Vox offers three “unexplainable” mysteries of life on Earth

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 9, 2023

Biology, Intelligent Design}

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In three podcasts at Vox:

How did life start on Earth? What was the series of events that led to birds, bugs, amoebas, you, and me?
That’s the subject of Origins, a three-episode series from Unexplainable — Vox’s podcast that explores big mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown. – Brian Resnick (March 1, 2023)

The three mysteries they offer are:

Where did Earth’s water come from?
How did life start in that water?
What is life anyway?

About that last: Science writer Carl Zimmer offers “The problem is, for each definition of life, scientists can think of a confounding exception. Take, for instance, NASA’s definition of life: “Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” But that definition would exclude viruses, which are not “self-sustaining” and can only survive and replicate by infiltrating a host.”

Comments

"If you’re not going to even try and engage in the actual arguments why should I bother responding to you?" JVL, It's entirely up to you whether or not you want to respond to me. You do, however, appeal to the wondrous mists of a long and far away past to prop up your viewpoint, so you're not the only one who gets insulted during our exchanges. Andrewasauber_{March 14, 2023
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JVL at 113, FYI, bluff and bluster is NOT evidence!
“The response I have received from repeating Behe's claim about the evolutionary literature, which simply brings out the point being made implicitly by many others, such as Chris Dutton and so on, is that I obviously have not read the right books. There are, I am sure, evolutionists who have described how the transitions in question could have occurred.” And he continues, “When I ask in which books I can find these discussions, however, I either get no answer or else some titles that, upon examination, do not, in fact, contain the promised accounts. That such accounts exist seems to be something that is widely known, but I have yet to encounter anyone who knows where they exist.” - David Ray Griffin - retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology? “The argument that random variation and Darwinian gradualism may not be adequate to explain complex biological systems is hardly new […} in fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject — evolution — with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses works in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.” - Prof. James Shapiro – “In the Details…What?” National Review, 19 September 1996, pp. 64. “,,,we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.’ - Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205. - Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA
bornagain77_{March 14, 2023
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Asauber: thinks that if you just imagine that you waited long enough sometime in the distant past, his/her pet absurd speculations are science. Aside from that being insulting it's clearly NOT what I think nor what unguided evolutionary theory says. I find it hard to believe that you have actually understood the basics arguments involved. If you're not going to even try and engage in the actual arguments why should I bother responding to you?JVL_{March 14, 2023
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Sandy: Let's focus on you answering the questions I asked: Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?JVL_{March 14, 2023
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JVL thinks that if you just imagine that you waited long enough sometime in the distant past, his/her pet absurd speculations are science. Andrewasauber_{March 14, 2023
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JVL Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?
Let's see : you believe that chemicals randomnly created life , you believe that some animals become diferent type of animals, you believe that existed some species that nobody saw...and you think that you are the reasonable one. :)Sandy_{March 14, 2023
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Jerry posted:
This then leads to destruction of the fitter itself as the niche/new ecology will be destroyed due to the new species actually being fitter. So whatever change there is, it must be small. The greater the change in fitness, the faster will the new species eliminate itself. There is no time for other species to adapt because it takes too long. So even if new variation did lead to advances in fitness (no evidence of this happening) the process has to be trivial and never lead anywhere significant.
Just to be clear, what Jerry has written, that I quote in this comment is complete balderdash, utter rubbish, strawman nonsense.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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Thank you for validating my logic.
Thank Dunning and Kruger.
Aside: i described the natural selection process a couple of weeks ago and you said you didn’t understand it. Maybe you should read some more.
Oh dear. I should have been clearer in saying I didn't understand your comment, which made no sense.
Aside2: a niche is not a mass extinction.
Good grief. How you get there from what I wrote is a mystery. Of course a niche is not an extinction. An extinction event empties a niche or niches.
A mass extinction may lead to several new niches.
That was my point when talking of the end if the Cretaceous.
So you have it backwards. The creation of a niche could be an extremely small event.
The niche of the population of E. coli living in your gut is small.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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JVL @117
Ori: Darwin’s assumption has always been that organisms are easy to make.
JVL: There are easy to make when you start with one that already exists.
