Trilobite eyes (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Monday, March 18, 2013, 15:06 (4269 days ago)
These Cambrian animals had very complex eyes and horseshoe crabs today stilluse similar ones. The amazing part of tis story is there are no ancestors to trilobites, before trilobites appeared. Who made these complex eyes? chance?-Every Darwinist's nightmare:- http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/looking-a-trilobite-in-the-eye.html?ref=hp
Trilobite eyes
DAVID: These Cambrian animals had very complex eyes and horseshoe crabs today still use similar ones. The amazing part of this story is there are no ancestors to trilobites, before trilobites appeared. Who made these complex eyes? chance? Every Darwinist's nightmare:-http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/looking-a-trilobite-in-the-eye.html?ref=hp -I love these discoveries, and they all deepen the mystery. As always, David, you are providing us with a great education in the wonders of Nature. So please forgive me if I continue to question your conclusions. I'm as sceptical as you about chance creating these complex mechanisms, but what exactly is your alternative explanation? You believe that evolution happened, so I presume you're not suggesting that since there are no ancestors, God indulged in separate creation. (Would it not be wiser to say there are no "known" ancestors?) Or that he "plopped in" these complex eyes. Or that the very first cells preprogrammed trilobites along with all the other new species that appeared (and in the case of trilobites disappeared) during and after the Cambrian Explosion. Either way, that would make nonsense of your anthropocentric interpretation of God's purpose, unless you think he couldn't have made humans without first making trilobites. -However, we have agreed that within the genome of existing organisms is a mechanism which enables some of them to invent new organs as and when the environment demands or encourages such invention. If this is how it happened, the appearance of the trilobites is not a Darwinist's nightmare. Mutations did take place, but instead of being "random" they were directed by the "intelligent genome". The changes were not gradual (a second correction of Darwin), but some neo-Darwinists have already challenged this, and proposed "punctuated equilibrium" as an alternative. Darwin's theory still stands. Evolution driven by genomic "intelligence" instead of random mutation is still evolution, common descent is still common descent, and natural selection is still what determines the survival or otherwise of organs and species.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 15:07 (4268 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: These Cambrian animals had very complex eyes and horseshoe crabs today still use similar ones. The amazing part of this story is there are no ancestors to trilobites, before trilobites appeared. Who made these complex eyes? chance? > Every Darwinist's nightmare: > > http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/looking-a-trilobite-in-the-eye.html?ref=hp > > DHW: I'm as sceptical as you about chance creating these complex mechanisms, but what exactly is your alternative explanation? You believe that evolution happened, so I presume you're not suggesting that since there are no ancestors, God indulged in separate creation. (Would it not be wiser to say there are no "known" ancestors?) Or that he "plopped in" these complex eyes. Or that the very first cells preprogrammed trilobites along with all the other new species that appeared (and in the case of trilobites disappeared) during and after the Cambrian Explosion. > -Isn't it strange how, when presented with evidence to the contrary, the human mind will do anything to avoid saying that God did anything at all? Willful disbelief is an amazing quality, as is the ability for humanity to fabricate its own reality. - > DHW: However, we have agreed that within the genome of existing organisms is a mechanism which enables some of them to invent new organs as and when the environment demands or encourages such invention. If this is how it happened, the appearance of the trilobites is not a Darwinist's nightmare. Mutations did take place, but instead of being "random" they were directed by the "intelligent genome". The changes were not gradual (a second correction of Darwin), but some neo-Darwinists have already challenged this, and proposed "punctuated equilibrium" as an alternative. Darwin's theory still stands. Evolution driven by genomic "intelligence" instead of random mutation is still evolution, common descent is still common descent, and natural selection is still what determines the survival or otherwise of organs and species.- All of this despite the utter lack of evidence that any mutation was ever beneficial or that any mutation of any type has ever ADDED INFORMATION to the organism.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
DAVID: These Cambrian animals had very complex eyes and horseshoe crabs today still use similar ones. The amazing part of this story is there are no ancestors to trilobites, before trilobites appeared. Who made these complex eyes? chance?-Every Darwinist's nightmare:-http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/looking-a-trilobite-in-the-eye.html?ref=hp DHW (to David): I'm as sceptical as you about chance creating these complex mechanisms, but what exactly is your alternative explanation? You believe that evolution happened, so I presume you're not suggesting that since there are no ancestors, God indulged in separate creation. (Would it not be wiser to say there are no "known" ancestors?) Or that he "plopped in" these complex eyes. Or that the very first cells preprogrammed trilobites along with all the other new species that appeared (and in the case of trilobites disappeared) during and after the Cambrian Explosion. TONY: Isn't it strange how, when presented with evidence to the contrary, the human mind will do anything to avoid saying that God did anything at all? Willful disbelief is an amazing quality, as is the ability for humanity to fabricate its own reality.-Evidence of what, exactly? If no ancestors have been found, does that provide evidence of an almighty eternal mind from nowhere that created the universe and specially created trilobites, or pre-programmed trilobites in the first cells? Might it not be possible that the fossil record from, say, 500 million years ago is incomplete? Please remember that you are the one defending a concrete belief. I'm still not certain what that is, but David has repeatedly stressed that he thinks evolution happened. He believes in anthropocentrism but not in special creation. I therefore find his attack on Darwinism inconsistent. I also believe that evolution happened, but I've no idea how its mechanisms came into being. In my situation of non-belief (not disbelief ... I'm an agnostic, not an atheist), I will certainly avoid saying that God did it, for reasons I've explained to you in my post under "Intelligence". And when people insist that God exists (and some even think they know what he's like), or that chance must have created life, I'm inclined to say: "Wilful belief is an amazing quality, as is the ability of humanity to fabricate its own reality." DHW: However, we have agreed that within the genome of existing organisms is a mechanism which enables some of them to invent new organs as and when the environment demands or encourages such invention. If this is how it happened, the appearance of the trilobites is not a Darwinist's nightmare. Mutations did take place, but instead of being "random" they were directed by the "intelligent genome". The changes were not gradual (a second correction of Darwin), but some neo-Darwinists have already challenged this, and proposed "punctuated equilibrium" as an alternative. Darwin's theory still stands. Evolution driven by genomic "intelligence" instead of random mutation is still evolution, common descent is still common descent, and natural selection is still what determines the survival or otherwise of organs and species.-TONY: All of this despite the utter lack of evidence that any mutation was ever beneficial or that any mutation of any type has ever ADDED INFORMATION to the organism.-The word "mutation" simply means change. Darwin linked it to randomness, but I think my post makes it clear that I'm suggesting a non-random, "intelligent" variety. If all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, they can only have done so through a process of innovation/genomic mutation, even if your God engineered the changes. But before we go on with this discussion, I need to know once and for all whether, despite "the utter lack of evidence" that any organism ever sprang fully formed from nothing, you do or do not believe that your God created trilobites and every other species separately. If you do, what grounds do you have for believing that you yourself are not fabricating your own reality? If you don't, how do you think innovatory changes occurred?
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, March 22, 2013, 10:23 (4265 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: Evidence of what, exactly? If no ancestors have been found, does that provide evidence of an almighty eternal mind from nowhere that created the universe and specially created trilobites, or pre-programmed trilobites in the first cells? Might it not be possible that the fossil record from, say, 500 million years ago is incomplete? Please remember that you are the one defending a concrete belief. I'm still not certain what that is, but David has repeatedly stressed that he thinks evolution happened. He believes in anthropocentrism but not in special creation. I therefore find his attack on Darwinism inconsistent. I also believe that evolution happened, but I've no idea how its mechanisms came into being. In my situation of non-belief (not disbelief ... I'm an agnostic, not an atheist), I will certainly avoid saying that God did it, for reasons I've explained to you in my post under "Intelligence". And when people insist that God exists (and some even think they know what he's like), or that chance must have created life, I'm inclined to say: "Wilful belief is an amazing quality, as is the ability of humanity to fabricate its own reality." > -First, by all rights, if evolution is true, then the structure for these eyes should have evolved significantly, yet they are by and large the same as those found in the Horseshoe crab.-Secondly, the Trilobite has no known precursors, yet demonstrates incredibly complex advanced biological functions. If evolution were true, this would be impossible. --> TONY: All of this despite the utter lack of evidence that any mutation was ever beneficial or that any mutation of any type has ever ADDED INFORMATION to the organism. > > DHW: The word "mutation" simply means change. Darwin linked it to randomness, but I think my post makes it clear that I'm suggesting a non-random, "intelligent" variety. If all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, they can only have done so through a process of innovation/genomic mutation, even if your God engineered the changes. -Sure, mutation means change, but greater complexity requires an increase in the available information, which has never been demonstrated. In fact, what has been demonstrated is exactly the opposite, that mutations generally remove or destroy information from the genome. What you are talking about is akin to trying to use a single square drawn on a blank sheet of paper as a blueprint to built the Taj Mahal. - >DHW: But before we go on with this discussion, I need to know once and for all whether, despite "the utter lack of evidence" that any organism ever sprang fully formed from nothing, you do or do not believe that your God created trilobites and every other species separately. If you do, what grounds do you have for believing that you yourself are not fabricating your own reality? If you don't, how do you think innovatory changes occurred?-I'm not sure how you think I have not answered this. I think the were created according to 'their kind', with allowances for deviation within specified parameters. -A good analogy, to take one from my own field, is creating a character for a game. When you create the base prototype for the character, it is largely unused data with some basic default settings. When the player logs in for the first time, they can modify their character in any way that your blueprint allows, but never more, and never less than what is allowed by the prototype. If the prototype declares that they will have two arms, two legs, two ears, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, that is what they will have. You might even allow for variation within each of those settings, but the player can never override them to have, say, three legs.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
TONY: First, by all rights, if evolution is true, then the structure for these eyes should have evolved significantly, yet they are by and large the same as those found in the Horseshoe crab.-I don't understand this. The extant horseshoe crab is probably a descendant of the extinct trilobite. Why should the trilobite eye have evolved significantly? Evolution doesn't mean endless improvement. If it did, by now you and I should be able to see pockmarks on Mars with the naked eye! TONY: Secondly, the Trilobite has no known precursors, yet demonstrates incredibly complex advanced biological functions. If evolution were true, this would be impossible. It would certainly be impossible for the trilobite to have no precursors, since evolution argues that all organisms are descended from earlier organisms, going back to the first self-replicating molecules. One hypothetical explanation for the lack of fossils is that God created trilobites separately. Another is that no precursors have been found because trilobites died out 250 million years ago, and perhaps their precursors were not suited to fossilization. Take your choice. DHW: The word "mutation" simply means change. Darwin linked it to randomness, but I think my post makes it clear that I'm suggesting a non-random, "intelligent" variety. If all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, they can only have done so through a process of innovation/genomic mutation, even if your God engineered the changes. TONY: Sure, mutation means change, but greater complexity requires an increase in the available information, which has never been demonstrated. In fact, what has been demonstrated is exactly the opposite, that mutations generally remove or destroy information from the genome.-Your "generally" leaves room for exceptions that would drive evolution. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as an eye. We know that eyes now exist. Therefore once upon a time some organism somewhere underwent a change, whereby an eye (or Darwin's initial "light-sensitive nerve") came into existence. God may personally have inserted it into the first lucky organism, or the genome of the organism may have produced the change, but either way, it's a mutation. If you do not accept either of these explanations, do please give us your own. DHW: But before we go on with this discussion, I need to know once and for all whether, despite "the utter lack of evidence" that any organism ever sprang fully formed from nothing, you do or do not believe that your God created trilobites and every other species separately. If you do, what grounds do you have for believing that you yourself are not fabricating your own reality? If you don't, how do you think innovatory changes occurred?-TONY: I'm not sure how you think I have not answered this. I think they were created according to 'their kind', with allowances for deviation within specified parameters.-My apologies, but I really don't understand the biblical account. Please enlighten me. Do you believe God separately created the first fish, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, amphibians and mammals? And do you believe that sharks and sardines, or pythons and crocodiles, or mice and tigers evolved from the first fish, reptiles, mammals? If your answer is yes, do you believe they evolved through any means other than innovatory changes in the genome? If your answer is no, please explain what you mean by 'their kind'.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Saturday, March 23, 2013, 17:41 (4264 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The extant horseshoe crab is probably a descendant of the extinct trilobite. Why should the trilobite eye have evolved significantly? Evolution doesn't mean endless improvement. If it did, by now you and I should be able to see pockmarks on Mars with the naked eye!