Evolutionary believers, question?

Question

Someone raised a point about the platypus for Creationists to explain. Some very excellent points were given by Christians, however evolutionists failed to make their points. So if evolution is for promoting a species into greater survival capabilities due to to their current surroundings not being able to sustain life for them.

Explain the archer fish? Who can shoot a bug out of the air with a water stream. There is by far, enough food, to sustain them in their current habitat.

What would the purpose of the platypus be to be evolutionized?

Answer 1

evolution seems to be about niches and as i'm not an expert on biology i can only speculate using the knowledge available to me.

the archer fish lives in an environment full of competition from other insect eating fish and to get an edge it must specialise to survive. my experience tells me that most insect feeding fish feed at dawn and dusk. one way for the archer fish to get an advantage would be to feed during the day, when there is less competition. as the insects are less accessible they need a mechanism to get to the insect. as i said this is speculation and the exact method by which the archer fish developed this ability is not known to me and i doubt if anybody without a time machine can give a precise answer as behaviour does not fossilise, but i can see the environmental imperatives that would drive this sort of adaption to this niche.

the platypus can be explained easier i think, but again, as i'm not an expert it is educated speculation. as far as i know, apart from the water opposom of argentina, there are no aquatic or semi-aquatic marsupials anywhere in the world and there seems to be no fossil record of any. the difficulties of a marsupial taking to the water are obvious in that the young would not be protected from the water in the pouch. the platypus would have had no competitors in australia and as far as i know there are three basic imperatives for evolutionary change; competition, environment and sexual selection. the environment in australia has remained pretty stable for tens, if not hundreds of millions of years so there would be no pressure to change there. sexual selection amongst platypus seeems to be based on the males ability to control a territory. the one obvious advantage in that case would be size but against that you have to weigh the fact that the smaal streams, brooks and rivers they occupy have only so much food and a larger platypus would require more food. they could do this by either feeding more often, which would be time consuming, or feeding on larger prey which would push them into competition with the larger native carnivorous fish and crocodiles. as the platypus has found a niche where it has no competition and any evolutionary changes would seem to damage that lack of competition, it is not surprising that they have remained stable as a species for millions of years. evolution is not only about change it is about finding an adequate and optimum mode of survival for the the environment in which a species lives.

all in all though, i think you migh do better asking this question in the biology section. you might strike lucky and get an answer from an evolutionary biologist.

Answer 2

Evolutionized????

Everything is evolved to adapt to its present surroundings - otherwise it would not be able to survive and would become extinct.

To take the examples you give:-

THE ARCHER FISH
The Archer Fish has adapted to feeding off of insects and other small creatures that live on branches overhanging the water in which the fish lives. This is an extension of the way other fish feed on insects that fall into the water and/or jump out of the water to catch flying insects. Waiting for the insect to fall in has the disadvantage of the fish having to wait while being able to shoot a jet of water at a passing insect and so make it fall into the water means that the Archer Fish gets a larger and more reliable food supply.

The other option it might have adopted would be to jump out of the water to catch the insect in the way trout do. In fact some species of fish will catch insects on overhanging branches like this. But it's not difficult to see that there are problems with this method of feeding - it requires more muscle power putting greater demands on the food source, the fish may become trapped in the branches, the splashing may attract predators. Therefore again the Archer Fish's approach is a greater degree of adaptation.

It is irrelevant that other food sources exist in its habitat - other fish are competing for those. Evolution doesn't go backwards - having embarked on a lifestyle of feeding on insects that live above the water, the Archer Fish has evolved and adapted to be particularly good at it. As with all living things, the best "shooters" amongst the Archer Fish would be the most likely to reach breeding age and therefore pass their genes for "good shooting" onto future generations.

THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS
The Platypus is an incredible example of evolution. It is one of only two living examples of a group of mammals known as the Monotremes - mammals that lay eggs. Whilst all other montremes have become extinct because they were unable to compete with the marsupial and placental mammals, the platypus (and the other living monotreme, the echidna) have survived by supreme adaptation and evolution.

