More about how evolution works: look at the video (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, October 30, 2015, 19:59 (3094 days ago) @ dhw

Good summary:-> 
> dhw: 1) 3.8 billion years ago an unknown, sourceless, individual mind devised a programme to be passed on by the first living cells to all subsequent organisms.(David)-
>2)The same unknown sourceless individual mind sometimes dabbled, which would seem to suggest that the 3.8-billion-year programme needed adjustments, though we shouldn't ask why because we can't read the mind. (David)-
> 3) Evolution never happened, except with certain minor variations. All species (broad sense) were individually created by the above mind. (Tony)-Don't agree with 3 as tony views it but I come close with my guided-by-God evolution theory-> dhw: 4) Evolution works through a combination of random mutations and natural selection. (Darwin and faithful disciples)-For me, no way!-
> dhw: 5) Evolution is driven by cooperation between intelligent cells that exploit changing environmental conditions in order to improve their way of life. (dhw)-Problem is how did first life develop this so-called intelligence, which requires a mind? Your postulate is equal to my God-postulate, except I have a first cause as part of my theory, and you don't
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> DAVID: They would have to understand design for the future organism to work at first try. No intermediate forms means no chance for trial and error. got to be right the first time.
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> dhw: Nobody knows how new species are formed, ...However, we need to differentiate here. Different strategies, lifestyles, natural wonders could be the result of trial and error, so long as the threat to the whole species is not immediate.-But we do not see any fossil evidence of trail and error. Look at the Cambrian.-> dhw: It's really structural innovations that are the problem, and once again we must face the fact that all the above hypotheses raise more questions than they answer, though for some reason you never seem to question your own.-Fossils will show structural innovations, and they do as full-blown new species, no itty-bitty attempts. Cambrian explosion is why I don't question my conclusions.
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> dhw: However, unlike adaptation, innovation is not a matter of survival but of exploiting new conditions in order to make improvements, which would not necessarily mean succeeding “at first try”.-Same answer as always: the same bacteria, in three classes, are still here
 unchanged after 3.6 billion years of change on Earth. Humans arrived and apes and monkeys didn't evolve during the same period.-
. dhw: I'm really not sure how we would be able to identify an intermediate form. We won't find many soft tissues anyway, and a few bones won't carry a label saying: "I was a flonk on its way to becoming a flink."-Paleontologists would be insulted by your comment. Lots of soft tissue stuff is turning up now. Two days ago, an article I did not use here told of x-ray diffraction showing the intestine in an ossified fossil. Much other soft tissue stuff is turning up. I'm not reporting much of it here. I don't have the time to feed everything I see.-> dhw: Any fossil will be of an organism that existed in its own right. However, if we take Darwin's “light sensitive nerve” as an innovation, it is quite conceivable that over a period of time other intelligent cell communities were able to improve on the invention, leading to the variety of seeing eyes that we know now.-Pipe dream. Cambrian eyes arrive fully formed, no intermediates. Darwin had no idea of what really happened. 'Origins' is not a Bible. He knew about the problem of the Cambrian, but he presumed the intermediates would appear. 150 years and they haven't, and the obvious gap is gappier than ever. -> dhw: But I agree that individual innovations would have had to work quickly if they were to survive, since organisms would hardly persist in pursuing lost causes. If I had the answer, the Nobel Prize would be mine. -Your answer is NO intermediates. No Nobel so far.