DILEMMAS (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, November 02, 2014, 15:32 (3457 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have gone back to these wretched guidelines, which we had agreed constituted the restrictions on what an organism can do, and the conditions imposed by the environment. 
DAVID: I look at the degree of complexity. You like to skip over the need for advanced planning. Highly complex innovations require that, and it beyond my concept of an IM, which I see as modification of patterned advances.-For the time being, I have accepted your view of “patterns” (= highly complex innovations). We are now trying to find the borderlines between what the IM can and can't do, and you chose the monarch butterfly as an example. Your nebulous “guidelines” (previously defined as what an organism can/can't do, plus the restraints imposed by the environment) fudge the issue raised by my next point:-dhw: Either God created a programme for three generations of the butterflies to live, reproduce and die, and the fourth to migrate, or he dabbled, or they worked it out for themselves.
DAVID: Metamorphosis is highly complex, in which an early form dissolves into a pile of goo and a totally new life form appears. It is as if one new species morphs into an entirely different species, but it is the same animal in a 'now you see me now you don't'.-Metamorphosis was not the focus of your post. All butterflies metamorphose from caterpillar to butterfly. You chose the monarch because of its extraordinary life cycle: three generations live and die within a few weeks, and the fourth migrates and lives for several months.-dhw: Under “Nature's balance” you thought the IM of ants could handle the construction of their immensely complex cities “by learned experience”.
DAVID: I remember referring to ants forming rafts for a flood. That an IM could handle. Can you show me the cities reference, so I may review it. Still mulling. -dhw: (Friday 31 October at 19.37 under “Nature's balance”) Perhaps, though, we could take the example one step further and consider my very dear friends the ants, who rather than using existing habitats actually build their own, complete with all the mod cons they need for their own survival and comfort. Usual question: divinely preprogrammed, product of a divine dabble, or working it out for themselves?

DAVID: (Friday 31 October at 22.14) I think an IM can handle this. It occurs by learned experience.-dhw: Why do you think the monarch butterfly's IM is incapable of learning from experience and applying what it has learned? And why do you think God - whose evolutionary purpose you believe to have been the creation of humans - would have chosen to create a special programme for monarch butterflies, or would have dabbled to make the monarch behave in this special way?
DAVID: Balance of nature. Butterflies help pollination and are food for others. You want a caterpillar form to figure out how to grow wings and fly.-Same as above. You have shifted from monarch to all butterflies. My question concerned the special programme for the monarch, so I'll repeat it. Did God preprogramme the four generation cycle and migration, did he dabble, or did the monarch work it out? Please remember I am trying establish borderlines from these examples.-********-DAVID: An evolutionary scientist writes about his faith:-http://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Fittest-Solving-Evolutions-Greatest/dp/1591846463/ref=sr_...
A review with comments:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1S25CAAGSQ5TQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=159184646...-"There could never be enough time in the world to take an impossibility and make it possible. Something, it appears, always existed: Mind or Matter. Which requires more faith is the question all must ask themselves. "-Right on!!!!-I know nothing about Andreas Wagner, and can't find out about his religious background, but there is no mention of faith here. The excellent quote is not from him but from someone called Keith Davis. The book apparently talks of: “a set of laws that allow nature to discover new molecules and mechanisms in a fraction of the time that random mutations would take.” I would point out that nature and sets of laws can hardly make discoveries on their own. The discoveries have to be made by organisms. And I would suggest that the “laws” which enable organisms to make those discoveries are none other than what you call the “information” which constitutes an inventive mechanism within their own genome.