor genes were "known" to have function, this wouldn't prove it's vestigial, It's more appropriate to say: Human don't know Yet!
http://en.wikipedia....ert_Wiedersheim

Blechschmidt notes that

"no organ could exist that is functionless during its development," an axiom that also applies to the nervous system.(Blechschmidt, The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy, 91. )

6- HINDERS SCIENCE

Reputable scientists now recognize that the evolutionary teaching of "vestigial organs" actually retarded scientific knowledge for decades. Instead of finding out what the appendix was for, it was called "vestigial" and was cut out. Researchers were told it was a waste of time to study any possible use for it. For the same reason, lots of children have had their tonsils removed, when they really needed them!

"The existence of functionless 'vestigial organs' was presented by Darwin, and is often aced by current biology textbooks, as part of the evidence for evolution . . An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures . . leads to the conclusion that 'vestigial organs' pride no evidence for evolutionary theory." *S.R. Scudding, "Do 'Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?" Evolutionary Theory, Vol. (May 1961), p. 394.

7- Lost primary functions !

Confronted with the fact that many previously thought to be "vestigial" organs, are now known to have functions , Darwinists made a funny conjecture that these organs "developed secondary functions", however, they didn't provide the scientific criteria to determine if a function is primary or secondary !!

8- Some known functions of some "alleged vestigial organs":
Appendix:

The appendix is a small blind-ended tubular structure attached to the large intestine close to where it joins the small intestine. It has no digestive function and is commonly assumed to a vestigial organ left behind from a plant-eating ancestor.
Evolutionists have postulated that in the past, man had a larger cecum, but as man progressed from a higher-fiber diet to a lower-fiber diet, the larger cecum became less necessary. Thus the appendix is said to have resulted from a loss of cecal size.

- The appendix is now known to be an important part of what is called the reticulo-enadothelial system of the body. Like the tonsils, the appendix fights infection.
There are collections of lymphocytes (body defence cells) in its lining.
The appendix is part of a system that determines which microbes are allowed to live in the intestines and which ones are not. The large intestine needs to have a healthy population of harmless bacteria living on its inner surface.
Babies are not born with these microbes. Babies develop in a germ-free environment in their mother’s womb so during infancy and childhood the immune system has to learn which microbes can live on the body surfaces and which cannot. Even the good microbes need to be kept in their place and your immune system helps keep them there throughout your life.

- When the large bowel becomes inflamed and its population of good bacteria is lost due to outpouring fluid that is part of the inflammatory response to injury and infection, the appendix acts as a “safe house” for good bacteria, which can then repopulate the large bowel when the inflammation is over. For more information on this function see article in Science Daily, 8 Oct 2007.

- One study done by Dr. Howard R. Bierman on hundreds of patients with leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, cancer of the colon, and cancer of the ovaries showed that 84% of these patients had their appendix removed, while in a healthy control group only 25% had it removed. [Bergman and Howe, p. 45] This is a positive correlation, indicating a possible role of the appendix in preventing these diseases.

- Your Appendix Could Save Your Life

http://blogs.scienti...save-your-life/
http://www.scientifi...e-function-of-t
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/15228837
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/17936308
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21370495
http://www.sciencedi...02251930700416X
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3279496/
http://www.livescien...-promising.html 
Scientists Finally Discover The Function of the Human Appendix

“Maybe it's time to correct the textbooks,” said researcher William Parker, an immunologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC “Many biology texts today still refer to the appendix as a 'vestigial organ.”

The Coccyx:

Another organ declared useless by evolutionists is the coccygeal vertebrae (the coccyx). This is the bottom of your spine.The fact that the coccyx is made of several segments fused together is no indication that it used to be a mobile tail. 

The segmented structure allows it to grow during foetal development and childhood.   Scientists have found that important muscles attach to those bones. The pelvic floor muscles and ligaments help with maintaining upright stance and walking, and support the internal organs of pelvic cavity.

http://www.laserspin...natomy/tailbone
http://education.yah...ects/subject/24
http://education.yah...cts/subject/213
http://www.angelfire...s/tailbone.html

Plica semilunaris of conjunctiva

The plica semilunaris is a small fold of bulbar conjunctiva on the medial canthus of the eye.

