The Evolution of Whales from a Four Footed Land Animal

Does an unplanned evolution have the potential to evolve a multitude of new enzymes required to evolve a four-footed land animal into a whale?

·        Assume that the ancestral population of a four-footed land animal was fewer than 1,000 (10³) individuals per square kilometer of earth’s land surface or fewer than 1.5x10¹¹ individuals,

·        And that all ancestral species had the same population,

·        And that the replacement rate of all ancestors was less than one per individual per year,

·        And that the number of heritable mutations contributed by each individual was fewer than one thousand (10³) mutations,

·        Then the number of heritable mutations generated each year would be fewer than 1.5x10¹⁴ mutations.

·        Whales evolved from an ancestral land animal in less than 30 million (3x10⁷) years.

·        This evolution occurred with fewer than 5x10²¹ heritable mutations.

          The overall probability that fewer than 5x10²¹ heritable mutations could generate a gene coding for a representative enzyme, cytochrome c,¹ is less that 1 chance in 10⁴³ or less than 1 chance in 10 million trillion trillion trillion. Fewer than 5x10²¹ heritable mutations fails to have the potential to reliably order a specific configuration of only 19 L-isomer biological amino acids.

          An unplanned evolution does not have the potential to generate a multitude of new enzymes required for evolving a four-footed land animal into a whale, and believing that it does is illogical, irrational and unscientific.

                                                                                      Fredric P. Nelson, M.D.    © 2020

1. The probability of generation is:  2 chances in 10⁶⁵ tries.

   H. P. Yockey, “A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory.”  J. Theor. Bio. 67 (1977) p. 387, and Table 1, p. 388-390.