-I know you are aware of punctuated equilibrium: sudden appearance of species and then no change, or stasis until now. Gould's observations cannot be ignored, which you seem to be doing. Darwin's gradualism is not correct according to the fossil record, which Darwin thought would eventually validate him. It hasn't. > > TONY: Secondly, the Trilobite has no known precursors, yet demonstrates incredibly complex advanced biological functions. If evolution were true, this would be impossible. > > dhw:It would certainly be impossible for the trilobite to have no precursors, since evolution argues that all organisms are descended from earlier organisms, going back to the first self-replicating molecules. One hypothetical explanation for the lack of fossils is that God created trilobites separately. Another is that no precursors have been found because trilobites died out 250 million years ago, and perhaps their precursors were not suited to fossilization. -Most of your statement is incorrect. There are no known precursors to trilobites. They came from something, I agree, but the pre-Cambrian Ediacarans and other sea worms have been found preserved, and in certain sandstones are plentiful, according to recent research. On the other hand the Cambrian is yielding more and more complex organisms, seemingly from nowhere. The jump or gap to the Cambrian, in current scientific work. is growing, not receding. Darwin's main worry is growing worse. The answer has to lie in Shapiro's work on epigenetics. --> DHW: The word "mutation" simply means change. Darwin linked it to randomness, but I think my post makes it clear that I'm suggesting a non-random, "intelligent" variety. If all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, they can only have done so through a process of innovation/genomic mutation, even if your God engineered the changes.-I applaud this observation. It is on the money! > > TONY: Sure, mutation means change, but greater complexity requires an increase in the available information, which has never been demonstrated. In fact, what has been demonstrated is exactly the opposite, that mutations generally remove or destroy information from the genome.-I also applaud this comment. Mutations are not as helpful as heritable epigenetic changes, which are engineered by the organism in response to environmental challenges. -> > dhw: Your "generally" leaves room for exceptions that would drive evolution. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as an eye. We know that eyes now exist. Therefore once upon a time some organism somewhere underwent a change, whereby an eye (or Darwin's initial "light-sensitive nerve") came into existence. God may personally have inserted it into the first lucky organism, or the genome of the organism may have produced the change, but either way, it's a mutation. -Try my way,epigentic change, not chance mutation! We know that most mutations are not beneficial.-To understand this alternate viewpoint, one must divorce oneself from adoraton of Darwin. As an Englishman, perhaps you cannot. Darwin's insights were brilliant as were Wallace's for the time period in which they existed, 150+ years ago. But their theorizing was limited also by their limited knowledge compared to what we recognize today as the evolutionary path. It is an inventive bush. The information in DNA is enormously more complex than Watson and Crick imagined just 50 years ago. The complexity grows and grows, and the possibility of chance as the creator of this complexity diminishes day by day.-And the biological designs have been shown to be optimal. Read this carefully and be amazed at what evolution has designed:-http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/science/02angier.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, March 24, 2013, 06:21 (4263 days ago) @ David Turell
I wanted to touch a bit more on the article that David linked, because it is really beautiful in some ways, particularly in my 'Grand Designer' world view.-Discussing the design of the eye: "They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period."-Think about the implications of something being "as good as they can be, period". It is one thing to say that random chance was able to cobble all of this together over time, and even that is a stretch. However, it is an entirely different thing to say that, given enough time, random chance would stumble blindly into the absolute perfectly optimized design. I can't even begin to guess at how to quantify that probability of that, so I will not try beyond stating my extreme doubt that it is remotely possible given the timelines that we have.-"In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn't get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants."-A set of systems across multiple species that are perfectly designed. If the chance of it happening once on accident is low, what are the chances of it happening many times? Even an intelligent human designer would be hard pressed to intentionally design multiple systems that are perfectly tuned, if even possible at all. -"So we reach the counterintuitive conclusion," he said, "that the optimal way to control movement allows a certain amount of fluctuation and noise" — a certain lack of control.-"The brain, too, seems built to tolerate bloopers and static hiss. Simon Laughlin of Cambridge University has proposed that the brain's wiring system has been maximally miniaturized, condensed for the sake of speed to the physical edge of signal fidelity."-Apparently not only does the 'mucking about' seem to be intentional, it seems to be the absolute best possible design their could be given the physics of the universe. How much more evidence does it take? If they proved that every system was as optimally efficient, would that make a believer of you, or would you still find some reason to disbelieve that which is painfully obvious?
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Sunday, March 24, 2013, 17:41 (4263 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
More about optimal eye design. Is evolution a mathematician?-"Bialek, for instance, discusses compound eyes of insects such as the fly. These compound eyes have a large number of small lenses packed into an array. A large number of small lenses gives high resolution, just as does a digital camera with a large number of pixels. But when the lens becomes too small its optics become distorted due to diffraction. So in determining the best lens size there is a tradeoff between resolution and diffraction. In the optimum solution the lens size is roughly proportional to the square root of the radius of the head. An indeed, Bialek shows an old paper surveying the compound eye designs in more than two dozen different insects. That paper shows that for the different size insects, the lens size is proportional, as predicted, to the square root of the head size."-Or is God the Math professor behind evolution? After all fractals are all over evolution.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, March 24, 2013, 19:50 (4263 days ago) @ David Turell
David: More about optimal eye design. Is evolution a mathematician? In the optimum solution the lens size is roughly proportional to the square root of the radius of the head. An indeed, Bialek shows an old paper surveying the compound eye designs in more than two dozen different insects. That paper shows that for the different size insects, the lens size is proportional, as predicted, to the square root of the head size." > Or is God the Math professor behind evolution? After all fractals are all over evolution.- There is a reason I refer to him as the "Grand Designer". We can come up with optimal algorithms, why should the designer of life be less intelligent than his creations?
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
dhw: The extant horseshoe crab is probably a descendant of the extinct trilobite. Why should the trilobite eye have evolved significantly? Evolution doesn't mean endless improvement. If it did, by now you and I should be able to see pockmarks on Mars with the naked eye!-DAVID: I know you are aware of punctuated equilibrium: sudden appearance of species and then no change, or stasis until now. Gould's observations cannot be ignored, which you seem to be doing. Darwin's gradualism is not correct according to the fossil record, which Darwin thought would eventually validate him. It hasn't.-What on earth has my above reply to Tony got to do with gradualism? Over and over again I have rejected gradualism and random mutations, and have stressed that my "intelligent genome" hypothesis (to which you have agreed, with the proviso that God invented it) provides an explanation for the sudden appearance of new organs and organisms. TONY: Secondly, the Trilobite has no known precursors, yet demonstrates incredibly complex advanced biological functions. If evolution were true, this would be impossible.-dhw:It would certainly be impossible for the trilobite to have no precursors, since evolution argues that all organisms are descended from earlier organisms, going back to the first self-replicating molecules. One hypothetical explanation for the lack of fossils is that God created trilobites separately. Another is that no precursors have been found because trilobites died out 250 million years ago, and perhaps their precursors were not suited to fossilization. DAVID: Most of your statement is incorrect. There are no known precursors to trilobites. They came from something, I agree, but the pre-Cambrian Ediacarans and other sea worms have been found preserved, and in certain sandstones are plentiful, according to recent research. [...]The answer has to lie in Shapiro's work on epigenetics. My comment was in response to Tony's "if evolution were true...". If you agree that they came from something, it is true that they evolved. I have offered two hypothetical explanations for the lack of fossils. What is "incorrect"? My own answer to how they evolved would be through "the intelligent genome", as above. Epigenetics is part of the mechanism.-dhw: Once upon a time, there was no such thing as an eye. We know that eyes now exist. Therefore once upon a time some organism somewhere underwent a change, whereby an eye (or Darwin's initial "light-sensitive nerve") came into existence. God may personally have inserted it into the first lucky organism, or the genome of the organism may have produced the change, but either way, it's a mutation. DAVID: Try my way,epigentic change, not chance mutation! We know that most mutations are not beneficial.-Why do you keep harping on about chance mutation when over and over again I have rejected chance in favour of "the intelligent genome", which ... let me repeat ... you have accepted with the proviso that God invented it. Mutation just means change, as I have emphasized in my posts to Tony. It needs "chance" or "random" in front of it to mean chance or random!-DAVID: To understand this alternate viewpoint, one must divorce oneself from adoraton of Darwin. As an Englishman, perhaps you cannot. [...] The complexity grows and grows, and the possibility of chance as the creator of this complexity diminishes day by day.-An essential point of the whole thread on "Intelligence" is the concept of the "intelligent genome", which you have accepted with the proviso...etc. It does away with chance. By rejecting random mutations and gradualism I have divorced myself from adoration of Darwin. But over and over again I have stressed that I accept his theories of common descent, mutation in a different sense from his (i.e. not random) and natural selection.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Monday, March 25, 2013, 16:19 (4262 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: An essential point of the whole thread on "Intelligence" is the concept of the "intelligent genome", which you have accepted with the proviso...etc. It does away with chance. By rejecting random mutations and gradualism I have divorced myself from adoration of Darwin. But over and over again I have stressed that I accept his theories of common descent, mutation in a different sense from his (i.e. not random) and natural selection.-I sincerely appreciate your growth in recognizing Dawinism for what it is, an early attempt to conceptualize evolution, brilliant for the time, but fading as science expands our knowledge. Much as the ID folks don't like it, I think common descent must be accepted. DNA was there at the beginning, but it appears that the many layered genomic controls must have been there also, which means, to me, that common descent was a controlled event from the beginning, with open-ended experimentation to create the huge forest-like bush we see. Life is extremely inventive in solving problems. It was always meant to be that way. The intelligence of the genome is information built into the genome, and that information must be initially supplied by an intelligent mind. It is the source of that intelligent mind that we debate. We are discussing complex information which involve deep layers of inerlocking commands, feedback controls that make organic molecules act like they have minds of their own. They don't, but they must respond to physical-chemical-elctrical forces that exist to exert that control in very tight limits. It would take several courses in biochemistry to understand to a reasonable degree the depth of this complexity. Life ran on electrical wires from the time of the Cambrian Explosion! When did Ben Franklin fly his kite? -So I apologize for constantly needling you about your amorphous 'intelligent genome concept'. I've been trying to hammer home how brilliant the real information/intelligence is. DNA is a better digital code than anything we have invented with our so-called brilliant human minds. We are competing against a mind that is infinitely better.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 03:36 (4261 days ago) @ David Turell
David: I sincerely appreciate your growth in recognizing Dawinism for what it is, an early attempt to conceptualize evolution, brilliant for the time, but fading as science expands our knowledge. Much as the ID folks don't like it, I think common descent must be accepted. -Not until I see an example of once species evolving into another. It wouldn't even have to be major! Show me a species innovating a single "new" organ that it didn't have before in some capacity. (Just so it is a clear cut case of new information, not merely adapting old information). - >David: DNA was there at the beginning, but it appears that the many layered genomic controls must have been there also, which means, to me, that common descent was a controlled event from the beginning, with open-ended experimentation to create the huge forest-like bush we see. Life is extremely inventive in solving problems. It was always meant to be that way. -If you were talking about the wide variety of breeds within a given family of a species, I would be in complete agreement with you. I think we often overlook just how much variety there is inside of a single species. Take dogs for example. There are hundreds of breeds, but they are all still dogs.->David: The intelligence of the genome is information built into the genome, and that information must be initially supplied by an intelligent mind. It is the source of that intelligent mind that we debate. We are discussing complex information which involve deep layers of inerlocking commands, feedback controls that make organic molecules act like they have minds of their own. They don't, but they must respond to physical-chemical-elctrical forces that exist to exert that control in very tight limits. It would take several courses in biochemistry to understand to a reasonable degree the depth of this complexity. -It is a truly beautiful and wonderful thing. I wish more people understood enough about it to appreciate just how "Fearfully and wonderfully made" we are. -Psalms 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.- > > DNA is a better digital code than anything we have invented with our so-called brilliant human minds. We are competing against a mind that is infinitely better.-I am not in competition with that mind. I am in awe of it, humbled by it, and profoundly grateful for it.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 03:54 (4261 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
