Carl Werner's blatantly misrepresents information

I came across Dr. Carl Werner earlier this year. I did not have time to deal with his particular claims, so I just stated them and moved on.  In that post and in the follow up post, I dealt a lot with the distinction of being "like" something does not make you that something.  For example, the fossil record has many dog-like predators, but most of them are not dogs.  Hyenas may be like a dog, but they are not dogs.  I remember learning about simile in Junior High, but it is a problem that I keep running into dealing with biblical creationists.  Again being like something does not make you the same as that something.

Given my reading of parts of Werner's, Evolution: The Grand Experiment this inability to understand simile is not a glitch, but a feature.  (I found this book, when a biblical creationist referenced it as his "biology textbook from college".)  In chapter 4, he says,

They now theorize that whales evolved from an animal similar to a hyena [Pachyaena]  or a cat [Sinonyx] or a hippopotamus through a complicated sequence of chance mutations in a series of animals over 10 million years.

First before we move on, I read this kind of argument a lot.  "Scientists say this animal and other scientists say that animal, so which one is it?"  However one must consider the level of disagreement.  If the disagreement is within the same order or sub-order there is really little disagreement.  It is like arguing over which county in the same state an event occurred.  For example, we may not know exactly where Pocahontas lived, but we know that it was not in California or even in North Carolina.   Still, you read things like this from Dr. John D. Morris, which implies greater disagreement.

One such evolutionary claim that has been around since the days of Darwin asserts that whales (which are mammals, not fish or reptiles) descended from some four-footed land mammal. Darwin thought that it was a bear-like animal that evolved into whales, but today evolutionists disagree. Some speculate that hoofed animals (like cattle) or wolf-like carnivores were the ancestors of whales. Others insist that DNA evidence indicates that the ancestors were hippopotamus-like. More recently, evolutionists claimed deer-like, raccoon-size animals had evolved into whales.

Morris knows that even-toed ungulates encompass many things from hippos to goats, deer, and yes cows. It also includes now extinct carnivores like Entelodont, Pakicetus and Andrewsarchus. All three had hooves. Darwin placed whales in Carnivora, but they have been in Artiodactyla since the discovery of Pakicetus inachus. The argument is over where in Artiodactyla they fit. The connection to hippos, a webbed hoofed, even-toed ungulate is not a major surprise. Morris' representation suggests things are "either or" when in fact they are all true. Whales descended from hoofed animals, somewhat like cattle, somewhat like wolves, somewhat like deer. Some were the size of raccoons. P. inachus was about three feet at the shoulder. DNA notes that whales closest non-extinct land relative is the hippo. It is hard to convey, because pigs are the closest thing today to an even-toed carnivorous ungulate.

Coming back to Werner's statement, Sinonyx (similar to a cat) and Pachyaena (similar to a hyena) are both Mesonychids from the order Mesonychia. Along with hippos all three are hoofed animals, ungulates. Mesonychids are a sister group to the clade Cetecea which includes several families (Pakicetidae, Ambulocetidae, Remingtonocetidae, Protocetidae, Basilosauridae, Aetiocetidae) of fossil animals showing the transition from land animal to ocean dweller. For example, two species of Aetiocetidae even have both teeth and baleen.  

Sinonyx and Pachyaena are being used to try to connect the ungulate orders Artiodactyla to the Mesonychids.  Essentially they are trying to connect North Carolina to Virginia, but we are still talking about the South East. Unlike the Mesonychids, hippos are already in the same order as whales, Artiodactyla, so there is less of a leap.  Bear in mind as you continue reading that Werner is a biologist so he understands everything that I just wrote, but he will misrepresent it anyway.  In the next sentence, he completely drops the word "similar".

Scientists who oppose evolution think the idea of a cat or a hippopotamus or a hyena becoming a whale by a series of chance mutations is even more preposterous than Darwin’s idea that a bear could become a whale through natural selection and acquired characteristics.

The contrast is strange.  No one other than Werner's strawman is arguing that whales evolved by a series of chance mutations instead of by natural selection and acquired characteristics.  Werner knows and understands that acquired characteristics come from chance mutations that are selected by natural selection.

Further by dropping the word "similar", he leaves his reader with the impression that whales are alleged to have evolved from a member of the order Carnivora, like Darwin proposed.  He continues to intentionally confuse his reader by referring to Pachyaena as "a hyena". In order to not confuse the reader, he only needs to refer to Pachyaena as Pachyaena instead of "a hyena". He never even once mentions that they have hooves.

Werner then gives a list of random mutations that would have to happen turn Pachyaena into a whale.  Remember Werner knows that natural selection works through selecting acquired characteristics, but he is making a strawman. His calculation begins on page 51, but is irrelevant because this ridiculous mechanism is not how evolution works.  However most of the mutations that he mentions can be found in the whale fossil record or one can at least find an analog that creationists accept.

