Different in degree or kind: Egnor's take; more on gaps (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 15, 2016, 15:56 (2750 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: The reference to pre-adaptation becomes very clear once we realize that there have been so many instances of fish venturing out onto dry land, and being able to cope with the problems of movement and of breathing. Fish that live at the bottom of the sea or lake have fins that are “limb-like already”. We are not even talking of innovations here but of adaptations.

Yes, comparatively the anatomy is similar but the fin function is different, although there are walking fish I've mentioned. But they stay fish! And of the instances of brief on land excursions, all but one all stayed fish. That is the proper interpretation of this article. And where did the primitive lung come from while still in the water? That is a key point. The authors are Darwinists who are trying to make it sound easy.

dhw I’m not going to downgrade the difficulty of explaining how all of this led to us (i.e. “the fifth instance that resulted in us”) but if the researchers say the transition from water to land “does not seem particularly hard” in the light of these adaptations, I’m not going to argue.

From my viewpoint I argue. Remember my right to reinterpret!

dhw: We are left with the information that many water-based organisms have made the transition, and crucially the article makes it abundantly clear that the move was made for environmental reasons.

Transient transitions only. Environmental stresses, yes.

dhw: Any “pre-adaptations” would have taken place for those same reasons: loss of oxygen, moving along the seabed, habitat alternating between wet and dry, or drying up altogether. The pattern is clear: need gives rise to change. It’s not change in preparation for need.

Agreed. At times of demonstrated need, organisms adapt. Reznick's guppies with wrong size and wrong place epigenetically adapt to survive. But I still see no need for human brain enlargement. Their ape forbears did just fine until the humans crowded the Earth.

dhw:Or do you think all the environmental changes as well as all these different family responses were dabbled or preprogrammed 3.7 billion years ago? Why so many if God only needed one? Ah, but you “don't believe God follows human logic in what He does.”

No need for your suppositions about God from my expressed viewpoint. From the overall view of all the evidence, God ran evolution by some means and His logic may not follow ours.