David: Much as the ID folks don't like it, I think common descent must be accepted. > > Tony: Not until I see an example of once species evolving into another. It wouldn't even have to be major! Show me a species innovating a single "new" organ that it didn't have before in some capacity. (Just so it is a clear cut case of new information, not merely adapting old information). -It is difficult to avoid the knowledge that the layers from old to new contain advancing forms of life, based on the orginal DNA with comparative anatomy rampant. there is a plan and everything follows it. Five digits everywhere. Legs with one bone above and two bones below. > > > >David: DNA was there at the beginning, but it appears that the many layered genomic controls must have been there also, which means, to me, that common descent was a controlled event from the beginning, with open-ended experimentation to create the huge forest-like bush we see. Life is extremely inventive in solving problems. It was always meant to be that way. > > If you were talking about the wide variety of breeds within a given family of a species, I would be in complete agreement with you. I think we often overlook just how much variety there is inside of a single species. Take dogs for example. There are hundreds of breeds, but they are all still dogs.-Humans made all those dog varieties. And dogs can still cross breed with wolves, their ancestors. Intensive line breeding broke out those varileties. > > >David: The intelligence of the genome is information built into the genome, and that information must be initially supplied by an intelligent mind. -> > Tony; It is a truly beautiful and wonderful thing. I wish more people understood enough about it to appreciate just how "Fearfully and wonderfully made" we are.-And our mind is just a remnant, a smidgen of the original. > > Tony: Psalms 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.-We can only know God through His works. There is no direct evidence, because He wants it that way. >
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 04:34 (4261 days ago) @ David Turell
David: Much as the ID folks don't like it, I think common descent must be accepted. > > > > Tony: Not until I see an example of once species evolving into another. It wouldn't even have to be major! Show me a species innovating a single "new" organ that it didn't have before in some capacity. (Just so it is a clear cut case of new information, not merely adapting old information). > >David: It is difficult to avoid the knowledge that the layers from old to new contain advancing forms of life, based on the orginal DNA with comparative anatomy rampant. there is a plan and everything follows it. Five digits everywhere. Legs with one bone above and two bones below. - Advancing forms of life is not, in general, what I have an issue with. It is actually what can be expected from a close reading of the Biblical account. As is a catastrophic die off followed by new breeds. However, there is a vast difference between saying that "dogs have changed and developed into different dogs throughout the eons" versus "dogs have changed and developed into different cats throughout the eons." The commonalities between designs is just as likely to mean a common designer as it is common descent, as are similarities in the DNA considering that all creatures have to live in the same/similar environments, share similar physiology, and work within the same physics/chemical framework.-> > > > -> > Humans made all those dog varieties. And dogs can still cross breed with wolves, their ancestors. Intensive line breeding broke out those varileties. > > -Have you ever bred a two dogs and came out with a cat, or anything other than a breed of dog?- > > > > Tony; It is a truly beautiful and wonderful thing. I wish more people understood enough about it to appreciate just how "Fearfully and wonderfully made" we are. > > David: And our mind is just a remnant, a smidgen of the original. > > -I couldn't agree more.-> > Tony: Psalms 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. > > We can only know God through His works. There is no direct evidence, because He wants it that way. > >-I think it is more than a simple case of 'he want's it that way'. I see that there is a reason behind it that is very valid and grounded in sound logic. Not going to derail this thread for that though.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 13:27 (4261 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
> > Tony: Advancing forms of life is not, in general, what I have an issue with. ...... However, there is a vast difference between saying that "dogs have changed and developed into different dogs throughout the eons" versus "dogs have changed and developed into different cats throughout the eons." The commonalities between designs is just as likely to mean a common designer as it is common descent, as are similarities in the DNA considering that all creatures have to live in the same/similar environments, share similar physiology, and work within the same physics/chemical framework.-DNA is a common denominator, but I theorize that it contains pre-planned codes we haven't found yet. Example: humans break out from primate forms. It started 22 million years ago with slight vertebral changes to prepare for upright posture. The upright skeletal changes alone are enormous and create a complex problem in human birth. The female pelvis is not birth friendly and requires a tortuous route to expell the kid. And how did the female pelvis adapt to the enlarging hominin heads; not by hunt and peck. And finally that enlarging head had no driving environmental requirement. Primates are still primates just like they have always been, and we are different in kind, not degree with our braininess. BUT, we evolved just like the rest of evolution, in a helter-skelter set of directions. The bush of life also shows a bush of hominins, to finally one species form, H. sapiens.-No question God planned US, but only He knows why he used the method He did.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 14:41 (4261 days ago) @ David Turell
> > > > Tony: Advancing forms of life is not, in general, what I have an issue with. ...... However, there is a vast difference between saying that "dogs have changed and developed into different dogs throughout the eons" versus "dogs have changed and developed into different cats throughout the eons." The commonalities between designs is just as likely to mean a common designer as it is common descent, as are similarities in the DNA considering that all creatures have to live in the same/similar environments, share similar physiology, and work within the same physics/chemical framework. > >David: DNA is a common denominator, but I theorize that it contains pre-planned codes we haven't found yet. Example: humans break out from primate forms. It started 22 million years ago with slight vertebral changes to prepare for upright posture. The upright skeletal changes alone are enormous and create a complex problem in human birth. The female pelvis is not birth friendly and requires a tortuous route to expell the kid. And how did the female pelvis adapt to the enlarging hominin heads; not by hunt and peck. And finally that enlarging head had no driving environmental requirement. Primates are still primates just like they have always been, and we are different in kind, not degree with our braininess. BUT, we evolved just like the rest of evolution, in a helter-skelter set of directions. The bush of life also shows a bush of hominins, to finally one species form, H. sapiens. > > No question God planned US, but only He knows why he used the method He did.-Those are some statements that I can get behind. Different in kind, not degree. I think that pretty much sums up my whole contention with mainstream evolution. I look at nature and I see 'kinds', boundaries that are never crossed no matter how much biologist want them to be. I see variation within those 'kinds', to a mind boggling degree, each change so complex that it is a miracle it ever happened to begin with.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by BBella , Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 20:54 (4261 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
[David] We can only know God through His works. There is no direct evidence, because He wants it that way. > > > > > I think it is more than a simple case of 'he want's it that way'. I see that there is a reason behind it that is very valid and grounded in sound logic. Not going to derail this thread for that though.-Tony, I am interested to hear your perspective on the reason behind why God did things the way he did them. Maybe you could put it under a separate category?
Trilobite eyes
DAVID: I sincerely appreciate your growth in recognizing Dawinism for what it is, an early attempt to conceptualize evolution, brilliant for the time, but fading as science expands our knowledge.-In the "brief guide", I questioned both randomness and gradualism, though not with anything like the scientific expertise which you bring to these discussions. This has been of immense importance to me in my own quest to understand the ins and outs of evolution. DAVID: Much as the ID folks don't like it, I think common descent must be accepted. DNA was there at the beginning, but it appears that the many layered genomic controls must have been there also, which means, to me, that common descent was a controlled event from the beginning, with open-ended experimentation to create the huge forest-like bush we see. Life is extremely inventive in solving problems. It was always meant to be that way.-I don't understand how a controlled event leads to open-ended experimentation. The huge forest-like bush suggests the exact opposite of a controlled event. DAVID: The intelligence of the genome is information built into the genome, and that information must be initially supplied by an intelligent mind. It is the source of that intelligent mind that we debate. [...]-Not quite. There are three separate issues here. The first is how evolution proceeded. The concept of the "intelligent genome" does away with Darwin's dependence on randomness and gradualism, which I see as the two weak links in his theory. I hope we have agreed on this once and for all. The second is how the intelligence got into the genome. Your hypothesis is that an intelligent mind (God) put it there, and I am suggesting the intelligence evolved from within (see Talbott). The third issue is: if there is a God, what is the source of HIS intelligence?-DAVID: So I apologize for constantly needling you about your amorphous 'intelligent genome concept'. I've been trying to hammer home how brilliant the real information/intelligence is. DNA is a better digital code than anything we have invented with our so-called brilliant human minds. We are competing against a mind that is infinitely better.-No need to apologize - we have been needling each other for years! The "intelligent genome" concept is no more amorphous than the God concept. You don't have to hammer home to me how brilliant the intelligence is (though I really appreciate the references you keep giving us, so please don't stop), or how unlikely chance is (which is even acknowledged by some atheists). The problem is the unlikelihood of the God hypothesis, and I don't need to repeat the arguments against faith in something not only amorphous but also hidden and unknowable. We shall probably never get to the bottom of how matter acquired intelligence, but if we accept the theory that this universe began 13.8 billion years ago (though I don't trust such figures), and life goes back say 3.8 billion years (ditto my mistrust), who can say that doesn't give time for a rudimentary intelligence to awaken, experiment and evolve in the manner I have described? After all, we have no precedent to set a time limit for how intelligence might evolve and function. I cannot see why this is any more unlikely than first cause energy being a single mind that has always been infinitely brilliant, or has evolved to brilliance independently of the matter it has produced.-DAVID: March 21 @ 14.56 (under "flytraps"): God's purpose was to produce inventive life. Flycatching was a by-product.-dhw: (dialogue continued): [...] he left the course of evolution in the "hands" of his intelligent invention ... apparently preprogrammed to experiment and take its own decisions [..]. In other words, he did not pre-programme "by-products" like flycatchers, trilobites, dinosaurs, dodos or duck-billed platypuses, but sat back watching while the intelligent genome produced its own inventions...-DAVID: A good synopsis of my view of evolution.-dhw What is clear from the above is that humans were not planned either.-DAVID: The material I have read about human development makes it look 'favored'. [...] Here my scenario implies a desired result.-DAVID (26 March at 13.27 on this thread): No question God planned US, but only He knows why he used the method he did.-Neither 'favored' nor 'a desired result' means 'planned'. It just isn't logical to say that every form of life was a by-product of God's plan to produce inventive life, but humans were planned, even though you can't understand the (higgledy-piggledy) method. If it doesn't make sense, why not consider an alternative that does?
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 27, 2013, 16:36 (4260 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, 16:54
David: Life is extremely inventive in solving problems. It was always meant to be that way.[/i] > > I don't understand how a controlled event leads to open-ended experimentation. The huge forest-like bush suggests the exact opposite of a controlled event.-The controls are the built-in epigenetic mechanisms which allow life to be adaptive and inventive. Challenges appear and life responds with new inventions. Of course it will end up bush-like.- > dhw:The second is how the intelligence got into the genome. Your hypothesis is that an intelligent mind (God) put it there, and I am suggesting the intelligence evolved from within (see Talbott). The third issue is: if there is a God, what is the source of HIS intelligence?-I don't see how underlying intelligence 'evolves'. My intelligence evolved as I grew up, but my plastic brain was expanding to encompass it. Intelligence must have self-awareness and retrospection to do the underlying planning we see in the universe and in life. You are still insisting on something that appears amorphous to me. And finally, First Cause (God) is a retrospective end point. His intelligence is a necessary part of the concept.-> We shall probably never get to the bottom of how matter acquired intelligence, but if we accept the theory that this universe began 13.8 billion years ago (though I don't trust such figures), and life goes back say 3.8 billion years (ditto my mistrust), who can say that doesn't give time for a rudimentary intelligence to awaken, experiment and evolve in the manner I have described? -I can't accept that concept at all. Matter is not intelligent. Life, as a form of matter, is controlled by enormous volumes of information, imprinted in a coded system. Only a complex intelligence could have created that. You are really proposing bits of intelligence gradually associating by chance contrivance, however those bits arose. Where is the organized thinking and planning in your concept? > > DAVID: March 21 @ 14.56 (under "flytraps"): God's purpose was to produce inventive life. Flycatching was a by-product. > > dhw: (dialogue continued): [...] he left the course of evolution in the "hands" of his intelligent invention ... apparently preprogrammed to experiment and take its own decisions [..]. In other words, he did not pre-programme "by-products" like flycatchers, trilobites, dinosaurs, dodos or duck-billed platypuses, but sat back watching while the intelligent genome produced its own inventions... > > DAVID: A good synopsis of my view of evolution. > > dhw What is clear from the above is that humans were not planned either. > > DAVID: The material I have read about human development makes it look 'favored'. [...] Here my scenario implies a desired result.-> dhw: If it doesn't make sense, why not consider an alternative that does?-Let me try again. There is strong evidence That there was a special push toward humans. The early vertebral changes toward truly upright posture, the striking skeletal changes, the birth of the big brain problem, and the giant brain itself. None of it from necessity when we compare the existing primates, in stasis to us, not in stasis, until perhaps now.-From yesterday: DNA is a common denominator, but I theorize that it contains pre-planned codes we haven't found yet. Example: humans break out from primate forms. It started 22 million years ago with slight vertebral changes to prepare for upright posture. The upright skeletal changes alone are enormous and create a complex problem in human birth. The female pelvis is not birth friendly and requires a tortuous route to expell the kid. And how did the female pelvis adapt to the enlarging hominin heads; not by hunt and peck. And finally that enlarging head had no driving environmental requirement. Primates are still primates just like they have always been, and we are different in kind, not degree with our braininess. BUT, we evolved just like the rest of evolution, in a helter-skelter set of directions. The bush of life also shows a bush of hominins, to finally one species form, H. sapiens. No question God planned US, but only He knows why he used the method He did.
