Hello. First of all, I am not looking for a debate so much as I was wondering if some evolutionist could help me here since I do not claim to be a genius in evolutionary knowledge. Now then.
At the zoo a few days ago, we visited an insectarium. In there I got to see a bug.. well I actually didn't get to see it, it had to be grabbed and touched a little bit before I finally saw it. It was a bug that looked like a leaf..and by looked like I mean it was basically a leaf with legs. It had the vein skeleton, edge browning, fake weather damage, etc. It looked like a leaf, now my problem is, that my understanding of evolution is it is not precise nor do the organisms have any choice in mutations passed to their children. So how exactly could a creature evolve to look exactly like a leaf, it seems much too precise to happen with the means of random mutations and natural selection.
First of all this topic shouldn't be made in the debate sub forum. This area is more for formal one on one debates.
To your actual question, it's very simple: Insects that look more like a leaf will be eaten less than insects that look less like a leaf. If an insect has a random change that makes them have features that look like veins, weather wear ect. Them and their offspring will be more likely to survive. Eventually all the less leaf like insects in the population will die out and the more leaf like insects will dominate the population. The same has happened with things like flowers that look and smell like certain insects getting pollinated more often, or a relitively harmless king snake being eaten less if it's mistaken for a venomous coral snake.
Hello. First of all, I am not looking for a debate so much as I was wondering if some evolutionist could help me here since I do not claim to be a genius in evolutionary knowledge. Now then.
At the zoo a few days ago, we visited an insectarium. In there I got to see a bug.. well I actually didn't get to see it, it had to be grabbed and touched a little bit before I finally saw it. It was a bug that looked like a leaf..and by looked like I mean it was basically a leaf with legs. It had the vein skeleton, edge browning, fake weather damage, etc. It looked like a leaf, now my problem is, that my understanding of evolution is it is not precise nor do the organisms have any choice in mutations passed to their children. So how exactly could a creature evolve to look exactly like a leaf, it seems much too precise to happen with the means of random mutations and natural selection.
That's because you are (and it's a common mistake) forgetting to understand the very non random "natural selection" at the end of the sentence.
random mutation, with natural selection.
In the case of the bug in question, one would have thought that the less leaf like bugs were more likely to be noticed by predators, and eaten. So you have some random mutation with more and less leaf like bugs, followed by the less leaf like ones being eaten more often.
And note, the improved fitness doesn't have to be huge. Even if slightly more leaf like is a 0.1% advantage, give it a few thousand generations...or even years, and it will come to dominate the population. This scenario explains why black peppered moths came to dominate their population during the industrial revolution
__________________ I hear stories from the chamber / How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger / Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade / Or at least that's what I'm told
--Mercy Seat, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
There are, BTW, still all degrees of similarity in existing insects, each of them to some degree, useful.
Any mutation that makes the illusion better would tend to be preserved, because insects with that mutation would tend to be missed more than the others.
Maybe a better question would be: Why would God create camouflaged insects if they had no reason to hide from predators in the Garden of Eden?
__________________ We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
It's a result of the Fall, mallon - after all, Satan is the Father of Lies.
__________________
And who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? - Origen, 215AD [De Principiis 4.1.16]
I've been wondering this too.
So like the Venus Fly Trap, it was just random mutations that gave it the ability to digest insects and have a closing trap to trap the insects?
What I find sorta hard to think of, and the OP i think would too, is that mutations gave it the perfect ability to be so good at whatever the organism is good at.
__________________ "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." Nietzsche (1844-1900)
It's never perfect, it only gets better. After all you can sometimes spot a camouflaged insect if you look carefully enough, and you probably don't have the best eyes in the animal kingdom.
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"Come on, put your bloody thinking caps on!" - Dr Tony Prave, geology lecture
Though that Venus flytrap thingy is an interesting one. I'd love to see it broken down into a sequence of adaptations like people have done with the eye.
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"Come on, put your bloody thinking caps on!" - Dr Tony Prave, geology lecture
Hello. First of all, I am not looking for a debate so much as I was wondering if some evolutionist could help me here since I do not claim to be a genius in evolutionary knowledge. Now then.
At the zoo a few days ago, we visited an insectarium. In there I got to see a bug.. well I actually didn't get to see it, it had to be grabbed and touched a little bit before I finally saw it. It was a bug that looked like a leaf..and by looked like I mean it was basically a leaf with legs. It had the vein skeleton, edge browning, fake weather damage, etc. It looked like a leaf, now my problem is, that my understanding of evolution is it is not precise nor do the organisms have any choice in mutations passed to their children. So how exactly could a creature evolve to look exactly like a leaf, it seems much too precise to happen with the means of random mutations and natural selection.
that is a good example of intelligent design, but all you ever hear are vain unverifiable explanations like this
posted by impalor ,,,Insects that look more like a leaf will be eaten less than insects that look less like a leaf. If an insect has a random change that makes them have features that look like veins, weather wear ect. Them and their offspring will be more likely to survive
i am dumbfounded that people are able to believe this type of NS without question , first off how does the organism even know to turn into a leaf for protection in the first place?, how does it even know that leaves exist or what they look like ,to be able to turn into one? the only answer youll get to a question like that is, " der evolution doesnt have to know what it is doing" im still waiting for an answer to the question of where the genetic information comes from in the first place,
it is absolutely ridiculous that NS is used to explain everything in the earth, there are so many things that are too specific to be able to be put down to reproductive success, the whole theory is based on the sad supposition that it is impossible for a higher force to exist, this is where science has gone wrong, and it has tried to explain everything without god for some 150years now without any success at all
all in all this is a great example of intelligent design
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