It functions during movement of the eye, to help maintain tear drainage via the lacrimal lake, and to permit greater rotation of the globe, for without the plica the conjunctiva would attach directly to the eyeball, restricting movement.

"Four fornices are formed by the conjunctiva where it is reflected from the eyelids to the globe. The superior fornix is the largest in both size and volume. It is formed and maintained by fine smooth muscle slips that pass from the levator palpebral superioris muscle and insert into the conjunctiva. This attachment prevents the conjunctiva from folding downward over the cornea. It also prevents the fornix from developing sags as the globe moves upward, which might obstruct vision. The temporal fornix is attached by fine fibrous slips to the tendon of the lateral rectus muscle, again maintaining the relative position of the fornix during horizontal movements of the globe. The inferior fornix is attached to the tendon of the inferior rectus, which prevents its movement. The plica semilunaris performs the same function as a fornix medially, and is a reversed fornix with the fold of conjunctiva lying externally (Fig. 3). During a medial gaze, the fornix has a variable depth. This occurs because the fibrous slips that link the conjunctiva to the tendon of the medial rectus muscle insert onto the deep surface of the plica and caruncle. Contraction of the medial rectus tightens these slips, forming a cul-de-sac medially as the globe adducts. On maximal medial rotation, the plica partially unfolds to form a true fornix similar to that present in other areas. (Fig. 3). During a medial gaze, the fornix has a variable depth. This occurs because the fibrous slips that link the conjunctiva to the tendon of the medial rectus muscle insert onto the deep
surface of the plica and caruncle. Contraction of the medial rectus tightens these slips, forming a cul-de-sac medially as the globe adducts. On maximal medial rotation, the plica partially unfolds to form a true fornix similar to that present in other areas."(Dartt, Darlene A. (2006). "The Conjunctiva—Structure and Function". Duane's Foundations of Clinical Ophthalmology 2. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Chapter 2)

http://www.oculist.n.../v8/v8c002.html

The relationship between the plica semilunaris and caruncle and the bulbar conjunctiva, eyelids, and lacrimal puncta is important in several ways. Any change in these structures due to scarring or other fibrous changes could mechanically limit rotation of the globe. In addition, keratinization, hypertrophy, or retraction of the caruncle may interfere with mucus and foreign body excretion, resulting in dysfunction of the lacrimal drainage system.

N.B:
Darwinists say it's is the vestigial non-functional remnant of the the "third eyelid"(nictitating membrane) which is drawn across the eye for protection in some animals e.g:camels, sharks & birds.

Wisdom teeth:

First of all, a tooth, just like any other molar tooths has an obvious function, namely to grind food. We have 32 teeth, including these wisodm teeth. Of course we could still grind food without our 4 wisdom teeth. We could probably also be able to grind food with 26, 24 or with 20 teeth. Be that as it may, the wisdom teeth are obviously not vestigal. It has also been suggested, that earlier generations of humans which ate food that was allot rougher, and didn't have the same protection and care wore down their teeth a lot faster, therefor, a new set of teeth, at the age of 20 to 25 was very practical for them.
Opposition to Prophylactic Removal of Third Molars (Wisdom Teeth)
http://www.apha.org/...ult.htm?id=1371

The Vomeronasal (Jacobson’s) Organ

The adult human VNO displays species-specific, gender-dimorphic and highly stereospecific responses to ligands. The organ's local response, or electrovomerogram, is followed by gender-specific behavioral changes, modulation of autonomic nervous system function, or the release of gonadotropins from the pituitary gland. Functional brain imaging studies revealed consistent activation of the hypothalamus, amygdala and cingulate gyrus-related structures during adult human VNO stimulation. These findings present new information supportive of a functional vomeronasal system in adult humans.
http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/9929629

