There are a lot of pressures on species NOT to evolve. If the species changes to readily, it loses its identity and does not propogate. If it does not change AT ALL, then it cannot adapt to new enviornmental conditions. When you have frogs that "closely resemble" primitive species, that means they have not had any significant enviornmental pressures in all that time. You are right that this is unlikely. That is why it happens so infrequently and why, out of all the thousands of species of frogs in the world, the guy you are quoting is specifically interested in that one. It is because this is such a rare, but not impossible, phenomena, that gingko trees are so interesting. (We actually had a female gingko tree on campus where I did my undergrad work. That thing stunk to high heaven every spring.) Species DON'T change unless there is a real necessity. Unless they are locked in a struggle for the survival of the species. Most species have to go through this and so change and evolve with some regularity. Some slip through the cracks. These few so-called "living fossils" are compelling evidence for evolution. Not a refutation of it.
You do not understand that the statement above[in the last post] supports my position. It takes the whole species to accumulate the traits gradually and build the changed species (again the sexual problem, the group needs to change, not just an individual).
No, it doesn't support you. You are not arguing against evolution here. IT DOESN'T WORK THE WAY YOU ARE SUGGESTING. No one is proposing that this is anywhere close to what is currently accepted in Biology these days. This is not a contradiciton in evolution, it is a contradiction in YOUR VERSION of evolution.
Oh come now! Predation is perhaps the greatest threat to a species.
Predation is a vital method for "prey" species to keep their numbers at a reasonable level. Otherwise they multiply to the point where they eat all food available to them and consequently starve. It is possible for overactive predation to force a species to extinction, but this is, to my knowledge, uncommon. Usually this is due to the sudden introduction of new predators to an enviornment, like when dogs and rats brought by sailors wiped out the Dodo bird. Lions are not likely to force gazelles to extinction, nor are wolves, which are making a comeback incidentally, likely to wipe out white-tailed deer. Deer that are more succesful at avoiding predators are more likely to pass on their traits, which is why predation is important to evolution. You are suggesting that frogs would have to evolve into reptiles or else be eaten to extinction by alligators. Predators are a significant pressure on prey species and vice-versa, but this is a reason for frogs to evolve poisonous skin, not for frogs to evolve into reptiles on their own, or go extinct.
In post#708 to Junior:
Thanks, I must have missed it. I think I talked about this sufficiently in the first section of this post.
Right. After nearly two years of furious activity in our threads, he has yet to indicate that he has achieved any grasp of what evolution is all about. He constantly argues against weird notions that are stuck in his mind, which no biologist ever conceived of. But stay the course until you wear yourself out. You may be the one to achieve a breakthrough.
There are a lot of pressures on species NOT to evolve. If the species changes to readily, it loses its identity and does not propogate. If it does not change AT ALL, then it cannot adapt to new enviornmental conditions.
Funny that in the last two posts you have made arguments FOR evolution which I have often made against it. The propagation problem is one of them and that is a reason why in my view evolution is impossible. However, for evolution to be true, the changes have to be constant and over the whole species in order to provide 'test material' for favorable transformations. So regardless of environmental pressures there needs to be constant mutations going on. This makes the possibility of any species remaining the same for hundreds of millions of years impossible IF (big if) evolution were to be true. Yes, 'natural selection' is a destructive force and it prevents changes which makes it another contradiction in evolution - the calling of a destroyer and a conservative force the creator of anything.
When you have frogs that "closely resemble" primitive species, that means they have not had any significant enviornmental pressures in all that time. You are right that this is unlikely. That is why it happens so infrequently and why, out of all the thousands of species of frogs in the world, the guy you are quoting is specifically interested in that one.
Well again we see the contradictions of evolution and the excuse making - if a species changes it is evolution, if it does not, it is also evolution. The problem however is more than just a frog, but it is also about sharks, coelecanths, and many other species. Indeed everything that is not a mammal could be considered from an evolutionary standpoint an 'inferior' species, yet they constitute the majority of species on earth - AND THEY DID NOT HAVE ANY NEED TO TRANSFORM THEMSELVES INTO MORE ADVANCED SPECIES IN ORDER TO SURVIVE.
In fact, the whole argument by evolutionists that species need to transform themselves into more complex, more advanced species in order to survive is proven to be absolute nonsense by the simplest and oldest of all organisms - the bacteria. Bacteria are by all accounts the oldest and simplest of all organisms, they are also the most successful of all organisms. In spite of their small size (not only are they unicellular, but the cells are several orders of magnitude smaller than human cells) they still constitute some 90% of the bio-mass on earth. Now that is what I call success!