DILEMMAS: A Response to DHW (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, November 21, 2014, 20:15 (3436 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Are you now prepared to [...] accept the possibility that initially the creative mechanism of the monarch enabled it - unpreprogrammed and undabbled with - to create its own ”complex lifestyle”, to be passed on to succeeding generations?
DAVID: I think it is best to state that a pattern of migration was established in the beginning of patterns for birds and butterflies. Each species then made its own adaptations of the exact routes, etc.-Some birds and butterflies migrate and others don't, depending on the climate. Therefore the only basic pattern is the butterfly/bird deciding for itself whether to migrate or not, and deciding for itself where to go. In other words, your God provided the butterflies and the birds with an inventive mechanism which enabled them to create their own “complex lifestyle”, to be passed on to succeeding generations. Give in!
 
DAVID: They solve my issue of how complex the IM might be. Again it revolves around how much information is implanted in the beginning of life, and perhaps in early stages. And I think probably most of the information is implanted early, since latter developments (mutations) reduce information, while causing adaptation.-dhw: I don't think they have solved the issue at all, though you can try to gloss it over by focusing on the word “information”. If evolution proceeds through the interaction between organisms and their changing environments, the inventive mechanism will need to work out ways of dealing with new information from outside itself. 
DAVID: My focus on information is a key issue. Of course the organisms receive information about the environment. They respond using information in the genome.-You have left out the main thrust of my argument! I repeat: Unless it has been given ALL the information (preprogrammed) right at the very beginning to cope with or exploit (= adapt or innovate) every single conceivable environmental change, either it has to exercise its own inventiveness, or your God has to dabble.

dhw: Yes, some type of balance is returned to or developed, but it may be a DIFFERENT balance, according to the conditions offered by the new environment, and when these conditions change again, you will again have disruption followed by a new balance, and so on till the end of life. What does all this prove? That if you don't have conditions conducive to certain forms of life, you won't have those forms of life. I'm afraid that won't get us to Stockholm-DAVID: Nothing I read gets anyone to Stockholm. Wagner very briefly alludes to the fact that the code carries information, has no suggestion as to where it comes from. I'm about 1/3 through his book and gritting my teeth...-My point here was that the balance of life argument is a tautology, which is a different subject. Sorry Wagner is proving to be a struggle. You deserve a medal.