More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, August 23, 2024, 14:40 (24 days ago) @ David Turell

De novo” (The Cambrian)

DAVID: The bold is still Darwinist wishes. After 160+ years no 'primitive precursors' are found.

dhw: The primitive precursors still exist today, but in any case you continue to misread my point. Do you or do you not agree that eyes and brains gradually became increasingly complex?

DAVID: Not in the Cambrian gap. Yes, later brains became much more complex, and eyes also improved from that point on.

So gradual development is a basic feature of evolution and not merely a “Darwinist wish”. But of course I agree with you that Darwin was wrong to claim that nature never jumps. The Cambrian Explosion remains a mystery.

99.9% versus 0.1%

dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that ever lived?

DAVID: No. From 0.1% surviving.

dhw: See the “evolution” thread for more examples of your schizophrenic self-contradictions.

DAVID: You ignore that a small population of forms evolved into many multiples of the initial forms. Thus 99.9% extinct became/created the 0.1% surviving.

You just won’t stop, will you? Approx. 99.9% of the many multiples were forms that did not evolve into the current 0.1% but reached a dead end. The process is vividly illustrated by the fact that 696 dinosaur species had no descendants. Only four of them (= 0.57%) did and, allowing for a bit of latitude in the exact percentage, this confirms your own conclusion that the vast majority of creatures that ever lived were NOT our ancestors. We are descended – as you have agreed – from the 0.1% (or in this case 0.57%) that survived. Your only evidence to the contrary was your blundering belief that 696 dinosaur species were the ancestors of modern birds. Please stop it!

The universe

DAVID: Designs had a designer. You are stuck with that point.

Answered already:
dhw: Design of evolution can be explained by designers – billions of them (intelligent cells). If you ask who designed the designers, the atheist will ask you who designed your designer – as if it’s OK to assume a supreme designer came from nothing, whereas loads of mini-designers had to have a source. A “first cause” universal, conscious mind seems to me as unlikely as “first cause” chance producing evolvable mini-minds. We are going round in circles.

DAVID: Yes, you are.

It is you who keep repeating that designs had a designer, instead of responding to my comments.

Theoretical origin of life

dhw: My point is that intelligent design within the lab would only prove that life had to be designed by an intelligent designer! To think otherwise would be as mad as worshipping something that doesn't exist.[/i]

DAVID: I was attacking the area now bolded. WE can never make life in the lab. WE can only play with living biology.

dhw: I was pointing out that IF scientists designed life, it would be mad to claim this proved that life did not have to be designed. It was a point in favour of theism, balancing the earlier point against theism! I was not discussing whether we could or couldn’t design life!!!

DAVID: I guess I am too literal. Your theoretical point is right on.

It’s always nice to agree. It’s long been a problem for both of us that we haven’t had an atheist contributor since George Jellis left us. The result is that you often automatically assume I am defending atheism when I criticize your contradictory forms of theism.

Language Learning

DAVID: that infants sop up language easily is obvious. The theory that syntax is built in seems correct. I wonder why it is a lost process after about age eight.

I don’t agree that syntax is built in. Syntax prescribes certain rules, and if you lived here in Somerset, you would be amazed at the standard violations of syntax. Like every other aspect of language, it is learned. As regards the “lost” process, there’s no question that it does slow down, as the native language becomes more and more deeply ingrained. But a lot also depends on natural aptitudes. I lived in Germany for many years, and was often taken by Germans to be German! (Alas, that would no longer be the case, as non-usage and fading memory have lost a great deal of the vocabulary.)