Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, December 07, 2020, 11:50 (1446 days ago) @ David Turell

Denton
DAVID: Onboard species design is way to complex for cell intelligence. You are still extrapolating Shapiro well beyond what he presents.

dhw: This is getting silly. Please stop pretending Shapiro hasn’t said what you yourself have quoted. And stop pretending that his theory is confined to bacteria.

DAVID: His theory is an extrapolation from bacteria, nothing more. Other cells only have epigenetics. An unproven extension of theory.

His theory is consistent with the findings of notable scientists such as McLintock and Margulis, who firmly believed in cellular intelligence.

DAVID: Reread his British Royal Society paper:
http://extendedevolutionarysynthesis.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Shapiro-JA_Inter...

For some reason, I can’t get onto it, but we’ve discussed this before. And I remember pointing out that nowhere in that paper does he renounce the theory of “natural genetic engineering”. If I missed something, do please find a quote in which he does.

Aquatic mammals
DAVID: I suggested God's ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation OR as I've constantly suggested He had to set up a NECESSARY FOOD SUPPLY before our population exploded, something He LOGICALLY would expect. God's personal limitations must always be considered for completeness, but I can chose the resulting theory that seems most logical to me, if not to you.

dhw: Ah, I thought you’d dropped the idea that your God had personal limitations and was incapable of doing what he wanted to do in the way that he wanted to do it. I really can’t see why this “limited ability” could not mean that he was experimenting. Please explain. The necessary food supply for humans argument has been demolished by yourself (see quotes under “fish to land animals”)..

DAVID: Limited ability does not necessarily imply experimentation, just an alternate route to use.

My point is that it fits in very well with experimentation. If he was incapable of doing something one way, is it not logical that he would have tried another way? That’s experimentation. I don’t know why you think God’s limited abilities make him less human than a God who experiments.

Primate vision
dhw: […] according to you, your God designed the perfect eye system in one go. Please explain, then, why he didn’t design the only species (plus food supply) that he wanted to design in one go.

DAVID: This is one system in organisms, not a whole new organism. He chose to evolve, remember?

He created a perfect eye system in one go, and directly created millions of other, perfectly functioning life forms etc., but apparently he was incapable of directly designing H. sapiens, and that is why he directly created all the others, though 99% of them had no connection with humans. I find this interpretation of God’s powers hard to follow.

“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
dhw: […] if we return to the context of evolution, I don’t think he “has to experiment”. That is only one theory. Another, you may remember, is that he invented the original intelligent cell with its autonomous potential for the vast number of combinations and variations that make up the ever changing history of life.

DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.

I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.

Sea turtles
DAVID: Great navigators but they make mistakes. Amazing migration that I think God designed as part of an oceanic ecosystem.

So your God can design a perfect eye system, but he can’t design a perfect navigation system, and I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".

New found plant defenses
DAVID: How cow peas signal an attack:

DAVID: I see no way that chance mutation or trial an error can produce this type of specific molecular response signaling. Only design fits.

Thank you for these lovely articles. Yes, one can only admire the manner in which the cell communities of plants as well as animals design their own defences. Of course if they didn’t, they wouldn’t survive.