These data demonstrate the existence of a functional vomeronasal-pituitary pathway in adult humans. In addition to the effect on gonadotropin pulsatility, the vomeropherin also produces concurrent reflex autonomic effects after VNO stimulation. These included decreased respiratory frequency, increased cardiac frequency, and event-related changes of electrodermal activity and EEG pattern. Therefore, this investigation also provides evidence for functional connections between the VNO and a variety of hypothalamic areas in adult humans.
http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/8836161

Recent progress in the neurobiology of the vomeronasal organ.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/12203701

The researchers believe that the cells in the VNO send electrical impulses to the hypothalamus which stimulates the pituitary gland to release or stop releasing certain hormones (Lawton 1997).
http://www.macaleste...attraction.html

Erector pili:

Piloerection refers to a reaction of the sympathetic nervous system that causes hair follicles to protrude outwards from the skin. Commonly called goosebumps or gooseflesh, it is a physiological response to cold air and intense emotions, especially fear. It is most common to see goosebumps on the forearms, though they can also appear on the legs, buttocks, chest, and neck on some people.
Another medical term for piloerection is cutis anserina. Goosebumps appear when the sympathetic nervous system causes the arrectores pilorum muscles under the skin to contract.

Goosebumps may help to conserve heat when you're exposed to cold. They may do this in several ways:

• As with larger muscles, contraction of the muscles in the skin (called "arrectores pilorum") makes heat.
• The raised hair follicles cause skin pores to close.
• Hairs standing up trap a layer of air near the skin, holding onto body heat.

They also have an important role in keeping the skin’s oil glands unblocked.
http://books.google....ctor pili human

Quantitative pilomotor axon reflex test: a novel test:The quantitative pilomotor axon reflex test (QPART) may complement other measures of cutaneous autonomic nerve fiber function.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22868966

Relation to diseases:
Though rare, goosebumps can be a sign of a seizure disorder (called temporal lobe epilepsy), a disorder of the sympathetic nervous system, or a brain tumor. They are also common during heroin or other opiate withdrawal. In fact, the term "quitting cold turkey" refers to the presence of goose bumps (that mimic cold turkey flesh) during withdrawal from heroin. (The term could also have come from the expression, "talk turkey," meaning to speak bluntly or directly, without preparation.)
 http://www.intelihea...d=dmtHMSContent

Goose bumps may be a kind of "skin orgasm"
http://www.healthgui...oose-Bumps.html
N.B:
Cat's body, for example, initiates piloerection to make the hairs on the back and tail stand on end. This process makes the cat appear larger than it actually is.
Piloerection is also beneficial for animals when they are exposed to extremely cold weather. Goosebumps extend the hairs on a cold animal, creating a thicker coat that offers more protection. Erected hairs provide extra insulation as they trap heat more effectively than a fur coat in its normal state.
Because piloerction in man doesn't make predators think twice before attacking & its role in heat regulation is less that animals, Darwinists declared it a useless leftover from our imaginary animal ancestors.

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Related: Why Mammal Body Hair Is an Evolutionary Enigma
http://faculty.washi...r/receptor.html
http://www.keratin.com/aa/aa031.shtml
http://jap.physiolog...6/2/256.extract
http://www.scientifi...ile-sl-11-12-13

Plantaris

In monkeys it is connected to the toes and is useful in swinging from branches.


(Image: Plantaris in cat's leg)

In human beings it is tiny and may be absent (7–20% of population)(Simpson SL, Hertzog MS, Barja RH. The plantaris tendon graft: an ultrasound study. J Hand Surg [Am] 1991;16:708–711)

In humans, Plantaris aids to:

• plantarflex the ankle joint
• flex the knee joint

It has been considered to be an organ of proprioceptive function for the larger, more powerful plantarflexors as it contains a high density of muscle spindles.(Moore KL, Dalley AF, editors. Clinically Oriented Anatomy. 5. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2006. pp. 648–649)
Its motor function is minimal but its long tendon can readily be harvested for plastic reconstruction elsewhere with little functional deficit.

