Chris does give us an insight as to how scientists verify that evolution works, but it also indicates how Darwinism does not explain how evolution works. What appears to have happened with these sightless fish is they found a home or niche in caves, more than likely because they became entrapped.
Once the fish found themselves in the caves and were able to find food in the darkness, their ability to see became a handicap, because it used up valuable energy unnecessarily. As a result genetic changes that eroded use of the eyes were rewarded, rather than penalized as one would ordinarily expect.
Thus survival of the fittest becomes survival of the better ecologically adapted. Ecology governs the way creatures develop. God created the earth from a big chunk of rock with an iron center.
Life began simple and has become more complex and diverse. Life forms changed as now ecological niches, like caves, developed and changed. All aspects of the earthâs surface have changed. The earth needed to become the place it is to be the home that you and I need to live and flourish, and that is why God created it the way God did. .
The Darwinâs model for Natural Selection was an armed struggle of members of a species against one another. In the next to last sentence in The Origin Darwin characterized Natural Selection as âthe war of nature,â which produced human beings.
Maybe he thought during Englandâs imperial period that war was a positive force. While I do not think that war is always the wrong choice. it is to be avoided if reasonably possible.
Life is not about seeking an advantage over others. Nor is life about seeking to give oneâs offspring an advantage.
Natural selection is not a thing. Natural selection is the environment which is constantly changing, which preserves the diversity needed to give life forms the flexibility to respond the challenges of life.
You donât think that sexual selection is part of the environment in which we and other creatures live. Even people like Dawkins think that predation proves survival of the fittest, but it disproves it. Prey and predators are NOT struggling for scarce resources.
Lions cannot eat grass and zebras cannot eat meat. Lions do well when the zebras have plenty of food and water. If the lions would decimate the zebras they would have a big hole in their diet. Zebras provide food for the lions. Lion help prevent the zebras from overgrazing the savanna. Bothe help each other survive and flourish. This is symbiosis and ecology, not survival of the fittest.
Humans are predators. Do you think we struggle with cows, pigs, chicken, and fish for survival? and how about the trillions of symbionts that live in us and on us and are part of who we are although they do not share our DNA? Where is the struggle here?
I donât think that you understand what ecology is. God created us though ecology by giving us the ability to think and cooperate with others so we can take advantage the goodness, rationality, and diversity of our universe.
Iâm guessing that you and Bill are talking past one another, though I cannot be sure. Ecology, as I understand, is the way in which species interact with one another and their surroundings. It would include dependencies and such. I see ecologies and ecosystems as strong indications of Godâs intelligence and guiding, however that occurred. I guess that I, for one, donât see âecologyâ as being causal as you are describing it. Rather, it is the result of the cause, which is evolution planned or orchestrated (in some likely unknowable way) by God. Please feel free to explain.
@Michael_Callen, thank you for your comment and your question.
You are probably right. I am using the concept of cause, in a different way than usual. I will illustrate by going to one of the best know events where ecology and evolution intersect. Most everyone knows that an asteroid made the dinosaurs extinct.
Now we can also say that an asteroid did not do this directly or that simply. It is more accurate to say that an asteroid along with other factors made the climate of the earth colder so that the flora and fauna that the dinosaurs depended on, their ecological niches, died out and so did they, except for the avian dinosaurs, which were transformed into birds.
Thus it was not the asteroid that made the dinosaurs extinct, but the asteroid was an important event in a series of events which caused the change of climate which deprived the dinosaurs of the habitat they needed, just as species go extinct today.
Changes in the ecology of the earth created the dinosaurs, and causes them to go extinct. That is probably what will happen to humans also.
Certainly it is true that God created ecology when God created the universe and all that is in it. This is unknowable since we have no idea how to created something out of nothing, no matter, no energy, no time, and no space. But we do not know how God created and put together the constants of nature, but in retrospect we know that God did.
You say that you are describing a mechanism, which is a process, such as ecology. What you and the Wikipedia end up with is the end result (survival) without the process or mechanism.
What Darwin said was the process was conflict based on Malthus. What I am saying is that the process is based on symbiosis, which is not conflict. Also some people say that the mechanism can be different for different situations, such as ecology for the extinction of dinosaurs, and conflict or struggle in another. I do not find that this is how nature works.
I recommend my book, Darwinâs Myth, discuses these questions in more detail.
