More "miscellany" (General)

by dhw, Friday, January 28, 2022, 13:40 (790 days ago) @ David Turell

Pseudogenes

dhw: I don’t believe in chance mutation, but the absence of junk does not in any way negate it, because natural selection will ensure that any chance mutation which is of no use will disappear! Please explain why you disagree.

DAVID: I don't disagree with you. Imagined 'junk' is simply an example of how twisted committed Darwinists will go to defend the theory.

Since you agree that the absence of junk confirms Darwin’s theory, I think we can close this discussion.

Early quark-gluon plasma

dhw: [...] why are you defending what you believe to have been Guth’s argument?

DAVID: Guth's theorem indicates something from nothing physical, therefore God did it. Obvious.

I didn’t realize that all those scientists had “accepted” that Guth had proved the existence of God! That really is a big step. Of course a beginning without a past implies something from nothing, but please tell me how Guth could prove that the BB was NOT caused by something physical. How can anyone “prove” what was or wasn’t there before our beginning? And especially I ask you how you can accept “proof” that your God hasn’t created countless physical universes during his eternal existence, and that he didn’t use materials he had created to set off each beginning, including ours?

Light sensing proteins

DAVID: the molecule is designed to know when to be open and when to be shut based on the amount of light it senses.. Not intelligence but automaticity from a brilliant designer.

dhw: See “Cellular intelligence”: once a system is established, molecules have to act automatically or the system will break down. The question here is how the system was established in the first place. Shapiro: “Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification functions and cell fusions.” You reject this theory and prefer to imagine your God preprogramming every stage of eye development 3.8 billion years ago, or conducting countless individual operations which, presumably one by one over millions of years, improved light sensitivity to the full vision we enjoy now.

DAVID: Shapiro developed his theory from bacteria editing DNA, with no subsequent followers doing more work to support him. Why?

The concept of cellular intelligence has plenty of followers, and I wish you would stick to the argument instead of trying to belittle Shapiro. I have pointed out that molecules have to act automatically to preserve any system, and the question is how the system originates. That is where autonomous intelligence would come into play, as opposed to your divine programming and dabbling.

Life’s required metals

DAVID: Note: llamas and its relatives in the Andes munching on plants in volcanic soils utilize two to eight milligrams a day of selenium. Selenium is extremely poisonous to us, so we can safely ingest one-two micrograms a day. I suspect when these camelids finally migrated to the Andes from Asia they adapted epigenetically.

dhw: Yes, it’s wonderful how cells manage to adapt themselves without your God’s intervention. This one is, of course, a very minor example compared to the camel’s amazing nose, but there must be millions more. However, you are always right when you say we don’t know the degree to which cells are able to restructure themselves. See Shapiro above for one theory. I needn’t repeat your own!

DAVID: God goes as far as He has to in designing.

I like it. According to you, he has to design everything. I propose that he only has to design the mechanism that enables cell communities to do their own designing. Same God, but at least my proposal explains the higgledy-piggledy bush!

Regions protected from mutations

QUOTE: Specifically, genes playing a crucial role in survival and reproduction mutate far less often than those that are less important. ( David’s bold)

DAVID: The article contains many guesses as to why these protections exist, with no clear answer. I have one. These protections stabilize the existence of species, and do not allow speciation, which would then require a very special set of events as if a designer stepped in.

This ties in neatly with my point that cells must act automatically to preserve a system, but evolution also requires the freedom for cells to vary their structure. Wonderful to hear that scientists are beginning to find out which cells do what.

Cambrian explosion: still finding nervous systems

quote: "Two tiny fossils, each smaller than an aspirin pill, contain fossilized nerve tissue from 508 million years ago. The bug-like Cambrian creatures could help scientists piece together the evolutionary history of modern-day spiders and scorpions.""

DAVID: Another example of the complexity of Cambrian organisms with no precursors and the gap from the Edicaran layers is only 410,000 years, a blink of the eye in evolutionary terms.

Another example of new fossils being found even today (or ten years ago). If only all organisms had managed to leave fossils of themselves for every year since 3.8 billion years ago, we would have the complete picture. Some folk would say 410,000 years would yield enough generations of intelligent cell communities to produce and develop any new set of organs.


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