Palmaris Longus:

It's a flexor of the wrist and tenses the palmar aponeurosis & It's great candidate for plastic reconstruction.

"loss of this tendon results in no major abnormality of hand function. But Mc Grouther (1996) states that the main function of palmaris longus is to anchor the skin and fascia of hand and hence to prevent degloving of palmar skin from horizontal shearing forces. Therefore, variations in the innervation of such a clinically important muscle should be of interest both to the academicians and clinicians"

(http://medind.nic.in...aet03i2p171.pdf)

Basilosaurus

Basilosaurus

Basilosaurus is thought to be lived between 40 million years ago in Eocene.
The fossils were initially believed to be reptile, hence the suffix -"saurus", Greek for ‘king lizard,’, but later found to be a marine mammal.

 “Basilosaurus existed at a time when baleen-bearing mysticetes [modern baleen whales] are known to have existed, and echolocating odontocetes [toothed whales] are presumed to have existed,” whale evolution expert Dr. Lawrence Barnes of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, quoted in Evolution: The Grand Experiment by Dr. Carl Werner, page 144. New Leaf Press, 2007

Size compared to a human.

There is unparalleled degree of elongation compared with modern whales. The Basilosaurus is 18 meters (60 feet) long (10 times as long as Ambulocetus) with 0.6 meter (2 ft) hind limbs. They were probably used to clasping during copulation.
Gingerich said,
‘It seems to me that they could only have been some kind of sexual and reproductive clasper.’ Gingerich, P. D., B. H. Smith, and E. L. Simons. 1990. Hind limbs of Eocene Basilosaurus isis: evidence of feet in whales. Science, 249: 154-157

Barbara Stahl, a vertebrate paleontologist and evolutionist, points out:

"The serpentine form of the body and the peculiar shape of the cheek teeth make it plain that these archaeocetes [like Basilosaurus] could not possibly have been the ancestor of modern whales."

The jawbone of an ancient whale found in Antarctica may be the oldest fully aquatic whale yet discovered.

10/11/2011
This jawbone, in contrast, belongs to the Basilosauridae group of fully aquatic whales, said Reguero, who leads research for the Argentine
Antarctic Institute.With this new fossil find, however, dating to 49 million years ago (bear in mind that Pakicetus lived around 53 million years ago), this means that the first fully aquatic whales now date to around the time when the alleged walking whales (Ambulocetus) first appear.

www.nbcnews.com/id/44867222/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Rodhocetus

Rodhocetus
 

A fossil of a creature called Rodhocetus, mammal that lived in the sea and now extinct, is portrayed as the first creature with legs changing into flippers and with the tail developing into a whale’s tail. Without it there is really no story, but recent disclosures undo the tale.
Two species were identified ( Rhodocetus kasrani in 1978 by paleontologist Gingerich. Rhodocetus balochensis by Philip Gingerich in 2001.
The date set for the Rhodocetus is about 49 - 39 million years ago, in the middle Eocene

Dr Gingerich, who found the fossil, promoted the idea that Rodhocetus had a whale’s tail.
Carl Werner noted that the part that would show the presence of the flukes (the rear wings) is missing. He asked about the missing tail bones and how they knew it had tail flukes. Dr Gingerich replied,

"I speculated that it might have had a fluke, I now doubt that Rodhocetus would have had a fluked tail."

Pelvis, hind limb, and the vertebrae Rodhocetus sp. on Field Museum of Natural History.

    Dr Werner noted on inspecting the fossil of Rodhocetus the absence of any flipper bones. When he asked Dr Gingerich how he knew that the animal had flippers, Dr Gingerich said,
    “Since then we have found the forelimbs, the hands, and the front arms of Rodhocetus, and we understand that it doesn’t have the kind of arms that can spread out like flippers on a whale.”

