Genome complexity: new review of epigenetics studies (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 12, 2017, 00:32 (2535 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Resistance to toxins has to be a physical as opposed to a behavioural process. I suggest that all of these processes come as a RESPONSE to the environment. Planning requires knowledge of the future. Please tell us about adaptations that have been observed BEFORE the relevant environmental changes took place.

My point is that in seeing a future body type requires mentation and planning. See the whale series as shown in the video of today. As you know and see below about apes, many species appear without any environmental change.

dhw: I am not suggesting that my cell committees plan for future changes in the environment. I am suggesting that they respond to changes as they happen. In your scenario, speciation, lifestyles and natural wonders all require God’s preprogramming or dabbling in order to keep life going for the sake of humans. Once again: are you now backtracking on your insistence that God also designed all the lifestyles and natural wonders for the same purpose?

The primary purpose of evolution is humans. You are reverting to pure Darwin. Speciation can occur without environmental changes.

dhw: Just to make it clear: we now have evolution as a process in which God creates new species, lifestyles and natural wonders, and then creates the conditions in which they are able to live, as opposed to new environments triggering the structural changes.

I repeat:

DAVID: I have made the point that environmental changes never pushed the drive to humans. apes are still apes. Environment is only one of many factors that drive evolution. Darwin used that argument, but his entire theory is weak, as we know.

dhw: We have both made the point over and over again that environmental changes never pushed the drive to multicellularity as a whole, since bacteria are still with us. That is why over and over again I have suggested that all advances beyond bacteria, including humans, can be attributed to the drive for survival and/or improvement. Darwin argued that environmental factors, random mutations, competition for survival and natural selection drove evolution.

Again pure Darwin: natural selection is a passive judge, not a driver. Competition and environmental changes may not have driven evolution. A drive to complexity os an obvious component.

dhw: We both reject random mutations, I suggest cellular intelligence (perhaps God-given) instead, and would add cooperation to competition. I don’t know how any of this supports your thesis that God created new species, lifestyles etc. before creating the conditions that demanded or allowed them.

My thesis is based on many more factors than the ones you list. They are in two books and the entries here. The evolution of the conditions on Earth and the evolution of life obviously co-evolved. God prefers evolutionary processes to achieve His goals. I've agreed elsewhere that it might be a way God can experiment, if He wishes, but that is a big IF.