Genome complexity: how humans correct errors; dhw confusion (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 18:11 (1475 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: This is a major difference between us. What I propose does not require one iota of foresight. My proposal, as you well know, is that every advance was made IN RESPONSE TO new requirements – not in anticipation of them. One simple example: you tell us your God turned pre-whale legs into fins before the pre-whale entered the water. To me it seems sheer common sense that fins would have resulted from adaptation to life in the water, once the pre-whale discovered that the marine environment was more favourable for its survival.

DAVID: 'Sheer common sense' offers no facts. Hippos lived in water since forever with no change!

dhw: Their survival shows that they did not need to change. How does that prove that your God changed legs to fins before pre-whales entered the water?

It is my common sense interpretation.

DAVID: The requirement of design requires the ability of seeing the future needs and designing for them.

dhw: That may be so if you are thinking in terms of human preparations for the future, but we are talking here about the difference between chance and deliberate, purposeful activity as the cause of organisms adapting to or exploiting the conditions in which they find themselves. We do not know the cause of evolutionary innovation, but we certainly know the cause of adaptation, which is that new conditions trigger changes in the organism – as opposed to organisms changing in advance of new conditions. These changes are a deliberate, purposeful activity, and so it is perfectly feasible that the mechanism enabling them would also have enabled the major changes required for speciation. The borderline between adaptation and innovation is not clear anyway, as is evident from the whale example.

The bold is an excellent analysis of our problem. The gap we have to cross is there is no physical evidence in the fossil record of small necessary adaptations leading to new species. So the big gaps create the unsolved problem.

DAVID: None of what is seen in biochemical complexity can do this bit by bit, but only all at once with supreme coordination of all processes. You are asking cells to be God. Not for me. All cells show now, even Shapiros bacteria, is proper responses to important stimuli. Present state only, nothing futuristic.

dhw: Precisely. Nobody has ever seen an organism change itself in preparation for the future. And of course the cell communities must coordinate in every process. But I am not asking cells to be God! As you know perfectly well, my proposal encompasses the possibility of God as designer of the intelligent cell. I am always surprised that you refuse to consider your God capable of designing a mechanism to produce all the billions of changes you make him preprogramme 3.8 billion years ago, or keep personally dabbling one by one.

My reasoning is designing a mechanism to design for the future makes control one step away from the first designer, introducing possible errors.

Under “Human evolution”:

"These adaptations are believed to have taken place during a period of environmental change, when climate records indicate that the region was drying out. The increasingly arid conditions led to the extinction of several mammal species and may have placed hominins under dietary stress."

DAVID: This adds to the story and tells us that many different types of hominins coexisted, as more advanced forms developed, and also notes the forms modified as needs changed. Was this epigenetics in action, but not speciation. since it appears within the same species?

dhw: Yes, forms modify in response to new needs ("as needs changed"). That is the only process we know of. Since we both believe in common descent, every stage in the line from bacteria to humans would have entailed some form of modification. This can hardly be said to fit in with your theory that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every change in anticipation of future needs.

Of course it fits if God is responsible to do all designs of advances.