REVISE THIS:Two sides of the irreducible complexity argument (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, September 19, 2009, 01:39 (5543 days ago) @ dhw

Matt: If there's no need to forcibly evolve, why do it? [...] If design is true, we should be able to see macro-evolution happen very rapidly, or we should be able to induce it. However neither of these things has been observed.[/i] -It depends on the design. As you know I believe DNA/RNA is a code that drives evolution thru the actions of microRNA, but it also depends on nature's input, mutation, epigentic variation which is inheritable, and therefore is not like a magician pulling the rabbit out of the hat. We know we haven't observed macro, and we know that there are spurts and pauses in the process. We really can't imply or guess what design might do. It is guess work.
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> The second part of your statement puzzles me. You seem to be taking just one concept of design into consideration: the designer decides to make a stegosaurus, and hey presto, we have a stegosaurus. But a designer may just as easily have designed the initial programme, allowing for a vast array of variations,-And that is exactly the point I am making. I firmly think evolution is designed to create us, with lots of variation on the way. The universe came in a Big Bang, and life appeared quickly. Then there is a long period of about 3 billion years before complexity of life starts (Cambrian). Would a designer do that? Of course, he can do anything he wants.-> You suggest that "evolution is a more passive process that does its job only when it MUST". I think "evolution" has to be split up into mutations, adaptation, natural selection. Beneficial mutations ... which I find a huge problem ... are creative, not passive, since they're supposed to produce brand new features.-If you mean beneficial mutations are not passive, I agree, but I still insist 
that chance mutation means the overall process is passive. Remember, almost all beneficial.mutations are recessive. Epigenetic mechanisms seem a faster and better way to speciation. That is really the way around Haldane's dilemma, which in my view of the literature is not solved in any other way.