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

by dhw, Saturday, July 09, 2022, 08:26 (866 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I propose that whatever changed the Cambrian environment (maybe increased oxygen) must have allowed for far more novelties than in other periods. If we accept cellular intelligence (thank you for your 50/50), it is feasible that some intelligent organisms could not only adapt but might also have found new ways of exploiting the new conditions. And if we accept common descent, then existing organisms must have changed into different organisms, which could only happen through changes being reproduced from one generation to the next. Speciation is not caused by time passing but by the interaction between generations of existing organisms and their changed environment.

DAVID: Same subterfuge of invoking generational changes while ignoring that this gap is like none other in the record, and the new forms are not like anything in its past.

I have not ignored the unsolved mystery of the Cambrian gap but have tried to offer a possible explanation. Why is it a “subterfuge” to point out that we know through adaptation that changes can (and often must) be made quickly and passed on from generation to generation, and so maybe major changes (innovation) can follow the same process? The range of “novelties” would depend on the nature of the environmental change (increased oxygen in the Cambrian?), not on the amount of time that passes between bursts of innovation.

DAVID: They MUST have been designed to change from very simple to very complex. […]

I am also arguing for design, but it doesn’t seem to register with you that if your God exists, he might be capable of endowing cells with the intelligence to do their own designing – just as he has endowed humans to do their own designing. […]

DAVID: A new complex sea monster described in the Cambrian with eyes to see, brains to interpret:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2327909-three-eyed-predator-stalked-the-seas-500-m...

DAVID: the Ediacaran's were frond-like sessile stalks with none of the attributes of these animals, some of whom appeared just 410,000 years later! It is well accepted the brain is the most complex item in the universe. These animals had brains with all the complexity that implies. It had to have had neurons precursors to ours. dhw's frantic estimate of 30,000 generations of adapting cells did this. Preposterous.

Last month you kindly reproduced an article on neuropeptides:
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….

Maybe my 30,000 generations didn’t have to invent quite as much as you have suggested. Extreme changes in the environment might well have allowed an acceleration of new uses and new neuron networks.

Humanization

DAVID: He is a God you do not seem to understand, recognizing the only God you can imagine is overtly extremely human in thought.

dhw: […] You have agreed that your own God may well enjoy creating and is sure to be interested in what he creates. Is this “overtly extremely human”? […]. Why would he do something he didn’t enjoy and wasn’t interested in? A God who experiments, gets new ideas as he goes along, or deliberately creates a free-for-all is no more “extremely human” than a God whose sole purpose is to create one species which might admire his work and even form a relationship with him, or who is too kind to design something he knows will harm us (three of your own speculations). […]

DAVID: Your distorted view of my God, now bolded, is not what I have presented to you in the past.

dhw: I’ve been referring to these beliefs of yours (later called “guesses”) for years", and it’s frustrating that you should try to disown them now. [I went on to provide a list of past quotes - see yesterday’s post.]

dhw: Do you actually renounce these views now, and why do you regard them as less “humanizing” than my alternative theories concerning his possible purpose and method of producing the history of life?

Why don’t you answer my two questions?

DAVID:I am aware that your God actions as alternatives fit a very human-thinking God.

No more human than the God you described in all the quotes.

DAVID: I've agreed to your conclusions based on your strange form of god, that in that singular case they are logical.

What is “strange” about a God who enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, experiments, gets new ideas, designs a free-for-all? Who are you to judge what is “normal” for an unknown and unknowable God?

DAVID: As for all the saved previous quotes, you always fail to mention they are my guesses as to how God might resemble or relate to us, guesses encouraged by your leading questions to which I politely responded. Your view of God has no resemblance to mine.

Once again, you don’t read what I write. Note the now bolded observation: “I’ve been referring to these beliefs of yours (later called “guesses”) for years….Of course they’re guesses. So are my theories. So why are your guesses less “human” than mine?