Total garbage.
Item one: mutations have not only been observed occurring (and indeed, have been sequenced in relevant organisms), but the underlying chemistry generating mutations is well understood.
Item two: fake creationist “probability” calculations ARE fake, and I’ve devoted numerous column inches to establishing why they are fake. First of all, there’s the serial trials fallacy - the assumption that the relevant events only occur one at a time in single individuals. This is rubbish. Mutations occur simultaneously or in rapid succession throughout the entire population, and when that population consists of millions of individuals, the probability that a given mutation will occur increases accordingly.
Second, there’s the “one true sequence” fallacy that creationists love, namely the false assertion that a gene can only work, if one exact sequence of nucleotides is present. This has been known to be garbage by biologists for decades. Even a critical gene such as the gene for insulin, occurs in many forms in different species, and several thousand nucleotide sequences are known to code for a working insulin molecule. The bioinformatics databases are littered with data on this and thousands of other genes, and that data set amounts to petabytes of data. None of which have ever been examined at even an elementary level by any creationist peddling fake “probability” calculations.
Once again, the above is the sort of diligence that has been exercised by myself and others, in dismantling creationist bullshit.
Oh, and I’ve devoted numerous column inches to destroying the garbage about evolution being rendered supposedly “impossible” by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Apart from the past scientific papers on the subject that destroy this blatant creationist lie, a new one has been added more recently, namely this one:
Towards An Evolutionary Theory Of The Origin Of Life Based On Kinetics And Thermodynamics by Robert Pascal, Addy Cross & John D. Sutherland, Open Biology, 3(11): 1-9 (1st November 2013) [Full paper available to read online here, downloadable PDF available here]
That paper opens with (emphases mine):
Oh, and I have enough papers on the subject of prebiotic RNA syntheses, to provide the backdrop for the above work, some of the prior research dating back to the mid-1990s.
Oh, and as for lies about evolution in general, evolution has been successfully tested experimentally. Theodosius Dobzhansky published no less than FORTY-THREE peer reviewed scientific papers documenting his successful direct experimental tests of natural selection.
Those papers can be found in this book:
Dobzhansky’s Genetics of Natural Populations
He followed this work with more peer reviewed scientific papers, documenting his successful direct experimental tests of speciation mechanisms. This and related work has been built upon by subsequent researchers.
The best part of this, is that Dobzhansky was not only one of the foremost evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. He was ALSO a practising Eastern Orthodox Christian. Unlike creationists such as the author of the screed you brought here, he never once felt the need to lie for his god.
In addition, Dobzhansky, thanks to his background in population genetics, brought rigour our understanding of the nature of biological species, and as instrumental in developing the biological species concept.
Meanwhile, I’m aware of successful direct experimental tests of evolution, that can be performed and replicated in a high school laboratory. Here are three examples thereof:
Diane Dodd’s Incipient Speciation Experiment In Drosophila Pseudoobscura
Mavarez et al, Speciation Via Hybridisation in Heliconius Butterflies
Ole Seehausen’s Direct Experimental Test Of Sexual Selection
The last of those examples can be repeated successfully by any of the tens of millions of tropical fishkeepers across the developed world, who learned how to keep and breed African Rift Lake Cichlids in the aquarium.
Finally, scientists are now using evolutionary methods to “design” useful artefacts. Here’s an example of a spacecraft communications antenna, that was “designed” using evolutionary algorithms. The antenna in question was then flown upon a real spacecraft, and upon testing, found to perform BETTER than human designed antennae.
http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/Space2006Antenna.pdf
Meanwhile, since you brought up whale evolution, I’ll bring here some relevant findings from the past, that blow creationist lies out of the water. Namely, the work of one George Henry Faulkner Nuttall. Strap yourself in, you’re in for a hard ride.
Nuttall provided a test intended to link a sample to a particular species, using an antibody reaction. This test, the serum antibody reaction or precipitin test, was perfected by Nuttall in 1900.
Nuttall then found that the test was useful from a phylogenetic standpoint, namely, determining species relationships with each other. His 1901 paper on this matter is available online, courtesy of the Royal Society of London, here:
Nuttall’s Original 1901 Royal Society Paper
This was then followed by the book “The Precipitin Reaction In The Study of Animal Relationships” by Alan Arthur Boyden, who reported in that book the following:
That work is available in full (all 109 pages of it) here:
The Precipitin Reaction In The Study of Animal Relationships by Alan Arthur Boyden
Lo and behold, Nuttall’s 1904 magnum opus is ALSO available online, namely here:
Blood Immunity and Blood Relationship
The full title of this work, is Blood Immunity and Blood Relationship : A Demonstration Of Certain Blood-Relationships Among Animals By Means Of The Precipitin Test for Blood, and extends across 468 pages.
On page 160, Nuttall reports that he conducted no less than 94 tests with antiserum for whales, and on page 189, reported the results of testing against anti-ox serum, in which he found (as covered on page 190) that whale blood reacted with anti-ox serum, pointing to whales being related to artiodactyl mammals.
On page 198, he reported that tests with anti-whale serum against blood from Artiodactyls, again yielded a reaction indicating a close phylogenetic relationship.On page 216, we have this:
On page 325, Nuttall lists the result of QUANTITATIVE tests with anti-antelope serum, and immediately after a brace of other Artiodactyl mammals, the next entry is listed as Balaenoptera rostrata, the common Minke Whale (now known as Balaenoptera acutorostrata).
On page 327, Nuttall lists the results of more QUANTITATIVE tests, this time with anti-hog-deer serum, and this time, Balaenoptera rostrata is reported as having a 60% reaction strength, exceeded only by a range of Artiodactyls. The anti-reindeer serum tests on the same page actually placed whales CLOSER to reindeer than to some other Artiodactyls (experimental error probably applies in this case).
So, WAY BACK IN 1904, a biologist established that whales were phylogenetically connected to Artiodactyl mammals by a quantitative blood serum test.
This result, produced decades before DNA sequencing became a laboratory reality, was the motivation behind the search for connecting fossils, which were duly found.
Once DNA sequencing became an affordable laboratory reality, the phylogenetic tests in question dovetailed exquisitely with Nuttall’s 1904 results.
So, scientists HAVE produced evidence for whale ancestry being grounded in Artiodactyl mammals. Those who assert otherwise are quite simply lying.
As for the lies peddled about proto-whale fossils, these ARE lies. Rodhocetus has never been represented in artist’s renderings with a tail fluke, and indeed, this paper:
covers Peregocetus pacificus, which is described as having a flattened tail like a beaver, not tail flukes, based upon the morphology of the terminal vertebrae. From that paper:
This is the sort of detail you will never find in creationist screeds.
Indeed, the sort of experimental work conducted in the papers I’ve covered above, render the assertion of “gullibility and blind faith” on the part of scientists an egregious lie.
I think this covers relevant bases for now.