Trilobite eyes (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 19:25 (4057 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:"Knowing how to do something when you have to" sounds like intelligence to me. Why should epigenetics preclude intelligence?-It doesn't preclude intelligence. Epigenetics is designed by an intelligence to adapt to challenges of environment and to advance evolution in that way. But it is a designing intelligence that is behind all of these mechanisms we see demonstrated, not an amorphous intelligence, as implied by your vague term intelligence. A thinking, planning, designing intelligence involves introspection to achieve the type of genome complexity we find.
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> So God planned a mechanism that would enable the genome to innovate, probably in response to a changing environment. Welcome back to our concept of the "intelligent genome".-My intelligent genome is not your intelligent genome. My genome has underlying information and intelligent application of that information, planned to be that way. It cannot have arisen by chance. Your 'intelligence' has no characteristics of anything recognizable as a conscious planning mind. My term amorphous fits it perfectly, and I have no idea of what you are trying to maintain as a reasonable theory.
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> DAVID: The trilobite eyes have no known precursor. Complex compound eyes with bifocal lenses to campensate for the aberration when eyes look into water, with a different reflex angle for light. And what about the neurological attachments to a 'brain' to interpret the sights from the eye? And the complex developemnet of brain neurons to interpret the electric signals to give a conscious picture of what the eye is sending to the brain? Complexity upon complexity. All of this had to develop as specified complexity to give a whole functioning visual process. By chance mutation, no way!
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> Long since agreed. So are you saying that God stepped in and "plopped" complex compound eyes into one of his creatures, or are you saying that the "intelligent genome" (as above) invented complex compound eyes? If it's the latter, Darwin's theory of common descent, mutations (but not random, and not gradual) and natural selection still stands firm. And, to keep you happy, it doesn't exclude divine design and never did.-My intelligent genome did it. God prepared the genome to do it when the time came.
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> As for Dawkins, his flawed reasoning was what initially spurred me into writing the "brief guide" and opening up this website. We should not judge God by his followers. The same courtesy should be extended to Darwin.-I'm not judging Darwin. He didn't have enough knowledge to foresee the problems in his theory. He made an exemplary leap forward, based on a little knowledge, much of which supplied by Alfred Russel Wallace, who took an opposite view. Darwin's followers should be judged. Very few followed Wallace, when his theory is just as reasonable as Darwin's.