In chapter 5, he talks about wrong phylogeny based on homologous traits.  His first example is red pandas (Family Ailuridae) and panda bears (Family Ursidae) which both possess the Panda's thumb (a wrist bone modified into a thumb).  However genetics established that Panda bears are true bears and red pandas are more closely related to raccoons (Family Procyonidae).

source

Werner seems to imply that they are not "closely related".  True, they no longer occupy the same family, but they continue to occupy the same order, Carnivora, same sub-order Caniformia, and the same infra-order Arctoidea.  Using our state analogy, they were wrong about he city, but had the right county.  

Werner's next example is also from the infra-order Arctoidea.  

Seals [Phocidae] and sea lions [Otariidae] are very similar in appearance. Both have front flippers and finned feet. They are so similar it is difficult to tell them apart. Because of their similarities, it was logical for scientists to believe they shared a common ancestor with similar features, namely front flippers and finned feet. Now proponents of evolution believe seals descended from a skunk or otter, and sea lions evolved from a dog or bear, meaning they do not share a common ancestor after all.  

There is some disagreement over what super family in Arctoidea that Pinnipeds are most closely related.  Some hold a duel origin hypothesis with seals being more closely related to the super family Musteloidea and sea lions are more closely related to the super family Ursoidea.  However some hold to a singular origin for both from either Musteloidea or Ursoidea.  The jury is still out, but Werner knows the argument is not over whether or not they share a common ancestor.  The argument is over how they are related.  Werner knows, "they do not share a common ancestor after all" is a blatant misrepresentation of the argument.  

People need to watch more Dinosaur Train II

The more I read some blogs, the more I thank my High School English teachers for all their emphasis on reading comprehension. Simile is not a declaration. If you say that something is like something, you are categorically saying that that thing is not that something, just like that something.

One of my last blogs was about how watching Dinosaur Train could correct the following misconceptions about mammals in the Mesozoic Era.

Many still think that mammals and dinosaurs, for example, never coexisted, or if they did it was only for a short period when only small shrew-like mammals were present.

Read People need to watch more Dinosaur Train for a brief overview why this supposed popular misconception has been known to be wrong since at least the 1850's.  Most mammals in the Mesozoic were small with the largest known fossils being about the size of a badger, but they were contemporaneous throughout the age of dinosaurs.

Werner argues in his books that modern animals are found in the Mesozoic fossil record.  Smith and Scordova share this view, Scordova being of the impression that mammals would be glossed over as contamination.  I do not have ready access to Werner's books, but his method strikes me as suspect.  Apparently, he is mainstream in creationist circles, both Creation.com and Answers in Genesis sell his work.  With all the millions of dollars at the disposal of Liberty University, Answers in Genesis, and Creation Ministries International, we have some guy going to museums taking photographs.  If this had merit could not a scientist have done comparative analysis from the peer reviewed publications.  Perhaps when I get a chance I will watch his full presentation.

Smith was kind enough to footnote his claims so that I can easily analyze them.

To the surprise of many, ducks,1 squirrels,2 platypus,3beaver-like4 and badger-like5 creatures have all been found in ‘dinosaur-era’ rock layers along with bees, cockroaches, frogs and pine trees. Most people don’t picture a T. rex walking along with a duck flying overhead, but that’s what the so-called ‘dino-era’ fossils would prove!

Let's look first at the duck.  Vegavis iaai was uncovered in 1992, but the concretions delayed its description until 2005.  As far as I can tell from the paper the V. iaai has 20 points in her skeleton that are only found in Anseriformes.  While there seems to be some controversy, I am willing to concede that V. iaai seems to be a true water fowl and that there were probably some ancestors of Galliformes in the Cretaceous.  However, I would not know how Smith would make such a prediction.  One, to call V. iaai a duck, seems to allow for more diversity than creationists normally allow in their "kinds".  Two, the prediction about galliformes assumes a genetic relationship between Galliformes and Anseriformes.  Three, it is important to note here that V. iaai, is a duck only in the broadest sense like geese are ducks.

Let's look at the squirrel.   Volaticotherium antiquus did actually make an appearance on Dinosaur Train as Vlad the vampire like mammal.  Just look at those canines! He wants to suck your blood! Wait! Do squirrels have canines?  Actually, one of the reasons that V. antiquus is not a squirrel is his presence of canines which most rodents do not have and no squirrel has.  V. antiquus actually was not a member of the order Rodentia, but a member of an extinct order of mammals called the Eutriconodonta which do not appear in the Cenozoic fossil record.

According to Smith, this is not common knowledge, but I have grown up knowing that platypuses are living fossils.  Among other things, they lack nipples and lay eggs.  However they are very poorly represented in the fossil record.  Like Anseriformes, monotremes have possible cretaceous fossils.  While molecular biology studies put platypuses and echidnas diverging 10-80 million years ago, the fossil evidence pushes this back 40 million years into the Mesozoic.  While it is surprising that platypuses may be older than we think, these possible monotremes are still 100 million years younger than the oldest mammals.  Yet as I read this article Smith uses at a source, I see a bit of a problem with his conjecture that "many more tens of thousands of fossil mammals in ‘dinosaur rock’ are likely being similarly ignored in other parts of the world, with the likelihood of finding even more representatives of the same kinds as modern-day mammals."  Consider this paragraph.

