Evolution, survival and adaptation (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 11, 2017, 13:16 (2628 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This whole whale play doesn't get to the point of why bother to create such a major physiologic mess that required so many major bodily changes and physiological alterations. It happened and is miraculous.

dhw: The point of the whale play is to emphasize what a major physiologic and theological mess your theory creates. It’s a mess because you have no idea why your God should have done it that way, or what it has to do with his prime purpose of creating the human brain. The mess disappears if you accept the possibility that pre-whales may have had good reason to enter the water (e.g. more food), and adapted to life in the water in different stages, thanks to their cell communities using their (possibly God-given) intelligence, as you agree they do when changes are minor (e.g. finches’ beaks).

DAVID: Finch beaks are epigenetic. Whales are speciation. The two are not equivalent. You can't use beaks to explain whales. You have stretched cell intelligent responses beyond all recognition.

Epigenetic changes are heritable changes most likely caused by environmental factors. Nobody knows how speciation takes place. It is possible that the same mechanism which causes small changes also caused the unexplained large changes. Finches needed different beaks to cope with different environments. Whale legs were modified into fins for the same reason. The difference between the two is one of scale, not of basic principle. But it remains a hypothesis, as does your divine 3.8-billion-year computer programme and/or divine dabbling, all somehow geared to the production of the human brain. The advantage of my hypothesis is that it removes the physiological, philosophical and theological mess engendered by yours.