DAVID: More thoughts about this issue:-I believe humans are different in kind, both in body form upright posture, and in their giant brain, which is as different from other brains as any other difference we can find. As an example look at the hyrax and the elephant. They are close relatives genetically, but that's hard to believe, and I've seen both. The percentages I've given re' the DNA in chimps and humans, 98% similar populations of bases, but only 78% practical applications, shows us how that works in mixing and matching bases to change the expression of information. Genes contain different information when they are transposed, reduplicated, or how much they are allowed to be expressed. The source of speciation has to lie in more fully understanding these mechanisms. My theories must use what we know, which I have presented.-I agree that we need to understand these mechanisms more fully in order to find the source of speciation. But how on earth can “what we know” be said to provide any sort of basis for the theory that all the information needed for evolution was present at the beginning, and speciation is caused by loss of information? All we know in that context is that adaptation can be accompanied by loss of information. We also know that cell communities can change their structure when their existing internal information makes adjustments in order to cope with NEW external information. If loss of information ACCOMPANIES adaptation and this allows you to theorize that loss of information CAUSES innovation, I can certainly theorize that whatever mechanism enables cell communities to adapt to new information might also enable them to exploit that information in order to innovate.-xxxx-DAVID: I have a new study that defines these molecular and gene controls over cell division. Note the headline which uses the word 'decision' and feedback loop:

http://phys.org/news/2016-07-nota-cellular-feedback-loop-enables.html-David's comment: This all sounds very automatic and controlled to me. The only part of the reactions that might fit the issue of conscious action or 'thought' is the role of the genes in these reactions, what proteins they code for, and whether the gene is repressed in transcription or increased in expression by these molecular relationships. We know genes code for protein production, but how they might be exerting other influences is not yet discovered. Note that the molecules themselves increase or decrease gene function!-As always, you focus on systems that are already functional and established. You and I are full of functional, established systems that work automatically. Only when something goes wrong or when there is a change in conditions is there the possibility that what works automatically will have to change. Nobody as far as I know claims that all cells are constantly thinking about what they do! There are two approaches here. Firstly, scientists set problems which take organisms out of their known environment, to see if they have the “intelligence” to solve those problems. You accept such tests when they are carried out with our fellow animals and birds, but the lower down the scale we go (e.g. to ants to bacteria to plants), the less prepared you are to acknowledge the results. Secondly, we are trying to identify the possible mechanism that leads to evolutionary innovation - i.e. all those individual physical elements which at one time never existed before and which in the course of time accumulate to produce all the different species. This is not a matter of WHAT the genes do, but a matter of what makes them do it, i.e. what guides the physical mechanisms to create the new organ. Your theory is that God has preprogrammed the mechanism or operates it through personal intervention. Mine is that they operate the mechanism themselves. An analysis of all the chemical processes will not give you a clue as to how cell communities (organisms) are able to solve new problems and to create new structures.

dhw:What would you say are the logical flaws in the hypothesis that your God might have created an autonomous mechanism that enables organisms to acquire and process new information with which to create the innovations that lead to speciation?-As I've noted before, perfectly logical if it is semiautomatic with limits set by God.-> 
> DAVID: No. I can imagine a recombination of genes made the branch leading to platypus, is not the recombination that lead to elephants. As with chimp and human, a simple population number says the DNAs in both are 98% of each other, but internal analysis of DNA arrangement and expression says we are 78% similar. This is how differentiation is made.
> 
> dhw: Of course the genetic combination is different. Any innovation will require a recombination/rearrangement of some sort, if only to accommodate all the new information. How does that mean that the LUCA contained all the information, internal and external, necessary for the platypus and elephant, and the platypus had to lose the elephant information in order to become a platypus?-Same repeat: the only advances we know are adaptations and many of them lose information. ?this is the ONLY evidence we have.
> 
> DAVID: The 3.8 billion years of info is your assumption, not mine. 
> dhw: Life is believed to have begun 3.8 billion years ago. If you claim that all the information was present at the beginning, then it was present 3.8 billion years ago. Just as information is information, the beginning is the beginning.-> DAVID: But what was implied, as you know, is that I also favor dabbling with info added.
> 
> dhw: The 3.8 billion years of info is your assumption, not mine, and if information has to be added by a dabble, it cannot all have been present at the beginning of evolution. Your different theories contradict each other, -Of course they contradict. I've always said one or the other, since there is no way of knowing at this point in our knowledge.

