More "miscellany" PARTS ONE & TWO (General)

by dhw, Friday, September 16, 2022, 08:09 (560 days ago) @ David Turell

SPECIATION & GOD'S CONTROL

DAVID: Speciation occurs in general climate conditions, not in a box contained to a little area of the Earth. You totally muddling up the concepts of local weather and general climate.

dhw: I’m just a little surprised. Have you never heard of endemism? […] Do you really believe that every new species evolved simultaneously all over the world?

DAVID: Of course not.

dhw: So why are you claiming that speciation does not occur locally? Another contradiction.

DAVID: We were discussing climate, weather and speciation as related. Of course, local climate affects any speciation that occurs.

So why do you tell us speciation does not take place in a “little area of the Earth” but only in general climate conditions? Please just withdraw your comment, and we can move on.

Biochemical controls

dhw: Nobody knows how speciation happens, but autonomous adaptation and variation suggests that there is an autonomous mechanism which enables cells to make changes to themselves. If God could change the genetic code, why do you think it is not possible for him also to have endowed cells with the autonomous ability to do the same?

DAVID: Same old secondhand designing.

Just because you want your God to be in total control does not mean HE wanted to be in total control. Now please answer my question.

Brain evolution

QUOTE: “The brain is rewiring itself on the fly in response to experience,” Mattick explains.

dhw: I would suggest that this process mirrors the whole history of evolution: the cell communities of which all organisms are made change IN RESPONSE to experiences (new conditions), not IN ANTICIPATION of them.

DAVID: The plasticity of the brain is a built-in ability given 210,000 years ago in anticipation of future use. Undeniable.

dhw: I would suggest that the plasticity of the brain goes back long, long before then. You have agreed that pre-sapiens brains would have complexified before they expanded.

No response.

dhw: We have discussed your “anticipation” theory ad nauseam. I propose that not only the brain but every change in every organ and organism through evolution has been a RESPONSE to new conditions, concepts, requirements etc. [...] To return to our favourite example, I propose that instead of your God operating overnight on prewhales to change their legs into flippers and then sending them into the water, they would have entered the water with their legs intact, and only as they took to life in the water did their legs change into flippers. Evolution IN RESPONSE to conditions, not in ANTICIPATION of them. But of course they and their future descendants used the flippers!

DAVID: And hippos, related to whales never changed. Why? God's plan!

Chimps, related to humans, never changed. They, like hippos, survived perfectly well without changing. How does this prove that your God changed prewhales’ legs into flippers before they entered the water, or operated on some sleeping apes to change their arms, legs and pelvises before they descended from the trees?

ANT WOUND TREATMENT

QUOTES: Injured individuals decide for themselves whether they will be helped.

We found out that injured ants communicate when a wound is infected," explains the biologist.

The helping animal picks up these substances—either from itself or directly from the injured comrade—with its feet, takes them into its mouth and from there applies them to the injury.

Another fascinating insight into the intelligence of ants, spoilt only by your unnecessary comment:

DAVID: ants are still amazing in their automatic activities.

Why “automatic”? Is it beyond belief for you that over millions of years, these highly intelligent organisms may have learnt a few things and passed their knowledge on to succeeding generations, just like us?

GAPS IN EVOLUTION CAUSE DISCONTINUITY

QUOTES: placoderms […] were the first vertebrates to develop jaws more than 400 million years ago. These jawed fish represent an evolutionary leap toward the body plan present in most animals with a backbone today—including humans. The fossils reveal that it didn’t take long for evolution to land on this basic body plan:

At this point in evolutionary history, the S-shaped heart in the placoderms was already well separated from the other organs, lodged near the newly evolved jaw. The heart’s separation from the abdominal organs is still seen today.

For 380-million-year-old organs, the structures didn’t look so alien from modern anatomy.

DAVID: look at what appeared so quickly. Early fish vertebrates of two types were in the Cambrian. Of course, organs cannot be seen, but must assumed to be present back then. The Ediacarans had nothing like this complexity. Only design fits.

These fish appeared about 150 million years after the Cambrian, and the article stresses continuity from 380 million years ago till today. If you say these organs must already have been present in the Cambrian fish, then what was the “leap” mentioned in the article? In any case, why is 150 million years regarded as a leap? The article doesn't compare Cambrian to Ediacaran, so I can’t see what you think appeared “so quickly”, or which “gaps indicate discontinuity” here. Perhaps you can explain.


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