Evolution: a different view with loss of DNA segments (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, January 11, 2019, 22:45 (2142 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: All I have ever said is the original DNA may have contained all the info for evolution. And minor adaptations within species may be done with guidelines by the species itself.

dhw:Then please reread your two comments at the head of this post. What do you mean by the “info”?

As explained over and over: The DNA genome is a code which provides information and has many other helpful layers we do not fully understand at this time to run life.

dhw: What is the 3.8 byo programme for? First you said it only allowed for adaptations (i.e. not innovations), and then you said major speciation was “built into” the original DNA. What else could this mean other than a programme for every innovation from bacteria to humans, taking in every innovation for fish, birds, reptiles, mammals etc.?

This is one possibility, that everything needed for the whole process of evolution is contained in the initial genome. I used the idea of dabble that God might do a course correct and add information

dhw: Your deletion alternative can only mean that the first cells contained DNA for all the bits and pieces I have listed, as now bolded.(For "guidelines" see below.)

The deletion idea from Behe is simply the reserve of that possibility, in that info is simply taken out of the process. One or the other is very likely a correct analysis.

dhw: Why do you need a large group to make large mutations?

DAVID: It has everything to do with the size of the group. From ape to erectus in two-three million years ( a moment in the grand scheme of 3.8 billion) means rapid fire mutations, all working together for the advance. I'm not arguing about chance. I'm claiming only deliberate design fits, and not by brainless cell committees.

dhw: See my bold above for chance, and this still has nothing to do with the size of the group. You are not just claiming “only deliberate design fits” – you have put forward a very specific, though somewhat confusing theory of design outlined above: divine dabbles (originally the 3.8 byo programme) for minor changes, preprogramming or deletion for major changes.

DAVID: A non-answer! The issue is the need for rapid-fire mutations to make hominins so quickly!

dhw: Right, nothing to do with chance and nothing to do with the size of the group – your initial objections. Now it is speed. I have summarized your explanation (divine dabbling, preprogramming or deletion). As you well know, my own hypothesis (as unproven as yours), is the perhaps God-given, autonomous ability of cells/cell communities to restructure themselves in order to improve their chances of survival when faced with new conditions.

Again avoiding the point of small group size. To go from ape to erectus takes massive mutational changes. If as suspected 10,000 erectus existed and previous antecedent hominins were in similar amounts, and if we use the known helpful mutations rates which are slow, and if we assume a new generation every 18-20 years how did erectus and sapiens appear so quickly in geologic time of six-eight million years? Based also on the fact that apes didn't need to bother to change, what drove human development? Not chance or natural forces, because it is demonstrably too fast for those influences.

dhw: If you believe your God gave the cells the mechanism which enables the cell to change itself autonomously, you accept the autonomous mechanism! But you don’t, so let’s just forget what you wrote.

DAVID: …you know fully well I support a mechanism with guidelines, semi-autonomous.

dhw: When questioned, you fall back on nebulous “guidelines” and semi-autonomy. If your God preprogrammed or dabbled the changes that led to speciation, do please tell us which half of the process was autonomous, i.e. was the independently intelligent decision-making of the organisms concerned.

Never nebulous: I believe organismal modification is adaptations within existing species, never leading to speciation, therefore within God's guidelines for each species.