The Walking Whale of Pakistan Ambulocetus Natans, the name means “the swimming whale who walks”, is a remarkable creature discovered in Pakistan recently. The discovery was made by the Geological Survey of Pakistan, working with Professors Hans Thewissen of Northeast Ohio University and Taseer Hussain of Howard University. Of, course what they found was the petrified skeleton of an ancient creature as Ambulocetus has been extinct for about 50 million years.
The significance of this find is huge. Prior to this, no one has found a creature that could link land mammals who walk on four feet with the whales whose appearance and seagoing ability is amazing. Ambulocetus, and its close relation Pakicetus, turned out to be that transitional form. It is a creature midway between the two, with four limbs but a body that is streamlined for swimming. It looks like a mammal version of a crocodile, and its bones were found in the sediments of an ancient freshwater site. This find, and several others in South Asia, confirmed that whales originated in the waters around the subcontinent. 50 million years ago India was a separate continent, and its eventual collision with Asia would push up the Himalayas.
For Christian fundamentalists, this gap in the fossil record between land mammals and whales was a major point they made against the scientific view of evolution of species. Duane Gish, one the most prominent “creationists”, who believes that all life was created in 6 days by God about 6000 years ago as described in the Bible, harped on this point. At his talks he would show a slide of a ridiculous creature made up of the front half of a whale and the rear of a cow. Michael Behe and Dean Kenyon, two other prominent critics of evolution, went so far as to claim that scientists would never find a transitional creature between land mammals and whales.
Now they have been proven wrong, which of course will not change their minds. They believe in a “God of the Holes”. For them, nature is inherently deficient, and God sits in these holes and connects one aspect of nature to another. For primitive men, there were many holes that were filled by God or Gods. For the ancient Greeks, the Sun traveled across the sky because of the daily travels of the Sun God Apollo. Sickness and disease was ascribed to the punishment of God, as was flood and drought. But as science advanced, natural explanations for these events came forth. The holes, the aspects of nature that we don’t understand or can’t explain, gradually filled in. The creation of all the variety of life on Earth is one of those holes, and the theory of evolution filled it, displacing the idea of a sudden creation of all life. Christian fundamentalists bitterly resist this, partly because it would force them to acknowledge that Genesis is not literally true, and partly because so many of the prominent evolutionary scientists today are atheists (although Charles Darwin was not).
Muslims have a less hostile view of the findings of modern science. In fact, there are many Muslim writers that have pointed out Quranic passages consistent with modern scientific knowledge in astronomy, biology, and natural history. On the other hand, some Muslims attempt to “prove” God’s existence through the unexplained mysteries of nature. There is a trap here if one indulges this concept of a “God of the Holes”. If one chooses to base their belief in God on the unexplained aspects of nature, then what will happen when those holes gets filled?
There is another approach. In my view, one cannot use anything within nature to prove or disprove the existence of something outside of nature, namely God. A consequence of this is to accept that nature is whole and complete, it does not have defects. Scientists in fact marvel at how nature is put together. From subatomic building blocks and four basic physical forces, an incredibly vast and ordered universe is constructed and operates.
A standard argument for the existence of God is the “argument from design”. This says that if you see something that is complex such as a watch or a car, it clearly implies the existence of a watchmaker or a carmaker. Similarly, the existence of the universe in all its complexity implies the existence of a creator.
But that does not go far enough. If I were to be a carmaker, I could make two kinds of cars. The first car has its own engine, and a driver simply starts the engine and the car is capable of propelling itself down the road. The other car has no engine. However, when a driver gets in the car I physically push the car myself wherever he wants to go. Both cars run, but the second has an obvious deficiency, which requires my personal effort to overcome. Those who believe in a “God of the Holes” are essentially saying that nature is like a car with no engine. God is constantly making it work. It is God who physically moves the raindrop from the cloud onto my head, or turns the acorn into an oak tree, and we are deluding ourselves when we try to explain these events strictly within the framework of natural laws acting on physical matter. But this seems to be a view that limits the majesty and power of God. Why is he not fully capable of creating a universe with a working engine, so to speak? In fact, I think he did, and he subtly said so in the Quran, where he points out that the creation of the Heavens and the Earth were a much grander act than the creation of man.
Ambulocetus is a remarkable creature. It has filled one of the holes in the fossil record. I look forward to hearing more from the intrepid scientists as they shed light on how the whales came to be, and these new finds will not affect one bit my belief in God. I am reminded of the words of Galileo, whose proof that the Earth moves around the Sun got him into trouble with the Catholic Church, “Religion teaches us how to go to Heaven, not how the Heavens go.”
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