Sarfati story, Hind limbs on modern cetaeans & email manners

Hi,
I'm new to the list, or rather was on it years ago and just rejoined. I
noticed a discussion about the young-earth creationist, Sarfati (or was it
"Socrates" at tweb? -- are they different people or one and the same?) and
his email manners, two or three months ago in the ASA forum. I have my own
story to add concerning Sarfati:

About a year ago I read several articles at aig.org (Answers in Genesis
website) that attempted to debunk evidence for cetacean evolution, but one
article in particular attempted to debunk the claim that modern day
cetaceans had been found with hind leg rudiments. According to the AiG
author he could find no evidence of such things in the scientific
literature. All that AiG had been able to find was a photo of a diseased
pelvis of a Right whale, and the author claimed there was no evidence that
the diseased bone in question was actually a pelvis, nor any evidence that
the small protrusions extending from it on either side were rudimentary
femurs.

So I did some research of my own and obtained a few articles on hind limb
rudiments that are occaisionally found on modern day cetaceans, and I
posted the findings and photos and dissection drawings of a healthy Right
whale's pelvis, femur and tibia bones, at

http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/whale_evolution.html

My webmaster was proud of the page she had put together and emailed
Sarfati at AiG and asked him to respond to the evidence since the article
questioned several AiG articles.

Sarfati's "response" to my webmaster included him referring to me as
"Blabinski" (instead of "Babinski"). Sarfati wrote, "Blabinski manages to
miss the point of the [AiG] article," and added, "it's laughable from my
perspective as a Ph.D. scientist (earned from a secular university) to
hear non-scientists like you and Blabinski try to lecture me on
science..." [Ironically, the sources I quoted were scientists who had
studied cetaeans far more deeply than Sarfati had, but Sarfati continued
to attack my credibiliy, as if that allowed him to reject the evidence out
of hand. - Ed.] Sarfati wrote, "What qualifications does Babinski have?
Actually, I know the answer to that -- zip, nada, zilch." [I have a
Bachelor's in Biology from Fairleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey. -
Ed.] Sarfati continued, "He's an affable enough person during emails, but
his main claim to fame is as an editor of a book of "anti-testimonies" by
assorted apostates. And he writes other junk... I haven't the slightest
confidence that these reports are any more than more of the same wishful
thinking... This time-wasting apostate deserves nothing but obscurity." He
ended with, "I trust that you will also appreciate the immense busyness
operating here; we have about 25,000 visitors to our site every day, and
I'm finishing a book. So I hope you will understand that we can't possibly
respond to all claims disseminated by every God-hater inhabiting the
darker hovels of the Internet..."

I sent Sarfati an invitation to look at the evidence, photos, dissection
diagrams for himself. He has not yet said what he makes of the evidence
for hind limb rudiements found on modern day whales. In fact, in the
dissection of the Right whale at my site, Struthers found the hip bone
connected to the leg bone, connected to the shin bone, by ligaments, as
exists in ALL modern day Right whales, hidden inside their flesh:
"Nothing can be imagined more useless to the animal than rudiments of hind
legs entirely buried beneath the skin of a whale, so that one is inclined
to suspect that these structures must admit of some other interpretation.
Yet, approaching the inquiry with the most skeptical determination, one
cannot help being convinced, as the dissection goes on, that these
rudiments [in the Right Whale] really are femur and tibia. The synovial
capsule representing the knee-joint was too evident to be overlooked. An
acetabular cartilage, synovial cavity, and head of femur, together
represent the hip-joint. Attached to this femur is an apparatus of
constant and strong ligaments, permitting and restraining movements in
certain directions; and muscles are present, some passing to the femur
from distant parts, some proceeding immediately from the pelvic bone to
the femur, by which movements of the thigh-bone are performed; and these
ligaments and muscles present abundant instances of exact and interesting
adaptation. But the movements of the femur are extremely limited, and in
two of these whales the hip-joint as firmly anchylosed, in one of them on
one side, in the other on both sides, without trace of disease, showing
that these movements may be dispensed with. The function point of view
fails to account for the presence of a femur in addition to processes from
the pelvic bone. Altogether, these hind legs in this whale present for
contemplation a most interesting instance of those significant parts in an
animal -- rudimentary structures." [Struthers, p. 142-143]

 
 
Received on Mon Oct 4 20:32:01 2004