DILEMMAS (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, October 26, 2014, 01:45 (3680 days ago) @ dhw


> Dhw: I agree with your “pattern” idea, as also illustrated by your two posts on “Evidence for pattern development”. The common features between different types of organism simply confirm the principle of common descent. Once a “pattern” is successful, it branches out into different forms, but retains its basic structure. You've now surprised me, though, by including spider silk as one of the patterns.-If you knew anything about the biology of spiders you would not have been surprised. Spiders arose from the Cambrian without precursors. Spiders have several distinct complex and specific functions. Some of them have very nasty bite venom. I regularly kill black widows here for very good reason, and I've treated the results of brown recluse spiders, which produce nasty necrotic non-healing skin ulcers. Therefore, however spiders are invented they have to come with an intricate chemical mechanism which poisons others but not themselves. The they spin intricate geometically patterned webs, which are specific in pattern for each sspecies. Then those webs are hydrophobic, rain water resistent. And finally they are very sticky and are being studied to produce products for human use. And finally the tensile strength of a strand is stronger than steel! So the 'pattern' for spiders has to include a tail gland that can produce such a wonderous polymerized protein product by a series of biochemical reactions which allow a liquid material to be extruded through an orifice as a liquid and solidify upon hitting the air. There must also be protective arrangements so the stuff doesn't solidify inside the gland. We human do all this now in making nylon stockings, but we had brains to figure it out.And that reminds me, a convergent pattern is present in silk worms feeding on mulberry trees. -> dhw: This is why preprogramming and purpose seem to me to go way, way beyond the bounds of credibility. You believe that the very first cells were designed to lead to humans, but also to lead to spider silk. Spider silk, then, was as special to God as humans - unless you think humans could never have evolved without it. This is just one of billions of preprogrammed patterns, all of which had to be passed down for billions of years etc. -I'm surprised at you. We are discussing incredulity! The amazing variety of life's complex and specific mechanisms is beyond all imagination. It suggests miracles. That is why I puzzle. Tony seems to assume God steps in at each stage. I think He could have programmed most of it from the beginning. -> dhw: And if spider silk had not emerged from the 3.7-billion-year-old programme, you think God would have had to dabble, because the IM couldn't have done it on its own. I keep trying to hammer home the unimaginable scale of this programme, and it's becoming greater and greater.-Yes, the unimaginable scale of life's diversity and unusual functionalities defies explanation. And years ago you thought Darwinism might do it. But as Denton points out in his essay, 34 years since his first book, it seems more and more that Darwinism doesn't work, the research pointing more and more away from tiny selective breeding steps. 
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> dhw: We've also discussed another aspect of your dilemma, now graphically illustrated by the spider's silk: if humans were the purpose, why the vast variety and the comings and goings provided by the evolutionary bush....I don't think you can resolve the issue of the great higgledy-piggledy either. Nothing quite adds up.-That is exactly the point. I have to reconcile the bush faced with the obvious purpose to produce humans. 
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> dhw: Here is a possible solution to both dilemmas: God set in motion an inventive mechanism that autonomously produced the great higgledy-piggledy, but he frequently dabbled in order to guide evolution either towards a predetermined goal, or towards a goal that crystallized as the process went along.-You certainly don't think as I do. The IM is adaptation and nothing more. The Basic Patterns are all in the pre-programming. 
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> dhw: But unless you have God separately creating every innovation and every natural wonder (out goes evolution), you will have to give the inventive mechanism a great deal more scope that you've allowed it so far. Worth considering?-Not worth a farthling. Please read Denton again. Set basic patterns and then allow variety. Pre-Programming is setting all the basic stuff. Makes the rest much easier. The IM helps introduce variety through epigenetics and probably other mechanisms.-For another day: there is a whole layer of gene function we know nothing about. We know what genes do by elimination and substitution studies in embryology. We have no idea how they do it. When that is found out I hope your incredulity increases to the point that you realize the end of Darwinism is near. It is. It can't work.