Trilobite eyes
Dhw: I don't understand how a controlled event [your description of common descent] leads to open-ended experimentation. The huge forest-like bush suggests the exact opposite of a controlled event.-DAVID: The controls are the built-in epigenetic mechanisms which allow life to be adaptive and inventive. Open-ended experimentation by definition allows the mechanisms to do whatever they like, so the human "end" can't be planned.-dhw: The second is how the intelligence got into the genome. Your hypothesis is that an intelligent mind (God) put it there, and I am suggesting the intelligence evolved from within (see Talbott). The third issue is: if there is a God, what is the source of HIS intelligence? -DAVID: I don't see how underlying intelligence 'evolves'. [...] Intelligence must have self-awareness and retrospection to do the underlying planning we see in the universe and in life. You are still insisting on something that appears amorphous to me. And finally, First Cause (God) is a retrospective end point. His intelligence is a necessary part of the concept.-YOU see underlying planning. Others see evolution as an ad hoc process. Intelligence evolves by gathering more and more information. You think God may have always had all the intelligence there can possibly be, while Tony allows for the possibility that intelligence evolved, since first-cause energy may originally have been without any. I'm not "insisting" on anything, but suggesting that intelligence evolving within changing matter is no more amorphous than intelligence simply being there independently of matter, or evolving independently of matter.-dhw: We shall probably never get to the bottom of how matter acquired intelligence, but if we accept the theory that this universe began 13.8 billion years ago (though I don't trust such figures), and life goes back say 3.8 billion years (ditto my mistrust), who can say that doesn't give time for a rudimentary intelligence to awaken, experiment and evolve in the manner I have described? -DAVID: I can't accept that concept at all. Matter is not intelligent. -I am suggesting that the energy within the matter is intelligent. (That would explain psychic experiences.)-DAVID: You are really proposing bits of intelligence gradually associating by chance contrivance, however those bits arose. Where is the organized thinking and planning in your concept?-Your starting point is always planning, as if somehow that were a given. It's not. I'm suggesting that when cells combined to form new multicellular organisms, they acted not as automatons but through their own form of intelligence, and not by chance (see Talbott). The complexity of the intelligence would have grown with the increasingly complex merging of materials ... NOT planned but, like evolution itself, through what you have called "open-ended experimentation". -dhw: In other words, he did not pre-programme "by-products" like flycatchers, trilobites, dinosaurs, dodos or duck-billed platypuses, but sat back watching while the intelligent genome produced its own inventions...-DAVID: A good synopsis of my view of evolution.-dhw: What is clear from the above is that humans were not planned either.-DAVID: The material I have read about human development makes it look 'favored'. [...] Here my scenario implies a desired result.-dhw: Neither 'favored' nor 'a desired result' means 'planned.' [...] If it doesn't make sense, why not consider an alternative that does?-DAVID: Let me try again. There is strong evidence that there was a special push toward humans. The early vertebral changes toward truly upright posture, the striking skeletal changes, the birth of the big brain problem, and the giant brain itself. None of it from necessity when we compare the existing primates, in stasis to us, not in stasis, until perhaps now. From yesterday: DNA is a common denominator, but I theorize that it contains pre-planned codes we haven't found yet. -OK, you theorize that it was all pre-planned, and I theorize that it evolved without a plan. No doubt many innovations were not "from necessity", and maybe evolution itself was not necessary, since bacteria have survived to this day. But when conditions allowed, the intelligent genome produced its own inventions ... all part of the "open-ended experimentation" that characterizes the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. Every innovation you list can just as easily have been the product of the intelligent genome ... whether invented by God or not - without a divine "push". After 3.8 billion years of evolution, the energy within changing materials could have learned all it needed to know for its increasingly complicated experiments. DAVID: No question God planned US, but only He knows why he used the method He did.-But the poor old flycatcher, dodo, dinosaur etc. were just by-products. I'm not saying your hypothesis is wrong. I remain agnostic. But no matter how emphatically you phrase your beliefs, there are plenty of folk much brighter and more learned than me who disagree with you, and so I'm afraid you really cannot claim that there is "no question God planned us." There are lots and lots of questions.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, March 29, 2013, 09:29 (4258 days ago) @ dhw
> OK, you theorize that it was all pre-planned, and I theorize that it evolved without a plan. No doubt many innovations were not "from necessity", and maybe evolution itself was not necessary, since bacteria have survived to this day. But when conditions allowed, the intelligent genome produced its own inventions ... all part of the "open-ended experimentation" that characterizes the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. Every innovation you list can just as easily have been the product of the intelligent genome ... whether invented by God or not - without a divine "push". After 3.8 billion years of evolution, the energy within changing materials could have learned all it needed to know for its increasingly complicated experiments. > -I wanted to dig a little deeper into this. Which innovations, in particular, were not a necessity? Bear in mind that you can not look simply at the individual species, but have to consider the biosphere as a whole.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, March 23, 2013, 18:42 (4264 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: I don't understand this. The extant horseshoe crab is probably a descendant of the extinct trilobite. Why should the trilobite eye have evolved significantly? Evolution doesn't mean endless improvement. If it did, by now you and I should be able to see pockmarks on Mars with the naked eye! > -The design of your eye is functionally perfect, as the article David linked in response points out. It simply can't get any better design wise. Sharks are functionally perfect in their ability to detect electrical currents, and we KNOW they are ancient. --> TONY: Secondly, the Trilobite has no known precursors, yet demonstrates incredibly complex advanced biological functions. If evolution were true, this would be impossible. > > DHW: It would certainly be impossible for the trilobite to have no precursors, since evolution argues that all organisms are descended from earlier organisms, going back to the first self-replicating molecules. O-I said no "Known" precursors, not that they didn't exist, simply that nothing has been observed with sufficiently similar biological traits that is older than it. Science is about observations, not speculations. Therefore, giving a scientific theory on the grounds of speculation is not science, it is faith.-> > DHW: The word "mutation" simply means change. Darwin linked it to randomness, but I think my post makes it clear that I'm suggesting a non-random, "intelligent" variety. If all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, they can only have done so through a process of innovation/genomic mutation, even if your God engineered the changes.- > TONY: Sure, mutation means change, but greater complexity requires an increase in the available information, which has never been demonstrated. In fact, what has been demonstrated is exactly the opposite, that mutations generally remove or destroy information from the genome. > >DHW: Your "generally" leaves room for exceptions that would drive evolution. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as an eye. -No, the 'generally' you are referencing means that information is not always "removed or destroyed"; sometimes they are simply suppressed. There are sometimes self-correcting transcription errors such as can be found in traits that skip a generation. - >DHW: My apologies, but I really don't understand the biblical account. Please enlighten me. Do you believe God separately created the first fish, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, amphibians and mammals? And do you believe that sharks and sardines, or pythons and crocodiles, or mice and tigers evolved from the first fish, reptiles, mammals? If your answer is yes, do you believe they evolved through any means other than innovatory changes in the genome? If your answer is no, please explain what you mean by 'their kind'.- A fish will always be a fish, never a mammal, amphibian, reptile, insect, or bird. It has never been observed to happen. The simplest explanation being the best, it has never been observed because it has never happened. What HAS been observed, is dogs with short hair growing longer hair; animals with feathers grow different colored feathers, animals which already possess a trait are known to refine a trait, particularly when selectively bred. However, they NEVER have demonstrated the development of a function which did not previously exist. -A bacteria which doesn't eat or digest food does not spontaneously gain that ability through mutation or epigenetics. They may learn to metabolize new food, but that is an adaptation of an existing system. -In short, according to their kind means exactly what it says, regardless of whether read as a religious text or science book. We know there are classifications of animals. We have NEVER seen an occasion where an animal from one distinct classification suddenly developed a new feature that moved it into another classification. They remain, to this day, classified according to their kind. - That being said, I have also stated that I believe the grand designer left wiggle room for adaptation. I even gave a nice little analogy about human designers, wanting to allow for flexibility and creativity in their creations, that have done the exact same thing. Having seen the same design principals applied by sentient, intelligent designers with the same or similar results works as a sort of third party verification of the type that 'science' is not even willing to consider.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
TONY: First, by all right, if evolution is true, then the structure for these eyes should have evolved significantly, yet they are by and large the same as those found in the Horseshoe crab.-DHW: I don't understand this. The extant horseshoe crab is probably a descendant of the extinct trilobite. Why should the trilobite eye have evolved significantly? Evolution doesn't mean endless improvement. If it did, by now you and I should be able to see pockmarks on Mars with the naked eye!-TONY: The design of your eye is functionally perfect, as the article David linked in response points out. It simply can't get any better design wise. -The design of the trilobite eye may also have been functionally perfect. Ditto the horseshoe crab. So why, if evolution is true, should the trilobite eye have "evolved significantly"?-TONY: Science is about observations, not speculations. Therefore, giving a scientific theory on the grounds of speculation is not science, it is faith.-I'm not sure what you mean by "giving" a theory. A theory remains theoretical until it is proved true. When it is proved true, it becomes a fact. I myself believe in the theory of common descent, but am very dubious about the theories of random mutations and gradualism. Darwin's theories are based on scientific observation, as are David Turell's, but their conclusions are speculative. We are all free to believe them or not. DHW: My apologies, but I really don't understand the biblical account. Please enlighten me. Do you believe God separately created the first fish, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, amphibians and mammals? If your answer is no, please explain what you mean by 'their kind'.-TONY: A fish will always be a fish, never a mammal, amphibian, reptile, insect, or bird. It has never been observed to happen.-So do you believe that the first fish, mammals, amphibians etc. were separately created by God? (I'll be happy with a yes or a no!)-Dhw: And do you believe that sharks and sardines, or pythons and crocodiles, or mice and tigers evolved from the first fish, reptiles, mammals? If your answer is yes, do you believe they evolved through any means other than innovatory changes in the genome?-TONY: We know there are classifications of animals. We have NEVER seen an occasion where an animal from one distinct classification suddenly developed a new feature that moved it into another classification. They remain, to this day, classified according to their kind.-So do you believe that mice and tigers evolved from a common ancestor? If so, do you believe they evolved through any means other than innovatory changes in the genome? (I'll be happy with a yes or a no to each question!)-TONY: In short, according to their kind means exactly what it says, regardless of whether read as a religious text or science book. That being said, I have also stated that I believe the grand designer left wiggle room for adaptation. I even gave a nice little analogy about human designers, wanting to allow for flexibility and creativity in their creations, that have done the exact same thing.-Adaptation will not necessarily entail innovation, and this is the problem I am grappling with. I hate to repeat myself, but like you and David I am sceptical about Darwin's random mutations and gradualism. That is why I've suggested the alternative of the "intelligent genome", which David accepts with the proviso that God invented it. Do you also accept this alternative, or do you believe that every innovation (e.g. sight, hearing, sex, legs, wings, liver, brain etc.) was the result of God's direct intervention? (I'll be happy with a yes or a no to each question!)-****-You, BBella and David put some extremely stimulating and revealing posts on the "Intelligence" thread during our cold British night. I hope to offer a response tomorrow.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 03:21 (4261 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: The design of the trilobite eye may also have been functionally perfect. Ditto the horseshoe crab. So why, if evolution is true, should the trilobite eye have "evolved significantly"?-That's the question, isn't it? If they are functionally perfect, what is left to evolve? If they were functionally perfect from the very beginning, that is a blow in the gut to evolution of any sort which relies on having something to improve upon. You can't improve upon perfection.-> > TONY: Science is about observations, not speculations. Therefore, giving a scientific theory on the grounds of speculation is not science, it is faith. > > DHW: I'm not sure what you mean by "giving" a theory. A theory remains theoretical until it is proved true. When it is proved true, it becomes a fact. I myself believe in the theory of common descent, but am very dubious about the theories of random mutations and gradualism. Darwin's theories are based on scientific observation, as are David Turell's, but their conclusions are speculative. We are all free to believe them or not.