Tom began digging along the south-eastern coast of Victoria some 25 years ago in his original quest to find Australia’s oldest mammals. He kept finding dinosaur bones, but in 1996 the first mammal jaw finally turned up, causing international scientific headlines when it was published in 1997 in Science.

At the time of this article, Dr. Tom Rich had been digging in Australia for a quarter of a century looking for mammal fossils.  While dinosaurs may be more in vogue, there are certainly paleontologists researching Mesozoic mammals.  Also, a cretaceous (pre-flood) platypus may not help Smith, because now an Australian platypus needs to migrate to the Ark and then coincidentally migrate off the Ark back to Australia.

I'll deal with the rest of the claims in another post.

People need to watch more Dinosaur Train

Recently, an author going by Scordova wrote something for the blog, Uncommondescent.com.  Uncommondescent markets themselves as an intelligent design blog and like most in the intelligent design movement, they have a biblical creationist (young earth) bent.  In this particular entry, Scordova relies heavily on two articles written on Kent Hovind's Creation.com.  Neither site has proven to me their trustworthiness and this post is no exception.  

Scordova starts by listing Bill Nye's request for a mammal to be demonstrated in the "trilobite layers" (the Paleozoic).  This author seems to be one of those creationists that denies the geologic column (unlike many creationists), so one wonders if he understood Nye's request.  When he begins to present his evidence that would absolutely change Nye's mind, we know that he did not understand Nye's request.  Quoting extensively from Calvin Smith's The so-called ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ at Creation.com, he begins to attempt to prove that mammals are contained in "dinosaur rock".

"Dinosaur rock"?  When Nye said "trilobite layers", he clearly understood that he was talking about the Paleozoic Era.  Dinosaurs and mammals first show up in the beginning of the next era, the Mesozoic Era, which Smith refers to three times as "dinosaur rock".  So what is the big deal? Google Books has a book from 1979 called Mesozoic Mammals and those authors note a 1854 discovery of a Mesozoic mammal.  This is not even listed as the first discovery.   I grew up on PBS, Discovery Channel, Walking with Dinosaurs, and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts.  My children watch a PBS show called Dinosaur Train which teaches about these mammals along with dinosaurs and birds.  

Well, according to Smith, unlike my family, "Many people are surprised when they hear of these creatures being buried together and wonder why they never heard of it before."  Good question, why are the public not as educated on this subject as maybe they should be?  Perhaps, the Mesozoic needs to be taught better in schools.  Perhaps more children need to watch Dinosaur Train.  Well as you may expect, Smith has another answer quoting from one of Carl Werner's interviews.  Dr. Donald Burge notes that he does not have the time to process the fossils.  Burge specializes in reptiles and dinosaurs so he does not have the time or expertise to sort through the extra 20,000 pounds of clay containing mammal fossils.  

In his book, Werner argues that Mesozoic mammal fossils are constantly misidentified, because they actually belong to Cenozoic families.  Werner draws his conclusions not from professional research, but from combing through tens of thousands of photos his wife took at museums.  The 2001 Burge quote suggests to Werner and Smith that there are fossils of modern mammals coexisting with dinosaurs and they are just falling through the cracks due to massive evolutionary bias.  In the Uncommondescent blog, Scordova demonstrates his lack of understanding by taking it a step further.

So is there a possibility anomalies are edited out and instead a practice of false reporting (perhaps innocently done) has been perpetuated. They probably think something like: “We found a mammal, that’s clearly contamination because we know mammals aren’t in that era”. So thus we never hear official reports of the anomalies because the anomalies are regarded as contaminants since according to the false narrative, certain creatures didn’t live in certain eras.

Again, Mesozoic mammals have been known for at least a century and a half.  In the comment section of Smith's article someone makes this point.  Smith responds with this anecdote.

Your statement "...this comes as no surprise to anyone." is absolutely incorrect. I can tell you from personal experience that I have met many hundreds of people (both creationists and evolutionists) that have been exposed to this type of information at CMI presentations that were completely surprised by the fact that birds like ducks and mammals like platypus and beavers etc lived with dinosaurs.

Maybe these people should watch more Dinosaur Train?  Museums are filled with fossils that need to be studied.  I have little doubt that there are more people digging up mammal fossils than there are qualified researchers studying them.  However, the claim that paleontologists are missing modern mammals, this I doubt.  I'll deal with the following misconception in my next blog.

To the surprise of many, ducks,1 squirrels,2 platypus,3beaver-like4 and badger-like5 creatures have all been found in ‘dinosaur-era’ rock layers along with bees, cockroaches, frogs and pine trees. Most people don’t picture a T. rex walking along with a duck flying overhead, but that’s what the so-called ‘dino-era’ fossils would prove!