Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, December 17, 2021, 15:29 (861 days ago) @ dhw

So there we have it: conditions changed, and existing life forms responded to the change.

Yes, all species can adapt, but are still the same species.

T cells

DAVID: Yes it is. In any biological system mistakes happen.

dhw: They certainly do in any human use of “algorithms”, like the fiasco of last year, when an “algorithm” resulted in chaotic examination results over here. Who is responsible? The algorithm or the maker of the algorithm? However, let us not forget the possibility that your God may have WANTED a system that would result in death or the variations that account for all the “good” and “bad” that underlie the problem of theodicy.

Who is responsible for metabolic mistakes, the algorithm or the maker in theodicy?

DAVID: You've finally admitted looking into the future is important in understanding why new species are so changed. "Conditions that did not exist" don't apply when we consider the whale series or climbing out of trees, as simple examples of change.

dhw: Of course conditions would have changed. We just don’t know in what way! Possibilities: pre-whales in a particular region were running short of food, and so they took to the water. Pre-humans in a particular region were confronted by a shortage of food, or a tree disease, and found better living conditions at ground level. Nobody knows what causes speciation, but we know for a fact that organisms adapt in response to change and not in anticipation of it, and nobody knows the extent to which adaptation may turn into speciation. I would regard flippers as a good example. And I would still ask, for instance, whether you think pre-whales with flippers would be better equipped for survival on land than leggy pre-whales if they had to wait until water arrived for them to dive into (God innovating in advance).

Pre-whales with flippers would never be on land. They have transitional legs in the water. Look at the fossils in the series.

DAVID: As for God designing or ME designing, it is done for future use in new ways, not necessarily for your beloved environmental changes, which ask only for minor adaptations most usually. Major ones result in extinctions like Chixculub.

dhw: “Most usually” is a nice term. I am considering what is not “most usual”, namely innovation as opposed to adaptation. If it is true that the increase in oxygen enabled organisms to diversify to a greater extent than before, then you have an example of a major change in conditions that did NOT result in extinction! You seem to think that all environmental changes must be universal to require or allow organisms to make changes. I suggest that most changes would have been localized, i.e. humans did not suddenly spring into existence all over the world, but started because of localized changes. As for your own designs, please tell us what innovations you introduced that prepared you for conditions you did not already know existed.

Sorry. I agree minor adaptations are local. Considered future use for dialysis units had predictable problems I could design around. Just like God preparing creatures for the future. Example, the whale blow hole on top of their heads, no nostrils, which would be under water.