Ambulocetus natans

Ambulocetus natans

It lived about 50 million years ago, during the early Eocene.The specimen was found in eastern Pakistan by Thewissen et al,(Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine), who popularized the idea that this creature was an early, amphibious ancestor of whales. It is actually a land creature that evolutionists have insisted on ‘turning into a whale.’


The name Ambulocetus natans comes from the Latin words ‘ambulare’ (to walk), ‘cetus’ (whale) and ‘natans’ (swimming), and means ‘a walking and swimming whale.’
It is obvious the animal used to walk because it had four legs, like all other mammals, and even wide claws on its feet and hooves on its hind legs.  Apart from evolutionists’ prejudice however, there is absolutely no basis for the claim that it swam in water, or that it lived on land and in water (like an amphibian).
In order to see the border between science and wishful imagination on this subject, let us have a look at National Geographic’s reconstruction of Ambulocetus.  This is how it is portrayed in the magazine:


Fake drawings:  Imaginary webs added to claws, and rear legs made to look like fins.
If you look at it carefully you can easily see the two little visual manipulations that have been employed to ‘turn the land-dwelling Ambulocetus into a whale:

• The animal’s rear legs are shown not with feet that would help it to walk, but as fins that would assist it to swim.  However, Carroll, who examines the animal’s leg bones, says that it possessed the ability to move powerfully on land.^[5]
  
• In order to present an impression of adaptation for water, webbing has been drawn on its front feet.  Yet it is impossible to draw any such conclusion from a study of Ambulocetus fossils.  In the fossil record it is next to impossible to find soft tissues such as these.  So reconstructions based on features beyond those of the
  skeleton are always speculative.  That offers evolutionists a wide-ranging empty space of speculation to use their propaganda tools.
  

With the same kind of evolutionists touching up that has been applied to the Ambulocetus drawing, it is possible to make any animal look like any other.  You could even take a monkey skeleton, draw fins on its back and webbing between its fingers and present it as the ‘primate ancestor of whales.’

In publishing the picture of the animal’s skeleton, National Geographic had to take a step back from the retouching it had carried out to the reconstruction picture which made it seem more like a whale.  As the skeleton clearly shows, the animal’s feet were designed to carry it on land.  There was no sign of the imaginary webs.




(A) Imaginary drawing of Ambulocetus, ‘at the end of the power stroke during swimming’, by Thewissen et al.

(B) The stippled bones were all that were found. And the bones coloured red were found 5 m above the rest. With the ‘additions’ removed there really isn’t much left of Ambulocetus!
The evolutionary biologist Annalisa Berta commented on the Ambulocetus fossil (in 1994):

'Since the pelvic girdle is not preserved, there is no direct evidence in Ambulocetus
for a connection between the hind limbs and the axial skeleton. This hinders interpretations
of locomotion in this animal, since many of the muscles that support and move the hindlimb originate on the pelvis'

Imaginary drawing-Ambulocetus size, compared to a human.

In 1996, More remains were found:

The shock:


Figure : All the material found of Ambulocetus natans (from: http://www.neomed.ed...gins/index.html)- The ONLY known fossil in the world - This animal is known solely from a single, partial skeleton, that of an individual about 3 meters (~10 feet) long!

EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD commented:

The actual evidence for such a claim is actually rather meager. Here are the few points usually cited in support of this assertion:

 

• It is supposedly whalelike because it had a nose that allowed it to swallow underwater.

1. However, human beings and many other non-marine organisms can swallow underwater.
2. Moreover, as can be seen figure above , the snout of the single known specimen was not preserved.

• The periotic bone, which surrounds the inner ear in mammals, is
  supposedly whalelike, allowing ambulocetids to hear well in water.

1. But no one actually knows how well these creatures could hear, whether in water or out of it.
2. Moreover, little or nothing is usually said about the great dissimilarity between all of the other features of this animal and those of a whale.

• Its teeth are alleged to be like those of a whale.

1. But the jaws of the single individual known (again see the figure above) are highly fragmented, and the few teeth preserved appear to differentiated, unlike those of toothed whales.

