So, let's take this to be correct then. The lake is slowly drying up. Evolution has 1 shot and 1 shot only to correctly make lungs that can breathe air, change the creature's blood system to take air from the lungs and recirculate it in a complete system - from a creature who has no such ability and it happens? Evolution is baby steps, its not grand changes. the change from a water breathing creature to an air breathing creature is not quite so simple.
How about a better example, some tropical regions such as the Amazon have dry seasons and wet seasons. During the wet seasons animals who usually live in water are able to live in pockets, mud, etc. Now imagine over time these animals that are already able to somewhat exist without water 'granted a pocket of water, mud, etc' have their habitat gradually go from 1 month a year dry 11 months wet, to 1/2 and 1/2, wouldn't it be a bit easier to see how this could happen over an extended period of time and the animal somehow change to a degree even if for the first few thousand years being able to minimally live outside of their natural water? I don't see it as that big of a jump myself
So, this creature has the ability to know that over periods of time (far longer than this individual creature could hope to survive) things are getting wetter for longer periods or dryer for longer periods? The world doesn't happen in straight lines like that, it ebbs and flows (see ice ages).
Excuse the popups Primordial Soup http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/primordials.htm Selfish Gene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
That might be so, however even a few thousand years could still create the need of the creature who can already somewhat coexist into both forms to choose one over the other. Another interesting way to look at it, possibly a mutation. Something not meant to happen, something that would actually be bad or usually considered a defect somehow saved the species existance and allowed it to continue. Take the pacu and the piranah, the piranah is actually believed to have come from the pacu but in the exact opposite of the pacu with a downgrade or loss of the defect however brought the normally vegative Pacu into a seperate form a meat eating piranah as that is how it was best adapted. This was not progress, it is believed to have been actually originally a mutation or in other words a birth defect that caused it. I have also placed a link to info on this, not the greatest but does point some of how the theory on this particular instance was created. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i4/piranha.asp
As to this from first hand experience it's a wonder how many things appear to be passed down automatically to wild animals that never had any direct contact with their parents. Not to use another fish, but take for example convict cichlids. I have taken many from the parents as soon as they were hatched trying to control their population. They never learned anything from their parents, yet eagerly pair up with the opposite sex, and do the exact same thing their parents did from the act of spawning, to digging pits, to taking care of their young. I don't know how but it does appear somehow 'intelligence to a degree' is passed down without an explanation needed.
One thing I see missing in this discussion of evolution is the phrase "survival of the fittest". Evolution isn't about several generations of animals making a conscious decision to slowly change. It's that animals that adapt to the environment better then others survive and since they do survive and later reproduce with similar animals that have that same trait they are strengthening that same trait. Take the example of the animal that is adapting to an environment that is getting wetter. The animals that survive are going to be the ones with more water resistance skin, legs better at swimming, a larger lung capacity, etc. They are very minor differences from the other animals, but those will be the ones that survive and produce with similar animals, further strengthen those traits and widening the difference from the animals a few generations ago. Mutations that are beneficial will further the animals. As far as not building a house without a floor. I had a tree house when I was young, because I came from monkeys.
Aren't you forgetting homo erectus and homo neanderthalensis? Have you perhaps overlooked the fact that there may well have been others but that being an aggressive and territorial species homo sapiens went to great lengths to wipe out any direct competitors?
Yes that way they could dispute evolution all together and say they are just bones, where is the proof ? btw, just kidding with all sides on this one.
But where did the aliens come from? They obviously evolved from alien monkeys and apes. Except the ones in the Sigourney Weaver movies...
It's all true, except I don't think I came from monkeys even though one time when we went to the zoo my dad told me I did. He also held me up by the let over the alligator cage and said he was going to drop me as he said "ha ha I wish I had a camera so we could get a picture of this."
if you saw my kids you would think we came from monkeys they all climb things like their mom ...... ummm.... maybe not their mom, but they climb stuff
If my wife read it she would say"I'm not the one who climbs stuff dear husband!" thats what I meant.... I have been called spider man when people saw me climb a rock wall and that was my first time.