http://www.lamaq.ufsc.br/Artigos%20Aqu%E1ticos/Simoes-lopes,%202004.pdf
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jvms/66/7/761/_pdf

The problem with calling something vestigial is that it doesn’t distinguish between a reduced function and a specialized function.

If you call the pelvis vestigial, you should call the forelimbs vestigial. They do not serve the same purpose as in land mammals, but they do serve a specialized purpose for marine living.

If whales had a pelvis like land mammals with bones that connected each side, they would be at a disadvantage. It would be too big of a solid mass and would hinder their swimming motion. It would also hinder the size of their offspring, since mammals give birth through the pelvis – and it is very important for cetaceans to have offspring that are large at birth and ready to go. They wouldn’t survive otherwise.

After participating in actual dinosaur digs, it makes it rather hard to believe the Creationist theory. I believe that the arguments are more based on semantics. Those who hold to those beliefs really prefer the profound and the mystical, rather than hard facts. Evolution does not discount creationism, it just adds time to it.

Many years ago, I sat in a Rabbi’s class about the Bible. At that time his response was that a bunch of men got together and had to come up with an idea of how the earth was formed. Having no computers, or research tools or documents from ages past, they just sat down and worked out the idea that the earth was created in six days and man rested on the seventh. The last day was put in to get their flock to church!

Since that time, Christians have taken the Bible for its word as their own, even though it is the history of the Jewish people. And then they have altered it, taken out definitions and inserted words hundreds of years later to support their claims. The silly thing is that those claims are all based on opinion.

It may seem that I go around the bend on this comment. But the study of time does not make men less spiritual, but more profound as to how things came to be. The information is fascinating and compelling.

What I find silly is that these creatures are so very large and with quite large brains. Man in his own arrogant ways has placed himself at the top of intelligence, when whales circumnavigate the continent, communicate effectively and, silly as it sounds, it’s own feces kick starts the marine food chain.

Life amazes me. Thanks again for the great info.

Interestingly this article
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q122m4p071p0j03t/
used the molecular ‘footprint’ of homeobox gene Hoxa-13 (! sorry – I am a non-geneticist!) to predict where limb loss might occur. Connecting to Jerry’s frog teeth ‘re-evolving’ they mention in the abstract the difficulties of doing this for “lizards, which, as a group, have a history of limb loss and limb re-evolution” which is fascinating!