• It is asserted that Ambulocetus's hindlimbs were ill-adapted to terrestrial locomotion. But the limbs — and the pelvis — are so poorly preserved (see high resolution image), that it seems there is no clear evidence bearing on this point.
• Known fossils are from the Eocene and are already quite whalelike. Ambulocetus
  (Thewissen and Aria 1994; Thewissen et al. 1996) cannot be counted as a transitional form because it is actually younger than the oldest rcognized cetacean Himalayacetus (Bajpa and Gingerich 1998). The evolution of whales from forms that are younger than the earliest known whales clearly isn't possible.

www.macroevolution.net/ambulocetus.html

The jawbone of an ancient whale found in Antarctica may be the oldest fully aquatic whale yet discovered.
10/11/2011
With this new fossil find, however, dating to 49 million years ago (bear in mind that Pakicetus lived around 53 million years ago), this means that the first fully aquatic whales now date to around the time when walking whales (Ambulocetus) first appear.
www.nbcnews.com/id/44867222/ns/technology_and_science-science/

N.B:

Wikipedia is unreliable source for any information related to evolution.

Related topics:

Basilosaurus

Rodhocetus

Pakicetus

Indohyus

Pakicetus

Pakicetus

A Quadrupedal Forced to be the ‘Ancestor of the Whale’

In 1983.  P. D. Gingerich and his assistants, who found the fossil, had no hesitation in immediately claiming that it was a ‘primitive whale,’ even though they actually only found a skull.
Its skeleton turned out to be similar to that of common wolves.  It was found in a region full of iron ore, and containing fossils of such terrestrial creatures as snails, tortoises or crocodiles.  In other words, it was part of a land stratum, not an aquatic one.
So, why was a quadrupedal land dweller announced to be a ‘primitive whale’? 

'Subtle clues in combination—the arrangement of cups on the molar teeth, a folding in a bone of the middle ear, and the positioning of the ear bones within the skull—are absent in other land mammals but a signature of later Eocene whales.'

In other words, based on some details in its teeth and ear bones, some persons felt able to describe this quadrupedal, wolf-like land dweller as a ‘walking whale.’  Just one look at the reconstruction of Pakicetus by the evolutionist illustrator will reveal the absurdity in terming it a ‘walking whale.’

Even Gingerich himself admitted:

'But we do know that its hearing mechanism was that of a land mammal and that it was found in fluvial sediments with other land animals'

Distortions in The Reconstructions :





(Paleontologists believe that Pakicetus was a quadrupedal mammal.  The skeletal structure on the left, published in the Nature magazine clearly demonstrates this.  Thus the drawing of Pakicetus by Carl Buell, which was based on that structure, is somewhat realistic.)

(Pakicetus reconstruction by National Geographic  

The animal has been portrayed in a ‘swimming’ position.  Its hind legs are shown stretching out backwards, and an impression of ‘fins’ has been given.)

Top left: Gingerich’s first reconstruction
Bottom left: what he had actually found
Top right: more complete skeleton (remaines claimed to be found later)
Bottom right: more reasonable reconstruction

'illustration shows the skulls of two pakicetids (Ichthyolestes and Pakicetus) are comparable to that of a modern coyote (Canis latrans). Saying that the evolution of whales started with this doglike animal is sheer nonsense' (EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD on evolution of whales)

The features of the details are no compelling evidence on which to base a link between Pakicetus and the whale:

•  some of these features are actually found in other terrestrial animals as well.
• None of the features in question are any evidence of an evolutionary relationship.  Even evolutionists admit that most of the theoretical relationships built on the basis of anatomical similarities between animals are completely untrustworthy.
  
  Quote

  If the marsupial Tasmanian wolf and the common placental wolf had both been extinct for a long time, then it is no doubt that evolutionists would picture them in the same taxon and define them as very close relatives.  However, we know that these two different animals, although strikingly similar in their anatomy, are very far from each other in the supposed evolutionary  tree of life.  (In fact their similarity indicates common design—not common descent.)

