Evolution of Language (General)

by dhw, Thursday, October 31, 2019, 11:54 (1638 days ago) @ David Turell

David has now left language behind and in order to prove that his God invents new organs (or changes existing organs) in advance of any need, he has cited the example of moths’ ears preceding their use in the war against bats.

QUOTE: “The ancestor of butterflies was likely nocturnal, and our results indicate that butterflies became day-flying in the Late Cretaceous (∼98 Ma). Moth hearing organs arose multiple times before the evolutionary arms race between moths and bats, perhaps initially detecting a wide range of sound frequencies before being co-opted to specifically detect bat sonar. (David's bold)

dhw: And there is your answer, kindly bolded by yourself. Moths are nocturnal. It’s therefore perfectly logical to assume that they needed “ears” if they were to function smoothly in the darkness. When bats came on the scene, their already existing ears (previously used to help them work in the dark) had to find ways of dealing with the new threat, or they would perish.

DAVID: […] This shows what can be present before its use by God's design of evolution.

dhw: No it doesn't. Your authors explicitly (and perfectly logically) allow for the possibility that moths used their ears before bats came on the scene, to detect a wide range of sound frequencies to help them in their nocturnal way of life, and then they adapted their “ears” to combat the new threat.

DAVID: And what provided an original species of moths and later bats with ears at the start? Assuming needed ears requires anticipatory design, doesn't it?

You were trying to prove that moth ears were invented before they were needed for the fight against bats. The article shows quite clearly that they had other uses and were then adapted to meet the new demands. So now you switch the argument to the origin of ears. Nobody can possibly know the circumstances in which every new organ, lifestyle and natural wonder first came into existence. The article itself is naturally vague on the subject: “Moth hearing organs arose multiple times...” (my bold).

DAVID: I asked above, how did speciating cell committees know ears would be needed when the new organisms arrived on the scene? Requires analysis of future needs, which Darwin-thinking folks consider magically happening, like Margulis. You are still full Darwin, and don't recognize the problem.

They didn’t know ears would be needed! New species/organisms would be the RESULT of their immediate ancestors RESPONDING to new conditions! Common descent means that new organisms descend from earlier organisms. So an earlier organism for reasons unknown began to hunt by night, just as a pre-whale began to hunt in the water. A change of environment requires a change in the anatomy. Ability to hear becomes more important than ability to see, just as ability to swim becomes more important than ability to walk. There is no “analysis of future needs”. The analysis concerns how best to meet present needs (hunting in the dark, or swimming in the water). There is no “magic”. We know for a fact that cell communities cooperate and are able to adapt to changing conditions. What we don’t know is the extent to which they are able to innovate – although the borderline between adaptation and innovation is not clear. I have always accepted that this ability may have been designed by your God, but the “magic” jibe is far better directed at your own theory: the unknown being called God forecast the future, and somehow provided programmes for every future undabbled organ and strategy etc., to be magically passed down and then switched on in advance of every future change in the environment over billions of years to come. But “you don’t recognize the problem.”

Under “Bacterial gut role”:
QUOTE: "The human gut is rife with bacteria. Feces contains about 100 billion bacterial cells per gram, and gut bacteria outnumber human cells 10 to 1. These microbes, collectively called the gut microbiome, take on all sorts of maintenance-type work, Mougous says. They digest food, keep the gut's surface intact, provide vitamins, and kick bad bacteria out.""

DAVID: Bacteria have been around ever since life started. Previous articles and this one show the important roles they still play. Start life and continue to help it.

You could hardly have a better example of cooperation. Here we have single cells – bacteria – all busily combining into communities fulfilling different roles within the great big community of communities that make up the single organism. We are not even conscious of the fact that they’re there, let alone of what they are doing for us. And what they do for us is what keeps them alive. But you like to sneer at Margulis, who emphasized the role of cooperation in evolution and was a firm believer in cellular intelligence.