More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, September 13, 2024, 21:13 (5 days ago) @ dhw

Black holes needed for life

DAVID: Design is obvious. A designer is very feasible.

dhw: Agreed. But although that feasibly solves the mystery of life’s origin, it creates a different mystery: how – if for example our consciousness requires design – can a supreme form of consciousness exist without having been designed?

DAVID: Eternal mind never designed.

dhw: Consciousness requires design, but a supreme consciousness does not require design. Please explain the logic.

Where is your logic of a necessary first cause?

Kamikaze termites

DAVID: You don't understand that ecosystems support all life?

dhw: All life is supported by ecosystems, but that does not mean that all ecosystems from the year dot, up to and including current ecosystems, have been designed exclusively to support humans and our food!

All throughout evolution ecosystems supported life.

Bipedalism and savannahs

QUOTE: "I am in two minds about this study. On the one hand, it does indicate that savannahs expanded while dense forests shrank – which would have pushed apes and hominins out onto the grasslands. On the other hand, the timings don’t really match. Remember, we don’t see decent evidence of bipedality until 6 million years ago: why so late, if the savannahs began expanding 9 million years earlier? Likewise, we don’t see hominins living in truly open grassland until as recently as 2 million years ago."

DAVID:: the savannah theory skips the point that things happen slowly over time. There is no sudden appearance of vast grasslands forcing an immediate upright posture.

dhw: We're talking about events that happened millions of years ago, and the article talks exclusively of forests and savannahs. Nobody knows how, when or where bipedalism actually began, but why must we think so generally? Bipedalism could have originated in one local area, where for whatever reason, a particular group of tree-dwellers could no longer survive in the trees. Do we have a detailed history of every inch of African forests and savannahs to know for sure what landscape existed there 9 or 6 or even 2 million years ago? New fossils are being discovered all the time, changing our views of who, when and where (see your post today about a new Neanderthal type). Your own theory was that your God operated on a particular group and then told them to leave the trees. Also a localized event. I propose that at some time in the distant past, local conditions forced tree-dwellers out of their trees. There is no reason why the descendants of those successful bipedal hominids should not have gone on to explore and live in other environments, including forests. They would have gone wherever they could make a living!

DAVID: All true.

Certainly, not an isolated event in one forest/greenland area. Many hominins gradually developed upright posture simultaneously.

dhw: Thank you for your support on this. I’ve left it in, because agreement between us is rare, and as this is a highly controversial topic, I think the point merits repetition!

Two Neanderthal types

QUOTE: […] "an adult male’s partial skeleton discovered in France contains genetic clues to a Neanderthal line that evolved apart from other European Neanderthals for around 50,000 years."

dhw: Sensational new fossils are being discovered almost monthly, throwing doubt on established theories. Who knows what revolutionary discoveries might be made in, say, the next thousand years?

DAVID: It won't close existing gaps.

dhw: How do you know?

Gaps are well established even if you wish they weren't. Remember Gould's quote.