More Denton: Last essay of a 3 part series (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 17, 2015, 02:56 (3418 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: My theory is not Darwin's theory! I have said that you and I reject gradualism. Innovations produced by the inventive mechanism would have to work straight away (in leaps) or they would not survive.-The leaps bother me and argue against common descent It is as if the inventive mechanism has guidance or pre-planning, which has been my constant comment.
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> DAVID: How do cells decide what to invent....?
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> dhw: Perhaps cells decide like humans: if conditions are right, they experiment. If successful, the innovation survives; if not, it perishes.-Frankly I don't think there is time enough (by your proposal)to go from apes in six million years and get what we see in humans. Remember human generations are producing at slow rate of 20 years. 
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> dhw: Every human invention, like every evolutionary innovation, is a leap.-And is just the problem, the leaps by your approach of unguided experimentation are not a reasonable explanation. 
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> dhw: This allows for both hypotheses: it might mean information that enabled the mechanism to do its own autonomous inventing, or information that preprogrammed every single innovation that led from bacteria to humans, including the weaverbird's nest and a billion other natural wonders along the way. Which seems more likely? -The information that produced patterns of development from the beginning, which patterns are obvious, i.e. Pentadactyl, etc.-> DAVID: The part you have not quoted is the point in the essay about ORFan genes, ones that pop up out of nowhere to help produce the giant leaps in evolution. This is a discontinuity in genomic evolution, and very anti-Darwin.
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> dhw: Yet again: I reject Darwin's gradualism. My hypothesis EXPLAINS the leaps, it doesn't ignore them.-It doesn't explain the ORFans, about 10% of unrelated genes to anything in the past, and argue against uncontrolled common descent, as Denton points out.
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> dhw: Yes, life is a miracle. That tells us nothing about whether this or any other life-bearing universe was fine-tuned by a god.-John Leslie sums it up best: "Either there is a God and/or multiple universes" (probably slightly paraphrased).