Evolution: where did cyanobacteria come from? (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 19, 2017, 12:58 (2715 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The is no word of yours that fits the Cambrian ( as the chief example of the explosion). The appearance of oxygen only allowed the explosion to happen. Your words imply causation, and we do not know the cause.

dhw: Of course it was not the cause. We have been over this a hundred times, and had a long discussion over your misunderstanding of the word initiate, which means to set in motion, trigger, start something off, cause something to begin, but not to BE the cause of something.

DAVID: We can agree on this if you specify 'initiate' does not imply cause.

I have always done so.

dhw: The disagreement between us is over your theory that your God restructured organisms before environmental change, whereas I argue that the restructuring would have been in response to environmental change.

DAVID: Partially wrong. The Cambrian animals were created after oxygen appeared. Not before. Only the whales appear to fit your comment.

I sometimes find it difficult to keep up with your different opinions. You told us your God also restructured hominins before they descended from the trees to the plains (“bacterial intelligence”, 24 May: “Speciation first, environment second”) and actually I thought the whales were meant to be a prime example of your God’s advance planning. However, so long as we agree that environmental change can trigger the process of speciation, we can move on.