Life's biologic complexity: Automatic molecular actions (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, December 10, 2016, 12:25 (2905 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Then I am even more baffled. We were discussing complexity, and out of the blue you switched to competition. Darwin’s theory was that random mutations gave some organisms an advantage over others in the competition for survival, and natural selection ensured the survival of anything advantageous.
DAVID: Because survival, competition and complexity are all related concepts and intertwined. Generally more complex organisms should have more survivability.

Why? The more complex organisms are, the more things can go wrong. The great survivors are the simplest organisms.

DAVID: But we also see that whale complexity seems like a road to nowhere. Yes they survive in a different environment, with enormous physiologic alterations. Why did evolution bother? Only a drive to complexity makes sense. Their only competition is with their environment not other aquatic animals. To me Darwin implied competition with other species. Is that wrong?

We are not arguing about Darwin. If an organism can survive in a different environment, that is an improvement over not surviving. Only a drive to survival and/or improvement makes sense.

dhw: Complexity for the sake of producing humans leaves you with the impossible task of explaining why your God had to personally design millions of other unrelated complexities, 99% of which he discarded.
DAVID: Back to the necessity for a balance of nature.

We have agreed several times that Nature is “balanced” so long as life goes on, with or without humans. The expression provides no explanation whatsoever for your anthropocentric view of evolution.

DAVID: Sorry, punc-eq requires isolation, more than a requirement of locality.
Dhw: I’ve never seen “isolation” mentioned in any definition of p.e.,
DAVID: From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
"Smaller populations on the other hand, which are isolated from the parental stock, are decoupled from the homogenizing effects of gene flow” etc.

Thank you for this explanation. I will stick to my own terminology, then, though of course local evolution encompasses isolated evolution.

DAVID: ...what you suggest is the illogicality of the whale series as improvement, but it exists and it is highly complex.
dhw: Each transitional stage in the series was an organism in its own right. What makes you so sure that each stage was not an improvement, e.g. in the ability to swim, to breathe, to steer? And what in your view was the purpose of pre-whale complexity?
DAVID: Yes, a strange form of improvement. I don't understand the purpose except aquatic balance of nature.

Why is improved swimming, breathing, steering a strange form of improvement? And why is improvement not a purpose in itself?

dhw: Back you go to the origin instead of the process of evolution. The complexity of life’s genome layers provides just as much evidence for my hypothesis of a possibly God-given autonomous inventive mechanism as it does for your hypothesis of a divine computer programme or dabble to produce every single innovation and natural wonder in the history of life, all for the sake of humans.

DAVID: See my entries today about species variability as an alternative to future speciation. With enormous adaptability, why speciate further?

See my comments on species variability. Why speciate further? In order to improve. Why create pre-whale and whale if all you want to do is produce humans? And don’t tell me “balance of Nature” (see above). The complexity of life’s genome layers lends itself perfectly well to the concept of cellular intelligence. And you still haven’t told us the “known research findings” that support your divine preprogramming/dabbling hypothesis.