Wow! Well, I agree with you that you have to say this in order to defend natural elimination. So, starting with a bacterium, you claim that it easy to make e.g. a bat…. Only when organisms are easy to make, it can be argued that there is a positive role for natural selection.
JVL: ... how many species you think have ever existed on the planet. What is your count?
I would estimate that thousands have gone extinct.
JVL: Do you agree with Sandy who thinks the fossil record is ‘complete’?
Yes.Origenes_{March 14, 2023
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This just shows you have no idea what you are talking about.
My heritage is British. I'm brought up to be polite. Let me be blunt. It is you who who have no idea how biological evolution works. It is your comments that make no sense.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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Origenes: The fact that the niche is restrictive, that it kills off perfectly viable organisms that happen to be less suited or not suited And those that are better 'suited' are rewarded. Darwin’s assumption has always been that organisms are easy to make. There are easy to make when you start with one that already exists. Now that we are beginning to understand how difficult making organisms is, and how huge the search space for biological information actually is, it becomes clear that natural selection only obstructs the search. There is no 'search'. Each organism produces offspring which are not identical to their parents. There's variations. 'Search' implies a goal or target. IF you think humans are designed by God then, of course, you think there is/was a target. But that's NOT what unguided evolutionary theory says. Again, your misunderstanding of the basics is pretty astonishing. By the way: I can't help but notice that you have not said how many species you think have ever existed on the planet. What is your count? Do you agree with Sandy who thinks the fossil record is 'complete'?JVL_{March 14, 2023
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Alan Fox @109,
Though at least five major mass extinctions have occurred in Earth’s history.
Yes, indeed. There was the evidence of the global flood (like the one on Mars) mentioned in the Bible and hundreds of derivative legends across the earth that was followed by the ice age, which was driven by the climate changes from the warmer oceans, and the evidence of the mega volcanoes that also reduced the solar radiation available on earth.
Small nocturnal mammals were presented with a mountain of carrion and the opportunity to fill the vast niches made empty by the bolide.
While most small nocturnal mammals are vegetarian, you're right that they were present with the dinosaurs. -QQuerius_{March 14, 2023
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Sandy: Fossil record is complete Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?JVL_{March 14, 2023
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Can’t make any sense of this
This just shows you have no idea what you are talking about. I described the niche process you constantly repeat and you do not understand it. Then you provide something that has no relation to biological change as an example. Thank you for validating my logic. Aside: i described the natural selection process a couple of weeks ago and you said you didn’t understand it. Maybe you should read some more. Aside2: a niche is not a mass extinction. A mass extinction may lead to several new niches. So you have it backwards. The creation of a niche could be an extremely small event.jerry_{March 14, 2023
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Bornagain77: And, other than your fevered imagination, where might that evidence actually be? There are literally hundreds of thousands (if not more) research papers that have been published over the last century which provide evidence. Not every one has the time or ability to absorb all that but fortunately there are lots and lots of books written for non-specialised readers which explain the data. I found Neil Shubin's recent book Some Assembly Required extremely informative and up-to-date. You should read it. you do realize that Embryonic development was excluded from the modern synthesis as ‘irrelevant’ do you not? It was just a comparison; an example of something very complicated coming from something much simpler WITHOUT any designer intervention.JVL_{March 14, 2023
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Alan Fox @105 The fact that the niche is restrictive, that it kills off perfectly viable organisms that happen to be less suited or not suited, is exactly the problem for evolution. It does not help to find biological information, instead, it makes it much harder. Darwin's assumption has always been that organisms are easy to make. The role of natural selection was to cull the abundance of organisms that random variations come up with. To bring some order in what is "so easy" to find. Now that we are beginning to understand how difficult making organisms is, and how huge the search space for biological information actually is, it becomes clear that natural selection only obstructs the search.Origenes_{March 14, 2023
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Origenes: Assuming such can happen, the credit goes entirely to random variation. “Cumulative selection” did not help, instead, it did not obstruct. If wings come into existence due to evolution, then it means that natural elimination left the process “untouched.” Unguided evolution is (partly) the combination of inheritable variation AND cumulative selection. You'd get nothing without the combination. Variation alone doesn't cut it; cumulative selection without variation doesn't cut it either. These concepts are actually very simple and, considering how long you've been commenting here, the apparent fact that you still don't understand them is astonishing.JVL_{March 14, 2023
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The term fitness is a nebulous term and can mean anything.