  The mole has a bird-like sternum and wrist bones, but it would be absurd to conclude that birds evolved from moles! Many more examples can be found here: Similarities and Homology: No Evidence For Evolution!

Pakicetus, was a unique species harboring different features in its body.
In fact, Carroll, an authority on vertebrate paleontology, describes the Mesonychid family, of which Pakicetus should be a member, as “exhibiting an odd combination of characters.”^[3]
As paleontologist Robert L. Carroll (1997: 329) notes,

'It is not possible to identify a sequence of mesonychids leading directly to whales, although some teeth now recognized as belonging to primitive whales were originally described as from mesonychids. All adequately known mesonychids were terrestrial in most aspects of the skeleton, and some show specializations for cursorial [i.e., running] locomotion.'

Such prominent evolutionists as Gould accept that ‘mosaic creatures’ of this type cannot be considered as transitional forms.

 In his article ‘The Overselling of Whale Evolution,’ Ashby L. Camp wrote:

 “The reason evolutionists are confident that mesonychids gave rise to archaeocetes, despite the inability to identify any species in the actual lineage, is that known mesonychids and archaeocetes have some similarities.  These similarities, however, are not sufficient to make the case for ancestry, especially in light of the vast differences.  The subjective nature of such comparisons is evident from the fact so many groups of mammals and even reptiles have been suggested as ancestral to whales.”^[4]

G.A. Mchedlidze, a Russian expert on whales, has expressed serious doubts as to whether creatures like Pakicetus and Ambulocetus, and others—even if accepted as aquatic mammals—can properly be considered ancestors of modern whales. He sees them instead as 'a completely isolated group.'
‘All the postcranial bones indicate that pakicetids were land mammals, and … indicate that the animals were runners, with only their feet touching the ground.’ This is very different from Gingerich’s picture of an aquatic animal! But the evolutionary bias is still clear, describing Pakicetus as a ‘terrestrial cetacean’ and saying, ‘The first whales were fully terrestrial, and were even efficient runners.’ But the term ‘whale’ becomes meaningless if it can describe land mammals, and it provides no insight into how true marine whales supposedly evolved.
http://harunyahya.com/en/works/3378
5-whale evolution

Summary:
http://youtu.be/2nS-RifoPFA?t=9s

Indohyus

Indohyus
A report published December, 2007, outlined a description of a new fossil discovery claimed by Dr. J. Thewissen and his colleagues to represent the ancestor of the whale/cetaceans. This went viral.

(Imaginary drawings)

The reason why evolutionists cling to Indohyus as a missing link is that:
1- they depict a structure between the middle and inner ear (tympanic bullae, involucrum  extra "wall") as similar to that in marine mammals.
2- they claim that Indohyus' teeth have a similar structure to those of marine mammals
3- eyes being higher in the skull than is the case in other ungulates,and  this is a feature shared with whales. 

(Magnified, actual bones in the link below:
http://static.guim.c...-indohyus-1.jpg
However, the idea of the evolution of the whale, a fantastical and unscientific fairy tale, is incompatible with the emergence of Indohyus. Let us now examine these inconsistencies.

a) Indohyus is a finding that rocks the idea of whale evolution, and the idea that it supports it is a total deception.
According to the classic scenario of whale evolution, mammals dwelling on the land are considered to have moved into the water. The fact is, however, that an examination of Indohyus shows that it already lived in water (teeth ¹⁸O values and osteosclerotic bones- Virtually all aquatic vertebrates have it ), and its dental structure shows that it lived a herbivorous existence. This feature of Indohyus represents a major contradiction of those evolutionists who say, in their classical accounts, that terrestrial mammals moved into the sea in order to find prey.
The New Scientist article said this on the subject:

 The research also challenges the idea that cetaceans – the order that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises – split from their land-dwelling forebears and returned to the water to hunt aquatic prey.