Hi @sfmatheson, would you mind expanding this a bit please? Are you saying natural selection is not an âarmed struggleâ or this is not what Darwin said it was?
And, if NS isnât an armed struggle what is a more accurate definition? Or what did Darwin say NS was?
Both are false. 1) Armed struggle against conspecifics occurs but is neither extremely common nor necessary for natural selection. Conspecifics are frequently in competition (for resources, for mates, for opportunities) but doesnât require combat. What exactly does âarmed struggleâ look like in petunias? 2) Darwin didnât say that, and no one with any knowledge says this since itâs so obviously false. What he did emphasize in the Origin was a âstruggle for existence,â which is well known from textbooks and basic summaries of his work. Here is how he defines that phrase in the Origin:
I should premise that I use this term in a large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. Two canine animals, in a time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get food and live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture. A plant which annually produces a thousand seeds, of which only one on an average comes to maturity, may be more truly said to struggle with the plants of the same and other kinds which already clothe the ground. The misletoe is dependent on the apple and a few other trees, but can only in a far-fetched sense be said to struggle with these trees, for, if too many of these parasites grow on the same tree, it languishes and dies. But several seedling misletoes, growing close together on the same branch, may more truly be said to struggle with each other. As the misletoe is disseminated by birds, its existence depends on them; and it may metaphorically be said to struggle with other fruit-bearing plants, in tempting the birds to devour and thus disseminate its seeds. In these several senses, which pass into each other, I use for convenienceâ sake the general term of Struggle for Existence.
âOrigin of Species, 6th edition, page 50
Hi Chris, thanks again, im just pondering on this micro evolution example. One of my struggles remains the narrative of how this process happened over the long timeframe. E.g. I assume the fish began venturing into the cave (assuming there was some worthy food in there, or some other reason). Then, perhaps a population became stuck in the cave system, but were able to get by with pre existing skills.
The loss of sight, i naively expect might be a normal outcome of being in prolonged darkness, and permanent blindness would occur within a short timeframe, maybe within 10 generations?
But does this micro example add up to full blown speciation, just by adding more time?
Flipping it over, whats to say the fish started in the cave and ventured out to the light, and developed eyesight to become the external relatives? (Unlikely, but food for thought).
Thanks so much @sfmatheson for an excellent answer. I loved your petuniaâs illustration, very evocative (and made me chuckle).
I really appreciate your explanation and for going to the trouble of providing a quotation from a primary source. I do get the sense that perhaps Darwin is grasping for an adequate term and in the end has settled on one that is not perfect but will do.
So, correct me if I am wrong, It seems then Darwin is saying there is a âstruggleâ in the sense that:
A. Species might compete with each other and similar species who are after the same resources or inhabit the same space (dogs scrapping for food, plants carpeting the ground, etc)
B. A Species might be dependant on limited resources (moisture in the desert)
C. Species might require interdependences to survive and pass on genes (mistletoe is dependant on birds to spread seeds, trees to parasitise).
But when Darwin talked about the struggle to live he was not necessarily imagining ânature red in tooth and clawâ as the famous quotation goes?
Is this our understanding of life? Two dogs in the time of famine? Is this his vision of reality, dog eat dog?
We know that the plants which live in dry areas survive by developing ways to best manage the available moisture. This is the petunia fighting off other plants or plants struggling to absorb more moisture than others.
Plants produce more seeds than necessary for many reasons, the most important of them for us is to provide food for humans and our animals. The abundance of seeds does not produce Natural Selection.
If a conspecific plant flourishes and grows in the midst of the forest, that is what it is supposed to do. It proves nothing unless that plant contains a trait that gives that plant the ability to adapt to its environment better than others. Then it will spread to other conspecifics, not be limited to close relatives as Dawkins claims, so all may benefit. This is how real ecological Natural Selection works, as opposed to traditional Darwinian Natural Selection.
If you honestly read the one paragraph I quoted, or better yet, read the Origin of Species, you would know the answer to that question. Instead it seems you are committed to misrepresenting Darwin. The persistence of this is disheartening.
The article states in several places that the âdangerâ Ken Ham is worried about is that the Bible will lose its authority in the culture. âCulture warsâ refer to the fight over who gets to define cultural norms. That is what I believe Answers in Genesis is most concerned about. Not good exegesis. Not good science. Not even sharing the gospel with people who are lost. They want to maintain cultural power.