Welcome to the weird (pseudo) science of whale blowhole evolution. Another “proof” of mutation is the ‘migrating’ nostril or blowhole of the whale. This really is Just So Story nonsense.
To link the lungs with the external nostril or blowhole there must be a hole in the upper part of the skull, the skeletal narial aperture. Through this hole a tube travels from the lungs to the source of the air.
The illogical myth is that whales stopped needing to wipe their noses. So, their noses migrated from the where noses should be to the top of their heads. And then became blowholes. The story had to add that the nostril hole (narial aperture) in the skull obviously had to move in whales in parallel with the migration of the nostril back to the blowhole.
So we should find fossils showing this travelling hole in the skulls of whales. At first it was at the front of the snout, as in Lassie. Then, as the nostrils moved backwards to the top of the skull, as in Flipper.
Aquatic Animals and the Blowhole Myth
But what of all the aquatic creatures in the world which would also benefit from this imaginary mutation. Think of crocodiles, seals, seal lions, walruses, dugongs, sea otters, otters, beavers, coypu, capybaras, turtles, snorkel divers.
Some spend all their lives in the water. Those that come to land for breeding would not be disadvantaged by a blowhole. But once the theory had been created obviously fossil records had to be found that absolutely proved it.
All sane whales – especially the sperm whale family – physeter macrocephalus and his dwarf and pigmy cousins – however disprove this, as you shall learn. No nostrils migrated; no blowholes developed; no narial apertures followed.
Whale Skull Series and Transitional Claims
Ad nauseam and ad absurdum, we are shown sets of whale skulls to ‘show’ that the blowhole moved. From being a nostril at the very front tip all the way back to the top of the whales’ head.
The skulls exhibited start with our little poodle-Pakicetus with its nostrils at the very front end of its little snout. The next fossil skull shown is nearly always of my friend, Aetiocetus. This shows a large jagged hole half way up its partially discovered snout. On the origin fossil it looks as if it was made by a pick axe – but it is a little old remember.
The last skull is that of a grey whale with a hole in the skull far back, just beneath where true blowholes are sited.
Whale Blowhole Evolution: Problems With the Aetiocetus Skull
Now the all-important Aetiocetus skull has several issues. Its hole appears rather like a smashed, un-interpretable wound. Secondly, that damaged part-skull found could also have had perfectly normal, pig or poodle nostrils.
This is because – absolutely astonishingly only years later – we are told that the tip of the snout was never found. Note that carefully please: you can see that the tip of its snout is missing. By chance there is that great ragged hole smashed into the snout just below its eyes. Hey, man, that’s is narial aperture. Must be. Prove me wrong!
So, this find allowed speculation about whether it had nostrils or a blowhole. They used a plastic model with a full front tip added on to this skull (specifically with no nostrils) to support their faith that there might be a midway ‘transitional’ blowhole halfway up towards the eyes. They of course succeeded. Obviously, the money was behind them.
But, if and when found alive and well in Loch Ness, the Aetiocetus will almost certainly have nostrils and then be consigned to the silence chamber.
Now a third problem is that some reconstructions of Aetiocetus have had this midway hole neatly smoothed and filled. I got the impression that it was a neat rounded narial aperture. However, the Aetiocetus which many exhibit is not so modified and shows its jagged non-descript pickaxe injuries clearly – as do honest replicas.
And, of course, unabashed, the ‘perfect series of intermediaries’ parade remains gospel.
Why Aetiocetus Does Not Fit as Transitional
Why? Because they speaketh out the truth.
Why should Aetiocetus not have a nice civilised nose at the very front, like seals, walruses, dugongs, crocodiles, sea otters, hippos and thousands of species who spend nearly all their lives swimming. Alternatively, why should Aetiocetus not have a nice civilised blowhole high above its eyes like thousands of whale species today.
Not one creature on the planet today has a nose halfway anywhere. Why should the Aetiocetus? A nose just there would have been a real nuisance. Just imagine blowing it. More important, you would drown when breathing unless you held you head far out of the water or arched your neck so as to contract whiplash or have a permanently stiff neck.
Thus the said late great uncle Aetiocetus was in no way an intermediate form showing blowhole migration. Today there are hundreds of thousands of whales swimming around with their skeletal narial aperture in the same mid-way position as claimed for Aetiocetus. Compare the links.
Whale Blowhole Evolution: Big Brother’s Nose Knows
More revealing is the sad fact that for years Ambulocetus had been depicted with two unproven nostril dents on its skull half way up to its eyes. In other words, it looks very similar to Aetiocetus.
