Evolution speculates how whales evolved from some earlier creature. It's difficult to imagine how mammals could evolve in the sea (mammals are defined as warm-blooded animals with a spine and that bare and suckle their young). It is suggested that whales evolved from some earlier land-based mammal which later moved into the sea. Darwin himself set the ball rolling by suggesting that whales descended from some kind of bear – a suggestion that he later deleted from his famous book ‘The Origin of Species’ chapter 6.  Perhaps even he found it difficult to take seriously.

Should we take it seriously? What is the evidence? What sort of mechanism could account for such a fantastic change?

The only mechanism available in the current theory of evolution, are tiny changes in the DNA of the creature involved. These tiny changes (‘mutations’) are accidental changes to just one or two letters of the DNA code. These changes are known to be either neutral, too small to have any effect at all, or damaging. Occasionally it is thought they might produce some useful characteristic which changes the creature in some way.  It is admitted that these changes are highly unlikely – in fact, when challenged, evolutionists have had problems identifying even just one mutation which has been beneficial. Nevertheless, the story of evolution is the story of how a succession of these highly unlikely beneficial mutations could, over a long period of time, produce a new animal altogether, with very different DNA.

What changes would be required for this small, four-legged, land-based animal (like a bear or wolf perhaps? ) to evolve into an extremely large marine animal like the blue whale? Here is a short list:  (acknowledgements to Jonathan Sufarti)

Changes required:

1    Enormous lung capacity with efficient oxygen extraction

      for long dives.
2   A powerful tail with large horizontal flukes to enable very 

      strong swimming.
3   Eyes ‘designed’ to see properly in water with its far higher

      refractive index, and to withstand high pressure.
4   Ears different to those of land mammals (that pick up 

       airborne sound waves) with the eardrums protected from

       high pressure.
5   Skin lacking hair and sweat glands but incorporating 

      fibrous fatty ‘blubber’.
6   Whale fins and tongues have counter-current heat-

      exchangers to minimise heat loss.
7   Nostrils on top of head (‘blowholes’).
8   Specially fitting mouth and nipples so that the baby whale

      can be fed underwater.
9   Baleen whales have sheets of baleen (whalebone) that 

      hang from the roof of the mouth and filter plankton for

      food.
10  Echolocation: many cetaceans have an extremely 

       precise sonar system. ('Cetacean' is the name of the order

       that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises).
11   Special vocal organs and ‘language’ to allow underwater

       communication (eg: dolphin ‘clicks’ and whale ‘song’).
12   Weight gain!  A 100-foot blue whale weighs about 400,000

       lbs. Clearly the metabolism required to support such a 

       massive creature is utterly different to that of a supposed

       small wolf-like ancestor. (Note: why is the whale so big? Is 

       it really an advantage in the struggle for survival to be so 

       big – the evidence of the dinosaurs suggests not).

Here is just one of those features described in more detail: 

10.   Echolocation
'One amazing feature of most echo-locating dolphins and small whales is the ‘melon’, a fatty protrusion on the forehead. This ‘melon’ is actually a sound lens – a sophisticated structure designed to focus the emitted sound waves into a beam which the dolphin can direct where it likes. This sound lens depends on the fact that different lipids (fatty compounds) bend the ultrasonic sound waves traveling through them in different ways. The different lipids have to be arranged in the right shape and sequence in order to focus the returning sound echoes. Each separate lipid is unique and different from normal blubber lipids, and is made by a complicated chemical process, requiring a number of different enzymes.