Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 16, 2021, 18:59 (1138 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: How do possums communicate to each other their individual experimental 'playing dead' successful events to cover new species instincts?

dhw: I don’t understand your question. Possums don’t cover the instincts of ants and migrating birds! Every new species develops its own strategies! And successful strategies are passed on to succeeding generations. Why is this so difficult to understand?

You do understand the question. We humans can communicate and quickly educate ourselves for new activities. How do possums do it? Show and tell involves being killed. You have no answer. And that applies to birds migrating, ants activities or termites air conditioning mounds for that matter. God handles it by giving instructions.

New proteins

DAVID: Don't you realize the so-called useless proteins do not exist in our time? There are none now. The article is theory based on evolution by chance mutation. 'Junk' DNA is disappearing with new research.

dhw: I can’t take sides on this because I have no knowledge of the field, but how do you know that their experiments were invalid?

I presented the article only to point out the difficulty for natural evolution to find new necessary proteins. They had valid results with Darwinian interpretations.

Talbott and Shapiro

DAVID: Known fact: Shapiro was president of his Temple. He never has discussed God's role as a practicing scientist. For Shapiro bacteria modify DNA with purpose, source of purposeful activity is a black box to Shapiro, which is what I implied above.

dhw: I don’t know how he could become president of his Temple without being a practising Jew, but it doesn’t matter. That’s why I suggested that he was wise enough to separate his scientific work from his personal beliefs. Meanwhile, please stop trying to restrict his evolutionary theory to bacteria modifying DNA when I keep reproducing from your own book the quotes in which he explicitly says that cells are cognitive entities that produce evolutionary novelties. This theory concerns Chapter 2 in life’s history, and like Darwin he obviously steers clear of discussing origins.

All Shapiro says is bacteria can modify their DNA. The rest is pure theory that you have blown up into something else as fact.

Fingerprints

QUOTE: "Scientists have suspected that our circular, winding fingerprints might have evolved to improve our ability to grip objects by creating better friction, says Jarocka. But she says others have suggested they might contribute to our “very refined sense of touch”.

DAVID: We do not know when fingerprints appeared on our evolution. We are now learning their usefulness. Is this another 'stasis problem' appearing long before we developed fine use like violin playing? I would think so. Another special attribute in advance designed by God.

dhw: We do not know when or why fingerprints appeared, but it not a “stasis” problem. I do not for one moment believe that your God would have designed them so that later on we would be able to play the violin etc. If he exists and did design them, or if they were the product of the relevant cell communities, I would suggest that the reason might have been “to improve our ability to grip objects”, or some other situation in which a “refined sense of touch” gave us an extra advantage in coping with whatever tasks we wished to accomplish at that time.

You still favor all natural developments to explain evolution. I have God as the designer.