The concept is quite simple, once you understand fitness is relative and applied to the immediate niche environment within which the breeding population of organisms is located. The golden mole is supremely adapted to the Namib desert and the great white shark is supremely adapted to ocean life. Neither species would survive swapping their habitat for the other.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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This will lead to the destruction of the niche as the fitter destroy the others
Do you know what a niche is in biology, Jerry? Though at least five major mass extinctions have occurred in Earth's history.
This leads to destruction of the fitter itself as the niche will be destroyed due to the new species actually being fitter. It prevents any significant change in fitness. The greater the change in fitness, the faster will the new species eliminate itself.
Can't make any sense of this. Would you mind rephrasing or clarifying.
There is no time for other species to adapt because it takes too long.
Well, following the last major mass extinction event, the dinosaurs (those that survived the initial catastrophy) were unable to adapt to the subsequent loss of food source due to the ash clouds preventing plant growth and they starved. Small nocturnal mammals were presented with a mountain of carrion and the opportunity to fill the vast niches made empty by the bolide.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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The selection process weeds out phenotypes carrying less successful (in that niche) genotypes, clearing the field for the fitter (suited to that niche) members of the gene pool to proliferate.
This will lead to the destruction of the niche as the fitter destroy the others This then leads to destruction of the fitter itself as the niche/new ecology will be destroyed due to the new species actually being fitter. So whatever change there is, it must be small. The greater the change in fitness, the faster will the new species eliminate itself. There is no time for other species to adapt because it takes too long. So even if new variation did lead to advances in fitness (no evidence of this happening) the process has to be trivial and never lead anywhere significant. Aside: The term fitness is a nebulous term and can mean anything. But whatever it is, it has to be trivial. Significant changes as seen in the fossil record would definitely eliminate the ecologies unless somehow controlled. That’s the logic. There are three proposed methods for life advancement. Darwinian processes which are extremely slow and never actually observed except for basic genetics Punctuated equilibrium which happens more sudden as new proteins develop silently somewhere in the genome but leads to larger changes. This eliminate the new species even quicker Then ther is emergencejerry_{March 14, 2023
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JVL, you do realize that Embryonic development was excluded from the modern synthesis as 'irrelevant' do you not?
On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3
In other words JVL, you, as a Darwinist, have no clue how embryological development came about!
The Diverse Early Embryonic Development of Vertebrates and Implications Regarding Their Ancestry David W. Swift - July 21, 2022 Excerpt: It is well known that the embryonic development of vertebrates from different classes (e.g., fish, reptiles, mammals) pass through a “phylotypic stage” when they look similar, and this apparent homology is widely seen as evidence of their common ancestry. However, despite their morphological similarities, and contrary to evolutionary expectations, the phylotypic stages of different vertebrate classes arise in radically diverse ways. This diversity clearly counters the superficial appearance of homology of the phylotypic stage, and the plain inference is that vertebrates have not evolved from a common vertebrate ancestor. The diversity extends through all stages of early development—including cleavage and formation of the blastula, gastrulation, neurulation, and formation of the gut and extraembryonic membranes. This paper focuses on gastrulation, during which the germ layers originate and the vertebrate body-plan begins to form.,,, https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2022.1/pdf "The earliest events leading from the first division of the egg cell to the blastula stage in amphibians, reptiles and mammals are illustrated in figure 5.4. Even to the untrained zoologist it is obvious that neither the blastula itself, nor the sequence of events that lead to its formation, is identical in any of the vertebrate classes shown. The differences become even more striking in the next major phase of embryo formation - gastrulation. This involves a complex sequence of cell movements whereby the cells of the blastula rearrange themselves, eventually resulting in the transformation of the blastula into the intricate folded form of the early embryo, or gastrula, which consists of three basic germ cell layers: the ectoderm, which gives rise to the skin and the nervous system; the mesoderm, which gives rise to muscle and skeletal tissues; and the endoderm, which gives rise to the lining of the alimentary tract as well as to the liver and pancreas.,,, In some ways the egg cell, blastula, and gastrula stages in the different vertebrate classes are so dissimilar that, where it not for the close resemblance in the basic body plan of all adult vertebrates, it seems unlikely that they would have been classed as belonging to the same phylum. There is no question that, because of the great dissimilarity of the early stages of embryogenesis in the different vertebrate classes, organs and structures considered homologous in adult vertebrates cannot be traced back to homologous cells or regions in the earliest stages of embryogenesis. In other words, homologous structures are arrived at by different routes." Michael Denton - Evolution: A Theory in Crisis - pg 145-146
