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

by dhw, Saturday, June 11, 2022, 09:26 (894 days ago) @ David Turell

Ediacaran-Cambrian transition: 410,000 years

DAVID: Why do you throw old material in the face of new findings? Because it upsets your rigid theories you cling to. I'm trying to educate you.

dhw: I asked: "Who has accepted it as valid? I thought this theory was hot off the press. Do you really believe that all research into the subject is now over? In any case, this one discovery does not invalidate any of the points made in the articles I posted." You have not answered. The shortened gap between Ediacaran and Cambrian does not make the slightest difference to the discussion on why we don’t have fossils of every single transition from species to species. Its only possible relevance is to the time available for speciation, and your next answer appears to confirm that it is NOT relevant.

DAVID: Of course research continues. You are carefully throwing up lots of speciation theories to avoid the point that the complex animals of Cambrian appearing in a short time demands a designing mind produced them.

I have asked if - as you have claimed - the 410,000 figure is now accepted by everybody (no answer from you), and I have pointed out that it is irrelevant to the problem of the gaps in the fossil record. There are no “lots of speciation theories” in my question and comments above, but elsewhere I have drawn your attention to the fact that a) what you call a short time is a mighty long time in terms of generations, especially if we consider the possibility that (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence - not random mutations - is responsible for the necessary innovations, and b) there are feasible explanations for the gaps in the fossil record.

dhw: […] changes to the genome take place by generations, not by the passage of time. Please tell us why this counts as “straw clutching”.

DAVID: True speciation is a major genome change. Most new species appear suddenly as if newly designed.

Of course it’s a major genome change. And once more: these changes take place by generations and not by passage of time. How “sudden” is “suddenly”? Yesterday, in response to the point that new species did NOT suddenly appear fully developed, you wrote: “Form changes take time to develop new DNA instructional information. That is the required time lapse for speciation.” How many thousands (even millions) of years do you regard as being “sudden”?

Punctuated trilobites

DAVID: It has always been presumed sex appeared in the Cambrian, but Edicraran 'frond-like animals could have had sex earlier.

dhw: Many thanks for this. As with the article on “neuropeptides”, we are slowly learning that fundamental features of “modern” species (brains, nervous systems, and now sex) did not suddenly appear in the Cambrian after all. New fossils keep emerging and confirming the theory that the evolution of species is a continuous process of common descent as life forms vary, adapt and innovate.

DAVID: How does a sex organ discovery support your wild theory that dispenses with the Cambrian gap?

The gap is the absence of fossils. You have answered yourself above: organs that had previously been assumed to have appeared “suddenly” in the Cambrian are now shown to have originated in simpler forms before the Cambrian. This suggests continuity, not sudden appearance.

Human membrane pore

DAVID: Everything works together in a coordinated fashion. It must do that all at once. It cannot be constructed bit by bit by evolution, because it won't work properly until it is complete. This is the very definition of irreducible complexity which requires a designing mind. Ingress an egress must tightly controlled always. When a molecule wants to enter it emits an alerting signal to trigerv the pore, and teh same at exiting. The signals can e chemical, electrical or physical force. All have been described. This is why the cells look lintelligent: the molecules follow intellgently designed signals. This can be only fully understood when the molecular architecture is found and its actions described.

Once again, we are focusing on the cell, which is the basic unit of all life forms, and of course many of its functions have to be automatic, and as always, I acknowledge the logic of the design argument. However, the cell is also designed to respond to new conditions, and when cells combine they are even able to change their own structures. They are indeed so flexible in their ability to cope with different conditions and to change their structures, that they have combined to create all the multicellular species that have ever existed. It is not the automatic processes that have led to evolution but the ability to vary, and each new response to each change in conditions demands a departure from the previous norm. This is where (possibly God-given) intelligence comes into play. Your answer is a 3.8-billion-year-old instruction manual for every single change throughout the history of life, or your God popping in to dabble each one. Well, maybe what “looks” intelligent actually IS intelligent. Even you have said 50/50, so you should not be rejecting the possibility.