The three themes are interrelated and inseparable, they are three aspects of a single phenomenon, a multi-faceted phenomenon.
It happens that predominance itself is a means of environment. If all variations are occupied by the struggle for predominance the result is as seen in nature among the flora and fauna. No one variation predominates overall but each one predominates in its own favourable environment and time. Nevertheless, with a favourable environment it is possible for one variation to predominate.
It is clear that a specific environment is necessary to achieve variation, that predominance is both variable and an environment, while environment is both variable and predominant.
Just like Lavoisiere's work demonstrated that matter and energy are not lost they merely change form so Mendel's work demonstrated that nature is a closed system. Genes may appear lost but they are not, they are switched off and can be switched on again. The creatures and plants of nature are varied and they vary. There is a multi featured template or body plan from which they gain an existence through variation. Genotypes vary producing species which remain the same. Phenotypes vary producing individuals that change.
If we share genes with a carrot does that mean we are descended from a common vegetable? Creatures and plants use the same genes not because they share a common ancestor but because they share a common function.
We share genes with Jelly fish and they concern the heart. A Jelly fish moves freely through a body of water by contracting and expanding, a heart is fixed and when it expands and contracts fluid moves through its body.
We share genes with the Hazel tree not because we share a common ancestor rather because we share common reproductive functions. The male catkin hangs expectantly from late autumn. When the females arrive they swell and lengthen and release their pollen when shaken.
There are not separate genes for a clitoris there are genes for a penis that are switched off at a critical stage in development in a female. There are not separate genes for the male breast there are genes for the breast that in a male and female are switched off at a critical stage in development and switched on again at a later stage in the female.
Comparative anatomy does not provide evidence of common descent rather it is evidence of variation and a common process of development. All creatures and their parts develop from single cells and their eventual forms are a result of variation. The forelimbs of a seal or horse are variations of a human forelimb. A forelimb is what they have in common, how it is arranged is subject to variation.
Characteristics are not acquired. Eyes develop from one cell which contains the complete genome. We don't see legs growing from eyes because the leg is absent from the genome rather because the leg, along with many other parts, is switched off. We don't see eyes growing from legs because the eye is absent from the genome rather because the eye, along with many other parts, is switched off.
Ants, like other insects, do not have lungs; instead they have holes in their bodies which take oxygen directly to the various tissues. Consequently they do not communicate with each other through speech. Their language is one of smell, they communicate using pheromones.
Each creature has up to forty sites of production on their bodies and each of these sites produces a different pheromone. It is how they are combined that identifies an individual. Humans can use up to forty letters to form an alphabet and use it to communicate by combining them into words. Ants use an alphabet of pheromones. In the quest for food a variety of ants will search in a variety of directions from the nest each leaving a unique scent trail as they go. One of them will find food and return with some to the nest by the way she came, thus strengthening the scent trail. She will find one other ant and after telling her there is plenty more where this came from the two of them follow the trail back to the food source.
Two ants return to the nest carrying food. Once there each one finds one other ant and the four of them return to the food source following the scent trail. Each ant lays its personal pheromone combination and so reinforces the trail. Repeating this process ten times leads to one thousand and twenty four ants using the trail and with so many mouths at work the food source quickly diminishes.
Consequently only two hundred might return with food, they each recruit one ant and four hundred set out. Ten of them return with food, recruit one ant each and twenty follow the trail. This continues until the food source dries up and the returning ants are free to be recruited by ants returning from other sources.
The assumption that something small has less complexity than something large can not be right. A bacterium may be invisibly smaller than an elephant but it is no less complex. Given enough nutrients a single bacterium can multiply into a clump of equal proportions to an elephant, there is nothing simple about that. A better comparison is to equate a single bacterium to a single elephant cell. There is nothing simple about the single animal cell that each creature develops from. This makes the notion that complex life forms develop from simple life forms redundant, all life forms are found complex.
Most people embrace evolution because it bolsters their atheism.
