# Symbiosis does not develop over time **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 3, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054 "2013-06-03T18:29:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/121 "2013-06-06T23:05:47Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Is this supposed to imply ‘you don’t know how whales breed, so I can say it happens however I like?’ Because that’s what it implies. Anyway it’s not that hard to find YouTube videos of whales breeding. It _is_ hard to find a credible explanation of how these tiny bones have anything to do with whales reproducing. Again I refer you to the two tiny bones that snakes use for reproduction. Homologous parts should not be hard for the evolutionists to grasp, that is mentioned in almost every unit (in the school books) on evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/122 "2013-06-06T23:09:54Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Those two tiny bones are used for reproduction. Describe exactly how they are used in reproduction. Of course, this is completely nonsense, as has been said. Vestigial leg bones in whales are entirely internal. In very rare cases, rudimentary external legs may be present. If only a few individuals have them, and they are used in reproduction, then how do the others reproduce?:dubious: > [@](#): > > Snakes have them too. They are not vestigial, nor remnants of legs… Boas and pythons have highly reduced pelvic bones and femurs; the femurs generally appear externally on either side of the vent as as tiny spurs, and in this case are used in reproduction. However, several other kinds of snakes including the blind and thread snakes (Typhlopidae adn Leptotyphlopidae) also have vestigial pelvic or leg bones, but in this case the bones are entirely internal and not used in reproduction. **reef shark** , you really shouldn’t just regurgitate what you read on creationist websites. Most of it is outright fabrication, and the rest is misinterpreted. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/123 "2013-06-06T23:10:04Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Those two tiny bones are used for reproduction. Snakes have them too. They are not vestigial, nor remnants of legs… This is incorrect for whales. In whales, the hip bones are not attached to the vertebra, cannot move, and are invisible from the outside. You are very wrong about whales. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/124 "2013-06-06T23:11:50Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I will get specific editions for you, give me some time. Thanks. I will be very interested to learn how whales use their vestigial legs in reproduction. I’m sure there’s a ground-breaking paper in _Science_ there.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/125 "2013-06-06T23:13:13Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Again I refer you to the two tiny bones that snakes use for reproduction. Consider the size of a snake and the size of a whale. The structures you’re talking about don’t scale up. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/126 "2013-06-06T23:23:30Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Consider the size of a snake and the size of a whale. The structures you’re talking about don’t scale up. Or the simple fact that he’s provided no proof, at all, other than “hey, those bones look similar!” By that logic, since flying fish can leap out of the water and glide for a bit due to their fins, all fish can. QED, all fish can fly. Oy vey. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/127 "2013-06-06T23:25:38Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > How do you think whales reproduce? Do you happen to have a bunch of videos recording it? Im guessing no. You guess wrong, as usual. Here ya go. [Sperm whale copulation.](http://www.arkive.org/sperm-whale/physeter-macrocephalus/video-12a.html) [Belugas mating](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fm0TMVxnw) [Killer whales mating](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzSXGPslEQ) Please point out the vestigial legs in these videos. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/128 "2013-06-06T23:34:00Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Those two tiny bones are used for reproduction. Snakes have them too. They are not vestigial, nor remnants of legs… This has some disturbing implications for human vestigiality. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/129 "2013-06-06T23:37:58Z")
[The funny thing about this excuse is that all you have to do is look at a whale skeleton or a diagram of a whale’s body and you see it’s ridiculous.](http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/lessons/xenosmilus/skeletal_res_manual2.html) These structures are tiny and they are clearly not going to be useful in some kind of display or holding another whale in place during sex. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/130 "2013-06-06T23:41:14Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > My point was that although it’s an obligate mutualism, it’s not a symbiosis in the sense that a lichen or a coral/zooanthellae relationship is. Also, it’s a service-resource mutualism, rather than a resource-resource mutualism like the latter. > > **reef shark** keeps using the words symbiosis and mutualism as if they were synonymous, which they are not. He doesn’t really know what they mean. That doesn’t keep him from making assertions about them, though. Well, oops: I don’t either! I had thought the fig/fig-wasp deal was a proper symbiosis, so, as the nice lady said, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/131 "2013-06-06T23:44:45Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > How do you think whales reproduce? Do you happen to have a bunch of videos recording it? Im guessing no. I’ve talked to the keepers at Sea World, and they say no. