You also need to factor in the history of life. Basic body plans evolved very early on in life, and further adaptations have been built on top of these early adaptations. This makes it difficult to evolve a new basic body plan since so many other adaptations now depend on what evolved before it. You can use buildings as an example. It is relatively easy to put a new doorknob on the front door, but it is much more difficult to change out the foundation.

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Taq

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Message 21 of 26 (690318)
02-11-2013 6:40 PM

Reply to: Message 11 by Bolder-dash
02-09-2013 8:23 AM

Re: What are the odds?

The observations that we see are virtually organisms getting exactly what they need to survive better, when they need it.

I'm sure trilobites and dinosaurs would be surprised to hear that.

It mirrors the smaller adaptions we see all around us, like the ability to tan, the occurrence of blisters when our skin needs more protection, muscles that grow stronger when we need them to do hard work, lungs that getting better at breathing when we need to run longer.

None of those have anything to do with mutations.

Random mistakes hardly seems an adequate explanation for this being so.

And yet that is exactly what we observe:

Luria—Delbrck experiment - Wikipedia

REPLICA PLATING AND INDIRECT SELECTION OF BACTERIAL MUTANTS - PMC

These experiments are over 60 years old. That is how long we have known that beneficial traits are produced by random mutations. Perhaps it is time you caught up to the rest of us?

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	Message 11 by Bolder-dash, posted 02-09-2013 8:23 AM		Bolder-dash has not replied

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