Posted: Apr 30, 2012 11:41 pm
asyncritus wrote:Spearthrower, I congratulate you on your attempted explanation, which I here acknowledge, and wiil shortly debunk.
In the meantime, until I manage to get round to that, here is the tale of the Eels. Let's have a few more insults instead of explanations. Let me spare you the bother: 'OHH_MMMMMMM mutations and natural selection; Gish Galloping; the answer has already been given; I am ignoring the given answers. Forgive me if I've missed a few, but you get the idea.' Now we've got past all that, can we have a scientific discussion?
The eels (Anguilla spp) grow to maturity in European fresh water bodies, like lakes, reservoirs and such like. So far, so good.
At sexual maturity, they make their way into the rivers, and swim down to the sea, where they should die in the salt water. They don't, and one wonders how this astonishing feature evoived. But let that pass.
THEY THEN SWIM DOWN THE WEST COAST OF EUROPE, DOWN THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA, PIGGY-BACKING ON THE CURRENTS FLOWING SOUTH, THEN THEY BRANCH OFF INTO THE SARGASSO SEA.
Note, they have never made this trip before, and will never make it again. So the navigation instinct is in full swing. Origins anybody?
They swim at depths of 3000 feet in the day, and come up to 250 feet at night. They cannot be navigating by the sun, stars or any light source, since it is entirely dark at those depths.
IN THE SARGASSO, THEY SPAWN, AND ALL THE ADULTS DIE. NONE EVER RETURNS TO THE HOME WATERS.
The young, called glass eels, then swim all the way back to the European waters WITH NO GUIDES (being in that respect very much like the Pacific Golden Plover young). 3000 miles away, underwater at that.
They then return to the European freshwater, where they remain for some years until sexual maturity and then they repeat the journey their parents made, but which they have never seen themselves.
I wonder just how many mutations and natural selections it took to evolve that lot.
But you can tell me, I'm sure.
Have you never found your way back from the shops? If any of your direct ancestors had had life-threatening trouble finding their way back from the shops, do you think you'd be alive now?