Evolution: fish to land animals transition (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 28, 2020, 00:14 (1455 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: "We expected the humerus would carry a strong functional signal as the animals transitioned from being a fully functional fish to being fully terrestrial tetrapods, and that we could use that to predict when tetrapods started to move on land," said Pierce. "We found that terrestrial ability appears to coincide with the origin of limbs, which is really exciting."

DAVID: I admire these folks persevering across a big gap with no little steps to follow. By using computer simulations they could model a transition, but that doesn't tell us the underlying cause or causes.

dhw: How about this? Terrestrial ability on land coincided with the origin of limbs, just as marine ability coincided with the reversion of limbs to fins, when the cell communities adapted their structures in order to cope with their new environment. Evolution is the history of cells combining and cooperating to find new ways of improving their chances of survival by adapting to or exploiting new conditions.

DAVID: No explanation of the huge gaps in design from step to new step. Your answer is designing cells, and I ask who taught them how to design such complexity? Magical cells or more logically a designing mind.

dhw: Oops, I forgot to mention that if God exists, he would have designed the intelligent cell. May I take it you will now acknowledge the feasibility of this theory?

Absolutely not. God is not going to have designs made by second-hand methods. The intricacies of the biochemistry of life and of the physiology and mechanics of living forms is so complex only direct design will suffice. I don't know why you keep trying in your adopted quasi-theistic state attempt to move God to the back burner for the creation of life and the design of evolution. Who created the universe? Didn't God do it first hand with no intermediates? He created life all by Himself. Why your need for distancing Him in living designs? Trying to diminish His controls or His importance? Your so-called intelligent cells, without brains, would need a universe-sized instruction book to follow to mimic God's abilities in new design. In all design work it is easier to do it yourself than parcel it out, although when over-whelmed co-equal designers help out at the human level. Please keep God at His level as you attempt to create theosophies at His level.