-That was a typo. Science can not prove, only disprove. What I meant though, is that speculation does not prove a theory, nor is attempting to do so science. Believing a theory that is not supported by the evidence or that has not been observed is faith, not science. I personally can not believe in common descent, because I have never seen a single observation that demonstrates one species becoming another. What I have observed is functionally perfect design and extreme complexity in even the earliest of organisms.- > DHW: So do you believe that the first fish, mammals, amphibians etc. were separately created by God? (I'll be happy with a yes or a no!)-Yes, I believe that their was at a minimum, a first fish, amphibian, mammal, etc., and more likely at least one of each of the animal families. A good basis for this is noting which animals can not successfully interbreed. What the actual distribution was, I have no clue. - >DHW >So do you believe that mice and tigers evolved from a common ancestor? If so, do you believe they evolved through any means other than innovatory changes in the genome? (I'll be happy with a yes or a no to each question!)-No, I have seen nothing in science or nature that leads me to believe that mice and tiger shared a common ancestor. Similarities in their design are just as likely to to signs of a common designer that each creature must deal with a similar environment as they are of common ancestry. Given that the evolutionary split dates based on genetic mapping do not match with the fossil records and supposed appearance of the animals, I would venture to say it is MORE likely. That being said, I am open to the possibility if it is ever actually observed to happen instead of being pure conjecture. However, I don't think it will ever be observed. - >DHW: Adaptation will not necessarily entail innovation, and this is the problem I am grappling with. I hate to repeat myself, but like you and David I am sceptical about Darwin's random mutations and gradualism. That is why I've suggested the alternative of the "intelligent genome", which David accepts with the proviso that God invented it. Do you also accept this alternative, or do you believe that every innovation (e.g. sight, hearing, sex, legs, wings, liver, brain etc.) was the result of God's direct intervention? (I'll be happy with a yes or a no to each question!)-Before I can accept that theory, I would have to observe, or see a published study that has observed, ANY new feature being evolved, and not simple an alteration on an existing feature. See, the problem with your intelligent genome is that is presupposes evolution from a common ancestor is true. There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
TONY: [...] speculation does not prove a theory, nor is attempting to do so science. Believing a theory that is not supported by the evidence or that has not been observed is faith, not science. I personally can not believe in common descent, because I have never seen a single observation that demonstrates one species becoming another. What I have observed is functionally perfect design and extreme complexity in even the earliest of organisms. Later, you say: See, the problem with your intelligent genome is that it presupposes evolution from a common ancestor is true. There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely[/b]. -I accept all this. David is far better equipped than I am to defend the theory of common descent, and I will only say that unlike you I believe it because I'm satisfied with the evidence and with the logic of the argument. The above objection to the "intelligent genome" seems valid to me. I have offered it as an alternative hypothesis to chance and your God, but I'm going to defend it all the same. First, though, I'd like to thank you for the now very clear statement concerning what you do and don't believe about evolution and separate creation. It gives a far sharper focus to our discussion. It appears from your various posts that if we define "kinds" as organisms that cannot interbreed, you believe God created cats, dogs, mice, tigers etc. separately, i.e. they have no common ancestor. You have "never seen a single observation that demonstrates one species becoming another." Have you ever "seen a single observation" that demonstrates a species appearing from nothing? Have you ever "seen a single observation" demonstrating God creating a cat? The criterion of observation applies to both hypotheses, in which case we must discount both evolution and separate creation! However, your understanding of evolution is not the same as mine. Common descent entails a process of branching (the higgledy-piggledy bush), with some individual organisms acquiring new characteristics. Dogs never became cats. In different environments, one of their common ancestors may have innovated a doggy characteristic, and another a catty characteristic. Interbreeding might well continue for a time, but if the innovation was beneficial, it would flourish and eventually take over. (A quick google reveals that the common ancestor of dogs and cats may have been "a shrew-like mammal called Maelestes gobiensis" that lived 70 million years ago.) As organisms spread, and conditions changed (far more drastically than in our own times), the genome responded accordingly, adapting and innovating. This process has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, i.e. through billions of generations, of innovations, and of new forms taking over from old forms. In my view, random mutations aren't enough to explain the complexities, whereas an intelligent and innovative mechanism is, whether it was invented by God, or itself evolved as I've described elsewhere. We can certainly observe this mechanism adapting ... as you have acknowledged ... but you are right, we have not seen it actually produce something new, resulting in a separate "kind". But we haven't seen God do that either. Perhaps ours is a period of evolutionary "equilibrium". -Finally, back to: "There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely." You have applied this argument to the "intelligent genome" hypothesis, and I understand your point of view. But when I apply it to your God hypothesis, you seem to find it difficult to grasp (even labelling it "willful disbelief"). I wonder why.
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, March 27, 2013, 15:44 (4260 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: I accept all this. David is far better equipped than I am to defend the theory of common descent, and I will only say that unlike you I believe it because I'm satisfied with the evidence and with the logic of the argument. The above objection to the "intelligent genome" seems valid to me. I have offered it as an alternative hypothesis to chance and your God, but I'm going to defend it all the same. First, though, I'd like to thank you for the now very clear statement concerning what you do and don't believe about evolution and separate creation. It gives a far sharper focus to our discussion.-Your welcome, and I reserve the right to change at a later date :P > > It appears from your various posts that if we define "kinds" as organisms that cannot interbreed, you believe God created cats, dogs, mice, tigers etc. separately, i.e. they have no common ancestor. -Errr... if you were to lump cat's and tigers together, you would be correct. I.E.. they are both feline and composed of the same basic set of instructions. Aside from size and other parameters, it wouldn't require new genetic material to change between a cat and a different breed of cat. They are of the same "kind".- >DHW: You have "never seen a single observation that demonstrates one species becoming another." Have you ever "seen a single observation" that demonstrates a species appearing from nothing? Have you ever "seen a single observation" demonstrating God creating a cat? The criterion of observation applies to both hypotheses, in which case we must discount both evolution and separate creation! -I absolutely agree. I have said that they both require faith. ->DHW: However, your understanding of evolution is not the same as mine. Common descent entails a process of branching (the higgledy-piggledy bush), with some individual organisms acquiring new characteristics. Dogs never became cats. In different environments, one of their common ancestors may have innovated a doggy characteristic, and another a catty characteristic. Interbreeding might well continue for a time, but if the innovation was beneficial, it would flourish and eventually take over. (A quick google reveals that the common ancestor of dogs and cats may have been "a shrew-like mammal called Maelestes gobiensis" that lived 70 million years ago.) As organisms spread, and conditions changed (far more drastically than in our own times), the genome responded accordingly, adapting and innovating. This process has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, i.e. through billions of generations, of innovations, and of new forms taking over from old forms. In my view, random mutations aren't enough to explain the complexities, whereas an intelligent and innovative mechanism is, whether it was invented by God, or itself evolved as I've described elsewhere. We can certainly observe this mechanism adapting ... as you have acknowledged ... but you are right, we have not seen it actually produce something new, resulting in a separate "kind". But we haven't seen God do that either. Perhaps ours is a period of evolutionary "equilibrium". - Yeah, however you want to put it, at some point there had to be a separation between species. We have never observed that happening in a fashion that produces a breeding pair, even when we intervene in the breeding process. Since we have agreed that new functions are generally useless unless complete, then that would mean that a breeding pair is an absolute necessity. - > > Finally, back to: "There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely." You have applied this argument to the "intelligent genome" hypothesis, and I understand your point of view. But when I apply it to your God hypothesis, you seem to find it difficult to grasp (even labelling it "willful disbelief"). I wonder why.-I wasn't applying it to the intelligent genome, I was applying it to evolution, if I recall correctly. The intelligent genome is far more plausible than evolution, but less plausible than God IMHO because the framework that must exist for there to even BE an intelligent genome is entirely too complex. That was the entire reason I took 'life' out of the equation. Even without 'life' the universe is too complex to be random chance, and without life, your intelligent genome is useless in terms of explanatory power.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
TONY: It wouldn't require new genetic material to change between a cat and a different breed of cat. They are of the same "kind". Oops! Thank you.-DHW: However, your understanding of evolution is not the same as mine. Common descent entails a process of branching (the higgledy-piggledy bush), with some individual organisms acquiring new characteristics. Dogs never became cats. In different environments, one of their common ancestors may have innovated a doggy characteristic, and another a catty characteristic. Interbreeding might well continue for a time, but if the innovation was beneficial, it would flourish and eventually take over.[...] TONY: Yeah, however you want to put it, at some point there had to be a separation between species. We have never observed that happening in a fashion that produces a breeding pair, even when we intervene in the breeding process. Since we have agreed that new functions are generally useless unless complete, then that would mean that a breeding pair is an absolute necessity.-I've covered this above, in the sentence about interbreeding, but in any case there is no reason why the "intelligent genome" in multiple organisms exposed to the same environment should not produce the same innovation. The process of "convergence" has frequently been observed, for instance in desert plants even on different continents that come up with the same solutions. Similarly several Maelestes gobienses, suddenly finding themselves in changed conditions, might well simultaneously provide themselves with a doggy innovation. Has anyone ever observed God creating a breeding pair?-dhw: Finally, back to (quoting Tony): [See, the problem with your intelligent genome is that it presupposes evolution from a common ancestor is true.] There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely." -dhw: You have applied this argument to the "intelligent genome" hypothesis, and I understand your point of view. But when I apply it to your God hypothesis, you seem to find it difficult to grasp (even labelling it "willful disbelief"). I wonder why.-TONY: I wasn't applying it to the intelligent genome, I was applying it to evolution, if I recall correctly. -Sorry for the misunderstanding, but it makes no difference to my gently phrased complaint about what I see as double standards!-TONY: The intelligent genome is far more plausible than evolution, but less plausible than God IMHO because the framework that must exist for there to even BE an intelligent genome is entirely too complex. That was the entire reason why I took 'life' out of the equation. Even without 'life' the universe is too complex to be random chance, and without life, your intelligent genome is useless in terms of explanatory power.-I always have great sympathy with arguments against random chance. As you will have gathered, I find chance as unlikely a creator of the complexities as I do an amorphous super-being that got its own super-intelligence from nowhere and nothing. Although the "panpsychist" alternative I have offered naturally demands a similar leap of faith, at least it has the merit (in my eyes) of NOT depending on chance or on an unknowable God. I'm not sure what your final comments signify, other than the fact what without life, any theory about life can have no explanatory power. Without a universe any theory about the universe can have no explanatory power either. Clearly I've missed something here.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Thursday, March 28, 2013, 17:22 (4259 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Although the "panpsychist" alternative I have offered naturally demands a similar leap of faith, at least it has the merit (in my eyes) of NOT depending on chance or on an unknowable God. -Your 'panpsychist alternative' has no basis as a proposal from what we know about the genome of life. The leap it requires is much more than faith. It would mean simplifying all of organic chemistry. The genome contains information which drives the chemicals of life to act like automatons, but the chemicals have no thoughts of their own as your term inplies. When an organism becomes uncomfortable in its environment, by which I mean it has chemical signals of difficulty in pursuing living, the genome chemically recognizes this problem and begins to arrange for epigenetic adaptations, all following a built-in coded mechanism in the genome. This is Shapiro's point. It is also why he is still an atheist. He is still willing to accept this degree of complexity from chance mutational changes. And it is why the ID people love him, since they cannnot accept the concept of chance for this much complexity.- Nagel would jump at your 'third way' pan-psychism, but he knows it is not reasonable. The issue remains, unsolved for those who won't accept God, as the source of the information. Only a thinking mind can create complex information or invent a code like DNA! I believe your problem is that you have just a vague knowledge of biochemistry, so you do not see the depth of the complexity. I think Shapiro is trapped because he is committed to methodologic reductionist naturalism in his role as a University professor.