dhw: “Quantum” seems to be the password to all explanations. Let me switch this “possibility” concept around. Whatever exists must be possible. Therefore you can argue that the possibility for whatever exists must always have existed. And since we have no idea what else is possible, nothing stops us from saying that anything is possible. You can't prove a negative, and so at the quantum level (which nobody understands and which is therefore full of infinite possibilities) it is perfectly possible that tomorrow I will turn into a piano-playing giraffe with wings and a bushy tail. Or, to come back to the field of evolution, I can argue that at the quantum level, instead of a possible God possibly preprogramming and/or dabbling every possible change in the history of evolution, he possibly created a possible autonomous inventive mechanism with which organisms were able to adapt or innovate according to random changes in environmental conditions. Why should that not be part of the All That Is, or the quantum fabric of reality? Or why should the quantum fabric of reality not be such that life and evolution and consciousness were inevitable, and there is no single mind controlling it all? Or life, evolution and consciousness are a quantum fluctuation?-DAVID: Wonderful flight of fancy. All we know is the quantum level of reality exists as the basis of our reality. It is counterintuitive but all the formulas we use work! We don't understand it, but it is/was used to create the universe, and it conducts or is used by many of the living mechanisms (photosynthesis, as one example). How did quanta get so smart? A guiding mind is needed.-I don't know why an autonomous inventive mechanism should be regarded as more of a flight of fancy than a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme detailing every single innovation and natural wonder in the history of life, or an unknown sourceless universe-creating, universe-encompassing mind personally giving lessons to the weaverbird on how to build its nest.

QUOTE: "The data so far obtained show that there are many suggestive but untestable hypotheses on this topic and that we really know nothing about the evolution of the long-necked giraffes. Moreover, a close examination of the evidence reveals several deep problems for any of the current hypotheses explaining the origin of these species exclusively by mutations, recombination and selection. "

David’s comment: Gould was always honest in his opinions. Darwin dos not explain the giraffe in any way. The giraffe appears full-blown like so many other organisms.

There are many suggested but untestable hypotheses on the subject of the origin of life and of all evolutionary innovations. That is why discussion and research go on unabated. Darwin would have attributed the long neck to an advantageous mutation followed by natural selection, Lamarck thought it was a characteristic acquired by reaching up for food, and I know at least one person who believes that 3.8 billion years ago his God provided the very first cells with special programmes for giraffes and their long necks, as well as for elephants’ trunks, cuttlefish camouflage, monarch butterflies’ reproduction cycles and migration routes, and every solution to every problem that bacteria would experience for the rest of time.
xxxxxx

Under “Natural wonders”:
DAVID: [Amoeba] have amazing abilities that appear intelligent:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a25686417/amoeba-math/
QUOTES: They set the amoeba in a special chamber filled with channels, and at the end of each channel the researchers placed some food. Instinctively, the amoeba would extend tendrils into the channels to try and get the food. When it does that, however, it triggers lights to go off in other channels. (David’s bold)
"
Physarum polycephalum is a very simple organism that does two things: it moves toward food and it moves away from light. Millions of years of evolution has made Physarum abnormally efficient at both of these things. (David’s bold)

"[…] the amoeba just reacts passively to the conditions and figures out the best possible arrangement by itself. What this means is that for the amoeba, adding more cities doesn’t increase the amount of time it takes to solve the problem. (dhw’s bold)

“'The mechanism by which the amoeba maintains the quality of the approximate solution, that is, the short route length, remains a mystery…” (dhw’s bold)

DAVID: Amazing work by an amoeba/slime mold. This ability has been noted here previously. Note the article says the slime mold reacts automatically (instinctively).

Note the article says the amoeba figures out the best possible arrangement by itself, but the mechanism remains a mystery. My hypothetical solution to the mystery is that the amoeba figures out the best possible arrangement by itself. Of course once confronted with the problem, it would instinctively use its intelligence, which is not the same as saying that it is automatically following instructions issued 3.8 billion years ago, along with instructions for every undabbled innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder throughout the history of life.

A comment by the author of a book, "The Scientific Approach to Evolution":

https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/darwinism-flunks-science-criteria-says-biomedical...

"When assessing the validity of a scientific theory, the available evidence should not be weighted equally as if it were equally valid. Rather, the evidence must be prioritized according to the level of confidence that it provides. Evidence that provides high confidence must be prioritized over evidence that only provides low confidence.

"Guidelines for the practice of medicine and agencies like the Food and Drug Administration have long recognized that higher confidence evidence is:

"1) repeatable, 2) obtained through prospective study (i.e., through experiments designed in advance to block out confounding factors, rather than through retrospective study), 3) directly measured (e.g., blood pressure measured directly via an arterial catheter, rather than indirectly measured via a cuff around the arm), 4) obtained with minimal bias, 5) obtained with minimal assumptions, and 6) summarized with sober judgement, not amplified or extrapolated beyond the experimental conditions.

"These 6 criteria can be applied to any field of science to indicate the relative level of confidence in the available evidence. The criteria are not black-and-white, but rather provide a spectrum of levels of confidence.

"Applying these 6 criteria to the evidence for evolution results in a clear dichotomy between evidence that only provides very low confidence and evidence that provides very high confidence.

