Different in degree or kind: Egnor's take (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, October 06, 2016, 12:47 (2756 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I read the article and quoted the following from it:
" 'It's what we've all been waiting for,' said Jennifer Clack, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Zoology in the United Kingdom. 'Until this discovery, we weren't able to see the changes by which the pelvic fins of the fish became much larger and more robust, and gradually turned into the tetrapod hind limb.' " (My bold)-DAVID: Your bold is the same Darwinian drivel: just tell me where the article demonstrates 'gradually turned'. All they have is a transitional form with big gaps in the fossil from on either side. The gradual is Darwinian assumptions! You have accepted all new species come with gaps!-Agreed. We have no idea how long it took or how many other saltations and species may have occurred before legs were legs as we know them and land animals finally diverged totally from fish. However, I quoted this to demonstrate that fins became legs, which leads to the question you are so keen to avoid:
 
dhw: So did God change the pelvic fins into the tetrapod hind limb, and THEN fish found they could walk, or did fish attempt to walk and the RESULT was the hind limb? -DAVID: All reasoning from an assumption of gradual change, not found in the fossil records.-So in your opinion a) did God change fins into legs before fish stepped onto dry land, or b) did fins turn into legs as a result of fish trying to walk on dry land? Please answer a) or b).-DAVID: Organisms can only use what they have to work with. New forms appear and they learn to use them.-But I am suggesting that they can change what they have. You say they can't - God must do it for them beforehand. That is why I keep repeating the above question about fins and legs.
 
DAVID: You use the observations of microorganisms' ability to respond to assume that complex multicellular organisms are equal. Not so. In the Homo series complex planning has to be part of each gap. The vocal tract had a complex number of changes I've previously listed. Not equivalent to bacterial responses to change. Epigenetics are only adaptations of existing species. You are stretching epigenetics by discussing structure.-You are telling me what I keep telling you. The hypothesis (not an assumption - a theory, a suggestion) is that the (perhaps God-given) intelligence observed by some scientists in single-celled organisms might also be the driving force that enables complex multicellular organisms to do the “planning” necessary to produce new structures in response to new conditions (or, just as you say, to “stretch” their already known ability to adapt existing structures to new conditions). I offer this as an alternative to random mutations, and to a divine 3.7-billion-year computer programme plus divine dabbling. There is no evidence for any of these hypotheses.