Trilobite eyes
dhw: Although the "panpsychist" alternative I have offered naturally demands a similar leap of faith, at least it has the merit (in my eyes) of NOT depending on chance or on an unknowable God. DAVID: Your 'panpsychist alternative' has no basis as a proposal from what we know about the genome of life. The leap it requires is much more than faith. It would mean simplifying all of organic chemistry. The genome contains information which drives the chemicals of life to act like automatons, but the chemicals have no thoughts of their own as your term implies.-DAVID (re common descent): DNA is a common denominator, but I theorize that it contains pre-planned codes we haven't found yet.-In the context of the genome, you're happy to theorize about things not known. May I do the same? My alternative is based on many analogies, and one of them is the brain. My "panpsychist" alternative suggests that it is the intelligent energy within the brain that drives the chemicals. You believe in an afterlife, in which the mind survives the death of the physical body. What could this mind be, if not intelligent energy? By the same token, I'm suggesting that intelligent energy within the genome drives the chemicals. I must confess I'm now mystified, since you appeared to agree to this a week ago:-dhw: ...since God's purpose was "inventive life", he left the course of evolution in the "hands" of his intelligent invention ... apparently preprogrammed to experiment and take its own decisions (much like us humans, then!). [He] sat back watching while the intelligent genome produced its own inventions...-DAVID: A good synopsis of my view of evolution.-Have you changed your mind?-DAVID: When an organism becomes uncomfortable in its environment, by which I mean it has chemical signals of difficulty in pursuing living, the genome chemically recognizes this problem and begins to arrange for epigenetic adaptations, all following a built-in coded mechanism in the genome. -The essential driving force of evolution, I suggest, is not adaptation but innovation ... otherwise life would have stayed at bacterial level. This means invention on a grand scale, exactly as you indicated with your phrase "inventive life": new organs, new combinations, new organisms....These stem from the genome. A week ago you appeared to agree that "the intelligent genome" experiments and takes its own decisions, but now you say it's an automaton. DAVID: This is Shapiro's point. It is also why he is still an atheist. He is still willing to accept this degree of complexity from chance mutational changes. And it is why the ID people love him, since they cannot accept the concept of chance for this much complexity. Nagel would jump at your 'third way' pan-psychism, but he knows it is not reasonable. The issue remains, unsolved for those who won't accept God, as the source of the information.-And the issue remains unsolved for those who won't accept chance (Shapiro is not the only believer) or any other unlikely hypothesis (there are many others, including my little offering). Out of interest, I googled Nagel and panpsychism, and found several entries. Here is a quote from- http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Panpsychism-"Thomas Nagel formulated a modern argument for panpsychism, claiming that mental processes cannot be reduced to physical matter and that if physical properties of matter are discovered by inference from other physical properties, then the same must be true for mental properties. So matter must have some "mental component"."-Of course there are many versions of panpsychism, which is why I put mine in inverted commas. I note that you have not yet commented on a remark by another of your recommended authors, Stephen L. Talbott, who having delved deep into the complexities of the genome, writes: "...you will not find me speaking of design, simply because [...] organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within..." (see my post of 26 March at 14.46).-DAVID: I believe your problem is that you have just a vague knowledge of biochemistry, so you do not see the depth of the complexity. I think Shapiro is trapped because he is committed to methodologic reductionist naturalism in his role as a University professor.-Presumably, then, all biochemists believe in Intelligent Design by God. Any that say they don't are only pretending in order to protect their careers. Now there's a theory for you!
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Friday, March 29, 2013, 21:44 (4258 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Of course there are many versions of panpsychism, which is why I put mine in inverted commas. I note that you have not yet commented on a remark by another of your recommended authors, Stephen L. Talbott, who having delved deep into the complexities of the genome, writes: "...you will not find me speaking of design, simply because [...] organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within..." (see my post of 26 March at 14.46).-Talbott has made the point that the molecules of the genome are a finely tuned orchestra, and that Watson and Crick and those that followed had no sense of imagination, a common problem in today's scientists grounded in methodological reductionist materialism. The complexity is truly staggering. It is an orchestra of molecules all acting under physico-chemical controls. So far the essence of life, the conductor, is not seen, but felt by looking/watching all the moving parts. There may not be a conductor on site in the individual cell, but the essence of life as created by the conductor'score! The victory of life as in Beethoven's Fifth. Only a genius could have directed the 'score' of life's music. Talbott was not defining any version of panpsychism. He was directing us at the scored complexity of life, to my mind directing us to appreciate the planning and not miss the forest for the trees. Both Tony and I are trying to provide you with the proper logical compass to see the intelligence behind the plan.-Just a reminder, life started this complex. It had to. Anything less is not living. Therefore the intelligence that did the score for the orchestra of life had to be that complex, from the beginning! If by pansychism you are using a definition of intelligence by dribs and drabs, here and there, at any stage in the development of life, then your theory doesn't fit Talbott's essay. Talbott did not write this essay to drive folks to God, but to demand that we shift our attention to the developing overall picture. As for his theology, I have no clue, but hiss essay strongly supports a belief in God.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Friday, March 29, 2013, 21:59 (4258 days ago) @ David Turell
My admonition is read all of the essays to fully see the point. This from the end of the fourth essay:-"Overlooking all this, we are supposed to see — somewhere — blind, mindless, random, purposeless automatisms at the ultimate explanatory root of all genetic variation leading to evolutionary change. The situation calls to mind a widely circulated cartoon by Sidney Harris, which shows two scientists in front of a blackboard on which a body of theory has been traced out with the usual tangle of symbols, arrows, equations, and so on. But there's a gap in the reasoning at one point, filled by the words, "Then a miracle occurs." And the one scientist is saying to the other, "I think you should be more explicit here in step two." In the case of evolution, I picture Dennett and Dawkins filling the blackboard with their vivid descriptions of living, highly regulated, coordinated, integrated, and intensely meaningful biological processes, and then inserting a small, mysterious gap in the middle, along with the words, "Here something random occurs." This "something random" looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a "Randomness of the gaps," demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, "Can you be a little more explicit here?" A faith that fills the ever-shrinking gaps in our knowledge of the organism with a potent meaninglessness capable of transforming everything else into an illusion is a faith that could benefit from some minimal grounding. Otherwise, we can hardly avoid suspecting that the importance of randomness in the minds of the faithful is due to its being the only presumed scrap of a weapon in a compulsive struggle to deny all the obvious meaning of our lives. (my bolds)- Supplement: Natural Genome Remodeling In her 1983 Nobel address, geneticist Barbara McClintock cited various ways an organism responds to stress by, among other things, altering its own genome. "Some sensing mechanism must be present in these instances to alert the cell to imminent danger," she said, adding that "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it utilizes this knowledge in a 'thoughtful' manner when challenged."- Subsequent research has shown how far-seeing she was."- Random chance? Horse manure!
Trilobite eyes
David, the article you referred us to just a few days ago, and to which I responded on 26 March, is:-http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness-I can't find your original entry either, but you recommended that we read the appendix (Barbara McClintock) and referred to it again on 24 March at 20.23 as your entry "just preceding this". The whole essay brilliantly elucidates why randomness in evolution is an illusion.-DAVID: Talbott did not write this essay to drive folks to God, but to demand that we shift our attention to the developing overall picture. As for his theology, I have no clue, but his essay strongly supports a belief in God.-Your first sentence is spot on. Your second sentence completely ignores the fact (not even a "clue") that he explicitly rejects the notion of ID. Tony has used the expression "willful disbelief", and your statement is the clearest possible example. Please read Talbott's rejection once more: "Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I've made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering."-You can of course use his essays as evidence for your own hypothesis, and as an agnostic I accept the possibility that your interpretation may be correct. But if you quote people like Hoyle and Talbott and Nagel and Shapiro to bolster your case, you should at least have some respect for their own views. These men are not idiots. They observe what you observe, but they do not draw the same conclusions. This in itself is a perfect illustration that your faith is "speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely", as Tony says of evolution.-DAVID: In her 1983 Nobel address, geneticist Barbara McClintock cited various ways an organism responds to stress by, among other things, altering its own genome. "Some sensing mechanism must be present in these instances to alert the cell to imminent danger," she said, adding that "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it utilizes this knowledge in a 'thoughtful' manner when challenged."-Could you possibly find a clearer description of "the intelligent genome" ... or in this case, my original term "the intelligent cell" ... even going so far as to talk about the cell's possible knowledge of itself? -DAVID: Subsequent research has shown how far-seeing she was.-It would appear that the "panpsychist" hypothesis is not so way out after all. DAVID: Random chance? Horse manure!-Agreed. Proof of a divine designer? Horse manure! Ask Hoyle, Talbott, Nagel, Shapiro.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Saturday, March 30, 2013, 21:39 (4257 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: "Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I've made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering."-This is the same cop out Nagel uses. There is a nebulous third way ,a 'logos' at the center of life that is just there all by itself, out of nowhere. What is that 'logos that informs all things' and where did it come from? Again out of thin air, an uncaused cause? Again horse manure. A theory that stops short of any conclusion, after presenting all that reasonable logic and coming to the edge of the precipice. A third way or no way!
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Sunday, March 31, 2013, 16:13 (4256 days ago) @ David Turell
david: A third way or no way!- Wishful thinking to avoid choosing. A third way is wishful thinking by those who cannot imagine as a First Cause a god of any sort, and for some reason are not willing to venture in that direction. Bacterial decisions are simply chemical as this article shows. The flagellum has been studied until there is little left to reveal. Bacteria can tumble in place or run in a direction. It all depends upon what their chemical sensors detect. The bacteria are chemical reactors. No nerve cells to create any kind of mental state or panpsychism. The chemicals around them cause a series of events to make their flagella react to move either toward, away, or stay still. This is all automatic behavior. No intentionality implied. The only way panpsychism can be present here is if we propose that a 'mind' invented this system of run or tumble. I'll accept that! -http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001480-And a very successful invention it is, since bacteria have been around for about 3.5 billion years and can live in places we humans cannot even consider. And we can think and plan and invent nutty ideas like panpsychism as a way out from the only two possibilties for evolution reaching this argumentative point: chance or design. Wish for a third way, and keep wishing. It isn't there.
Trilobite eyes
David recommended an essay by Stephen L. Talbott, which demonstrates the "illusion of randomness", and which David took to be evidence for Intelligent Design. Talbott himself, however, is an opponent of ID
hw (quoting Stephen L. Talbott): "Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I've made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering."-DAVID: This is the same cop out Nagel uses. There is a nebulous third way ,a 'logos' at the center of life that is just there all by itself, out of nowhere. What is that 'logos that informs all things' and where did it come from? Again out of thin air, an uncaused cause? Again horse manure. A theory that stops short of any conclusion, after presenting all that reasonable logic and coming to the edge of the precipice. A third way or no way!-It must be very frustrating for you that so many of the scientists you quote in support of your God theory turn out to be opponents of it. You must wonder why they find it so hard to see your carefully hidden God. Strangely perhaps, I wouldn't dream of rejecting your theory as vehemently as Talbott does. I don't believe it, but I don't reject it (= disbelieve it) because however unlikely all the explanatory hypotheses seem, one of them must be close to the truth. However, I really can't allow you to get away with the above. What you have written describes your own hypothesis perfectly:-"There is a nebulous way, a god at the center of life that is just there all by itself, out of nowhere. What is that 'God that informs all things' and where did it come from? Again out of thin air, an uncaused cause?"-You do a wonderful job of defending your own faith, but you have always admitted that ultimately reason is not enough ... one must take a gigantic leap. If you then criticize others for leaping in a different direction, or for not leaping at all, you simply enter the realm of pots and kettles.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Sunday, March 31, 2013, 18:37 (4256 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You do a wonderful job of defending your own faith, but you have always admitted that ultimately reason is not enough ... one must take a gigantic leap. If you then criticize others for leaping in a different direction, or for not leaping at all, you simply enter the realm of pots and kettles.-My problem is I think the 'leap in another direction' is not a leap at all but a nebulous hope that there is some weird sort of 'third way' to get around the requirement of a leap across the chasm. There is still only chance or design. If you reject chance only design is left. But inventing a third way hasn't happened. All of the scientists who point out the problem stop after they have pointed it out. There is nothing suggested after the stop, except to say 'we have a problem'. 'We' don't, they do because the next logical step is not allowed in their minds. I see nothing wrong with faith.
