Innovation and Speciation: whale changes (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 13:56 (2740 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't remember where I said environmental change 'initiates' speciation.

Saturday 20 May: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose, but oxygen itself didn’t require the species to appear.” A point which you keep repeating, and to which I keep replying that the drive for improvement (which you call complexity) exploits the new opportunities and leads to speciation. Environmental change (rise in oxygen) = new opportunity; drive for improvement (or complexity) takes over to exploit new opportunity. That is how, in your own words, environment change "initiates" new species.

dhw: You asked us to watch the video, which illustrates how legs, tail, snout and body gradually (in tiny steps) became more and more streamlined for life in the water. However, it doesn’t show the jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling, so why bother with the video in the first place?
DAVID: I find your statement intellectually dishonest. The video was a very shortened animation of the process, just to illustrate how much bodily change was required. There was the opportunity to see the full process over a 45 minute period. I suggested not doing that since the animation showed the magnitude of the required changes. Tiny steps are an animation, not what happened, and I think you understand that.
DAVID: I made a mis-statement. I remembered the '45' but that was the 45 second animation. The long one was 10 minutes.

The 10-minute version only takes longer to show exactly the same changes, and I stand by my statement above. You must have dreamed a version showing the “full process” of jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling. I wouldn’t wish to accuse you of intellectual dishonesty.

dhw: What you are now telling us is that major changes not shown in the video must be saltations. We would need a whale expert to explain the theory, but I have always agreed that saltations must occur in evolution.
DAVID: The gaps require an acceptance of saltations…

I have just told you that I accept saltations.

DAVID: …since there are no forms in tiny steps in the fossil record. Definition from Wiki: "abrupt evolutionary change; sudden large-scale mutation". For me only God can do this because of the need for prior design.

I know the meaning of saltation. It is not synonymous with prior design or an action that can only be performed by God.

dhw: That doesn’t mean they must precede environmental change.
DAVID: Entering a watery environment is environmental change.

I’m glad you now recognize that fact. Originally you informed us that speciation was separate from environment.

DAVID: Polar bears, seals, etc., do it without changing so far. If you are a swimmer ( I am) and can swim underwater, it is easy to understand the requirements for a mammal who lives a good portion of the time under water. It requires more than seal blubber or bear fur.

Yes, that’s why all the changes took place, as the pre-whale opted for an aquatic lifestyle.
How does that prove that the changes were made before the pre-whale entered the water, not forgetting the fact that the changes took place in separate stages over millions of years - as mentioned below?

dhw: Your hypothesis offers us a 3.8-billion-year programme for each pre-whale saltation, or the male and female lying on the beach with their land-animal legs, tail, snout and genitalia as God dabbles, and…then what? He sends them off into the water - for no reason you can think of - brings them back or does the next dabble while they’re still in the water….one separate dabble after another for the next few million years…can’t do it all in one go…must do it, though, in order to keep life going until he can produce humans?
DAVID: I love your imagination! I simply take the fossil record for what it is and what it suggests. I accept God in charge. I don't know why He created aquatic mammals which require so many phenotypic changes. Maybe He wanted to explore the challenge of creating them? So we really don't know 'how' He did it but the 'why' He did it is aquatic balance of nature.

You don’t “accept” God in charge, you hypothesize God in charge, and you have told us there are only two ways in which God can be in charge: either by preprogramming or by dabbling every innovation, lifestyle etc. The above scenario simply links the facts to your hypothesis: the pre-whale turned into the whale by stages over several million years, it didn’t happen “in one go”, and you think God did it, though his one and only purpose was to produce humans. (For the umpteenth time: the balance of nature is merely another way of saying that all organisms contribute to the continuation of life.) How else can you link the facts to your hypothesis? The illogicality of it all is due to the hypothesis itself, not to my imagination.