Big brain evolution: our special gene is identified (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 13, 2019, 19:32 (2139 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Missed my point: I was referring to immediate stimuli of daily living. The antibiotic appears, and if it is totally effective, all bacteria die. But there will always be a small group with enough immunity to survive and adapt to the antibiotic by adopting an existing metabolic path answer or using gene transfer. Bacteria do this automatically, God's instructions used.

Initially you repeat what I wrote: There is no totally effective antibiotic and so all bacteria don’t die. A small group finds a remedy and passes it on. .. Alternatively, perhaps some bacteria use their intelligence to find a suitable means of solving a new problem which some of their less intelligent buddies were unable to solve.

Successful bacteria use alternative pathways as research shows. The intelligence is in automatically switching.

DAVID: The deletion idea from Behe is simply the reserve [dhw: reverse?] of that possibility, in that info is simply taken out of the process. One or the other is very likely a correct analysis.

dhw: “Simply”? It means that the first cells contained the DNA for every single life form in history – insects, birds, reptiles, mammals – not to mention all the bits that got discarded during speciation: teeth, sexual organs, spikes, fins, legs, trunks, human pelvises, whale pelvises….You call that simple?

DAVID: Simple for God.

dhw: Any reason why he couldn’t "simply" have invented a single mechanism (the intelligent cell combining with other intelligent cells) capable of inventing all the above? Too difficult?

And lose control of changes? Not likely.

dhw: Once again, nothing to do with group size, and everything to do with speed. 6 million divided by 20 = 300,000 generations. I am not talking about helpful chance mutations but about the ability of cell communities described above, so how the heck would anyone know how many generations are needed? There is no precedent.

DAVID: The precedent is the human rate of mutations is known and is slow and less than 20 % cause an advance.
"https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_91833

"The team at the Sanger Institute have now accurately calculated the mutation rate. They sequenced the same piece of DNA - just over 10,000,000 letters from the Y chromosome - from two men separated by 13 generations, whose common ancestor lived 200 years ago. They counted the difference between the two sequences and found only four mutations. From their data they were able to calculate the mutation rate.
''These four mutations gave us the exact mutation rate - one in 30 million nucleotide each generation - that we had expected', says Dr Tyler-Smith."

dhw: And do you really think that 200 years and 13 separate generations under stable conditions provide an accurate guide to a process that went on under ever changing conditions for 6-8 million years and 300-400,000 generations?

The scientists are sure of it. Note the bold of their comment you ignored.

DAVID: Again avoiding the speed of the change. It has to be by design.

dhw: Speed dealt with above. So why do you think localized response to changing conditions is less likely than your God fiddling with the anatomy of a few apes and making them abandon their happy life in the trees?

Marked changing conditions cause extinctions as you know. Less marked change in conditions requires the appearance of chance lucky coordinated multiple mutations or design for the change. I'll pick design every time.

dhw: […] please tell us which half of the “semi-autonomous” evolutionary process was autonomous. i.e. was the independent, intelligent decision-making of the organisms concerned.

DAVID: It is a concept. You, in a silly way, want exactitude. Semi-autonomous means within prescribed limits of design.

“Prescribed limits” restrict what can and can’t be done. A man in prison can’t autonomously decide to go for a walk in the country. I never imagined that a prototype ant could turn itself into an eagle or an elephant. But I can imagine cell communities over billions of years using their perhaps God-given intelligence to invent new ways of coping with or exploiting new conditions. And so I’m quite happy to accept the idea that cell communities autonomously restructure themselves, independently designing their own adaptations and innovations within limits prescribed by the environment and their own capabilities. Did you have any other “prescribed limits” in mind?

You understand my concept based on the first sentence. God controls developing evolution. Your intelligent cells respond automatically to stimuli and the genome info they contain and use it intelligently provided by design.