Genome complexity: seemingly not in obvious DNA (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, July 09, 2020, 10:45 (1381 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: And I do not believe cell committees can create new species, which is your claim.

dhw: I gave you a full response to your claim that in the context of brain/skull/pelvis, my theory required clairvoyance. It doesn’t. Skull responds to requirements of brain, pelvis responds to requirements of foetus. No simultaneity, no clairvoyance.

DAVID: This response is an exact description of simultaneity. One change cannot follow another!

My response is an exact description of how one change follows another. Every change is a response. Why would the pelvis change if the foetus did not require change? Why would the skull expand if the brain didn’t expand? Still you cling to the vision of your God stepping in one evening and next morning our group of homos wake up with bigger brains, skulls and pelvises!

DAVID: Nothing 'put paid'. The new pelvis for upright posture and birthing large baby brain was a complicated redesign of the pelvis. Please remember Lucy had a tiny brain but her pelvis had adapted for mainly upright locomotion. Real brain expansion followed this in newer species. But the resultant very new pelvic shape still requires our difficult births. It is a trade off: we have full use of arms and hands and apes do not.

dhw: I am not disputing any of this! Your theory is that your God kept on simultaneously enlarging brains, skulls and pelvises overnight. I suggest that the enlargements would have been sequent and would have required time.

DAVID: Same mess. All changes must occur at the same time for survival of baby and/or mother.

And I have suggested to you that there may well have been many that did not survive until the changes had been finalized. Even now, the article emphasizes that human childbirth is a comparatively difficult process, as you say below.

DAVID: As for why God took time, please remember my observation that God likes to evolve: the universe, the giant Milky Way which gobbled/es up satellite galaxies, the Earth, and then life. You never deny this, just ignore it.

dhw: There is no point in denying the blindingly obvious fact that evolution took time! But according to you, each enlargement was abrupt – it did not take time, because your God dabbled each one. And to make matters worse, you say he could easily solve what is still a problem that causes difficulty. So why didn’t he?

DAVID: Never said it. Human pelvis has required shape for upright posture, results in hard births.

Yes, birth is hard. And no doubt it was even harder when the changes began to take place, and no doubt there were plenty of babies and mothers who did not survive. Concerning the “obstetric dilemma”, you wrote: “I don’t believe dhw’s ‘smart cooperating cells could solve the problems by themselves, but God could easily.” So God’s easy solution resulted in hard births. Why didn’t it result in easy births?

DAVID: I remind cells follow intelligent instructions implanted by God so they will function properly.

dhw: I don’t know why you are “reminding” me of your theory that 3.8 billion years ago your God programmed the first cells to pass on instructions for every single undabbled development in evolution, including life forms, econiches, strategies, lifestyles, natural wonders, responses to diseases etc. I remain stubbornly convinced that this is just a little far-fetched, and perhaps one might just consider the possibility that your God provided cells with the intelligence to design all of these themselves.

DAVID: To repeat from above, cells follow intelligent instructions given to them by God. Of course, you have forgotten Behe's very strong exposition which shows DNA devolves to advance evolution, strongly suggesting the instructions were there from the beginning.

Does Behe support your theory, as summarized above, with instructions for every new life form etc.? Please tell me how his theory (a theory, not a fact) disproves the theory that cellular intelligence was there from the beginning, and the cells themselves worked out how to use their DNA in order to advance evolution. And please remember that this theory allows for God as the creator of the original cells, their DNA and their intelligence.