Evolution: more genomic evidence of pre-planning (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 12:14 (1367 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You are arguing for natural expansions, but cannot explain why each expansion is so large it exceeds all current needs and has to be used until complexification is all used up and then requires enlargement. This can obviously be interpreted as enlargement in anticipation of future need, the same as my theory. In my view such a response must come from a mind that can anticipate the future, not by natural chance. Therefore, I say God does it.

We are going back over exactly the same ground as before. Neither chance nor anticipation is involved! So let me give you the same example as before, purely as an illustration. Small-brained homo is hunting. He knows it’s dangerous to come too close to the animal. He has an idea: a weapon he can throw from a distance. As we know from the modern brain, new skills cause changes to the brain. In designing, making, and learning how to use the new weapon, our small-brained homo causes changes to his own brain, and since his brain is so small, new cells are required to perform these tasks. Hence expansion. Once he has accomplished his task, he has no need of further expansion (i.e. there is stasis) until a new idea/circumstance/ opportunity/discovery again requires an increase in capacity, and so we have the next expansion. There is no "chance", and the small-brained homo’s brain did not expand in anticipation of making the new weapon – it expanded through the act of implementing the new idea. This is an illustration of how the process would work, and it rests firmly on the fact that we know the brain changes IN RESPONSE TO new requirements etc. But nobody knows what those requirements were in the dim and distant past. New artefacts are just ONE possibility. And to anticipate your next objection: there is NOTHING in this proposal that excludes your God, because nobody knows how this mechanism could have come into existence. Your God may have designed it.

Behe

DAVID: Yes, new genes happen, but loss of genes is also observed, and your question to me is is it chicken or egg first. New adaptation with loss of genes means loss of genes caused the adaptation as the authors imply in the article.

dhw: It "means" no such thing. Please tell us why it is impossible for new adaptations (and the acquisition of new genes) to make certain existing genes redundant.

DAVID: That is not my impression of the article's import, having reread it.

dhw: I am not asking about the article’s “import”. I am asking you to respond to my argument.

DAVID: You constantly scurry around to protect Darwin. The article mainly discusses loss of genes, but does note new genes also contribute to changes. I've said that.

It has nothing at all to do with Darwin. Please tell me why it is unreasonable to argue that new adaptations and the acquisition of new genes will make some old genes redundant. I don’t know why you’ve bothered to reproduce the whole article when all I’m asking is that you tell me why you reject what I have proposed. But I will extract one sentence from the article: “Total gene loss is the most obvious case of loss of function.” This is the nub of the argument, which you refuse to deal with. I suggest, as I did before, that adaptation results from new genes and changed functions of existing genes. LOSS OF FUNCTION means that when the organism adapts, there are genes which are no longer of any use, and so they are discarded. It does not mean that their uselessness is the CAUSE of adaptation! Please tell me what is wrong with my proposal.