Whales and dolphins are classified as mammals because, just like terrestrial mammals, they give live birth, suckle their young, breathe with lungs and are warm-blooded. But the origin of marine mammals is one of the most difficult questions facing evolutionists.
Most evolutionist sources describe how the land-dwelling ancestors of seagoing mammals evolved in such a way as to move over to a marine environment as the result of a lengthy evolutionary process. According to this claim, marine mammals followed a path diametrically opposed to the transition from water to dry land, returning to a marine environment as the result of a second process of evolution. However, this theory is based on no paleontological evidence-and is also logically inconsistent.
Mammals are regarded as the top rung of the evolutionary ladder. That being so, the question arises of how these creatures moved back to a marine environment. A subsequent question is that of how they adapted to that environment even better than fish. Dolphins, which are mammals and thus possess lungs, are even better adapted to their environment than fish, which breathe in water.
It is perfectly obvious that the imaginary evolution of marine mammals cannot be explained in terms of mutations and natural selection. One article published in GEO magazine refers to the origin of the blue whale, stating the despairing position of Darwinism on the subject:
Like blue whales, the bodily structures and organs of other mammals living in the sea also resemble those of fish. Their skeletons also bear similarities to those of fish. In whales, the rear limbs that we can refer to as legs exhibited a reverse development and did not reach full growth Yet there is not the slightest information about these animals' form changes. We have to assume that the return to the sea took place not through a long-term, slow transition as claimed by Darwinism, but in momentary leaps. Paleontologists today lack sufficient information as regards which mammal species whales are evolved from.122
It's difficult indeed to imagine how, as the result of any evolutionary process, a small terrestrial mammal could become a whale 30 meters (98 feet) long and weighing 60 tons.. On this subject, all that Darwinists are able to do is, as in the account published in National Geographic magazine cited below, to exercise their imaginations:
The whale's ascendancy to sovereign size apparently began sixty million years ago when hairy, four-legged mammals, in search of food or sanctuary, ventured into water. As eons passed, changes slowly occurred. Hind legs disappeared, front legs changed into flippers, hair gave way to a thick smooth blanket of blubber, nostrils moved to the top of the head, the tail broadened into flukes, and in the buoyant water world the body became enormous. 123
Bearing in mind the adaptations that a mammal, using lungs to breathe with, would have to undergo in order to thrive in a marine environment, it can be seen that even the word impossible fails to do justice to the situation. The absence of even one rung of the ladder in such an evolutionary transition would deny the animal the ability to survive, and bring the evolutionary process to an end.
Marine Mammals and Their Unique Structures
The adaptations that marine animals would have to undergo during a transition to a water environment can be enumerated as follows:
1. Water Conservation. Marine mammals are unable to meet their water requirements in the same way as fish do, by using salt water. They need fresh water in order to live. Although the water sources of marine animals are not well known, it is thought that they meet a large part of their water requirements by eating creatures that contain up to one-third as much salt as exists in the ocean. For marine mammals, it is of great importance to conserve as much fresh water as possible. For that reason, they possess water conservation mechanisms like that seen in camels.
Like camels, marine mammals do not sweat. Their kidneys provide water for them by concentrating urine in a much better way than in humans, thus reducing water loss to a minimum. Water conservation reveals itself in even the smallest details. For example, the mother whale feeds her young with milk of a dense consistency like that of cottage cheese, and which is some tens of times more fatty than human milk. There are number of chemical reasons why the milk should have such a high fat content. As the young processes the fat it releases water as a byproduct. In this way, the mother is able to meet her young's water requirements with a minimal water loss of her own.
2. Sight and Communication. The differences between the eyes of marine mammals and those of terrestrial life forms are surprising. On land, physical blows and dust represent threats to the eye, and for that reason, terrestrial animals have eyelids. In a marine environment, however, the main dangers are salt level, the increasing pressure when diving down to great depths, and marine currents. The creature's eyes are positioned on the sides of the head in order to avoid direct contact with the current.
In addition, marine mammals have a hard layer to protect the eye during deep dives. Since there is increasing darkness beneath a depth of 9 meters (29 feet), the mammals' eyes have been equipped with a number of features that enable them to adapt to such a dark environment. The lens is spherical. There are many more light-sensitive rod cells than cone cells, which are sensitive to color and detail. Moreover, the eye has a special layer containing phosphorus. For these reasons, marine mammals can see very well in dark environments.
Then again, sight is not marine mammals' primary sense. Unlike land mammals, hearing is much more important to them. Vision requires light, but many whales and dolphins hunt in dark regions under the sea thanks to a kind of natural sonar. Toothed whales in particular are able to "see" by means of the sound waves returning to them, much as a bat can. Sound waves are focused and sent to one point. The returning waves are then analyzed and interpreted in the animal's brain. This analysis quite clearly gives the shape, size, speed and position of an object. These animals' sonar system is exceedingly sensitive. Dolphins, for example, can detect a person's inside diving into the water. They use sound waves for communication as well as for direction-finding. Two whales hundreds of kilometers apart can communicate by the use of sound.
How do these animals produce sounds for communication and direction finding? That question is still unanswered. Among other things, however, we do know one very surprising detail: The dolphin's skull is especially sound-proofed to protect its brain from being damaged by sound waves it emits so constantly and powerfully.
There is absolutely no possibility of all these astonishing characteristics of marine mammals having arisen by way of mutation and natural selection-the theory of evolution's only two mechanisms. Those who suggest that fish appeared in water by chance, and then later-again by chance- emerged onto dry land and evolved into amphibians, reptiles and mammals; and that these mammals then returned to the water and acquired the anatomy necessary for life there, cannot account for even one of these stages.
Indeed, the fossil record shows that whales and other marine mammals appeared in the seas in a single moment and with no ancestors behind them. Edwin Colbert, an authority in the field of paleontology, describes this fact:
These mammals must have had an ancient origin, for no intermediate forms are apparent in the fossil record between the whales and the ancestral Cretaceous placentals. Like the bats, the whales (using the term in a general and inclusive sense) appear suddenly in early Tertiary times, fully adapted by profound modifications of the basic mammalian structure for a highly specialized mode of life. Indeed, the whales are even more isolated with relation to other mammals than the bats; they stand quite alone. 124
As with all other fundamental living groups, no findings support the claim of marine mammals' so-called evolution. It is impossible for them to have evolved from the land mammals that supposedly constitute their ancestors, but also, there are no transitional forms to show that such evolution ever took place.
122. Uwe George, "Darwinismus der Irrtum des Jahrhunderts," Geo, January 1984, pp. 100-102.
123. Victor B. Scheffer, "Exploring the Lives of Whales," National Geographic, Vol. 50, December 1976, p. 752.
124. E.H. Colbert, M. Morales, Evolution of the Vertebrates, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1955, p. 303.