Bob has raised a good point--that natural selection cannot foresee the
future. I should like to ask the following question to you all: What or Who
determines the possible outcomes granting the fact that natural selection is
governing the future outcomes? An honest answer to this question will
definitely lead to God--the law Maker and Giver! Here is an example of a
question that at first seems to be a scientific question that, on attempting
to answer such a question, leads to God. Of course, the same can be said of
all the laws that men discover. Whence comes the laws of nature?
Take care,
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith B Miller <kbmill@ksu.edu>
To: asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 03, 1999 10:42 PM
Subject: Re: Dino-Birds
>Bob wrote:
>
>>I'm not a YEC, but I am a skeptic of evolution as creative force in
nature,
>>if evolution is defined as _natural selection_. One of the fundamental
>>characteristics of natural selection is that it cannot foresee the future.
>>
>>You wrote about the article in _Nature_ "They're obviously not flight
>>feathers, but they are a possible preadaptation ready for transformation
in
>>gliding arboreal dinos or leaping cursorial dinos."
>>
>>If natural selection cannot operate beyond adaptation to the immediate
>>environment how can filaments be foreseen as later bases for feathers?
>>Unless they have some immediate adaptive value, the genes expressing them
>>would be eliminated from the gene pool.
>
>
>Preadaptations can be recognized only in retrospect. They are simply
>adaptations at the time, and their future utility cannot be anticipated by
>the organism. The examination of the fossil record seems to indicate that
>the initial appearance of a novel character is associated with a function
>unrelated, or only tangentially related, to its eventual function. In this
>case, these structures certainly did not have a flight function, but likely
>did have some thermoregulatory purpose. Once they exist, they are then
>subject to other selective forces that may co-opt them for other purposes.
>
>Keith
>
>
>
>Keith B. Miller
>Department of Geology
>Kansas State University
>Manhattan, KS 66506
>kbmill@ksu.ksu.edu
>http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
>
>