Natures wonders: bacteria can spear amoebas (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, August 27, 2017, 19:48 (2643 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: It is easier to migrate on land to find food than change body form to totally live in water. There is no way to avoid that fact. The whales are a major reason why I state that evolution pursued complexity for complexity's sake.

dhw: But according to you it is not “evolution” that pursues anything. It is God, because according to you it is God who engineers all the changes. So now you have God pursuing complexity for complexity’s sake. At least that makes a change from God designing every organism for the sake of keeping life going until he can design the human brain. You admit that you don’t understand the history of the whale. The fact that it would have been “easier” to migrate on land doesn’t mean pre-whales should have migrated on land. Clearly their migration to water was successful. And so they stayed in the water, and step by step they changed their body form to make the migration even more successful. Why is that so difficult to believe?

I think both concepts of complexity and brain fit what we see. There is no question the process of evolution (driven by God) produces complexity. Your approval of the concept improvement runs into a problem. How do you define improvement and prove the point? The bacteria didn't need improvement yet here we are. From the survivability standpoint are we an improvement? Probably not. As for the brain, it is the most complex object in the universe. As for the whales, the biologic complexities and challenges clearly deny your 'lala land' approach that they simple wandered into the water and changed.

DAVID: Polar bears live in the water and eat there, but they have not been modified. We see two different examples of following the food. I still don't understand whales.
DAVID: It seems reasonable to assume that polar bears epigenetically adapted to their environment. They can and do breed with brown bears, as many hybrids have been seen, so they are not genetically much different. Whales exhibit enormous physiologic an phenotypic changes that are much more than epigenetic adaptation.

dhw: I am not saying bear modifications were as great as whale modifications. I am simply pointing out that both species underwent modifications in accordance with the demands of their new environment. Neither you nor I know where the borderline exists between adaptation and innovation.

Innovation brings new species. Adaptation is finches beaks. Genetic studies show they are all one species.