Evolution: can work at high speed (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, August 23, 2021, 18:51 (1186 days ago) @ David Turell

Shown in a study of transition from fish to land tetrapods:

https://phys.org/news/2021-08-speedy-evolution-sustained-fast-tetrapods.html

"This "fish-to-tetrapod" transition took place somewhere between the Middle and Late Devonian (~400-360 million years ago) and represents the onset of a major environmental shift, when vertebrates first walked onto land. Yet, some of the most fundamental questions regarding the dynamics of this transition have remained unresolved for decades.

***

"'The study also innovates by combining data from fossil footprints and body fossils to pinpoint the time of origin of the tetrapods. "Normally footprint data shows up after body fossils of their track makers. In this case, we have tetrapod footprints much older than the first body fossils by several million years, which is extremely unusual. By combining both footprint and body fossils, we could search for a more precise age for the rise of tetrapods," said Pierce. (my bold)

"'We were able to provide a very precise age for the origin of tetrapods at approximately 390 million years ago, 15 million years older than the oldest tetrapod body fossil," said Simões.

"The researchers also found that most of the close relatives to tetrapods had exceptionally slow rates of anatomical evolution, suggesting the fish relatives to tetrapods were quite well adapted to their aquatic lifestyle.

"'On the other hand, we discovered the evolutionary lineages leading to the first tetrapods broke away from that stable pattern, acquiring several of the major new adaptive traits at incredibly fast rates that were sustained for approximately 30 million years," said Simões.

***

"They found that all parts of the tetrapod skeleton were under strong directional selection to evolve new adaptive features, but that the skull and jaws were evolving faster than the rest of the body, including the limbs.

***

"'We see several anatomical innovations in their skull related to feeding and food procurement, enabling a transition from a fish-like suction-based mode of prey capture to tetrapod-like biting, and an increase in orbit size and location" said Simões. "These changes prepared tetrapods to look for food on land and to explore new food resources not available to their fish relatives." (my bold)

***

"'What we've been finding in the last couple of years is that you have lots of anatomical changes during the construction of new animal body plans at short periods of geological time, generating high rates of anatomical evolution, like we're seeing with the first tetrapods. But in terms of number of species, they remained constrained and at really low numbers for a really long time, and only after tens of millions of years do they actually diversify and become higher in number of species. There's definitely a decoupling there," said Simões."

Comment: There are two ways to view this study, especially using my bolded comments. The Darwinist view describes a speedier selection process with no explanation of how that happens. In their view it just 'is' naturally. But note the rapid jaw changes in advance of actually hunting on land. Doesn't that suggest purposeful planning from a theistic viewpoint?
Interpretation can certain be valid at the eye of the classification of the beholder