The platypus' bill is an incredibly sensitive underwater detector able to locate prey by sensing the electrical inpulses in the muscles of the prey. By sweeping the bill side to side like a radar the platypus is able to build an electrical "picture" of its surroundings underwater and is able to detect and home in on even the faintest electrical signal from its prey.

Such an advanced detection device has been evolved and refined over countless thousands of generations where in every generation only the most sensitive and successful detectors have enabled their owners to reached adulthood and breed, passing on the genes that made them to the next generation where the refinement continued.

In times when prey is scarce only the very best and most sensitive bills would ensure survival - this is what evolution is all about.

Answer 3

All animals that are present on the earth today have passed through many stages of evolution. I have no idea of just what the platypus was in its early stage, but like all other mammals, it had to pass through those stages by trial and error. The species that couldn't adapt to conditions as they changed, became extinct.
The platypus adapted. It's unusual mouth formation is perfect for finding food in the mud at the bottoms of streams and lakes.The success of many species was not to compete with others for the obvious food, but to find a way of obtaining food that is there but not available to others.
The platypus in perfectly adapted for its way of surviving.
Use the same explanation for the archer fish. It finds food not available to other fish. Don't question success. If it works, use it.

Answer 4

The platypus is a great example of the transition between reptiles and mammals. It is mamllian, but it lays eggs and has no nipples yet feeds it's babies with milk that is secreted from mamory glands under the skin.

Evolution and Natural Selection work together, but they are not the same thing. Evolution is just about the genetic changes over time, whereas natural selection is how those changes are beneficial (or not) to the species within it's environment and how those traits that are not beneficial are not propegated.

Answer 5

Evolution is not something anyone needs to "believe" in, since it is a fact beyond dispute to anyone who cares to look at the evidence with eyes unblinded by superstition. Exactly how it happened is the job of the theorists to explain. That, however, is not something that can be done in 25 words or less.

There are plenty of mysteries still, which is why there are plenty of scientists still working on it. Only lazy believers presume these will always be mysteries, and by great leaps of illogic assume therefore that an unprovable deity must be the only possible "explanation." This is the infamous "god of the gaps" argument, used by preachers to play word games with believers.

PS to Fact of Life: Actually, evolution always occurs because mutations always occur, resulting in genetic drift. If the drift is away from an already-attained ideal for an organism's environment though (as with sharks), natural selection will tend to restore the ideal.

Answer 6

If a living thing can sustain itself then evolution will not occur, as there is no reason for it to occur.

Evolution is based on natural selection. Do you never ask yourselves how the superbug MRSA came about? Or are you content with believing god wills it?
1. Antibiotics are used to frequently
2. A small number of bacteria have an immunity gene to the drugs and thus survive when others die
3. Those which survive reproduce through meiosis
4. You now have millions of bacteria which are immune to antibiotics and thus can't be treated.

Animals will noly evolve due to changes within their environment.

I'm not sure if i anwered your question as i couldn't determine what you were asking.

Answer 7

It is what it's - if men and women have advanced to the factor that we will be able to prolong our lives extra and manage disorder, then that's all aspect of evolution. However, I do not see how we will be able to real evolve as a species any additional due to the fact how giant the gene pool is. Evolution occurs over lengthy intervals wherein mutations have a danger to propagate, and with such a lot of genes within the pool, any mutations which are profitable would not have a enormous have an impact on at the populace as a entire.

Answer 8

The platypus is the perfect example of evolution. It's adapted from just about every animal out there.They lay eggs like a bird meaning more offspring at one time that's easily defendable, they nurse like a marsupial, they have the hard tails of a beaver for devense, and as an added defense bonus, they have a poisonous dewclaw. I love platypi.

Answer 9

The platypus would be the perfect example of evolution it has taken so many different traits for its ancestors that even though it may look funky it has still adapted

Answer 10

Evolution and adaptation are two different things.