Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 04, 2021, 18:55 (1144 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I keep repeating a possible explanation for the “sudden appearance” of new species, and your only response so far has been that I ignore the “sudden appearance” of new species! Once more: 1) What you call the “start” of the Cambrian may cover tens or even hundreds of thousands of generations. This is not “sudden”. 2) We cannot expect a step-by-step fossil record of species that lived 550+ million years ago. 3) We cannot know all the changes that took place in local conditions 550+ million years ago (and I suggest that speciation takes place in response to changing conditions). [You left out the fourth factor, which is the theory of cellular intelligence.]

DAVID: ...then devolves into a mish mosh of why it can't be sudden.

dhw: It is the sudden appearance of new species that constitutes your major argument!

DAVID: You have not explained Darwin's gap, because it hasn't gone away. The gap in form and function from simple Edicarans to the first Cambrians is entirely unexplained and quite real. Active research in the very complete Chinese shale beds has not reduced the gap.

dhw: The gap is the sudden appearance of new forms without any known precursors. I have agreed that no one knows the answer, but I have offered a 4-point list of factors that might explain it, and your only response is to say that it is a “mish mosh”. Why don’t you respond to the points themselves?

Each point avoids the obvious gap in precursors, not recognizing the 50+ years of new findings in Chinese shale all of which reinforce the gap. It is Darwin's gap, unchanged since he noted it.

DAVID: Stem cells are designed with a purposeful function to create cells with purposeful function. Without them there is no embryology from fertilized egg. What is your point, if any?

dhw: Cells do change their form and functions. If they didn’t, there could be no evolution. If your God can change their form and functions, then he is perfectly capable of giving them the means to do it themselves.

True without an evidence, just supposition of impractical secondhand design

Immunity system complexity

DAVID: The XYZ additions are all the same. When added they kill. There is not the complexity of a dictionary of differences. […] All provided by God's design developed during evolution, no dabble necessary.

dhw: How can the XYZ additions all be the same if the invaders are different? What is there to develop if the solution to the problem is always the same? If the cells obey instructions which were not preprogrammed from the very beginning, how can your God develop his design without dabbling? Yes, the PROCESS is the same: new invader, new antibodies. But the details have to change, and if your God has not issued instructions for every single detail and does not dabble, then the cell community has to work out the details by itself. Impossible without thought.

Don't believe me if that is your opinion. Making new antibodies is always the same process no matter who or what invades. No new instructions from God are required to have the system work from birth onward. The system is built in to recognize all new invasions, like Covid 19, which never existed more than three + years ago. Yet we all make antibodies against it!!! God dabble not required.

dhw […] You wrote that “cells are able to make an entire library of antibodies to all that come along”. How does a “generalized response” turn into a library of specific responses with no specific instructions from your God and yet with “no thought involved”?

DAVID: Again, the cells recognize a foreign protein, simply because it is foreign, and add a killer segment to it. Always the same segment. It is a complexly designed system that keeps it simple!!! That is how immunity works.

dhw: In order to recognize something as foreign, you have to be aware of the difference between it and you. Sometimes cells make mistakes. Isn’t that often the problem with transplants? Recognition is a cognitive process. And as I understand it, the immune system must produce a specific new antibody to kill each specific new antigen. So what do you mean by the same killer segment?

What immune cells add to recognized foreign protein is a killer protein, always by the same process. Knowing self from non-self is built in. Transplants are always foreign if genetically close in HLA, so anti-immune drugs must be used to protect the transplant. I see you floundering to find objections to the idea our immune cells know exactly what to do each and every time. Fabulous design!!! No cell thought required