Return to David's theory of evolution PART 2 (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, April 08, 2022, 08:26 (749 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution as a web

DAVID:The latest interrelationships show a web, not a bush:
https://aeon.co/essays/why-evolution-is-not-a-tree-of-life-but-a-fuzzy-network

DAVID: The article continues the pecking away at Darwin orthodoxy. This web is not your desired definition. This web of interactions had a definite directionality to an endpoint.

dhw: I have now read the whole article. There's no mention or even implication of directionality or an endpoint. It's all about the mixing of genes and hybridisation: for example, there are 8oo “species” of corals that interbreed: “Veron argues that today’s corals are a product of Darwin’s classical natural selection when currents are slack, and of hybridisation when they are strong.” Ancient humans interbred with Denisovans. Now I understand what he means by “merging”: over time, the same genes will appear in a vast variety of “species”. As I said before, if you believe in common descent, then surely that is inevitable. His “pecking away” consists simply in presenting the history of evolution as a web and not a tree. If anything, I’d say a tree has more directionality than a web.

DAVID: Do we see a directionality to evolution or not?
See today's entry on evolution and biochemical analysis not findings common ancestor

DAVID: Does common descent come from a single ancestor. No support from biochemistry:

You quoted the web article as if it supported your belief in directionality, but it doesn’t. I wish you would at least acknowledge what I have written, but instead you blithely change the subject to one that has nothing to do with directionality.

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/04/sara-walker-and-her-crew-publish-the-most-interesting...

QUOTE: "For Dobzhansky, as for all neo-Darwinians (by definition), the apparent molecular universality of life on Earth confirmed Darwin’s prediction that all organisms “have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed” (1859, 494) — an entity now known as the Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA.

In later editions Darwin exercised his right to make changes. He wrote that life had “been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one.” So that’s one objection out of the way.

The authors conclude that there are too many gaps in the biochemistry for there to have been a LUCA. Your conclusion:

DAVID: Simply, following genes and biochemistry there are too many changes to find a steady pattern of simple steps, one following the other. A designer at work would explain all the jumps and discontinuities.

This is how you tie yourself in knots. Now read the following:
March 16:
DAVID: You split evolution into differing eras but the whole process is one continuous process with every future step built on the past.(dhw’s bold)

dhw: Firstly, you are the one who insists that it is discontinuous, since you harp on and on about the gaps. [David believes that we are descended from Cambrian animals which had no precursors.]

DAVID: The continuous view is we can trace us back to bacteria. Your non-god view confuses you about the Cambrian gap.

March 19:
DAVID: Again, God as designer caused the gap. […]

dhw: Why have you changed the subject? In one breath you tell us that there are gaps, and God designed our Cambrian ancestors with no precursors, and the next moment there is a continuous line from bacteria to us. I am the one who upholds the theory of continuity, which means that all the different branches of life’s bush – including all those that had no connection with humans plus food – are descended from bacteria.

DAVID: The gaps are in God's control. […] The gap is phenotypical not biochemical which is continuous!(dhw’s bold)

So three weeks ago, we had biochemical continuity and every step built on past steps, and now we have biochemical discontinuity and no steady pattern of step by step. But no matter which it is, apparently it all adds up to God designing it.

In the article itself, I see no disagreement with Darwin’s revised prediction as quoted above.