Natures wonders: Subsea Microorganisms Long Life (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, August 24, 2018, 11:41 (2281 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: […] “do you or do you not believe that life began with single cells, and that all subsequent life consists of different cell combinations?”

TONY: I have answered your question, explicitly, and multiple times elsewhere. No, I do not believe in common descent from a single ancestor. […]

Sorry, that's not what I asked. I’m examining the logic. Regardless of common descent, do you believe modern science’s findings that the earliest forms of life were single-cell organisms?

Dhw: I assume that if an organism failed to change itself, it would continue to look like itself, and would die looking like itself.

TONY: There would, or should, be fossils with new bones that are half-formed, or malformed, that doesn't belong with any subsequently existing species. […]

Lucy was hailed as a huge discovery, and we marvel that we now have about 300 fossils of Australopithecus afariensis, who existed for about A MILLION YEARS. But you expect to find the fossil of a one-off failure.

DHW: 1) […] the evidence that speciation occurred is that there are different life forms that cannot interbreed.

TONY: No, the existence of separate species proves that there are separate species, NOT that they were once the same species. […]

I gave you a silly answer to a silly question! You wanted “evidence that speciation ever occurred”. Evidence for descent from the same species was your second question, answered below:
dhw: 2) Similarity IS the evidential basis, but if you can supply evidence that the earliest life forms were NOT microorganisms and that organisms can spring from nowhere as opposed to springing from earlier organisms, then I will reconsider my belief in common descent.

TONY: You have your proofs backwards. We can prove that there are species [..].That is observed. If you want to claim that they can do something we HAVE NOT observed, i.e. speciation, then the burden of proof is on you.

Agreed. The theory (outlined below) makes sense but cannot be proven. Please give us the proof of your own theory.

DHW: Amazingly, you have just described precisely what bacteria are able to do, as you will see from the list of examples I gave you on Saturday 11 August under “An Alternative to Evolution: Expounded Upon” [...]

TONY: I would wager that any of the stuff on that list is explainable as (relatively)simple biochemical trigger/response mechanisms. I didn't see anything in that list that seemed to require prior planning or innate self-awareness beyond what might be described as self-preservation at the most basic level.

I see evolution as a RESPONSE to changing environments (not prior planning), and I don’t propose that bacteria share the “self-awareness” of humans. Self-preservation at the most basic level is what drives most organisms, and it requires intelligence to cope with or exploit changing conditions. Most organisms have eventually failed. Bacteria have survived, and clever humans struggle to outwit them. You may wager that they don’t know what they’re doing. I’ll wager that they do.

TONY: The problem with your proposal is, as we keep saying, that it would either have to happen to two creatures at the exact same time, both of which had to survive, and in a single geographical area, so that there would be a breed-able pair.

Why is that a problem? If local conditions change, one would expect organisms in that locality to change as well. I would not expect pre-whale Willy to dive into the water and live while pre-whale Wendy lay on the shore and died. Would you?

TONY: Genetic programming similarity is shared across species separated by geography, time, and vast species boundaries (Like human's and banana's). Please explain how you get that degree of similarity via common descent in a human, cat, chicken, fruit fly, and banana. There is no evolutionary path that will get you there.

The path I suggest is that life began with single-celled organisms, which linked up to form the first multicellular organisms about 600 million years ago. Using their possibly God-given intelligence, they multiplied, spread worldwide, and diversified as they adapted to or exploited all kinds of environments. 600 million years of intelligent cooperation between cell communities explains the evolutionary path to speciation. David asks if there was enough time. Discount random mutations, substitute intelligence, and Haldane’s dilemma disappears. Substitute God’s programming/dabbling, and again it disappears, but common descent doesn’t.

dhw: I keep repeating that in my proposal evolution progresses through responses to environmental changes as opposed to divine dabbling or preprogramming in advance of environmental changes Your proposal also raises the never answered question of the extent to which your God controls the environment.

DAVID: You have, as usual, skipped over Tony's point and mine about the need for foresight and planning.

Not skipped. Please reread the above.

DAVID: As for climate, we have a definite example of how God might have changed environmental conditions and alter evolution in Chixculub.

A definite example of “might have”. Your theory has innovations planned beforehand, which means your God foresaw every related environmental change, local and global. So did he have a crystal ball, or did he manipulate every change?