Why Evolution Is True By Coyne Summary

The origin of modern day whales, a mystery that has puzzled paleontologists for years, may have just been solved with the discovery of an ankle bone. This discovery might sound simple and unimportant, but the bones of these ancient animals hold many unanswered questions and provide solid proof of origin and behavior. The relationship between whales and other animals has proven to be difficult because whales are warm-blooded, like humans, yet they live in the sea. The fact that they are warm-blooded suggests that they are related to some type of land animal. However, the questions of exactly which animal, and how whales evolved from land to water, have remained unanswered until now.

Why Evolution is True is a book by Jerry A. Coyne about how modern man slowly evolved from single cell organisms. This book has changed my whole perspective of evolution. Before I read this book I was a strong believer in creation but while reading this book I realized that there are to many connections between all of earths animals. I am unable see a scenario where we could share so much of our genes with other creatures and still say that we did not evolve from other animals and were just created by a god.

This assignment will look at the fossil record of whales as an example of empirical evidence for evolution and is inspired by the article “Land-living ancestors of whales” from the “Berkeley: History of Evolutionary Thought” resource for Module 1.

Mainly caused by beneficial mutations, that helped them survive in their current environment. Animals such as the Mesonychids had four powerful limbs, much like dogs or wolves. They also had small hooves at the end of each of their toes. Ambulocetus were similar with dense bones and a long robust tail. Later on in whales evolution their bone structure changes. For example Ambulocetus had squat legs that splayed outward from the body. Zygorhiza the most recent example had front flipper and a fluked tail. Without legs or toes. Much like whales today. This shows how natural selection changes a body to survive best in their

Without a strong long distance swim, a whale’s dorsal fin becomes weakened and will eventually either look bent, curve to the side, or break off.

Overall, Coyne provides the proper evidence and sets up a simple, yet convincing reasoning behind evolution. The main points of the book were presented in a straightforward manner. At the beginning of the book, Coyne thoroughly explains what evolution is. He explains how evolution is considered a “theory” in the world, and often alongside “just a…”.

Beaked whales, which often have dolphinlike snouts rather than blunt muzzles, typically dive hundreds of meters or more to chase squid, fish, and other prey. But at least one ancestral species in this group of toothed whales, also known as ziphiids, was cruising near-surface waters for its meals, new evidence from newly described fossils suggest. Those remains—the first of any toothed whale to also include fossils of its presumed prey, researchers say—were unearthed along the southwestern coast of Peru last year. The rocks that entombed the partial remains of the whale (Messapicetus gregarius, depicted in an artist’s reconstruction, above) accumulated as sea-floor sediments between 8.9 million and 9.9 million years ago, other fossils in the

Results extracted from studying whales and ancestors of suspected fossils, it is evident that whales have evolved from four legged animals that are said to physically resemble now day hyenas. The transition from a completely land animal to a completely marine animal involved but are not exclusive to the spine changing, limbs shortening and nostrils have moved from snout to the top of the head.

The whales couldn’t find any food on land so they adapted their behavior and eventually the way they look to survive in water. Each couple million years the fossils change. Whales started off looking sort of like a wolf. Then, after a while their back bone started to change. At one point whales almost looked like a seal. () Whales over time lost most of their fur, changed from paws to webbed feet to fins, and their nostrils changed into a blow hole. Whales probably adapted early on because some of them were dying off of they needed food so they went in the water to hunt some fish. They were most likely successful at this so they continued to do this, and evolved to make it easier. Whale evolution supports the theory of evolution because you can see the fossils, and how they changed. Also, you see the fossil record and timeline of the organisms. Because of this you see what they looked like, where they lived, and how the adapted. Scientists can make a fossil record of whales because of the rock layers and fossil record. The law of superposition says that any undisturbed sequence of rocks deposited in layers, which means scientists can look at those layers to create a fossil record. You can use absolute and relative dating to find the age of any fossil. Scientists used half life of some type of chemical to find the absolute age of a whale fossil. Also, they looked at fossils and whale relatives to find relative age, like some

When the name Charles Darwin is uttered, an immediate association brings about the concept of Evolution. Although he was not the first to "discover" this phenomenon, he was the first to explain it. In his book, The Origin of Species, Darwin discusses evolution- through variation, why it occurs, the struggle for existence, natural selection, the geological record, and several other topics. This book brought him great recognition as well as many violent attacks. It was written in a time in history when the people were very strong believers in the Church and God. Darwin was the first to contradict their religious beliefs of Creation, and was pummeled with criticism. Although today some still disagree, his explanation of

This fish had already evolved to a point where it had much in common with later land animals. A recently discovered 220-million year old fossil, Odontochelys semitestacea, is further evidence of evolution. This new species of turtle had a fully formed shell on its underside, but only a small partial shell on its back, extending from its backbone. Scientists had long debated how the turtle shell evolved. As well as a partial shell, Odontochelys semitestacea also had ribs that had begun to widen, thus demonstrating that the fully developed shell of later turtles evolved from earlier species’ ribs.

The relationship between the mass of the ossicles and tympanic plate area in the remingtonocetid and protocetid is comparable to the ear anatomy found in modern whales. The odontocete transmits sound by means of a large mandibular fat pad and received by the tympanic plate. Sound passes through the odontocete middle ear by means of two lever-arm systems, and the freely suspended involucrum forms the axis of one of these. In contrast, the pakicetids retain the land mammal morphology of the mandible, remingtonocetids and protocetids have a large mandibular foramen that indicates that the mandibular fat pad was present, and that the tympanic plate was functional during underwater hearing. The contact between periotic and tympanic bones in remingtonocetids

This article shows readers that there is a way to know more about the past and how animal’s fossils can help understand animal evolution. In this article, the author is giving more opinion that evidence, but the

Vestigial structures provide clues about a species’ evolutionary past by helping us to be able to identify species that share a similar common ancestor. A popular example of this with a human is the appendix. To modern humans, the appendix has virtually no use and can be removed with no consequence or ill effect. However, to some of today’s species, such as the rabbit, the appendix is crucial to their survival, as it helps them to more easily digest leaves and other vegetative matter. This has allowed scientists to hypothesize that this means that our distant ancestor’s diet was primarily herbivorous. This in turn as also allowed them to create a second hypothesis that early humans having more meat in their diet is what aided our brains in evolving into the complex and intricate organs that they are today. When we were no longer solely dependent on vegetative matter, the appendix was no longer necessary to our survival, and, as such, became a vestigial structure.

The tilting of the body axes of extant cephalopods. This was a result of a polyphyletic and repeated trend towards enhanced manoeuverability. The morphological body axes (anterior-posterior, dorso-ventral) are tilted perpendicularly against functional axes in the transition towards extant cephalopods.