“Evolution is easy” because living organisms come equipped with built-in mechanisms that boost mutation rates, shuffle genes, or transfer DNA – effectively smoothing the path for adaptation. Examples of such mechanisms are SOS response, horizontal gene transfer, stress induced movements of mobile genetic elements, duplications, epigenetic modifications, developmental plasticity, CRISPR-CAS, masking/releasing cryptic genetic variations, genome restructuring during interspecific hybridization, meiotic recombination etc.
I’ve written about these mechanisms in an earlier thread.
What is the creative power of evolution without these built-in mechanisms? Can evolution create so-called complex biological systems such as the flagellum, vertebrate eye, or photosynthetic machinery without these built-in mechanisms? If yes, show the evidence.
I have been asking the above questions since 2023, and no one here has been able to come up with the evidence, so far.
As @Faizal_Ali stated, that distinction is just human pigeonholing, the nested hierarchy by which we lump creatures together. Consider a case in point.
Hyenas belong to the family Hyaenidae, cats to Felidae, dogs to Canidae. Hyenas are considered more closely related to cats, but superficially, they also look pretty doggish. But what, exactly, is the barrier that precludes Hyenas and Cats evolving from a common ancestor by natural means, but allows for the evolution of say, saber toothed cats and bobcats? And further, what specific and essential two step mutations have been identified which separate cats, hyenas, and canines? Behe’s argument has nothing to do with the accumulation of single step neutral and selectable mutations. The explanatory power of the modern synthesis informed by population genetics appears robust and sufficient.
Yes? At what point does it stop being a pig? More importantly, why should it matter what we call it, as long as its ancestor was a pig but it now has wings? Is this not exactly the sort of thing you think ID is required to accomplish, and is in fact your chosen hallmark of ID?
No, of course not. It merely, by your reasoning, entails that similarly odd transformations are what we expect to see, just not any particular one.
Ah, so we’re back to whales? But your problem here is that the transition from fish to whale is amply documented in the fossil record and involves fairly small steps, just the sort of thing you claim is not what to expect from ID.
Ehh, all it says is you’d have to adapt the pig to flying so it wouldn’t “resemble a pig”. But of course resemblance is in the eye of the beholder (the face of a pig would go a long way, with it’s characteristic flat snout and what not), and comes in degrees. I don’t find the claim that you can’t make a flying pig because the more efficient a flier you make it the less it would resemble a pig-argument persuasive at all.
Not everything on land is an equally good runner.
There are fish living in the ocean with comparatively terrible drag-profiles that live very “sedentary” lifestyles )for lack of me remembering a better word to describe it). Sitting on the bottom or hiding in some coral, being almost entirely a huge head full of teeth, yet camouflaged to look like some sort of seaweed.
And so on and so forth.
The fact is intelligent design should make it possible to move what is otherwise clade-restricted adaptations around to very distantly related organisms. Mammals with feathers. Sharks with mammary glands and primate-like arms that they can squeeze into folds running along the body when they have to swim fast. Archaea with bacterial flagella. We never see this. We only ever see something more and more derived from some ancient structure.
By this token, one could also asked why should it matter to call a human a fish.
I don’t see anything in ID theory that entails we should expect to see odd transformations.
Two problems here. First, you seem unsecured about the notion that the transition to whales documented in the fossil record occurred by the type of small steps traversable by a naturalistic pathway, as shown by your use of the adverb fairly. And for good reasons, given that said transition occurred in only 5 millions years and required profound re-engineering. Below is a description by Gunther Bechly of some of the re-engineering that had to take place:
** forelimbs transformed into flippers, reduction of hind limbs and pelvis, tail transformed into fluke (incl. ball vertebra for vertical movement)*
** re-orientation of the foetus for subaquatic birth (tail-first)*
** modification of mammary glands for nursing under water*
** re-organization of kidney tissue for intake of salt water*
** special lung surfactant (lung has to re-expand rapidly upon coming up to the surface)*
** intra-abdominal counter-current heat exchange system (testes are inside the body next to the muscles that generate heat during swimming)*
Second, I’ve never claimed that under ID we should not expect to see a series of fossils documenting the transition to whale.
If “fish” was a cladistically sound category, then yes. But in English, “fish” refers to all chordates except tetrapods, but not excepting some tetrapods. It’s a mess of a definition, used for a long time to include whales.
The biologically meaningful clade that happens to include all fish is one that does, as a matter of fact, also include humans.
Now it’s your turn: Do we have a spinal column? Do our young feed on their mothers’ milk? Why would we not be categorized among the mammals? Why would we not be categorized among the apes?
Oh? Alright. So what should we expect to see under ID, exactly? What unique testable prediction does it actually make? And how do they stack up against the evidence so far?
Bet you think that’s a real zinger. But of course humans are fish, or, more technically, gnathostomes and sarcopterygians. And so you evade a confrontation with the question yet again.
“ID theory”. Snicker.
Let me put your mind at ease. I am in no way “unsecured”. No problem.
Given the spotty nature of the record in time, we don’t really know how long the transition took. And anyway, the amount of time it took isn’t relevant to the point. This major transition took place by small steps, however short the time. Yet your claim was that these major transitions happen abruptly, through sudden transformation. If we see many intermediate steps, your claim is falsified.
Some of the changes you copied from Bechly show clear intermediates in the fossil record, and others would display no fossil evidence, so we have no way of knowing how the transformation occurred. But none of them are evidence for a sudden or even simultaneous change.
No? Then how does your “ID theory” differ in its predictions from those of unguided evolution?
Sorry, was Bechly (who, recall, was a paleontologist) claiming that these changes all appear abruptly in the fossil record, with no transitional forms evident? That would be shockingly dishonest, even for a member of the Discovery Institute.
Looks to me like there’s space from somewhere in the range of 15 million, to 20 million years, for the transition from the seemingly fully terrestrial ancestor, to Rodhocetus, which is the first to appear fully aquatic.
Heh yes, that is often how they portray these things.
With regards to the fossil record of the whale transition, googling informs me that the earliest Pakicetus fossil is about 50 million years old. There are no pakicetus fossils known 51, 52, 53, 54 etc. million years old. But clearly the species must have had ancestors if we don’t believe in magic creation, and those ancestors must go back all the way to the last common ancestor shared with extant fully terrestrial artiodactyls.
So we have millions of years of no whale ancestors, or any of their representative offshoots during this period. Unless we are willing to believe the whale lineage literally sprang into existence with Pakicetus, it follows there must have been evolution occurring between the last common ancestor of whales and their closest living fully terrestrial species which simply isn’t documented in the fossil record.
The fact that fish and humans belong to the same clade doesn’t mean that humans are fish and you know this of course. So I am curious why you’re making such a strange argument.
What argument? Over the definition of “fish”? There is no one such definition. It can be pedagogically useful to refer to any gnathostome as a fish, and sometimes I do that. It’s hardly a strange definition, unless of course you’re a creationist. Do you think humans are apes? How about monkeys?
Incidentally, I notice that you ignored most of my reply in order to concentrate on the most trivial point. Is that wise?
