Natures wonders: amphibious centipede (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 28, 2016, 21:35 (3068 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Thank you for yet another stunning example of the ingenuity of cell communities. No, Darwin's gradualism doesn't help (though his common descent stands firm). Nor does Turell's theory that every single wonder has been divinely preprogrammed or dabbled so that humans can walk the Earth. This little marvel suggests to me that organisms (cell communities) do indeed possess a highly inventive mechanism which creates new ways of coping with or exploiting the environment; these new inventions would obviously entail “adding complexity”, but always with a purpose. - This weird character had to arrive all planned and integrated from the beginning. He is pure saltation, more likely a dabble from God than a committee result. - > dhw: Once again, I can only ask what on earth would be the point of adding complexity just for the sake of complexity? - It may not be logical to human thought, but the h-p bush shows just that. - > dhw:It may be that your God preprogrammed the very first cells to pass on every single invention and variation throughout the history of life (apart from those he dabbled), and at some point in time a few centipedes blindly turned on programme XYZ million(multiple choice No. 2099), to make themselves amphibious, just as your God had planned. Or it may be that they used the intelligence your God had given them to devise a new way of exploiting the environment. The latter hypothesis, however, apparently has too many complexities for you to accept as a possibility, whereas you cannot see any complexities in the former. - I see all of the possibilities you do. All are complex. All fit the results of evolution. I am allowed to chose the ones that I deem must likely. And I admit God could have made cells so intelligent they create new full-blown species, but He would have had to load them with precise programming, which is more complicated than taking direct dabble action.