Page 9 - Research 1.0

Let's take the example of the Panda. Bears in general are
omnivores, eating plant matter, but with a marked preference
for meat when available. The preferred food of the Panda
however, is bamboo leaves, which have such low nutritional

value that they must eat almost continuously. The Panda would
certainly be able to extract more nutrition with a four
chambered stomach (as in ungulates and whales) or something
akin to a cecal valve that would slow the passage of food,
but it has neither in its genetic toolbox. In feeding
themselves, pandas are continuously stripping bamboo leaves
from their stalks, a process that could be facilitated if
they had a thumb.

Bears however do not have thumbs, nor do they have genes for
them in their genetic toolbox. Nor do new features simply
spring into existence. However, if a slightly altered body
component provides some benefit, natural selection will
perpetuate it. Evolution is modification with descent and
results in incremental alterations to what is already there.

As an analogy, imagine a robot gardener dragging a hose around
various obstacles it encounters in a garden until it can go
no further. Now an intelligent gardener could simply retrace
his steps and take a different path, avoiding those obstacles.
The robot gardener (evolution) is not an intelligent force
and cannot do that. With a limited tool kit, it can only
(figuratively) add more hose to get the job done.

While a thumb would be quite useful to a panda for stripping
leaves, evolution cannot rewind to produce one. Instead, it
has taken "a piece of hose' (a wrist bone) and enlarged it to
act as a stand in for a thumb. That is not an elegant solution
and not a perfect one, but it gets the job done. Evolution is
does not produce perfect solutions, but tweaks here and there
to "get the job done". THAT is how evolution operates. The
panda’s "thumb", developed over many generations of holding

things, is clearly a co-opted “radial sesamoid” bone from the
paw of a bear. Likewise, the 'Red Panda', a raccoon relative
with a similar diet, has evolved a similar feature.