Hi there, gungesnake,
Could I suggest you repost this discussion into a 'evolution' debate, I think there may be a few people who would suggest interesting counters to your opinions? In the meantime:
gungasnake wrote:The first ancestors of modern whales in theory were supposed to be similar to hippos, i.e. something adapted for ponds and rivers. Nonetheless you do not find hippos out in deep water. The first minute a hippo ever got into deep water, he'd have to deal with sharks, and he'd have no defenses worth talking about nor even any way of knowing where the hell he was in deep wqter. The sonar and other adaptations whales have would have to have been there from day one for a "proto-whale" to have any chance at living in deep water.
Evolution works as a gradual process. Clearly taking a hippo and dumping it in deep, dark water with sharks isn't going to bring about a whale, no one would suggest that it would. It's gradual: Some hippo-like creatures start to live/hunt in slightly deeper water, presumably there is some advantage to doing this (less competition for food, perhaps). And probably no sharks, either, they aren't found in all water in the world.
Over a long long period of time, they start to get better at swimming (ones that are better at swimming survive and reproduce), they start to be able to stay at bit longer underwater. In every generation, there is an advantage to being a bit better a swimming, and being able to swim longer underwater. We move gradually, slowly, towards better swimmer with bigger lungs.
But as they start to be able to swim better, the option of going a bit deeper appears, and there are advantages to going deeper. But it's dark, deeper down, so, gradually, the ability to use sound as well as light to navigate becomes useful. The idea that 'The sonar and other adaptations whales have would have to have been there from day one' is just not true. A tiny amount of ability in using sound to navigate (which you and I both have) is better than no ability, and a tiny better more than that is even better. And so on and so on, in tiny steps from ability to hear sounds and know their direction to whales' sonar.
gungasnake wrote:Consider snakes. Assuming that snakes "evolved" from lizards or some such, the first thing they had to do was lose their legs. Now, either that happened in a single day and all the other things necessary for snakehood (scales, slithering, the inline organs etc. etc.) arose on that same day, then you have a probabalistic miracle as big as anything in the bible. On the other hand, if the legs were lost gradually, what kept predators from destroying the evolving snake family when it was halfway there, basically floundering around on legs which were halfway lost?
Why do you assume shorter legs are a disadvantage? Evolution doesn't suggest that something evolves in a certain direction (towards having no legs, for example) because the end goal would be advantageous. Evolution says every step of the way has advantages Presumably, in the circumstances under which snakes evolved, having shorter legs was better than longer legs, and even shorter legs better than that, and at every stage shorter legs an advantage until on legs at all. No 'floundering around on legs which were halfway lost' at all, every stage an advantage.
gungasnake wrote:Or take flying birds. A flying bird needs wings, a light bone structure, specialized super-efficient hearts and lungs, special kinds of tails, flight feathers, the pivot mechanism for flight feathers, beaks, and the knowledge to use all those things and navigate in the air.
No. This is just not correct. A bird needs all these things to fly as well as, and in the way that, modern birds fly. It doesn't need them just to fly. Bats fly, don't they? Do they have flight feathers? Certain squirrels glide (a step in the direction of flying), they don't have feathers, beaks, bird-like hearts and lungs, and they need light bone structure, but not as light as a modern bird (but if there were an advantage to lighter bone structure, those with lighter bone structure would survive and reproduce more, leading, step by step, gradually, to lighter and lighter bone structure.)
gungasnake wrote:All of those things arising on a single day would be an overwhelming probabilistic miracle.
Certainly.
gungasnake wrote:Likewise, they could not plausibly arise separately. Any one such adaptation by itself would be worthless and generally anti-functinoal. By the time a second such trait had evolved, the first would have devolved and either become vestigial or be replaced with something else.
Whenever you think you have found an example of this, talk to an evolutionary biologist who specialises in that particular animal about it. I think you will find they will be able to explain, as a series of very very small but nonetheless advantageous changes, the move between an evolutionary ancestor and a modern animal. No improbable jumps or anti-functional adaptations necessary. Perhaps you should start with whales, snakes and birds, I think you'll find your problems are not without solutions.
