Book review of Nature\'s I.Q. (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, August 22, 2009, 17:23 (5370 days ago) @ David Turell

In Nature's IQ the scorpion fish's eating habits are described, as are a number of other predators. The scorpion fish has a dorsal fin that looks like the female fish of its prey. Male fish are attracted and eaten. When full the scorpion fish turns off the attractive color of the fin and stops eating. Obviously, the color comes back when hungry. Did the dorsal fin and its color come in a mutation, and then another mutation arranged to have the color turn off so the fish could rest (or not explode from overeating)? - The angler fish draws prey with a lighted bulb on the end of a stalk that is presumed to represent the mutated first spoke of its dorsal fin. It looks to be about as long as 1/4th-1/5th of body length. It lights up from rare bacteria in the bulb that produce luminescent chemicals. How did evolution arrange for all that? Did it grow the bulb and then invite in the bacteria? Or did it pick up the bacteria first and then grow the bulb to take advantage of the light produced? Is this epigenetic or mutative? - By the way, I've seen one speculative article that state the Chinese paleontologists, where the best Cambrian Shale fossils are far superior to the Canadian (Burgess), are begining to doubt the Darwin Theory. Frankly, I'm not surprised at the speculation. These fossils allow for better understanding as to how complex the critters are.