More miscellany Part One (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, August 15, 2024, 00:12 (99 days ago) @ dhw

“De novo” (The Cambrian)

DAVID: The enormous gaps I've presented defy the bolded statement of Darwin you worship. It implies tiny steps for evolution to proceed. There are none!!!, unless you mean minor adaptations.

dhw: I have no idea how many steps were needed for a nerve to become sensitive to light, and for a light sensitive nerve to develop into the eyes we and our fellow creatures now have. Flatworm eyes were nothing like as complex as ours, which is why we can talk of gradual complexification. Maybe the flatworm eye was a big jump. You have of course dodged the question why, if God was capable of giving humans the autonomous ability to innovate, he could not have done the same with the cells that started the whole process.

Is there evidence of your theory at play? The gaps are still there in plain sight.

99.9% versus 0.1%

DAVID: My view is from Raup. He treated all of evolution as one topic. 99.9% became extinct producing the 0.1% surviving. We are a part of the 0.1% and did came from the 0.1% and represent it in living now.

dhw: According to you, he did not say the 99.9% “produced” the 0.1% surviving! Why have you twisted what you wrote?

I twisted nothing. You misinterpreted my first discussion of Raup.

DAVID (April 21st): His study was to explain why extinctions happened as a necessary part of evolution. He concluded 'bad luck'. Well-adapted species suddenly were unprepared for new circumstances. The losses cumulatively were 99.9% with 0.1% as survivors.

dhw: You have agreed that we are descended from Raup’s 0.1% of survivors. Only survivors can have descendants! See the example of the dinosaurs.

We are contained in the 0.1%, not separate from it.