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

by dhw, Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 09:23 (876 days ago) @ David Turell

Neurons control new connections

dhw: Neurons are cells. The article shows how cells cooperate, and even a single cell samples, finds, gets rid of, has ways to differentiate, and – in your comment – “must know” what to do. And you agree that there is a 50/50 chance that this denotes autonomous intelligence. How wonderful that you consider the theory of the intelligent cell to be a 50/50 possibility.

DAVID: Same old dodge. Tell me how cells become so intelligent all by themselves naturally?

There are two separate issues, which you keep conflating: 1) are cells intelligent? 2) If they are, what might be the source of their intelligence? The answer to the second question is that nobody knows. It is exactly the same as asking: 1) Are we alive? 2) If we are, what might be the source of life? You and I would agree that we are alive, and so then we ask what might be the source of life. Same answer: nobody knows. Your theory is your God. The atheist’s theory would be chance. And I find both theories equally difficult to believe in, for reasons which I have given you over and over again.

DAVID: I've agreed God's form of evolution is designed creation. Again, you act ignorant of Adler's position which is mine: humans, as a result of natural evolution, are so unusual, we should not expect a natural cause, but accept humans are a proof of God.

dhw: When will you stop dodging? The discussion here is not about God’s existence - ALL life’s complexities and not just humans can be viewed as evidence for the existence of God - but about your illogical combination of evolutionary theories.

DAVID: I can't help you undo your obvious rigid prejudices to new approaches to new views of evolution based on new knowledge about DNA.

You have just dodged the issue of your nonsensical combination of theories by diverting discussion to the existence of God, and now you are doing the same by pretending that I do not accept the new findings. I am perfectly happy to accept that our new knowledge of DNA changes the lines of descent, and that the Cambrian gap has shrunk to 410,000years. Neither of these new factors explains your combined theories, which make sense only to God, and neither of them changes the definition of common descent.

DAVID: In creating a universe, a special Earth to allow life. creating living forms, and then designing a series of forms which eventually reach a human form, so unusual it could not logically occur naturally that series of events shows stepwise purposes by a designing mind, which you accept with a 50/50 probability.

dhw: We are not discussing proof of design but the specific questions: if your God’s only purpose was to design us and our food a) why do you think he individually created every life form etc. that had no connection with us?

DAVID: He chose to evolve us stepwise from bacteria. I accept history as God's doing.

And in your theory he also chose to design all the other individual life forms, the vast majority of which had no connection with humans plus food although you claim that all of them were an “absolute requirement” for human plus food. Please stop editing out those parts of your theory which contradict one another.

dhw: And b) if he was capable of designing species without precursors, why did he design us in stages? Your previous answer has been that you don’t know, and it “makes sense only to God”. Any change? (NB Please note that 50/50 does not mean rejection.)

DAVID: Same answer! God's choice for His unknown reasons.

It’s YOUR choice, and you claim it makes sense to you, although only God knows why he would have done it that way. I have even gone so far as to offer you theories which do make humans your God’s purpose, and which do explain our evolution by stages, but you won’t even consider these because they entail human patterns of thought, although you believe that your God may have human patterns of thought.

Early humans

DAVID: compare these length of time periods of change to the brief Cambrian gap. The gaps and time periods of human development are becoming clearer and are reasonable when compared to other fossil series like whales.

Yes, most speciation occurs in bursts after long periods of stasis (= punctuated equilibrium). This fits in with the theory that evolutionary change takes place when the environment changes. It is possible that the Cambrian explosion was caused by a major change in the environment (increased oxygen perhaps?), which allowed for a major burst of innovations over a comparatively short period of time.