How children pick up a language: new review of Wolfe (Humans)

by dhw, Saturday, November 12, 2016, 12:46 (2934 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Of course it refutes, if the math never works. It shows a few similar new mutations can't do it.

dhw: Can’t do what? Wistar refutes the claim that random mutations can cause speciation in the time available. It says nothing about a large number of individual organisms being needed to start a new species. If it does, please give me the reference (and the evidence).

DAVID: Look again at the references in my book. Look up Walter Remine and his discussions of Haldane's dilemma. Math logic: If there is not enough time with some chance mutations, the answer is multiple mutations in many individuals.

Is it? Each innovation requires the cooperative adjustment of all the cell communities within each organism (whether preprogrammed or not). Let’s call the changes within the organism “mutations” (but not random). For an innovation to work, all the mutations must take place at the same time within each organism. You can’t have one bit of the innovation in one organism and another bit in another organism! Math logic refutes the claim that random mutations can cause speciation in the time available. I cannot see any math logic behind the claim that you need large numbers of different organisms to produce the same innovation that leads to speciation. If God dabbled, couldn’t he do so with just a few and then leave them to reproduce? Does he have to dabble a great big herd right from the start? What evidence is there that the very first generation of new species always arrived in large numbers? I would appreciate a direct answer rather than instructions to embark on a hunt (but a very swift dig among the brilliant sections refuting chance has not unearthed any such argument in either of your books).

dhw: What kind of balance is always present? ... The balance keeps changing. If the human race is wiped out and only bacteria are left on Planet Earth, you will still have a balance. And if Planet Earth disappears, the universe will still have a balance, because it will still exist. The argument is meaningless!
DAVID: We agree. Balance is always present. We disagree that it is required for life.

Different balances of life will always be present so long as life is present. Whatever balance exists at the time enables the survivors to survive. That does not explain why your God had to design and then destroy 99% of species, or why he had to design the weaverbird’s nest, so that humans could appear. And if humans disappeared but bacteria lived on, you would still have your balance “required for life”. Balance explains nothing.