Interesting that ‘Science’ has a very hard time proving is Evolutionary Philosophy and Religion.
Why would a fish ‘naturally select’ to become an amphibian, and how would the amphibian using ‘competitive advantage’ know to become a reptile? Who would they mate with, and how did the complexity and inter-related dependent nature of their systems, their organs, ‘mutate’, in such a way that they did not die, but were able to keep on living whilst disadvantage (half a leg, half a wing, half a fin)?
If the Pakicetus wolf did become a Blue Whale (or similar), why don’t we see such movements toward meta-morphosis today, however small, slight and slow they may be? Has anyone ever seen a Bear or a Wolf ‘naturally select’ to become aquatic? If not, where is the evidence that this happened? Surely observational evidence is needed to support hand-waving philosophy? Or is the philosophy just a religious incantation perhaps?
Apes to Humans would involve billions of letters of DNA (software) changes. It is impossible. How does software change by itself? How do systems, organs, and all aspects of the creature change in unison so they don’t falter and die? I have never seen a software program code itself or improve itself by chance. Mutations are software bugs. They destroy the system. Is ‘natural selection’ now a programmer as well as a philosophical belief?
The evolution from quadrupedal to bipedal walking requires many major anatomical changes. Some of the many morphological alterations to the human skeleton that are required include major changes to both the arrangement and size of the bones of the foot, changes in the hip size and shape, the knee size, the leg length, and both the shape and orientation of the vertebral column. Even the ribcage must be altered.
Even Evolutionary Philosophers understand that ‘Natural Selection’ does not mean anything. It is just a ‘vacuous’ buzzword.
And, indeed, over-estimation of the explanatory power of natural selection may be why Darwin’s contemporary, the geologist Charles Lyell, accused him of “deifying” the theory. A century later, in 1971, Lila Gatlin, a biochemist and mathematical biologist who figured centrally in developing the conception of life as an “information processing system”, could summarize contemporary usage by saying, “the words ‘natural selection’ play a role in the vocabulary of the evolutionary biologist similar to the word ‘God’ in ordinary language” (quoted in Oyama 2000a, p. 31). Such is the power of logical constructions over the human mind.
Information systems don’t self-create, self-code, self-manage, self-design, nor self-mutate. Sorry. Darwin who did not perform one single experiment to support his theory that microbes became mechanics, invokes God-like powers for ‘natural selection’: “(natural selection is) daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good”. What does that even mean besides inane philosophical gibberish? Who then is ‘natural selection’ and how does he ‘scrutinise’ all activities daily, choosing and forming?
Or is ‘natural selection’ simply the Atheist God?