Antoher thing that I want to point out: You're talking about relatively minor changes.
A wing isn't that much different from an arm. It's got the humerous, the ulna and radius are fused but present, the metacarples are there, the carples, even the philangies. It's a vertebrate limb. In chickens it's somewhat hard to see, but in bats it's perfetly clear it's just a limb. Same with pterosaurs and the other flying lizards of the Mesozoic. Similarly, lungs aren't that major of a change--they're a modification of a swim bladder, which most fish have. They're relatively minor changes, mere tinkering with the machinery that the organisms already had.
That's not to say that anything in evolution is otherwise, but you're focused entirely on vertebrates, Patrick1000.
Here's a question for you: Why do clams not have heads? I haven't dug through the recent changes in mollusk taxonomy, but the rest of mollusks have heads. In fact, that's the only example I know of an organism loosing the chepalization trait. This is a MAJOR shift--cephalization is far more improtant than, say, the shape of your limb, as it impacts how you interact with the world around you in a fundamental way. What could possibly have happened to cause that?!
More fundamentally, it must be remembered that the original animals didn't excrete mineralized skeletons. That's something paleontologists are really confused about. Sure, it's probably something to do with the ion pumps we already have (or flagella....everything seems to come back to flagella...), but why did that suddenly happen 540 million years ago?
Or, how did the different bauplans arise? Valentine's work is good, but many, many mysteries remain on that fundamental question.
Why are there three fuanas? ARE there three faunas? Are there four? Are they merely the artifact of various collection biases? Do we have enough data to tell? How would we know the answers to any of these question?
If you want to get into pure abstract evolutionary theory, what causes chanalization? I have my own opinions, but that's all they are--really, we don't know very much about the process. On a related note, what causes the radiation events in Punctuated Equilibrium? Reduced selection pressure can't be the only answer, it seems.
The very questions you raise, Patrick1000, indicate how little you've explored this question. These questions I've presented are relatively common quesitons in paleontological circles, and not uncommon in biological ones. They're also much, much greater challanges to evolutionary theory, as it currently stands, than a wing is. Like I said, a wing is just a minor adaptation of the terrestrial vertebrate limb. It's nothing, evolutionarilly speaking, compared to, say, shells or feathers. Yet you continue to harp on it. I suspect it's because you simply don't KNOW anything else--you know terrestrial vertebrates (the "higher animals"), and that's it. Not necessarily a bad thing--I know a number of scientists who specialize in them, and who make serious contributions to science in their studies--but you have to learn not to pretend that your area of interest represents all of the science in question. Otherwise, you end up looking like a fool.
A wing isn't that much different from an arm. It's got the humerous, the ulna and radius are fused but present, the metacarples are there, the carples, even the philangies. It's a vertebrate limb. In chickens it's somewhat hard to see, but in bats it's perfetly clear it's just a limb. Same with pterosaurs and the other flying lizards of the Mesozoic. Similarly, lungs aren't that major of a change--they're a modification of a swim bladder, which most fish have. They're relatively minor changes, mere tinkering with the machinery that the organisms already had.
That's not to say that anything in evolution is otherwise, but you're focused entirely on vertebrates, Patrick1000.
Here's a question for you: Why do clams not have heads? I haven't dug through the recent changes in mollusk taxonomy, but the rest of mollusks have heads. In fact, that's the only example I know of an organism loosing the chepalization trait. This is a MAJOR shift--cephalization is far more improtant than, say, the shape of your limb, as it impacts how you interact with the world around you in a fundamental way. What could possibly have happened to cause that?!
More fundamentally, it must be remembered that the original animals didn't excrete mineralized skeletons. That's something paleontologists are really confused about. Sure, it's probably something to do with the ion pumps we already have (or flagella....everything seems to come back to flagella...), but why did that suddenly happen 540 million years ago?
Or, how did the different bauplans arise? Valentine's work is good, but many, many mysteries remain on that fundamental question.
Why are there three fuanas? ARE there three faunas? Are there four? Are they merely the artifact of various collection biases? Do we have enough data to tell? How would we know the answers to any of these question?
If you want to get into pure abstract evolutionary theory, what causes chanalization? I have my own opinions, but that's all they are--really, we don't know very much about the process. On a related note, what causes the radiation events in Punctuated Equilibrium? Reduced selection pressure can't be the only answer, it seems.
The very questions you raise, Patrick1000, indicate how little you've explored this question. These questions I've presented are relatively common quesitons in paleontological circles, and not uncommon in biological ones. They're also much, much greater challanges to evolutionary theory, as it currently stands, than a wing is. Like I said, a wing is just a minor adaptation of the terrestrial vertebrate limb. It's nothing, evolutionarilly speaking, compared to, say, shells or feathers. Yet you continue to harp on it. I suspect it's because you simply don't KNOW anything else--you know terrestrial vertebrates (the "higher animals"), and that's it. Not necessarily a bad thing--I know a number of scientists who specialize in them, and who make serious contributions to science in their studies--but you have to learn not to pretend that your area of interest represents all of the science in question. Otherwise, you end up looking like a fool.
