Natures wonders: Subsea Microorganisms Long Life (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, August 25, 2018, 10:50 (2280 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: Regardless of common descent, do you believe modern science’s findings that the earliest forms of life were single-cell organisms?

TONY: Yes, but it's in the phrasing. Life began with single cells, or single cells were the first life forms. The first implies common descent. I believe they were the first life forms, absolutely.

I see no difference. If life began with single cells, then single cells were the first life forms!

DHW: 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.

TONY: No, I expect to find mostly failures if the evolutionary process is happening all the time, as should you. The successes would tend to put themselves in places where fossilization is unlikely. And if you believe in punctuated equilibrium, the Cambrian layer should absolutely be chalk full of them.
One scientist estimated there are only about 2,100 good skeletons of any dinosaur in museums around the world. From dinosaurs to us, far more than 2,100 samples, and not a SINGLE example of a failed evolutionarily isolate one-off. Not even ONE. Who cares about Lucy? Look at the big picture and notice what is NOT in it!

I accept punctuated equilibrium: evolution (as speciation) does not happen all the time, and IS full of failures! 90%+ of species have died out. If you mean individuals, what do you imagine a one-off failure would look like? Would you recognize it if you saw it? And how did it accidentally embed itself in rock or ice or resin if it never lived? Yes, the further back you go, the rarer are the fossils. Lucy from just 3 million years ago caused a sensation, but you expect lots of fossils of one-offs from 500 million years ago!

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: Similarity and differences are not evidence for genetic differentiation through inheritance.

Of course not. Only the similarities indicate a common inheritance. If all organisms had the same genetic makeup, there would be only one species!

TONY: […] There IS no EVIDENCE of morphological change from one thing to another. […] The REAL challenge is in the second (bolded) part. Challenge accepted: The Cambrian Explosion. Punctuated Equilibrium.

Agreed. Nobody can explain speciation or the Cambrian, so we have theories. How does this provide evidence that organisms can spring from nowhere, i.e. not from other organisms?

TONY: Creatures other than humans do not 'exploit' their environment as humans do; they are slaves to it. Show me a woodland creature that regrows a burned forest. If anything, the fact that 'most organisms have eventually failed' is a nail in Darwin's coffin. If they are so clever at modifying their own genetics, why aren't there more 'successes' for each major environmental shift?

Food is scarce on land, but pre-whale Willy notices lots of goodies in the sea. He and pre-whale Wendy dive in and decide the sea is the place for them. The various documented changes from pre-whale to whale are the result of what I call exploiting a changed environment. Most organisms fail when the environment changes because they are NOT so clever at modifying their genes. Hence Darwin’s natural selection of the fittest. Perhaps you believe your God designed the failures. And why not? My hypothesis (logical explanation, not belief) is that if he exists, he could have designed cellular intelligence to create the free-for-all that characterizes the history of life – an ever-changing spectacle as species come and go. Logical objections?
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TONY: Further, now you are not simply suggesting that microbes in a SINGLE organism create internal changes, but that they somehow communicate those changes to others of their kind WITHOUT reproduction (because speciation makes them incompatible).

Back to Wendy and Willy, multiplied by millions. Environmental change leads to cell communities in that area also changing. Not one single organism, but multiple organisms, because if they don’t change they will die, or if the change offers new opportunities, they will ALL exploit them.

dhw (to David): 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.

TONY: […] There is a grand design, of which we know only a minuscule fraction. Life has been used in furtherance of that design. The weather patterns are part of this design. They do need to be managed, but not micromanaged. […] Could he manipulate it himself, yes, but I do not think he does it directly the majority of the time.

With my theist hat on, I also allow for sporadic divine dabbling. But David believes all innovations were preprogrammed or dabbled IN ADVANCE of environmental change. His pre-whales were given fins before they entered the water. Therefore either David's God has a crystal ball or he organizes EVERY environmental change.