Trilobite eyes
DAVID: The bacteria are chemical reactors. No nerve cells to create any kind of mental state or panpsychism. The chemicals around them cause a series of events to make their flagella react to move either toward, away, or stay still. This is all automatic behavior. No intentionality implied. The only way panpsychism can be present here is if we propose that a 'mind' invented this system of run or tumble. I'll accept that!-I'm not going to anthropomorphize bacteria, and in my version of panpsychism I use the word "intelligence" as nebulously as you use the word "god". The only clue that we have is different levels of intelligence which we know exist, moving from our own highly sophisticated variety downwards, and the picture I've tried to draw at all levels is of some form of "intelligent energy" directing operations within matter. You believe that free will is part of our "mental state". Has this been "created" by the nerve cells? You also believe in an afterlife which, unlike Tony's, does not involve a resurrection of the physical body. So will our surviving 'soul' be without a "mental state", since there will no longer be nerve cells to "create" it? Has the "mental state" of the God you and Tony believe in been "created" out of nerve cells?-You have quoted a passage from near the end of Stephen J. Talbott's fourth essay: "Overlooking all this, we are supposed to see ... somewhere ... blind, mindless, random, purposeless AUTOMATISMS at the ultimate explanatory root of all genetic variation leading to evolutionary change." Of course he means that the cells are anything but automatons. He sees them as working "from within", with the intelligence the ancients called the logos. Might this not be applied to our friend the bacterium? You also quoted Barbara McClintock, for whom a future goal "would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it utilizes the knowledge in a 'thoughtful' manner when challenged." Might not this too be applied to our friend the bacterium? When you say with such authority, "This is all automatic behaviour," what do you know that Talbott doesn't and that McClintock didn't?-DAVID: Wish for a third way, and keep wishing. It isn't there.-Not me, David. Like dear old Satchmo I have "Gone fishin' instead of just a-wishin'."-*******-dhw: [Tony] wrote: "The Genome is a chunk of code that reacts the way that it is programmed to react." Does this mean your God individually programmes cells, ants, wolves, citizens, flowers and bumble bees to cooperate? Or are you saying that he invented a mechanism which would enable them all to work out their own particular designs?-DAVID: See my entry: Sunday, March 31, 2013, 16:13 @ David Turell. The cooperation at the cellular level is all automatic reactions by molecules, which have no idea of what they are doing. There is no mental state involved. All physico-chemical reactivity. Beautifully planned. Animals have some consciousness and that cooperation is partially instinct and partially mental planning. You cannot take cooperation at a mental level to cells!-Tell that to Talbott and McClintock (see above). This comment does not answer the questions you have quoted. Individual programming? Or a mechanism that enables them to work out their own particular designs? If you think it's the mechanism, you are back to a mental level, of whatever kind. dhw: You do a wonderful job of defending your own faith, but you have always admitted that ultimately reason is not enough ... one must take a gigantic leap. If you then criticize others for leaping in a different direction, or for not leaping at all, you simply enter the realm of pots and kettles.-DAVID: My problem is I think the 'leap in another direction' is not a leap at all but a nebulous hope that there is some weird sort of 'third way' to get around the requirement of a leap across the chasm. There is still only chance or design. If you reject chance only design is left. But inventing a third way hasn't happened. All of the scientists who point out the problem stop after they have pointed it out. There is nothing suggested after the stop, except to say 'we have a problem'. 'We' don't, they do because the next logical step is not allowed in their minds. I see nothing wrong with faith.-I see nothing wrong with faith either, except when the faithful accuse others of having the wrong faith, or criticize others because they have no faith. Chance and God are equally irrational hypotheses. I see nothing wrong with exploring other possibilities.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Monday, April 01, 2013, 20:54 (4255 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Monday, April 01, 2013, 21:24
> dhw: Tell that to Talbott and McClintock (see above). This comment does not answer the questions you have quoted. Individual programming? Or a mechanism that enables them to work out their own particular designs? If you think it's the mechanism, you are back to a mental level, of whatever kind.-No I am not. It is all automatic physico-chemical. Nothing mental except the original planning.-> > dhw;I see nothing wrong with faith either, except when the faithful accuse others of having the wrong faith, or criticize others because they have no faith. Chance and God are equally irrational hypotheses. I see nothing wrong with exploring other possibilities.-Neither do I, but I am convinced your third way cannot exist. Firmly, cannot!-An example of automatic molecular behavior doing a job:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/04/01/in-nerve-cells-an-energy-source-nobody-knew-about/?WT_mc_id=SA_DD_20130401
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, March 30, 2013, 03:46 (4257 days ago) @ David Turell
David: Talbott has made the point that the molecules of the genome are a finely tuned orchestra, and that Watson and Crick and those that followed had no sense of imagination, a common problem in today's scientists grounded in methodological reductionist materialism. The complexity is truly staggering. It is an orchestra of molecules all acting under physico-chemical controls. So far the essence of life, the conductor, is not seen, but felt by looking/watching all the moving parts. There may not be a conductor on site in the individual cell, but the essence of life as created by the conductor'score! The victory of life as in Beethoven's Fifth. Only a genius could have directed the 'score' of life's music. Talbott was not defining any version of panpsychism. He was directing us at the scored complexity of life, to my mind directing us to appreciate the planning and not miss the forest for the trees. Both Tony and I are trying to provide you with the proper logical compass to see the intelligence behind the plan.- Exactly! I wonder if it is my back ground in music that makes this so painfully obvious to me..If one note is off, or one instrument is missing, it changes everything. -> >David: Just a reminder, life started this complex. It had to. Anything less is not living. Therefore the intelligence that did the score for the orchestra of life had to be that complex, from the beginning! -Yes! Absolutely!
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Saturday, March 30, 2013, 14:24 (4257 days ago) @ David Turell
Just a reminder, life started this complex. It had to. Anything less is not living. Therefore the intelligence that did the score for the orchestra of life had to be that complex, from the beginning! If by pansychism you are using a definition of intelligence by dribs and drabs, here and there, at any stage in the development of life, then your theory doesn't fit Talbott's essay. Talbott did not write this essay to drive folks to God, but to demand that we shift our attention to the developing overall picture. As for his theology, I have no clue, but hiss essay strongly supports a belief in God.-This article on archaea supports my point of view:-http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uota-uot032713.php
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, March 29, 2013, 09:11 (4258 days ago) @ dhw
DHW: I've covered this above, in the sentence about interbreeding, but in any case there is no reason why the "intelligent genome" in multiple organisms exposed to the same environment should not produce the same innovation. The process of "convergence" has frequently been observed, for instance in desert plants even on different continents that come up with the same solutions. Similarly several Maelestes gobienses, suddenly finding themselves in changed conditions, might well simultaneously provide themselves with a doggy innovation. Has anyone ever observed God creating a breeding pair?-Convergence is even harder to explain in common evolution or your intelligent genome theory. Two independent intelligences arriving to the same precise solution to a given problem without contact between them is extremely unlikely, verging on impossible. There was a theory about that at one point, but I can not remember the name of it. -> > dhw: Finally, back to (quoting Tony): [See, the problem with your intelligent genome is that it presupposes evolution from a common ancestor is true.] There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely." > > dhw: You have applied this argument to the "intelligent genome" hypothesis, and I understand your point of view. But when I apply it to your God hypothesis, you seem to find it difficult to grasp (even labelling it "willful disbelief"). I wonder why.- I don't. As I keep stating repeatedly, every one of these theories, including mine, requires faith. However, there is no reason that your faith should not be based on sound reason and logic. I labeled it willful disbelief because that is what it is. You have untold complexity all around you working in exquisite harmony, complexity of the type that we have NEVER seen appearing spontaneously without the intervention of an intelligence, and yet you insist that it happened. Whether you apply that random chance at the start of the universe or the start of life is irrelevant because you are starting at the basis of random chance instead of purposeful intelligence. Humanity continues to invent new theories that completely ignore the reality of what they see because the thought of something that immense, that powerful scares them stupid and makes them feel weak and ineffectual. - >DHW: Although the "panpsychist" alternative I have offered naturally demands a similar leap of faith, at least it has the merit (in my eyes) of NOT depending on chance or on an unknowable God. I'm not sure what your final comments signify, other than the fact what without life, any theory about life can have no explanatory power. Without a universe any theory about the universe can have no explanatory power either. Clearly I've missed something here.-Life can not come from non-life without the not insignificant requirement of initial information and energy.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Friday, March 29, 2013, 14:38 (4258 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
> Tony: Convergence is even harder to explain in common evolution or your intelligent genome theory. Two independent intelligences arriving to the same precise solution to a given problem without contact between them is extremely unlikely, verging on impossible. There was a theory about that at one point, but I can not remember the name of it. -Simon Conway Morris bases an entire book on convergence to show teleology: "Life's Solution". > > Tony: I don't. As I keep stating repeatedly, every one of these theories, including mine, requires faith. However, there is no reason that your faith should not be based on sound reason and logic. I labeled it willful disbelief because that is what it is. -Dhw has told us why. To paraphrase him, he has told us he cannot imagine a God as first cause, even though he accepts the idea of a first cause as reasonable. I cannot imagine God either, nor can anyone else, but He is a logical endpoint to reach from all we know. > > > >DHW: Clearly I've missed something here. > > Tony: Life can not come from non-life without the not insignificant requirement of initial information and energy.-Exactly what was missed.
Trilobite eyes
TONY: Convergence is even harder to explain in common evolution or your intelligent genome theory. Two independent intelligences arriving to the same precise solution to a given problem without contact between them is extremely unlikely, verging on impossible. There's a useful summary with examples on Wikipedia, under "Convergence evolution". This is the reference, but I can't get it to work! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_evolution-TONY: See, the problem with your intelligent genome is that it presupposes evolution from a common ancestor is true. There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely." dhw: [...] I understand your point of view. But when I apply it to your God hypothesis, you seem to find it difficult to grasp (even labelling it "willful disbelief"). I wonder why.-TONY: I labeled it willful disbelief because that is what it is.-After all this time you clearly have no idea why I cannot share your speculative and irrational faith. I'll keep trying, Tony. We agnostics are very patient. See my response to David below, for yet another summary. TONY: You have untold complexity all around you working in exquisite harmony, complexity of the type that we have NEVER seen appearing spontaneously without the intervention of an intelligence, and yet you insist that it happened. Whether you apply that random chance at the start of the universe or the start of life is irrelevant because you are starting at the basis of random chance instead of purposeful intelligence.-I have answered this under "Evolution of Intelligence", and must protest that you are totally misrepresenting my whole 'panpsychist' hypothesis, which from the very start I have painstakingly, patiently, heroically, clearly explained DISPENSES WITH BOTH GOD AND RANDOM CHANCE, both of which I find equally unlikely. Reject it by all means, but do not misrepresent it. Meanwhile, if the complexities of our minds could not appear without the intervention of an intelligence, how did a mind infinitely more complex than our own manage to appear without the intervention of an intelligence? TONY: Humanity continues to invent new theories that completely ignore the reality of what they see because the thought of something that immense, that powerful scares them stupid and makes them feel weak and ineffectual.-According to you and David, God hides himself. I'm not alone in thinking that maybe we can't see him 'cos he ain't there! The reality I see is a breathtaking range of life, beauty, order, cooperation, love....of death, suffering, disorder etc. If there is a God, perhaps that's what he wants, and of course you can't have good without bad. On the other hand, the whole wonderful mixture might have come about through multiple "intelligences" following their own nice or nasty agendas, or it might all be one gigantic accident. Your assumption that people don't accept your own self-confessed irrationalism (faith being irrational by definition) because they feel scared and weak says rather more about your view of human nature than it does about the case for God.-Dhw: No doubt many innovations were not "from necessity", and maybe evolution itself was not necessary, since bacteria have survived to this day.-TONY: Which innovations, in particular, were not a necessity?-Since bacteria have survived, maybe all. But I'm suggesting there may be two possible causes of innovation: one the need for survival (linked more to adaptation), and the other the result of the genome inventing something new because a changed environment allows for further experimentation. Freddy ("Mr Conventional") Fish can go on swimming in the sea, but the sudden appearance of an island might encourage Fergus ("Watch-Me-Daddy") Fish to try his luck on land, though he doesn't have to. And behold, there were lungs and legs...-TONY: Life can not come from non-life without the not insignificant requirement of initial information and energy.-No disagreement from me. It fits in very nicely with my "panpsychist" hypothesis.-DAVID: [dhw] has told us he cannot imagine a God as first cause, even though he accepts the first cause as reasonable.-I've never opposed the concept of a first cause. What seems unreasonable, and therefore unimaginable to me, is the concept of first-cause energy being a single, super-colossal, eternally and fully self-aware, undesigned mind inexplicably possessing all the information there could possibly be, whereas our puny minds require a designer. That seems as unlikely to me as mindless first-cause energy hitting on a magic formula to create a functioning solar system and the mechanisms of life and evolution. If you can believe in either of those hypotheses, you might just as well believe in my 'panpsychist' proposal. Is it any more unreasonable than yours?
