[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[David Harding]

Hi Platt and SA.

> SA:       What is evolution to you, if not a change in
>   
>> species, as in the mosquito for one?  Do you know what
>> evolution means, just wondering, I would like to hear
>> your definition?
>>     
> Platt said:
> Evolution occurs when a fish becomes a crocodile, a crocodile becomes a 
> snake, a snake becomes a gopher, a gopher becomes a horse, a horse 
> becomes a hippo,  etc. etc. (Not necessarily in that order)  Minor 
> changes in the beak of a bird or the specks on a mosquito's wings do 
> not make for evolution in my book.. Inability of a second generation to 
> breed with a previous one takes evolution nowhere. 
David responds:

Who ever said the mosquito with specks on his wings hasn't already bread 
with previous 'non specked' mosquitoes and formed more of the same?  
What if the specks were somehow beneficial to his survival, better 
camouflage perhaps, this will lead to the mosquito living longer and 
able to produce more offspring with similar variations to his own.  What 
if as you say, the specks hinder the mosquito in some way? Completely 
naturally he won't last long and wont be able to pass on his low quality 
variations.  Can you see the beauty in this moral selection? I can.

Platt says also:
> Evolution stops at 
> life forms like the poor  jackass. 
>   
David responds:
It certainly does, the hoofed feet, four legs and thus low agility, make 
for a slow evolution of the species, but it still happens.  However 
slowly.   Humans are built as the most agile creature on the earth and 
so have evolved faster/better than the other creatures on this planet.
> SA Said:
>   
>> Dinosaurs don't exist now, but they
>> did.  Homo erectus or habilis existed, but doesn't
>> now.  Whales used to walk on land, but they don't now.
>>  If you understand the workings of evolution,
>> obviously the static patterns of biology are not going
>> to change quickly.  I don't go in my door and see a
>> hemlock tree, and the next day it flies over my house
>> singing a song.  How do you explain all these bones of
>> hominoids and other fossils that are similar to
>> existing or other previous creatures that no longer
>> exist?  How do you explain mosquito's changing species
>> on record?  What is your theory Platt? 
>>     
> Platt said:
> Evolution has occurred by significant changes of forms. Such forms have 
> become extinct for any number of reasons, leaving traces of their 
> former existence behind. Evolution theory calls for millions of tiny 
> intermediate steps to take place before a new form evolves. Problem is, 
> the fossil record doesn't show millions of tiny intermediate steps 
> culminating in a new form. Rather it shows big jumps.   
>   
David responds:
Actually in the end forms become extinct for one reason, they aren't any 
Good.  We don't have fossils from every year of evolution.  But all the 
fossils we do have, have a large enough time scale between them to show 
that evolution happens over lots of tiny small jumps.  A horse doesn't 
just one day give birth to a hippo as you so crudely put it.  Nature is 
much better and more beautiful than that!

Platt said:
> My theory is that the life force (DQ) works to change forms for the 
> better. When it runs up against a catastrophe, like the extinction of 
> the dinosaurs, it works hard to avoid such catastrophes in the future.
>   
David said:

Are you suggesting it does this consciously? That's preposterous! I can 
just imagine all the cells going.

"Right men, let's not let this asteroid hit us again and not form into 
big stupid dinosaurs again, let's try something different!".

Of course this is what happens but it happened completely naturally as a 
*result* of the asteroid hitting the dinosaurs leaving all the smaller, 
faster, more agile mammals to thrive.  The dinosaurs were no Good so 
didn't survive. 

Remember the Platypus in Lila?  "What an enigma", you'd hear the 
scientists say!  But it isn't an enigma,  what is the enigma is the way 
we've classified the animals.    We've said, this is a duck, this is a 
bird, this is a horse.  We could very easily call a donkey a small 
horse, but we don't.  We've found it valuable to separate the two.  The 
amount of difference between animals varies completely erroneously 
depending on  how we want to look at them while genetic variations that 
do happen are small with respect to the entire organism.
> Thus, it switched from making bigger and bigger reptiles to creating 
> bigger and bigger brains, big enough not only to deflect a meteor like 
> the one that extinguished the dinosaurs, but to eventually leave this 
> planet and continue life elsewhere in the universe before the sun 
> expands and burns out all life here a few billion years from now.
>   
David:

I agree but cells don't do this 'consciously' as you suggest.  Isn't 
what I say a much more beautiful way of looking at things than horses 
giving birth to elephants as you seem to be suggesting?

Cheers,

David.