Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, January 02, 2017, 17:50 (2882 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I know you reject the point, just as you reject the point that the cell communities which make up weaverbirds, spiders, wasps, monarch butterflies, cuttlefish etc. might have the “mind” to design their nests, webs, parasitism, lifestyle, camouflage. (See below for whales.) Where is the 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme that your God installed in the first cells, to be passed on for all these natural wonders?

I keep resenting advances in understanding the many layers of the genome and how the actions of the genes in DNA can be modified. the 3.8 BYO program is in all those layers, of which we still understand only a small bit.

DAVID: You pounce on an attempt at a theory of freewheeling. It is reasonable that some simple changes were approved by God under this concept which is exactly what I have described.

dhw: The only simple changes you have described, as far as I can recall, are minor adaptations, which can hardly be termed inventive, as in “inventive mechanism”. Please give us an example of an inventive change which you consider organisms are capable of organizing autonomously.

I can't. It is only a proposition of what might exist. We do recognize epigenetic adaptations, but they are minor, as we both agree. There is no evidence how complex speciation occurs, as in the whale series.

DAVID: As for the weaver nest, you have no reasonable explanation either. The knots are obviously too complex for the bird to have invented by itself. The nest hangs like a sack or sling. It had to be invented all at once or it wouldn't work, or haven't you noticed? Back to saltation.

dhw: The nests are not all identical, and there is no reason to assume that every detail sprang into existence at the same time. Some, for instance, extend their entrance with a long tube. Why is it “obvious” that the knots are too complex for the bird to have invented? We know from experiments that some birds are capable of solving complex problems,

The complex uses of tools by crows are not comparable to the knots making nests that hang off trees.

dhw: as are many other organisms, and we know that beavers can build dams and ants can build cities that require extremely complex feats of design. As for “saltation”, all the natural wonders I have listed above must have worked almost immediately or they wouldn’t have survived. Why do you always cry “saltation” as if it proved these wonders were the product of divine preprogramming and/or dabbling? Adaptations in response to a threat must also be saltations or the organism won’t survive.

Simply because I do not believe these critters have the mental capacity to produce their own saltations.

dhw: This forces you into assuming that bacteria have been divinely preprogrammed with every single solution to every single problem faced since the beginning of life and onwards for the rest of time.

Nothing wrong with that presumption administered by God.

DAVID (under “slime mold”): I'm afraid I do not consider any cells capable of what you propose. I continue to present living biochemistry that is too complex for cells to develop or invent on their own. You are counting on comments by Shapiro on his research that show simple responses to stimuli or alterations of DNA by single-celled organisms to make small adjustments. This cannot translate to having cell communities design the changes in gaps of the whale series as one of the best examples of complex evolution.

dhw: Why on earth your God felt obliged to design, redesign, and go on redesigning the whale when all he wanted to do was design humans I shall never understand, but my hypothesis (theistic version) always allows for his dabbling. And so for the sake of argument only, I am quite happy to imagine that he had strong feelings about the whale, and decided to carry on experimenting. What bothers me is your insistence that he does the same for every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder – the same careful attention, all for the sake of producing humans.

Humans are obviously the pinnacle of evolutionary creation. Why not my scenario?

dhw We do not know how far cellular intelligence can go in creating its own designs, and so it is premature to claim that it “cannot” translate into ANY of the above. You are constantly harping on about the scientists who agree with you that cells are automatons, and you prefer to ignore those who disagree with you (of whom Shapiro is only one). I can’t help wondering how many of “your” scientists agree with you that only God could have designed the weaverbird’s nest.

Because it is obvious to me that the complex advances of evolution absolutely require an exquisitely intelligent mind to perform the planning. Nothing less. As for scientists, those at the Discovery Institute, the authors of Nature's IQ and the author of its foreword are some examples I point out. Your might review the website Uncommon Descent. Plenty of them there. I am not alone.