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

by dhw, Thursday, June 16, 2022, 11:06 (673 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Please stop trying to minimize the importance of the neuropeptide article. No one says brains and nerves already existed before the Cambrian, but: “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.”

DAVID: I am not minimizing the neuropeptides. Of course they fit my theory that the basis of the continuity of evolution is in early and complete development of necessary new biochemicals which precede new processes by new organs.

dhw: Why do you keep harping on about biochemical processes? Of course every change entails biochemical processes. But the question we are trying to answer is whether new organs and new species evolve from preceding organs and species by means of these processes, or your God suddenly produced new organs and new species that had no precursors. […]

DAVID: We know of no biological process or processes that produce new species.

So why do you keep harping on about them?

DAVID: We do have epigenetic methylation for immediate adaptations within species. Since it is either a natural process or a designer, I pick a designer God.

Nobody knows how speciation happens. The fact that cells can adapt to new conditions may offer us a clue – that the same known mechanism can also innovate when new conditions offer new opportunities. But you reject this possibility - which allows for your God as the designer - and opt for him either individually preprogramming or dabbling the same developments.

How did sex pop up?
DAVID: this study of hermaphrodites really adds little. They have both sexes to begin with. That does not explain how the two sexes appeared from organisms that simply used binary fission. This is one of the biggest developmental gaps in which sex's origin is not known.

We don’t know any of the “origins”, including that of life itself. However, you suggested that sex may have originated before the Cambrian. And we've been told that fundamental elements of the brain and nervous system existed much earlier than the Cambrian. This suggests the continuity of evolution (which you favour for the sake of a continuous line between bacteria and humans), as opposed to separate creation without precursors (which you favour as evidence for your God’s existence).

Immunity system: lung cells
DAVID: In design theory it is reasonably proposed lungs were first designed with these cells in place, or lunged species would not have survived.

Alternatively, fatalities would have resulted in the surviving cells gradually learning to improve their design. (You seem to think that every disease would obliterate the whole species!) A parallel would be most of our human inventions, which worked OK originally but were gradually improved on by subsequent generations.

Magic embryology

QUOTE: The migrating cell has to constantly be making decisions and figuring out if it is in the in the right place in the body.

Don’t you just love these signs of intelligence?

DAVID: This shows how cells can operate fully by chemical signals in all cellular operations incuding epigenetics. The Speciation mechanism is totally unknown.

And because it is unknown, perhaps we should consider the possibility that cells decide which chemical signals should be used when and to what effect?

Human membrane pore
DAVID: The concept [irreducible complexity] says all parts must be formed simultaneously. […]

dhw: All parts of what?

DAVID: Of the fully operating pore in this case.

dhw: […] Has this pore always been present in cells, or was it a new development? But in any case, I would not envisage intelligent cells cooperating to produce a necessary organ whose parts didn't work simultaneously. If it was necessary, they wouldn't survive.

DAVID: The pore, as a vital part, has been around since cells existed.

Thank you. As I commented before, I fully accept the irreducible complexity of the cell.

DAVID: It is newly described as to its molecular parts. I have bolded the part of your response which is the irreducible complexity theory originated by Behe.

So what is the problem? If one part doesn’t work, the mechanism won’t work. Fits in perfectly with the concept of intelligent cells cooperating to create a mechanism that works. However, see above for mechanisms that do work but can be improved.

Ediacaran-Cambrian transition: 410,000 years

dhw: […] please tell me why you think the 2019 arguments explaining the gaps in the fossil record are no longer valid in 2022.

DAVID: I know all the arguments about gaps. All are theoretical guesses. Gould recognized the issue as so punctuated equilibrium was proposed, defended and opposed, nothing solved.

Of course they are all theoretical guesses. Does it not occur to you that the existence of God and his 3.8-billion-year programme or individual dabbles for all evolutionary changes are also “theoretical guesses”? Now please tell me why the 410,000-year transition invalidates all the “theoretical guesses” that explain the absence of fossils.