Logic and evolution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 00:29 (3047 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Bacteria were/are perfectly happy for 3.6 billion years. Why the improvement/advance? There is no natural answer.
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> dhw: A natural answer: Single cells merged (perhaps by luck) and found that the merger led to some kind of improvement. So some single cells went on being single cells, but others went on merging and cooperating. In the course of time, cell communities went on creating improvement after improvement. And now here we are! (NB It may be your God who gave cells/cell communities the intelligence to know what is good for them, and to know how to make use of new opportunities.)-I would remind you luck is the same as chance which you have rejected. Any other approach?
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> dhw; research has NOT found that new structures can be created without adding new “information”. -You are presenting a negative. We have no research on new organs or new species development. we don't know how that happens. All we have found is gene changes in adaptations of existing organisms in which information is often removed.-> DAVID: My only response is to repeat that antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria alter a metabolic activity with another route they have. Some of the guys don't have that alternative and pick up resistance by horizontal transfer, all current science.
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> dhw: Totally accepted, but why is that the only response you can make? You still haven't told us how some of the guys managed to work out ways to resist the new invention of antibiotics.-Did you read what I wrote or wasn't it clear? Bacteria can use alternate existing metabolic pathways to get around antibiotic blockades or use horizontal transfers.
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> dhw: How does a bacterium adapt in order to create resistance to a new invention without “additional information”? (Please define information if you disagree with what I wrote above.) -Explained above
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> DAVID: My 'coyness' was due to the fact I was trying to comment only from a scientific standpoint. My theistic viewpoint you know well. Either all the info was present from the beginning or God adds it. Genetic studies of adaptations suggests all the info could have been present in the beginning. No more.
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> dhw: And how right you are to be coy. Once again, you talk about “all the info”. Do genetic studies of adaptations "suggest" that every environmental change (= external information) and every innovation (e.g. the internal information on how to create a kidney) and every natural wonder (e.g. the information on how a weaverbird should build its nest) was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago? If it doesn't, there is no way you can claim that science suggests that “all the info could have been present at the beginning.”-Since many adaptations are accompanied by information loss, it is possible to infer that much of evolution is due to loss of initial information, since adaptation is the only examples we have that are well studied.