More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, August 23, 2024, 18:05 (24 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

Thank you.

99.9% versus 0.1%

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.

dhw: 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!

Of course, it took 696 to find four to produce 10,000 bird species. Small numbers become huge numbers in evolution. 99.9% extinct are the ancestors of the 0.1% surviving. And the 0.1% are an enormous population compared to the past smaller numbers.

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.

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

Yes, to repeat: how did intelligent cells appear? From the designer, who for you can't exist?? Circles.

Theoretical origin of life

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

dhw: 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.

Accepted.

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.

dhw: 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.)

I had three years of German. Could read it easily, speak it slightly. All gone from non-use.