Why aren't beneficial traits evolved more often?

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Responses 3 See Also 4 Acknowledgments

Claim

Why aren't beneficial traits evolved more often? If wings were beneficial for proto-birds, for example, why haven't they evolved on gazelles and apes?

Responses

1. How often should 'beneficial traits' arise? If this claim were a genuinely scientific argument, it would point out that 'beneficial traits' ought to arise at such-and-such a rate; provide the evidence-based reasons for thinking so; and finally point out that 'beneficial traits' arise at some rate slower than such-and-such. Instead, this claim is a purely rhetorical gambit, intended to manufacture doubt about evolution from nothing.
2. "Why didn't gazelles and apes evolve wings?" Because forelimb-derived wings aren't beneficial traits for the ecological niches of neither gazelles nor apes.
3. Just because one particular trait is beneficial, or even crucial for one species' survival does not make it beneficial or even crucial for all species' survival.
4. In fact there are numerous examples of parallel evolution, just to mention one is the electric field sensing mechanisms in sharks and platypuses, highly unrelated organisms.
5. add more responses

See Also

• Why is Creationism not a Scientific Theory?
• Theory of Evolution

Acknowledgments