So we had absolute unambiguous proof that at least two sorts of whaley-walking-walrus-crocodilian somethings had migratory narial apertures and were mutating towards blowholes – until the plastic models were again admitted to be generalisations of speculated presumptions.
Speculative Reconstructions of Ambulocetus
And, shiver someone’s timbers, the experts have now agreed that the narial evidence of the Ambulocetus model shown in thousands of exhibits was precisely ‘speculative’. Every exhibit shows a blowhole/nostril halfway up its snout.
But, diagrams of the actual find show clearly that again half the upper snout – is missing. That very place in which we are shown a midway blowhole nostril was missing, as in ‘not there’, in the original finds. Very honestly, the experts agreed, ‘We did not find the tip of the snout.’ That means that it may well have had nostrils at the tip of its snout – yes, like Lassie, the sheep dog.
Duh? The expert has admitted that there is no evidence at all that Ambulocetus had nostrils anywhere. Yet, go find an Ambulocetus exhibit and you will still see ocular proof of non-existent midway nostrils. Why did the models not show that the fossils of the Aetiocetus and Ambulocetus were found without snout tips? Nobody knowses.
Yet we have swallowed the whale’s tale and all believe absolutely in the models provided by academia rather than the living evidence. This is arrant nonsense; a whale of a tall tale.
We now know that the noses are supposition and the tails are supposition – would that not lead you to suspect that the middle bits might have some hereditary genetic problems? I think every fossil should be tested with a blow torch to make sure it is not all plastic.
We all know that dead whales tell no tales. But to force them into perjury is really not quite right, old chap.
Ear, Ear, What Have We Got ’Ere
The whole whale tale started, as mentioned, with the discovery of a crushed ear bone in a tiny poodle/hyena/deer beastie. The discoveries did not at all show any clear similarity to the ear bones in the true whale but somebody thought that it might. So that became scientific fact.
However, in more recent interviews and discussions the actual progenitors of the theory and source of thousands of plastic models and exhibits showing how whales came from small mammals, seem openly to admit that their evidence is ‘questionable’. It is seems that earlier presumptions may have been too hasty.
When asked about this evidence, scientists have agreed that it was ‘as questionable’ as other claims made for the fossils. Indeed even an amateur can see that the true whale’s ear has a resounding chamber – the inner involucrum – of a specific shape and quality –- with an outer ‘Sigmoid process’ – uniquely shaped outer shell.
The fossils of small mammals with legs and no tail and no whale features – called proto-whales – actually have turned out not to have had such ear structures. The squashed bit simply looked a little like … … This situation is commonplace in our examination of the evidence presented for mutation, so I shall not dwell on it.
Whale Blowhole Evolution: Baleen Balony
Regrettably, the Aetiocetus is also sold not only as the remarkable, incredible, earth-shattering, true messiah of evolutionism but also as the intermediary between the ‘earlier’ toothed whales and the ‘later’ baleen whales – those whales with huge rigid, filtering things instead of teeth.
Why? Because even though Aetiocetus had very nasty chomp-chomp type of teeth and no baleen at all – just teeth – microscopic linear lines in its fragmented and smashed part-skull might resemble the marks made by tiny blood vessels that feed the baleen in today’s whales. There you are – yaa boo. Absolute proof. It had teeth and baleen and therefore must be an intermediary.
The problem is that a beast with teeth such as Aetiocetus would eat only big, juicy and crunchy things – as in ‘Jaws’. But baleen just does not help you eat film stars, it is designed for krill. Teeth tear up film stars but let out krill.
Teeth and baleen are mutually exclusive because teeth somehow joined by baleen would be impeded in their bite, and baleen interrupted by teeth would not seal sufficiently to allow the vast tongue to squeeze the water through it and trap all the krill. The whales would have starved to death or at least spent weeks in dental surgeries.
This is extremely high level, complex science. In Darwinian logic, if both functions were compatible all whales would have them both in order to maximize their range of diet; yet no whale we can imagine eats krill for breakfast and film stars for tea.
The Peddlers Keep Peddling Nonsense
Think the above is a caricature? It has happened again and again. The pattern is that one or two apparent details are used to create a theory. The theory is then trumpeted as being the solution to fill a missing link in the evolutionary myth. Then, even if there is an alternative explanation or more is found out which completely disproves this – everyone sidles silently away and the trumpeted ‘proof’ is repeated ad nauseam.
Now what was that mantra I was harping on about …?
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