okay so let me try to get this straight:I took it he was saying these must be very many changes given the constraints of sea versus land life,ant.
I suppose this challenges the time restrictions and the element of coordination is important given changes to physical systems.
It also implies very large numbers of intermediates.
1) mammals that for some reason went from land to sea had to develop the necessary adaptations in order to survive in a drastically new environment.
2) most likely the need to change environments was due to pressures likely related to survival (ie food, predators)
3) the adaptations necessary for survival in water had to have happened significantly faster than the slow, gradual adaptations espoused by Darwinian evolution.
4) transitional fossils indicate a journey from land to sea.
My questions would be:
Why (or how) were these transitional animals able to survive long enough to prevent extinction if during the period of transition they likely were not able to exploit resources as well as cousins that were already adapted for land?
How were adaptations for water selected by the random process that is evolution?
Wouldn't there have essentially been a "race against a clock" to develop the necessary adaptations for water before extinction occurred?
I mean, if some environmental pressure was underway then it would have been just that - pressure to quickly adapt with greater speed than an alleged ceiling'less timeframe. How would a random process select a "fast forward" switch?
This might be a silly question, but..,
Why weren't humans able to develop traits for water survival (or at least some) when environmental pressures were a factor?