Summations Only

This is obviously an untrue statement because of this..... Natural selection "kicks in" in response to ecological challenges and opportunities. Mutations, natural selection, genetic drift, etc occur with every new generation. If a change in an organism is beneficial in its current environment and it will get selected for. Edited by Jefferinoopolis, : No reason given.

Consider this scenario:
A species, we’ll call it a bugblatter beast, is adapted to live in the forest similar to the forests found in southern Canada and the Northern US. This forest is quite extensive and the bugblatter beast’s range extends through the whole forest.Let’s say that the bugblatter is living during an ice age and as the ice retreats and sea levels rise this forest is cut in half by a new sea. You now have two different populations of bugblatter beasts that cannot interact with each other. On the west side of the sea you have the western bugblatter and on the eastern side you have the eastern bugblatter.The prevailing winds in this area blow from west to east. As the wind blows over the water it picks up moisture and when it crosses over the land on the eastern side it drops this water in the form of rain. This makes the eastern forest far wetter than it was before the division. It has become a rain forest. The western environment has changed very little.In the eastern, now, rain forest many of the plants that thrived there before either die off or change to survive in this new environment. Due to this change in environment the bugblatter beast’s favorite game virtually disappears. It fails to adapt to the changes. However in the new environment game is plentiful but the bugblatter needs to change to be successful and eventually it does. Lets say that in the rain forest the bugblatter beasts large size makes it difficult to get through the underbrush and smaller thinner ones tend to be more successful. Slowly the eastern species, because smaller ones breed more often, gets smaller and thinner.In the western forest the bugblatter lives its life the same way it ever did and very little change happens.Do you agree that this scenario is possible under your definition of change or adaptation? If so, do we now have two separate species of bugblatter beast? If not, why? Why can’t a species change in the manner I described?

It was the bugblatter’s prey that failed to adapt. Not that is cleared up I will address your point. They failed because their environment changed. Maybe they did use their feet and walked away to a more hospitable place. The point is they disappeared in the new environment but because different game was plentiful the bugblatter, or at least a population of bugblatters, stayed. I planned on talking about the population that didn’t stay and moved on a new territory a later time. I don’t full understand all of this statement but I will try to answer.The first part is easy although I thought I was pretty clear in my scenario. The animals didn’t change not in the way, I believe, you are thinking. The animals that were smaller and thinner, not changed but within the natural variation of the species, tended to live longer to reproduce.Hopefully that is clearer. Now can you accept that, in this situation, individuals with the traits of being smaller and thinner will survive more often to pass on those traits and that slowly this can become established in a population? I’m not even talking about a change. I’m talking about members of the new population that fall within the natural size variation of the parent population. Can you accept that this is possible? Again, I’m not quite sure what this point means but again I will try to address it. I think you are suggesting that the parent population will meet with the rain forest population. The scenario established that they won’t meet on account of a whole sea separating them. I’m not talking speciationyet. I’m talking already existing traits becoming dominant. No. Although I betcha if I looked on you tube I could find them trying. However, that has nothing to do with the ToE. Good thing because if you were you would be living evidence that the ToE wrong.You have over 30 posts in this thread and at least as many replies, many of them trying to correct your misunderstanding of even the basics of the ToE, and we don’t seem to be any further. We are still stuck at definitions. I’ve been patient and respectful, and I will continue to be, but please make an effort to understand what the ToE actually states. It is hard to discuss this with you when you are talking about a theory that doesn’t exist to us on the side of evolution.

Good point.My posts have been trying to show him a plausible scenerio that demonstrates how process can work but I kind of got sucked into his arguement at the end of that last response.