"The commonly cited evidence for evolution (e.g., the fossil record, homology, and vestigial organs) do not meet any of the 6 criteria for high-confidence science.

"For example, the process that produced the life-forms found in the fossil record cannot be repeated, cannot be directly measured, and cannot be studied prospectively.

"Also, interpretations of the fossil record are replete with bias and are based upon many assumptions (for example, we are asked to assume that a life-form that is not found in a given layer of fossils did not exist at that time, yet we also are asked to assume that absence of transitional fossils in the fossil record does not imply that they did not exist).

"Finally, the interpretation of the fossil record (i.e., the effort to explain how the life-forms contained in the fossil record came to exist) extrapolates far from the actual evidence (fossilized bones) to try to explain the process responsible for the origination of the life-forms. The very low confidence provided by this type of evidence cannot provide clarity; it can only provide fuel for endless debate.

"In stark contrast, experimental evolution studies like Richard Lenski’s Long Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) meet all 6 criteria and provide very high confidence.

"Experimental evolution can be repeated, can be studied prospectively and directly measured, with minimal bias and assumptions, and the results can be summarized with sober judgement.
The evidence from these high-confidence experimental evolution studies simply must be prioritized over the low-confidence evidence.

"Yet, biology textbooks routinely prioritize the low-confidence evidence over the high-confidence evidence. The high-confidence evidence from experimental evolution studies paint a highly constrained picture of evolution.

"For example, Lenski’s 70,000 generations of E. coli show that evolution is highly constrained – unable to produce the innovations necessary to change body plans over time or to produce new molecular machinery. The orphan genes that are prevalent in all life-forms cannot be explained by the evolution observed in these studies.

"When high-confidence evidence is appropriately prioritized over low-confidence evidence, the result is a profound new view of evolution – one that they did not teach you in biology."

Comment: Darwin developed his theory logically from incomplete and incorrect information. As contrary findings have continuously appeared, shoehorning and contriving them have ended in an 'extended evolutionary synthesis' which is convoluted and draws intense criticism as in this book. Study of the genome by CRISPR techniques has sown how the very complexity that is found demands design did it.

There is n o evidence for a gradual elongation of the giraffe neck. In the fossil record it just appears:

http://www.weloennig.de/Giraffe.pdf

"This new study attempts to explain the massive physiological changes required by the very long neck:

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-tall-giraffes-genes.html

"The extraordinary stature of the giraffe has led to a long list of physiological co-adaptations. The blood pressure of the giraffe, for instance, is twice as high as in humans and most other mammals to allow a steady blood supply to the lofty head. How does the giraffe avoid the usual side effects of high blood pressure, such as severe damage to the cardiovascular system or strokes?

"The team discovered a particular gene—known as FGFRL1—that has undergone many changes in the giraffe compared to all other animals. Using sophisticated gene editing techniques they introduced giraffe-specific FGFRL1 mutations into lab mice. Interestingly, the giraffe-type mice differed from normal mice in two important aspects: they suffered less cardiovascular and organ damage when treated with a blood pressure increasing drug, and they grew more compact and denser bones.

"'Both of these changes are directly related to the unique physiological features of the giraffe—coping with high blood pressure and maintaining compact and strong bones, despite growing them faster than any other mammal, to form the elongated neck and legs," says Rasmus Heller from the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen,...

"While jumping out of bed for (some) humans might be an effortless and elegant affair, this is definitely not the case for the giraffe. Merely standing up is an a lengthy and awkward procedure, let alone getting up and running away from a ferocious predator. Therefore, giraffes have evolved into spending much less time sleeping than most other mammals.

"Rasmus Heller elaborates: "We found that key genes regulating the circadian rhythm and sleep were under strong selection in giraffes, possibly allowing the giraffe a more interrupted sleep-wake cycle than other mammals."

In line with research in other animals an evolutionary trade-off also seem to be determining their sensory perception, Rasmus continues, "Giraffes are in general very alert and exploit their height advantage to scan the horizon using their excellent eyesight. Conversely, they have lost many genes related to olfaction, which is probably related to a radically diluted presence of scents at 5m compared to ground level."

"These findings provide insights into basic modes of evolution. The dual effects of the strongly selected FGFRL1 gene are compatible with the phenomenon that one gene can affect several different aspects of the phenotype, so called evolutionary pleiotropy. Pleiotropy is particularly relevant for explaining unusually large phenotypic changes, because such changes often require that a suite of traits are changed within a short evolutionary time. Therefore, pleiotropy could provide one solution to the riddle of how evolution could achieve the many co-dependent changes needed to form an animal as extreme as a giraffe."

Comment: The bold above describes the problem perfectly. How so many complex physiological changes so coordinated appear so quickly? Of course, the authors think a Darwin style gene did the job all by itself like an octopus with all its arms in action. How did a naturally occurring chance set of mutations find the perfect gene? It is much easier for me to propose the designer did it.