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/132 "2013-06-07T00:02:09Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Again I refer you to the two tiny bones that snakes use for reproduction. Homologous parts should not be hard for the evolutionists to grasp, that is mentioned in almost every unit (in the school books) on evolution. You mean the concept of homologous parts that arises solely as a side effect of evolution? Homologous structures that make sense ONLY in light of evolutionary history? You’re trying to claim that homologous structures somehow provide evidence for creationism? Then DO explain, pray, why exactly God went to the trouble of giving whales leg bones that don’t hook up to anything, are invisible and immobile, and seem to provide very strong evidence for whales being related to land animals, rather than being special creations of God, perfectly and intelligently designed for their niche. I would SO love to be enlightened. This is ignoring the fact that your entire statement is absolute rubbish, since other posters have covered that nicely already. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/133 "2013-06-07T00:04:24Z")
By the way, you don’t even understand your own side’s lies correctly. The standard creationist party line is not that the bones are somehow used in mating, analogous to the python claspers. The claim they usually make (which is still a lie, of course) is that the whale leg bones are necessary to support the weight of the uterus inside the whale…somehow. Again, there’s no evidence for this idea either, but at least it’s not laughably disprovable in a moment’s YouTube search. Huh. I even understand creationism better than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/134 "2013-06-07T00:28:43Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I will get specific editions for you, give me some time. Thanks. No problem, I’ll wait. In the meantime, [here is an online textbook for 6th-grade science](http://www.glencoe.com/ose/), used in the public school district of Lebanon, Tennessee. It too makes no mention whatsoever of abiogenesis. It does describe the Big Bang theory, but nowhere presents it as an established fact. On the contrary, it explicitly discusses alternative models to the Big Bang, and does not make any assertions at all about how the physics of the early universe is thought to have worked. To recap: so far the score stands at 0 to 2 for examples of modern US public school science textbooks presenting abiogenesis and the Big Bang as fact, versus examples of modern US public school science textbooks that **don’t** present either one of them as fact. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/135 "2013-06-07T01:06:50Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > You’re saying a horse evolved from…a horse??? Of course. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/136 "2013-06-07T03:06:56Z")
What’s the problem with saying the Big Bang is a fact? It’s about as factual as anything else in this world. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/137 "2013-06-07T03:31:48Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, oops: I don’t either! I had thought the fig/fig-wasp deal was a proper symbiosis, so, as the nice lady said, never mind. Sometimes relationships like that may be considered a symbiosis in a loose sense, but I think it’s more proper to restrict the term where the organisms live in close physical contact their entire lives, as in lichens and corals. Female fig wasps fly great distances looking for new figs to pollinate. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/138 "2013-06-07T04:41:48Z")
**Colibri** : cool! Thank’ee! At least that much ignorance has been removed from the world. **Smeghead** : I hadn’t heard that “explanation” for the whale’s internal limb bones. But I do like the way that the creationist stance is constantly evolving. Why, it’s even creating information from random interactions. Variation can come from putting 100 liars in a room…and selection comes from the stupid ones getting laughed out again. (Formally, not calling anyone here a liar. The Creation Research Institute, yes.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/139 "2013-06-07T05:00:34Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Gen 1:28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful . . . So it’s **not** an Abomination! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054/140 "2013-06-07T13:36:03Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > What’s the problem with saying the Big Bang is a fact? It’s about as factual as anything else in this world. Yeah, I’d love to hear what the alternate explanations are. Everywhere we look in the sky we see super hot plasma behind all the stars. What other process filled the universe with that plasma? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/symbiosis-does-not-develop-over-time/660054.md?page=8)