This suggests that Indohyus was a shallow water wader already, and had not returned to the water simply to hunt live prey.
Whenever they are confronted by findings that clash with their own fairy tales they attempt to save their theories by means of such trickery as saying “evolution happened in this way, rather than that,” when what they should say is; “our accounts are wrong, there is no foundation to what we have been describing as the true facts in school text books.”

b) The similarities constructed between Indohyus and whales are not restricted to these life forms alone.
The similarities they have come up with between the two can also be seen in other mammals which have no connection at all to whales in respect of the theory of evolution. Scientists make the following admission on the subject:

None of these features characterize all modern and extinct cetaceans [whales—KB].... In addition, all of these characters are found in some mammals unrelated to cetaceans”(Thewissen, et al., 2007)

As we have seen, Indohyus shares anatomical features not just with whales, but also with other mammals which are totally incompatible with whales in terms of the myth of evolution. For that reason, the depiction of Indohyus as “the missing link in whale evolution” in New Scientist magazine is devoid of any scientific justification.


'The 48-million-year-old actual skeleton of Indohyus spent much of its life in water.
The cell phone is for size comparison .'

Quote

What does Indohyus actually prove? It proves that the alleged closest relative of the whale can change from the hippopotamus to a small deer-like creature in the blink of an eye, based on certain similar structures that it has in common with other mammals besides whales.
The DNA of whales is most like the DNA of hippos. Therefore, the molecular biologists say whales must have evolved from an early hippopotamus.
Paleontologists don’t buy that argument because they think the oldest whale fossils are 50 million years old, and the oldest hippo fossils are just 15 million years old. If whales preceded hippos by 35 million years, they could not have evolved from them. But the fossil record has “not resolved the issue of cetacean relations” either. So, there are several different proposed whale ancestors.

c) The similarity constructed between Indohyus and whales on the basis of dental structure is also questionable

Those making these claims about Indohyus also suggest that it shares a common dental structure with whales. However, whales are carnivores. Indohyus, on the other hand, was a herbivore, with totally different feeding patterns.

http://www.scientifi...09B24DA94_1.jpg
They said

"All fossil and recent cetaceans differ from most other mammals in the reduction of crushing basins on their teeth: there are no trigonid and talonid basins in the lower molars, and the trigon basin of the upper molars is very small (for example in pakicetids and ambulocetids) or absent. Crushing basins are large in raoellids -indohyus- and other basal ungulates. This implies that a major change in dental function occurred at the origin of cetaceans, probably related to dietary change at the origin"(Thewissen, et al., Nature)

What they are basically saying is that Indohyus must have been a whale ancestor because its teeth are NOT whale-like, which is proof that the shape of whale teeth evolved!

Additionally, ScienceNOW, a daily news feature of the journal Science, notes that "cetaceans are so different from any other creature that researchers haven’t been able to agree which fossil relatives best represent their nearest ancestors."
Conclusion:

Since evolutionists adopt their theories as a dogma right from the outset, and since evolutionary development is a belief imposed by materialist ideology, they are quite capable of manufacturing huge flights of fancy based on the very smallest similarities. The way they regard Indohyus, an animal that lived in rivers and no larger than a racoon (compared to the small swimming mouse deer), as the ancestor of the whales, on the basis of superficial similarities, such as Indohyus' eye sockets being located a little higher, represents a striking and dazzling example of this dogmatic and fantastical mindset. 

Any normal, rational individual whose thought processes are unfettered by materialist preconceptions will know that this design can only be possible as the result of a mind having planned it. In the same way that the existence of a computer points to the existence of a computer engineer, or a building to that of an architect, so the sublime complexity and vast quantities of information in the biological systems in living things indicate the existence of the Creator who brought them into being. It is quite certain that this Creator is Almighty God, Who has no need of blueprints or designs in order to create, and Who brings all things into existence merely by commanding them to “Be!”
http://www.darwinism...akale_id=148106
http://www.ridgenet....sage/v12i4n.htm