Why would natural selection etc not do this, why do you see a need to invoke some Intelligent Designer pulling the strings?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539410)

It's an argument from lack of data (real or perceived lack,) and lack of creativity in thinking of how things can evolve.

How much do you know about evolution of venom, how much do you know about how much knowledge we have available on the subject?

Wild speculation ahead, but perhaps venom evolve in stages like eyes and tons of other complex organs did, over a long as time and with many different species using those stages along the way, without some end game in the mind of a slow-playing intelligent designer for it to end up as venomous snakes ten million generations down the road.

Re venom: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/09/on-the-origin-of-venom/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35540126)

ID is a fuckton closer to the truth than anything mainstream biologists posit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35541199)

"In other words, there is no obvious sexual dimorphism in neck length. As a result, the authors concluded that the "competing browsers" hypothesis "is the more likely explanation for tallness in giraffes".

In the last 10 years evidence has emerged that weakens the necks-for-sex hypothesis

Meanwhile, other researchers have found direct evidence for the competing browsers hypothesis. By erecting fences around Acacia trees in South Africa, Elissa Cameron and Johan du Toit were able to reveal the impact that smaller competitors like steenbok, impala and kudu have on food availability.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35545062)

it makes no sense as presented ('random adaptive mutations' WOW, SO RANDOM).

it doesn't make sense that random mutations created something so uniform as the archetype of say, a human being. it makes sense, PERHAPS, that random mutations created the eyeball. but why stop there? why didn't some people develop a THIRD eye somewhere on their bodies? and why would 3-eyed and 2-eyed people not evolve side by side? 3 eyes vs 2 eyes is not SUCH an advantage that the 3-eyed people would have slaughtered all the 2-eyed people or something.

the whole theory is a little too 'just so' for me to accept.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539332)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_eye

it serves a very logical purpose as a defense function - animals with a parietal eye are cold-blooded and have to spend time bathing in the sun, often with no cover. the parietal eye can alert them to predators approaching from above and behind.

The Tuatara is a nocturnal lizard (most lizards are diurnal) that occasionally spends time sunbathing. It makes sense that its parietal eye is more developed than other lizards. Geckos are almost all nocturnal and do not have a parietal eye.

Primates almost all developed under foliage so it makes sense that we don't have this third eye.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539616)

probably not very effective though - you're sleeping way more so you don't really "gain" that extra time. plus if you believe the limited heart function theory, your heart still beats during hibernation so you might have a shorter waking lifespan

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539409)

Also the consciousness is not contained primarily within the brain of the octopus but is sort of spread out, with tentacles each independently motivated to act.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35540109)

Infrequent? There's your error, chief. Mutations happen with every reproduction. Over a population of any non-negligible size and any significant number of generations, that's a shit load of mutations. Hard to call it infrequent.

Without getting to any supernatural stuff, I have trouble understanding how life would do anything but evolve on its own. I don't pretend to understand this all well enough to say it must require some supernatural, or a vague ability of plants to "see" what's best for their next generation beyond regular natural selection processes which seem to do that perfectly well.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539384)

i saw a guy just last week with incipient proto-'gills' on his neck

i bet he gets laid all the time because of that potential ADAPTIVE advantage 300 generations hence

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539401)

IIRC people like Dan Dennett call something like this as possibly explained by "exaption"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaptation

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35539752)

True, most mutations don't come to dominate the gene pool and quickly die out.

Re venom, see my other response above. How confident are you in your exhaustive knowledge of the origins of venoms? Do you know whether there are any known intermittent stages leading to venom?

It isn't totally implausible that there is some supernatural guidance, but it would need to be supernatural and my default is to be extremely skeptical of concluding that supernatural interference is necessary. The existence of venom doesn't move my needle. It doesn't seem much more complex than flight, which evolved independently multiple times, or eyes, which also did, etc.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/09/on-the-origin-of-venom/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35540178)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearly_neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution

NOTE: You are biasing your views based on extremely rare, novel phenotypes. Most evolution is BORING and SLOW. Any change in the allele frequency of a population is evolution. You're erroneously focused on the individual level and on evolutionary innovations.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35541171)

i wish i could just shoot shit out of my eyes at him.

evolve

horned toads

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35541202)

filter evolution

horned toads remain

thanks, god

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35541252)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3910479&forum_id=2#35544767)