Innovation and Speciation: whale changes (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, May 27, 2017, 11:59 (2525 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You are assuming your drive for improvement (dfi) is triggered by the appearance of more oxygen. We do not have any evidence this is the case.
dhw: It is a theory which you quoted: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” You used the word “initiate” (so you meant “cause” instead of set in motion, did you?) but in any case, if it allowed the Cambrian to appear, it is logical to call it the first step that set the process in motion.
DAVID: Oxygenation is not a first step that set anything in motion. Its appearance simply allowed an opportune level of energy usage.

First you say it played a role in initiating new species, and then you say it didn’t. An “opportune usage” is what I called an “opportunity” as you do below:

DAVID: There must be a separate process existent to act on that opportunity. That next step of improvement or complexity is not required to happen. That is why I break the whole process into discontinuous parts.

The separate “process” is what we have called the drive for improvement/complexity. We came to the conclusion that this drive must exist because NO speciation was REQUIRED. The drive for improvement is what leads to the next step, which is the actual improvement/complexity. Why do you want to break the process into discontinuous parts? Shouldn't all parts of a theory cohere?

DAVID: Which brings us back to whales. Environment did not change to trigger any dfi. They had to choose a new environment to force a dfi, which logically had to precede it.
dhw: ... We do not know why whales chose a new environment, but it is not unreasonable to suggest it was for improvement (maybe more food in the water), and once they found the environment was favourable, the changes took place to help them exploit this new opportunity to the full. I find this more convincing than the hypothesis that God only wanted to produce humans, and therefore he redesigned the pre-whale in eight different stages over millions of years before sending it into the water for no particular reason.
DAVID: Once again you have skipped over the complex issues of planning for the major physiologic and phenotypic changes that must occur to accommodate the shift in environment. "Changes took place" glosses over the magnitude of the accomplishments. We are not discussing the production of humans, an issue you keep dragging in to muddy and confuse the issue. Please address whale planning.

I have now addressed it at least a dozen times. In my hypothesis, the major changes (= saltations) are NOT planned in advance but are the cell communities’ RESPONSES to the changed environment. On Thursday we then had the following exchange about saltations:
dhw: This raises the general problem of saltation in speciation, which I have never disputed. You are understandably sceptical about my (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence hypothesis because there is no evidence that this ability stretches beyond minor adaptations. Fair enough. I am sceptical about your divine preprogramming/dabbling, anthropocentric hypothesis, not only because it leads to contradictions and illogicalities, but also because there is no more evidence for it than there is for my cellular intelligence hypothesis. Fair enough?
DAVID: Agreed. We both lack direct evidence.

How many more times do you want me to repeat this? As for the reference to humans, it is the central plank of your whole hypothesis, and is the root cause of all the illogicalities and contradictions I keep pointing out.

dhw: I'll stick with the Cambrian, since you agree that environmental change is an initiator (you go even further and say it's a cause!) of speciation.
DAVID: I said the 'course of speciation', nothing more.

Once again: you wrote, “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” And then you wrote: ““I am using the more active form of 'initiate' as to cause”, not realizing that you were yet again contradicting yourself.

DAVID: As for the human form, they changed, apes didn't in the same environment, therefore speciation first.
dhw: Maybe in one particular location (or more than one, leading to convergent evolution of hominins) millions of years ago, the environment changed, leading a particular group of anthropoids to restructure themselves? You always talk as if environmental change and speciation had to be global.
DAVID: Have you forgotten that early humans were in the Rift Valley, a small part of Kenya in Africa, not global! I am discussing local.

I am not going to pretend I know how humans originated, but here is one suggestion, which supports my own:
BBC News - 'First human' discovered in Ethiopia
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31718336

QUOTE: A separate study in Science hints that a change in climate might have been a factor. An analysis of the fossilised plant and animal life in the area suggests that what had once been lush forest had become dry grassland.
As the trees made way for vast plains, ancient human-like primates found a way of exploiting the new environmental niche, developing bigger brains and becoming less reliant on having big jaws and teeth by using tools.