Of further note:
"It's a Mystery, It's Magic, It's Divinity" - Casey Luskin - March 22, 2012 Excerpt: "The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity." - Alexander Tsiaras http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/03/mathematician_a057741.html "The mere fact that a firefly comes from a single cell that then develops into a firefly puts it in a completely different league [from an iPhone]. That doesn’t happen with smartphones. Factories make smartphones. Fireflies come from fireflies and come from an initial fertilized cell. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. We have no idea how a single cell produces an adult. These things are marvelous." - Doug Axe - Doug Axe - The Problem with Theistic Evolution - video - mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAxRY41ndU
Verse:
Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
bornagain77_{March 14, 2023
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:) Who can list for me those 5 billion species that were extinct? 99% extinct? Only 250.000 are in the fossil record and 90% are still living today . Fossil record is complete so logical deduction is that all animals are created and do not "evolve" in the darwinian sense . No darwinist saw an animal evolving into another animal ,he/she just believes that happened. It's impressive that a person can believe such nonsense but that doesn't make it true. This 99% extinct species is "a deduction" based on the darwinian fable and billions of years.Sandy_{March 14, 2023
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So, the problem for random mutations to find functional information is made even more difficult by the destructive actions of natural elimination.
Not at all. Mutations and other sorts of variation that enter the gene pool are random. The selection process weeds out phenotypes carrying less successful (in that niche) genotypes, clearing the field for the fitter (suited to that niche) members of the gene pool to proliferate.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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JVL: "I think it has been demonstrated that unguided, natural processes in combination with cumulative selection CAN do what is claimed they can do." You think??? And, other than your fevered imagination, where might that evidence actually be?
"Enzyme Families -- Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - December 4, 2014 Excerpt: If enzymes can't be recruited to genuinely new functions by unguided means, no matter how similar they are, the evolutionary story is false.,,, Taken together, since we found no enzyme that was within one mutation of cooption, the total number of mutations needed is at least four: one for duplication, one for over-production, and two or more single base changes. The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. We have now addressed two objections raised by our critics: that we didn't test the right mutation(s), and that we didn't use the right starting point. We tested all possible single base changes in nine different enzymes, Those nine enzymes are the most structurally similar of BioF's entire family We also tested 70 percent of double mutations in the two closest enzymes of those nine. Finally, some have said we should have used the ancestral enzyme as our starting point, because they believe modern enzymes are somehow different from ancient ones. Why do they think that? It's because modern enzymes can't be coopted to anything except trivial changes in function. In other words, they don't evolve! That is precisely the point we are making. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/a_new_paper_fro091701.html Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne - September 29, 2019 by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski Excerpt: David Gelernter observed that amino acid sequences that correspond to functional proteins are remarkably rare among the “space” of all possible combinations of amino acid sequences of a given length. Protein scientists call this set of all possible amino acid sequences or combinations “amino acid sequence space” or “combinatorial sequence space.” Gelernter made reference to this concept in his review of Meyer and Berlinski’s books. He also referenced the careful experimental work by Douglas Axe who used a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis to assess the rarity of protein folds in sequence space while he was working at Cambridge University from 1990-2003. Axe showed that the ratio of sequences in sequence space that will produce protein folds to sequences that won’t is prohibitively and vanishingly small. Indeed, in an authoritative paper published in the Journal of Molecular Biology Axe estimated that ratio at 1 in 10^74. From that information about the rarity of protein folds in sequence space, Gelernter—like Axe, Meyer and Berlinski—has drawn the rational conclusion: finding a novel protein fold by a random search is implausible in the extreme. Not so, Coyne argued. Proteins do not evolve from random sequences. They evolve by means of gene duplication. By starting from an established protein structure, protein evolution had a head start. This is not an irrational position, but it is anachronistic. Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space. Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream. https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/ Dan S. Tawfik Group - The New View of Proteins - Tyler Hampton - 2016 Excerpt: Tawfik soberly recognizes the problem. The appearance of early protein families, he has remarked, is “something like close to a miracle.”45,,, To the extent that Tawfik’s selection experiments were successful, it is because mutations were localized and contextualized. Mutation had a key but confined role. If evolution proceeded, the prevailing architecture of the active sites and protein shapes nonetheless remains intact. Changes were not to central structures, but to peripheral loops. A great deal of flexibility was discovered. Still, it is hard to see how any of this could build proteins—that is, in the sense of building their fundamental shapes, or scaffolds; and build proteins in terms of explaining the key catalytic strategies of each active site. Even in the impressive demonstration of a transition through nine orders of magnitude, in which a full exchange of a promiscuous activity for the primary activity was seen, the overall geometry of the protein was unchanged, and, although substrates had changed, the fundamental active site strategy stayed the same. ,,, “Modern neo-Darwinism and neutral evolutionary treatments,” remark Leonard Bogarad and Michael Deem, “fail to explain satisfactorily the generation of the diversity of life found on our planet.” It is not that they did not evolve, they say, but that “... most theoretical treatments of evolution consider only the limited point-mutation events that form the basis of these theories.” Their sober conclusion is that “point mutation alone is incapable of evolving systems with substantially new protein folds.”60,,, “In fact, to our knowledge,” Tawfik and Tóth-Petróczy write, “no macromutations ... that gave birth to novel proteins have yet been identified.”69 http://inference-review.com/article/the-new-view-of-proteins
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Bornagain77: It can’t do it once, so it can’t do it again. Stomping your feet and pouting and saying: look how complicated this stuff is isn't being scientific either. Just because you don't understand how it all works doesn't make it a miracle. Did you ever consider that you, yourself, started out as a single fertilised cell? As your cells divided and multiplied they differentiated into different kinds of tissues and organs. And some of that growth pattern continued after you were born. You went from a cell to an adult human being in a few years. Do you think that 'miracle' was guided or tweaked all along the way? When your lungs first appeared was that another miracle or just an unguided natural process responding to its environment? Was your body told by some designer: looks like it's time to make lungs now. Hey, we need some eyes here, better get to that. What happens with people who are born crippled or deformed? Is that an example of the natural process going wonky or some designer taking a coffee break at the wrong time? You think??? And, other than your fevered imagination, where might that evidence actually be? You should read Neil Shubin's recent book: Some Assembly Required. He explains how just controlling when certain genes are 'turned on or off' can make different phenotypes.JVL_{March 14, 2023
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Less than 1% of the viable species, that random mutations happen to stumble upon, escape destruction by natural elimination.
Yes, I've seen the "99% of all species that ever lived are extinct" claim made from time to time. I wonder what evidence the claim is made on. Another claim is that the vast majority of species leave no fossil evidence. Time for some googling.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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JVL at 96, "... selection invented wings once it can do it again." Invented? You mean created, don't you? Unguided Evolution has no creative/invention ability. You are only resorting to the God substitute idea.relatd_{March 14, 2023
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JVL @96
If a combination of random variation and cumulative selection invented wings once it can do it again.
Assuming such can happen, the credit goes entirely to random variation. "Cumulative selection" did not help, instead, it did not obstruct. If wings come into existence due to evolution, then it means that natural elimination left the process "untouched." It means that this time, it didn't do what it usually does, namely, obstruct the process by eliminating one of the species of the chain leading up to the wing.Origenes_{March 14, 2023
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"If a combination of random variation and cumulative selection invented wings once it can do it again." It can't do it once, so it can't do it again.
FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Feathers - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yeNoDCcBg FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Flight muscles - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdvkopOmw0 FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Skeletal system - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11fZS_B6UW4 FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Starling murmurations - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GR9zFgOzyw FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Embryonic Development - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ah-gT0hTto Bird Evolution vs. The Actual Evidence - video (11:42 minute mark) https://youtu.be/OZhtj06kmXY?t=704 Fossil Discontinuities: Refutation of Darwinism & Confirmation of Intelligent Design - Gunter Bechly - (Radiation of Modern Birds - 25:00 minute mark) - video https://youtu.be/M7w5QGqcnNs?t=1501
Verse:
Genesis 1:20 And God said,,, “and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens
bornagain77_{March 14, 2023
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This will destroy the niche if the variation is significant.
That's backwards. Too rapid a change in the niche a population of organisms will result in extinction. But saltation (hopeful monsters) can't and doesn't happen because a sudden large change in an individual in a population obviates the new genotype spreading via sexual reproduction.
Otherwise, this means nothing new can happen unless the ecology is protected. This implies all variation must lead to trivial results. It’s what we see.
You are overlooking cumulative change over time.Alan Fox_{March 14, 2023
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