More "miscellany" PART TWO (General)

by David Turell @, Sunday, October 09, 2022, 17:47 (537 days ago) @ dhw

PART TWO

DAVID: Can you explain the Monarch?

dhw: Nobody can – it is unique – but I suggest that its lifespan and its limited strength may have been contributory factors to its having to complete the journey in stages through new generations. Now please tell me why you think all the other migrations originally had to be planned by your God, rather than those first birds and insects flying away to escape a wintry death, and some of them eventually making it to distant places that were not wintry, and passing the information on to later generations.

Your usual simplistic story. A few birds might make such an exploratory trip and make it back. In what language do they describe the trip to the possible not frozen birds at home? We are discussing a conceptual story. How do birds do that?


Plant immunity

DAVID: A new solution requires the addition of new information beyond what is known by the existing brains.

dhw: But I may have missed something which will become clearer if only you would tell me what sort of “new information” is required.

DAVID: The basis of life is that the cells follow information in DNA (a code). New techniques in life requires the development of new information in the DNA code. A new species requires new information in DNA code.

dhw: We seem to be dodging around from immunity and solving problems to speciation. I can understand that speciation entails changes to the DNA code – though I don’t know why change has to be called “new information” – but I don’t understand why the DNA code requires “new information” when different cells cooperate in order to create a defence against new attackers.

When B & T cells do their work, they learn new enemies by encoding that information into their DNA. Their developing library of new antibodies is new information!!! In speciation new animals are made with new information in their DNA. Both immunity and speciation involve new information in DNA code. Stop denying the role of information.


Cambrian: early brain

DAVID: To do the 410,000-year gap required identifying all Ediacaran and Cambrian fossils in sediment studied. You want to invent missing fossils?

dhw: I am merely pointing out (a) that new fossils are being discovered all the time, and (b) each one is a miracle in itself, since dead bodies are unlikely to remain intact for hundreds of millions of years. Why do you assume that there will be no more discoveries in the future?

New fossils, yes. Smaller gap, no. You can wish for magic fossils to close the gap.


Immortal bacteria (spores)

QUOTE: "The way spores process information is similar to how neurons operate in our brain."

DAVID: did this develop in natural evolution by trial and error? A highly complex mechanism of this sort imitating neurons demands it be designed. It is by definition, irreducibly complex.

dhw: This is mind-boggling. Once again, huge thanks for passing it on. I have no answer to the design argument, but I would gently quibble over the imitation, which is surely the other way round. Our brain neurons, like every other type of cell, are descended from bacteria, and I would see this article as evidence for common descent. [...]

DAVID: Yes, design wins.

dhw: So does the theory of common descent.

DAVID: Not really:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-michael-behe-in-world-...
Not by natural processes; Behe explains…

dhw: No need to repeat this or the article about the anthropic principle. They both put the case for design as opposed to chance, which I keep telling you I accept as perfectly logical. There is not a word against the theory of common descent, despite the wording of the link. The theories are not incompatible.

Naturally occurring common descent doesn't exist.


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