Natures wonders: zebrafish 360 degree vision (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 25, 2018, 13:58 (2341 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your insistence on the theory of survival is the competition Darwin's theory required. Your thinking is still primarily Darwinist.

dhw: It doesn’t matter two hoots whether my thinking is Darwinist or not! You make it sound as if the very word is a guarantee of wrongness! You asked why this type of vision didn’t appear straight away if it was needed for survival. My answer is that it wasn’t NEEDED for survival, but was an improvement on earlier forms of vision, and so no doubt IMPROVED the zebrafish’s chances of survival. Do you really think survival and improvement play no role in evolution? And in passing, what is your theory? Why didn’t your God design this type of vision when the zebrafish first appeared?

DAVID: I think they were designed this way from their beginning. I still don't buy that survival of the fittest drives evolution. but I agree with you that your 'improvement' or my 'complexity' are the driving forces that took evolution past bacteria.

So it's separate creation and not evolution for zebrafish.
I have never proposed that “survival of the fittest” is the only force that drives evolution, I have always coupled survival with improvement, and since you introduced me to Lynn Margulis’s work, I have been an avid supporter of her theory that cooperation is every bit as important a factor as competition in the onward development of evolution. There is therefore no need for you to keep attacking Darwin when you are discussing evolution with me.