[betty boop]

And why don't we see failed non streamlined submarine designs in Naval Warfare Museums?

Because submarines are designed to be "streamlined" in the first place? Such that anything that wasn't so designed would not meet the definition of "submarine," and thus would not be in the Naval Warfare Museum in the first place? For it wouldn't even qualify as a "submarine?"

The "spotty" fossil record seems to be of no help to you here, allmendream. One could crudely say that the fossil record is a crap shoot (by your own admission) in the service of the defense of another crap shoot (biological speciation as a random walk).

And yet it seems you inadvertently may have stumbled into the periphery of design theory here. Be careful!

Then again, what is the meaning of your comparison of the Naval Warfare Museum to natural selection? There's nothing "random" about a Naval Warfare Museum....

[xzins]

All good points, bb.

Obsolete submarines are recorded by the droves....even the Merrimac & Monitor.

[allmendream]

My comparison is valid because a submarine must WORK in order to make it into the museum of Naval Warfare History. Can't make history if you don't work. Similarly you only “make it” into the fossil record if there were successful enough as a species to have a few members fossilized.

It is like saying that people in the past were more extraordinary than today, because all the people you read about in history did extraordinary things. Yep, because dull people rarely make history.

There is nothing “random” about a successful body plan. What works is a rather limited subset. Natural selection is in no ways “random”.