Genome complexity: epigenetics in action (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 07, 2017, 17:30 (2577 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Not unrelated to this subject is the article you have given us (thank you for both articles) on plankton weaponry:

QUOTE: Now, new research finds that the tiny weapons of Nematodinium and related dinoflagellates are their own invention: Though the weapons look a lot like the stingers of jellyfish, the structures evolved independently, possibly because an arms race has developed in a plankton-eat-plankton world.

DAVID’s comment: A very simple animal has very complex weaponry. It is another example of convergence. I think this was not developed stepwise because of its complexity.

dhw: Of course I like the word “invention”. Even very simple organisms develop their own complex methods of survival. If your God did not preprogramme or personally dabble each of these weapons, and if they were not the product of chance mutations, we are left with the hypothesis that these simple animals invented them – which suggests an autonomous inventive intelligence (perhaps God-given). Interesting!

DAVID: A very simple organism inventing these highly complex weapons simply isn't going to happen. I stick with my comment. If these organisms need weapons of this magnitude for survival, it has to be a saltation.

A saltation simply means a jump – i.e. the invention arrived rapidly and not gradually. If organisms are capable of rapid adaptations, perhaps they are also capable of rapid innovations. Your comment, taken in conjunction with your other dogmas, means that your God either preprogrammed these different weapons 3.8 billion years ago or directly dabbled them in order to provide the energy to keep life going until he was able to achieve his only goal: to produce humans, which he could do without difficulty. And this makes sense to you?