Miscellany: gaps in evolution cause discontinuity (General)

by dhw, Friday, June 18, 2021, 13:05 (1252 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I have asked two questions, neither of which has been answered: 1) Why do you think there should be fossils of organisms that lived 540 million years ago? 2) Please explain why you think 10 million years is not long enough for innovations to be designed by intelligent cells combining their intelligences to restructure themselves under new conditions.

DAVID: The gap is complexity, not time. After over 150 years of hunting the gap persists, the fossils are not there.

The gap is lack of fossils to prove that one species developed from another. Why do you think there should be fossils of organisms that lived 540 million years ago? Some scientists believe that 10 million years is not long enough for the development of all the complexities of the new Cambrian species. I’ll assume from your non-response that you do not regard the time as inadequate.

dhw: I am waiting for you and others to say why you dismiss or ignore Shapiro’s “excellent work”. There are/were notable scientists who also firmly believe/believed in cellular intelligence, and you have never explained why you think your God is incapable of designing the cellular intelligence that Shapiro believes designed the “novelties” of speciation.

DAVID: God is capable of whatever He wishes to create. All we know from Shapiro is bacteria and now I have presented some of our cells can edit DNA. This does not mean speciation comes this way. His reasonable theory awaits confirmation. Remember it is not fact.

That’s what I keep telling you, but it should not stop us from discussing the theories. If God is capable of designing cellular intelligence, why do you dismiss Shapiro’s theory and cling to your equally unconfirmed theory – that God designed every species individually – which raises insoluble problems of logic when combined with your other beliefs? Please bear in mind that Shapiro’s theory does not exclude God.

QUOTE:"The fossils were found during a field research in the Qaidam Basin in July 2020…”

dhw: Thank you for proving my point. New discoveries are being made all the time. No one can possibly claim that what fossils we have are all that we shall ever have.

DAVID: All of the new fossils support the complexity gap. All you can do is hope with Darwin.

I am not “hoping”, I am merely theorizing. What you call the “complexity gap” is simply another way of saying that we do not have a complete fossil record of how less complex organisms evolved into more complex organisms. And you take this to mean that such fossils do not exist and therefore the more complex organisms must have been separately designed. We have no way of knowing what fossils do or don’t exist, and we have no right to assume that after 540 million years there would be any fossils anyway.

QUOTE: "In biogeography, evolutionists appeal to unlikely and speculative explanations where species must raft across vast oceans in order for common descent to account for their unexpected locations.”

dhw: How about convergent evolution as an explanation? And at what stages of evolution did the relevant land masses drift apart?

DAVID: Those studies have been done, and I've presented some here in the long ago past. Similar monkeys in both Africa and So. America come to mind.

We know there are similar species in different continents. The authors are pooh-poohing rafting, so I’m asking about convergent evolution and the time when the continents were NOT separated by oceans.

QUOTE: "Paleontology fails to reveal the continuous branching pattern predicted by common ancestry, and the fossil record is dominated by abrupt explosions of new life forms.”

dhw: We cannot expect a continuous fossil record. But in any case, a major change in conditions will require a swift response. There are three possible responses: extinction, adaptation (short term, in order to survive), innovation (to exploit new conditions and econiches, and thereby improve long-term chances of survival). “Abrupt explosions” are covered by Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium”: long periods of stasis until new conditions require or allow new developments.

DAVID: Gould described the many gaps.

I have tried to explain what the authors call “abrupt explosions”, which do NOT mean there is no continuous branching pattern.

DAVID: Want more proof?

dhw: Proof of what? One moment you desperately try to prove that all forms of life are “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” and therefore evolution is a continuous process from bacteria to us, and now you are triumphantly telling us there is no continuity.

DAVID: The point is the gaps require a designer.

The point is that you are tying yourself in knots over what constitutes continuity, and I am trying to straighten out the mess.

I shan’t repeat my summary of the main points, since you have ignored all but the final point:

dhw: 4) Ten million years is an enormous expanse of time in terms of generations of intelligent organisms adapting to or exploiting new conditions. Ignoring Shapiro's theory does not invalidate it.

DAVID: Again the gap is not time. It is sudden massive complexity.End of Cambrian

Fine. Shapiro’s theory would explain how organisms responded to what must have been a sudden massive change in conditions by adapting to or exploiting those conditions.