Innovation and Speciation: whale changes (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 31, 2017, 15:14 (2735 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I have trouble finding the right descriptive terms. There was a small spinal change which did not change the species in any major way, but is interpreted as a preparatory alteration for later bipedalism. Better?

dhw: Much better, thank you. What remains open is whether the change may have resulted in a minor improvement, and if it didn’t, why on earth your God would make a totally useless change when according to you he was obviously perfectly capable of dabbling useful changes, as he proved over the next few million years.

You miss the point. Planning is involved. The small change is in preparation for larger changes to come. Much of my discussion about Darwin is he expected fossil finds which would fill the gaps. They never appeared, but this spinal change may be evidence that some itty-bity steps were taken, not related to immediate improvement.