More "miscellany" (General)

by David Turell @, Sunday, June 05, 2022, 16:03 (662 days ago) @ dhw

Development of neuropeptides

DAVID: Show me the fledgling brain in Edicarans!

dhw: You have left out the answer:
QUOTE: The modern brain arose from hundreds of millions of years of incremental advances in complexity. Evolutionary biologists have traced that progress back through the branch of the animal family tree that includes all creatures with central nervous systems, the bilaterians, but it is clear that fundamental elements of the nervous system existed much earlier. […] They found that the chemical precursors of two important neurotransmitters, or signaling molecules used in nervous systems, appear in all the major animal groups that preceded creatures with central nervous systems.

You make my point! All of evolution is based on evolving biochemicals! Forms then complexify using those molecules. Brains in Cambrian, none in Ediacarans are the gaps we discuss.


dhw: Whatever it was that caused the Cambrian explosion would have resulted in the “precursors” complexifying into the organs we know today. Indeed, a fantastic discovery.

Yes suddenly as Cambrians.


dhw: The reasons given for incompleteness seem to me to make perfect sense. Please explain why you do not accept them.

DAVID: These are opinion articles, and I agree with Egnor, a trained Ph.D. paleontologist.

dhw: He has a different opinion, then? Meanwhile, please explain why you do not accept the reasons given by these authors for the incompleteness of the fossil record.

My own study of the Cambrian gap articles on fossils.


DAVID: As in the other thread, only a controlling dsigner can create the evolutionary history we have. Your contradictions in not accepting a designer clouds your analysis of my points.

dhw: ALL my alternatives allow for a designer, so please stop using my agnosticism as an excuse for your self-confessed illogicality...For instance, it is perfectly possible to have a controlling designer whose one and only goal from the beginning was NOT humans, or who wanted humans but had to experiment to get them. Both theories explain why your God might have designed new species with no precursors. Another theory is that evolution was continuous (no “gaps”), which removes the contradiction dealt with earlier.

What theory shows no gaps in forms???>


Stasis and sprint

QUOTE: But this persistent focus on natural selection as the sole mechanism of adaptive evolution has always been a sticking point. It can’t properly explain how anything new arises. After all, natural selection is a process that eliminates unfit variants – it doesn’t create, but changes the prevalence of what’s already there. Instead, novelty must come from the purely random process of genetic mutation.

DAVID:: of course, he mentioned Punc-eque from Gould as being widely accepted. Note my bold with the true view of Natural selection being passive, not inventive. The author doesn't solve the problem of speciation nor does he recognize the possibility of a desgner running the show. The main point is evolution is filled with gaps.

dhw: We agreed long ago on the bold, the statement that “novelty must come from random processes” totally ignores the theory of cellular intelligence, and there is nothing here that we haven’t covered before.

It helps explain gaps in forms.


Flat universe

DAVID: what flat means is the universe will expand forever until it becomes totally cold, frigid, with very low energy and finally tears apart in ending. No contraction, no Big Bounce. From my viewpoint, I doubt one and done, if there is a God. He'll do it over and over.

dhw: I only include this because of “if there is a God”. That sounds quite agnostic! :-)

I have to allow your views! :-P


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