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

by dhw, Sunday, June 26, 2022, 11:15 (879 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Once again, if you do not accept my definition of common descent as “all life forms except the first are directly descended from earlier life forms”, please give us your own definition.

DAVID: Defined: From biochemistry as the basis of evolution. With DNA relationships, we don't need fossils for relationships. We have a common code.

Not needing fossils for relationships etc. is not a definition of “common descent”! But three cheers if you no longer care about fossils. Please tell us where the DNA record of extinct life forms comes from, and does it show that in the new tree of life all life forms are NOT directly descended from earlier forms?

DAVID: Remember, what the gaps show us is not generational change, which by definition must be tiny steps of change. Generational change means an adaptation within the same species.

dhw: Nobody knows how speciation happens. I have no idea where you get your definition of “generational change” from. According to you, your God performs operations on existing organisms to give them flippers instead of legs, or bigger brains than they had before they went to sleep. If a generation can change its structure in order to adapt, how do you know it can’t do the same in order to innovate? The gaps don’t show us anything. That’s why they are gaps. Some would say there are gaps because fossilization is the exception, not the rule.

DAVID: You can't sweep the gaps away. They tell us there must be a designer, just as complex designs do.

If you insist on ignoring every other possible explanation for the “gaps”, then of course you are left with only one conclusion.

dhw: I have now pointed out twice in bold that the new level of oxygen may “allow” for new forms of life, and I have said that the changes are driven by organisms (or your God with his book of instructions or his dabbling) which respond to the new conditions. They are the “agents”. Now please tell us why it is “sillier” for organisms to respond to changing conditions than for God to preprogramme or dabble their evolutionary changes BEFORE conditions have changed. […]

DAVID: From an evidentiary standpoint a designer God is not a silly concept. That species adapt to changes is obvious, but they stay the same species.

Your dodging technique is becoming painfully obvious and out of order. Nowhere have I said that a designer God is a silly concept! I am an agnostic! I have asked why you consider my concept of intelligent organisms (perhaps designed by your God) RESPONDING to new conditions to be sillier than your concept of God preprogramming or dabbling changes BEFORE the new conditions have come into existence. And yes, we know that adaptation means preservation of the species, but since nobody knows how one species turns into another, it is not unreasonable to propose that maybe the same mechanism for adaptive structural changes also enables intelligent organisms to innovate.

DAVID: Your unproven theory extrapolates from observations by many scientists that cells act intelligently, which certainly is true.

dhw: Thank you. Observation by many scientists that cells act intelligently sounds like quite a good reason for scientists to believe that cells are intelligent.

DAVID: Depends on the observer, doesn't it? The cells could contain a beautifully coded set of proper responses.

Yes. So how does that come to mean that you are right and other observers are wrong?

Mud

All dealt with earlier.