Trilobite eyes
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, March 31, 2013, 05:29 (4256 days ago) @ dhw
I'll respond to the rest of your post later..->DHW: I've never opposed the concept of a first cause. What seems unreasonable, and therefore unimaginable to me, is the concept of first-cause energy being a single, super-colossal, eternally and fully self-aware, undesigned mind inexplicably possessing all the information there could possibly be, whereas our puny minds require a designer. That seems as unlikely to me as mindless first-cause energy hitting on a magic formula to create a functioning solar system and the mechanisms of life and evolution. If you can believe in either of those hypotheses, you might just as well believe in my 'panpsychist' proposal. Is it any more unreasonable than yours?-A few points here:-1: One mind possessing all information is not a stretch when you think that 'in the beginning' there was so much less information to possess! -2: Your mind is based on biochemistry with the addition of energy. Because of the physical components and required support system it is greatly more complex and yet more inefficient than a mind made of pure energy. That would be why your mind requires a designer, but the mind made of pure energy would not. -The idea of cells having some level of intelligence or awareness is not something that I really disagree with. But trying to extrapolate that idea backwards to the creation of everything is just too much of a stretch because of what goes back that far is at once so mind boggling in its complexity and so elegant at the same time. I see the design of a single creative genius, because anything else would have created discrepancies that would unravel it all. If it were left to random chance or willy nilly individuals choosing to perhaps cooperate and perhaps not, none of use would be having this discussion. There is a near impossibly strong underlying theme to this orchestra. Just because I can not see the composer does not mean I can not read the score and recognize that it has been written by a single hand.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Trilobite eyes: most complex found
by David Turell , Monday, October 04, 2021, 15:18 (1147 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
One species has them:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210930101416.htm
"An international research team has found an eye system in trilobites of the suborder Phacopina from the Devonian (390 million years B.P.) that is unique in the animal kingdom: each of the about 200 lenses of a hyper-facet eye spans a group of six normal compound-eye-facets, forming a compound eye itself. In addition to the hyper-facetted eyes, the researchers, led by zoologist Dr. Brigitte Schoenemann at the University of Cologne's Institute for Didactics of Biology, identified a structure that they believe to be a local neural network which directly processed the information from this special eye, and an optic nerve that carried information from the eye to the brain.
***
"Most trilobites had compound eyes similar to those that are still found in insects today: a large number of hexagonal facets form the eye. There are usually eight photoreceptors under each facet. Comparable to the image of a computer screen, which is built up from individual pixels, an image is built up from the individual facets. In dragonflies, there are up to ten thousand individual facets. In order to produce a coherent image, the facets must be very close together and connected by neurons. However, in the trilobite suborder Phacopinae, the externally visible lenses of the compound eyes are much larger, up to 1 mm in diameter and more. In addition, they are set farther apart.
***
"Dr Schoenemann's analysis of Wilhelm Stürmer's 40-year-old X-ray archive now suggests a different interpretation: a hyper-compound eye. Each phacopid had two eyes, one on the left and one on the right. 'Each of these eyes consisted of about 200 lenses up to 1 mm in size,' said Schoenemann. 'Under each of these lenses, in turn, at least 6 facets are set up, each of which together again makes up a small compound eye. So we have about 200 compound eyes (one under each lens) in one eye.' These sub-facets are arranged in either one ring or two rings. 'Underneath sat a foam-like nest that was probably a small neural network to process the signals,' the zoologist added. The filaments Stürmer found in fact did turn out to be nerves leading from the eyes to the trilobite's brain. Further examination with modern computer tomography confirmed these structures.
***
"Wilhelm Stürmer was the head of the X-ray department at Siemens and an avid paleontologist. With a VW bus equipped as an X-ray station, he drove from quarry to quarry to X-ray fossils. Among other things, he discovered structures called filaments under the animals' eyes, which he thought were fossils of soft tissues, especially optic nerves. 'At that time, the consensus was that only bones and teeth, the hard parts of living things, could be seen in the fossils, but not the soft parts, such as intestines or nerves,' Schoenemann explained. Stürmer's heir gave the zoologist his archive. But the hobby-paleontologist had not only correctly identified the optic nerve, she notes: 'On an X-ray negative, there was an arrow in red pen pointing to the structure of the six lower facets under a main lens. This probably indicated that Stürmer had already recognized the hyper-compound eye.''
Comment: highly designed compound eyes, in a form now used today by insects. Illustrates the design gap in physical forms from Edicaran to Cambrian. From nothing to these eyes with no intermediate steps and able to demonstrate the nerve fibers. The gap cannot bed denied.
Trilobite eyes: most complex found
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 12, 2023, 15:38 (501 days ago) @ David Turell
New studies:
https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-trilobites-had-crystal-eyes-and-theyre-still-a-mys...
"...we know that trilobites had compound eyes like insects, consisting of clusters of photoreception units called ommatidia, each with its own photoreceptors and lenses. Examinations of broken sections of the fossilized lenses reveal a crystalline material made of calcite.
"Pure calcite is transparent, so, in theory, light could penetrate it and be focused, where the photoreceptors might detect it. As with insect vision, there was likely a trade-off: Trilobites probably didn't see in high spatial resolution, but they were particularly sensitive to motion.
"There were three kinds of these trilobite eyes. The oldest and most common is a type known as holochroal, in which small ommatidia were covered by a single corneal membrane, with the adjacent lenses in direct contact with each other.
"The abathochroal eye is only seen in the family Eodiscidae; the small lenses are each covered by a thin cornea.
***
"Finally, the schizochroal eye is only seen in the Phacopina suborder. The lenses are larger, widely separated, and each has its own cornea. They were probably, scientists believe, highly specialized.
"The holochroal eye is the most similar to modern apposition eyes seen in some insects and crustaceans, and scientists believe they worked in a similar way. Each ommatidium operates individually, and the image the insect sees is a mosaic of all the images combined.
"...scientists have found that schizochroal eyes have what is known as a doublet lens structure.
"That means the lens has two layers, each with a different refractive index, that could correct for birefringence, almost like the trilobites had built-in spectacles. Lenses of this type were invented, separately, by mathematicians Rene Descartes and Christian Huygens in the 17th century, unaware that trilobites had beaten them to the punch.
"For all our understanding of the various structures of the trilobite's eye, though, we still don't quite understand how the schizochroal eye worked, whether it was similar to an apposition eye or did something differently, as the different structure would suggest.
"A recent study showed schizochroal eyes are far more complex than we thought, which brings us closer. Each lens was found to cover a small compound eye of its own, forming a sort of "hyper-eye".
Comment: there are no earlier eyes!! Trilobites just simply appear. This just intensifies the meaning of the Cambrian gap.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 04:17 (4267 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The changes were not gradual (a second correction of Darwin), but some neo-Darwinists have already challenged this, and proposed "punctuated equilibrium" as an alternative. Darwin's theory still stands. Evolution driven by genomic "intelligence" instead of random mutation is still evolution, common descent is still common descent, and natural selection is still what determines the survival or otherwise of organs and species.-Darwin's theory is quivering, not fully standing. Yes evolution occurred, but the key is epigenetics, not amorphous intelligence. The genome knows how to advance complexity when it has to. It isplanned to do that. 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! Too many interlocking parts. And it is in the Cambrian when neurons were invented. a very sp[ecialized cell which sends electrical impulses biologically as ions (charged particles)created as they enter the axon and travel from one end to the other. Not Ben Franklin's electricity or Eddison's: no, biological electrical generation. Never done before the Cambrian.- Dawkins quotes a paper claiming making eyes is easy and quick. He says there was a compuer simulation. He can't even read the paper properly, or he lies:-The paper: http://www.rpgroup.caltech.edu/courses/aph161/Handouts/Nilsson1994.pdf No computer simulation, just theoretidcal assumptions.-Dawkins mistaken quotes;-http://spot.colorado.edu/~cleland/articles/Dawkins.pdf-Berlinski takes apart the math of the original paper.:-http://www.discovery.org/a/1509-Eyes in 364,000 years. crazy!
Trilobite eyes
dhw: The changes were not gradual (a second correction of Darwin), but some neo-Darwinists have already challenged this, and proposed "punctuated equilibrium" as an alternative. Darwin's theory still stands. Evolution driven by genomic "intelligence" instead of random mutation is still evolution, common descent is still common descent, and natural selection is still what determines the survival or otherwise of organs and species.-DAVID: Darwin's theory is quivering, not fully standing. Yes evolution occurred, but the key is epigenetics, not amorphous intelligence. The genome knows how to advance complexity when it has to.-"Knowing how to do something when you have to" sounds like intelligence to me. Why should epigenetics preclude intelligence? -DAVID: It is planned to do that.-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". 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!-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. 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.
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 19:25 (4267 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. > > 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. > > 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! > > 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. > > 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.
Trilobite eyes
DAVID: 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.-There is no difference between your intelligent genome and mine. They both have underlying information and intelligent application of that information. The difference between the two concepts lies in how the genome acquired the information and the ability to apply it. In your version, the genome is an automaton programmed by God to adapt and innovate "when it has to". In my version it is not an automaton, but is able to make its own decisions. (Your post under "fly traps" seems to imply that your God pre-programmed the intelligent genome to make its own decisions. I'll discuss this in my response on that thread.)-You seem to assume that unlike humans and ... to a smaller degree - our fellow animals, other forms of life have no independent intelligence of their own. And yet when individual fish, insects, bacteria innovate, in your own words "the genome KNOWS HOW to advance complexity when it has to". I agree, and I regard knowing how to do something as a form of intelligence. Scientists are constantly discovering that other forms communicate. How can anyone possibly know that these communications are preprogrammed and not linked to independent thought? When single cells first merged to create the multicellularity which sparked evolution, how can anyone possibly know that this was not through their own creative thinking, as opposed to pre-programming? In the same way (though this is where my own scepticism tends to harden), the chemicals that combined to create the first self-replicating molecules may also have had their own way of thinking and communicating. Every innovation is a departure from automatic behaviour, and only when a successful formula has been found will the chemicals and cells behave like automatons, which is why we only see them as such. I've rightly been told that my inability to imagine a universal intelligence does not mean a universal intelligence doesn't exist. The same argument has to apply to our inability to imagine "intelligent" chemicals and cells. The whole idea ... particularly as regards "intelligent" chemicals ... may seem fantastic (I neither believe nor disbelieve it), but is it any more fantastic than that of chance assembling the elements for life and evolution? Or than that of an amorphous (good word) unknowable eternal universal self-aware super-intelligence that came from nowhere, deliberately keeps itself concealed, and resides "within and without" the universe, designing black holes, red giants, milky ways, elephants, flycatching sundews and viruses? As I put it to Tony, if you can believe in an undesigned super-intelligence, why can't you believe in an undesigned lesser intelligence that has evolved? But I'm not inviting you to do so. It's only a hypothesis, and I'm still on my fence, looking for company!
Trilobite eyes
by David Turell , Friday, March 22, 2013, 14:54 (4265 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: As I put it to Tony, if you can believe in an undesigned super-intelligence, why can't you believe in an undesigned lesser intelligence that has evolved? But I'm not inviting you to do so. It's only a hypothesis, and I'm still on my fence, looking for company!-Why not join Fred Hoyle in the intelligence thread, just posted? Your Monarchy recognized him as Sir Fred, the Astronomer Royal. Fred sees the intelligent design. And like you he understood that chance was not the way it happened. An "undesigned lesser intelligence" is a euphemism for chance. A molecule has as much chance of being intelligent in its own right as a block of salt, which has a nice crystaline design. That design is pretty but but offers no ideas beyond its rigid form.