Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, December 05, 2020, 08:16 (1239 days ago) @ David Turell

Denton
dhw: We agree that Darwin was wrong when he said that Nature doesn’t make jumps. But what I propose (theistic version) is that instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling the jumps, he gave cell communities the intelligence to work them out for themselves. None of this in any way disproves the proposal that speciation (including that of humans) may be the result of organisms improving their chances of survival when faced with new conditions. These may be local as well as global.

DAVID: All of this are reasonable suppositions.

dhw: Thank you for accepting the feasibility of the survival theory.

DAVID: Just because I didn't discuss it doesn't mean I accept a drive for survival as driving evolution.

I thanked you for accepting the feasibility of the theory. I thought “reasonable” would imply “feasible”.

DAVID: Most new species require too many complicated designs to be practical for survival shown in whales and other aquatic mammals.

The exact contrary: the complicated designs ARE practical for survival, and that is the reason why the cell communities or your God designed them. Perhaps you mean they are too complicated for cells to design. That of course is the issue. Shapiro would disagree with you.

Genome complexity

DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.

I reproduced the quotes from your own book to prove that he does go that far.

DAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.

dhw: Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?

DAVID: All of his theory is in the context of Darwinian evolution, which struggles to remain consistent with itself.

dhw: Now that you’ve dropped your absurd idea that Shapiro only deals with bacteria, would you please tell me what is “inconsistent” about his theory as quoted by you.

DAVID: It is a theory based on his research, and is therefor consistent with his research. Proves nothing about true speciation.

The theory is based on his research and on the research of his fellow scientists. But like your own theory about God’s existence, and about the divine goal and method of speciation, it has not been proven. That does not mean his theory is not feasible. I’ll pass over the feasiblity of your own theory, dealt with on various other threads.

Aquatic mammals
DAVID: These are intense physiological and phenotypical alterations. It always raises the observation, why if survival as a mammal is so complex why did mammals enter an aquatic life? Unless there is great stress for survival it is a very difficult path to follow. Migration to a better spot is more sensible and practical.

dhw: Maybe they reckoned it was worth exploring the known waters rather than wandering off to who knows what? Anyway, why didn’t your God tell the mammals to migrate, instead of stepping in to operate on their legs before they entered the water? Much simpler. Or do you think he HAD TO send them into the water because otherwise he couldn’t have designed humans and their food supplies a few million years later?

DAVID: Remember, God does what He wants. He obviously wanted them to live in the water and engineered the necessary changes. Perfectly consistent with choosing to evolve humans. All consistent with theistic reasoning.

Presumably you have now dropped your theory that your God’s powers were limited, he was unable to directly design humans, and “had to” design everything else first. i.e. he was unable to do what he wanted in the way that he wanted to do it. If you’ve withdrawn it, please explain why your God, who does what he wants, designed millions of non-human life forms plus food supplies with no connection to humans, although what he wanted was humans.

Primate vision

DAVID:A perfect system with no changes and the surprise of a researcher noted in bold. No changing mutations implies controlled design.

It certainly does, and congratulations to the designer. But if God exists and he did this directly, one can’t help wondering why he didn’t get every system “perfect” in the first place. Maybe he just kept on experimenting, or getting new ideas, or had invented an autonomous mechanism which hit the jackpot straight away this time, but otherwise simply went on adjusting its inventions as the need or opportunity arose.