Innovation and Speciation (Evolution)
Matt has drawn our attention to an article on the subject of bees and consciousness, which David regards as "a lot of yuck".-MATT: Approached holistically, it makes much sense that a hive of bees' activity corresponds to that of a single organism. The general idea is that a complex pattern emerges from many simpler elements--to understand bees, you need to understand the whole, not just the individual workers. Ant colonies are also considered "Superorganisms." I'm actually kinda shocked you seem revolted at the idea...-I think we should forget about consciousness, because no human can get inside a bee's head and say whether or not a bee is aware of itself and aware of its awareness. Instead, let's talk about intelligence, and link the discussion to that of speciation. It would, I think, be absurd to argue that the intricate organization of bee and ant societies does not reveal a form of intelligence. In exactly the same way, whole areas of our body consist of cells that combine to form organs with their own specific functions. They act intelligently, and yet quite independently of our own consciousness. My suggestion earlier was that maybe this process might be applied to innovation ... i.e. that cells combine to create new organisms. Innovation is essential to speciation. -TONY (under Rapid evolution or epigenetics?): Except that we have no clear examples of a single celled organism, or group there of, communicating with each other and deciding to form together to become a multi-cellular organism... and on and on. Yes, this accounts for variety, no, it does not account for speciation.-DAVID: Nothing proves speciation is a result of chance, in fact, we have no idea how it occurs.-But we do have species, and we do have multicellular organisms, and we know that these organisms behave intelligently. There has to be a mechanism that leads to innovation, and if I may slightly adapt Lynn Margulis' statement that "consciousness is a property of all living cells" and substitute "intelligence", we have a scenario in which innovation is NOT the result of chance but of deliberate communication (see Tony's comment below). Just as a few genius termites decided to build a mound (innovation), a few genius cells may have decided to build an eye, a leg, a wing. TONY: If they are 'programmed' to remain bacteria, then evolution between species, and in particular from vastly less complicated to vastly more complicated would not occur. What I find even more intriguing is the method of their communication, which directly ties one of the four basic forces directly to life, i.e. Electromagnetism.-If you follow my suggestion (I dare not call it a theory), bacteria will remain bacteria, but the geniuses who have communicated to form a new combination will go their own way. And if the new combination proves to be efficient (natural selection), it will propagate and continue as it is, and then a new set of genius cells will come up with another new idea, thus branching out into a new species. Just as epigenetics enables a species to remain the same, innovative genetics (as opposed to random mutations) would enable it to change. This would account for the evolutionary bush. In other words, each innovation is the result of individual cells intelligently combining to form a new community, and each new community results in a new species. A theist can still argue that the mechanisms, the "intelligence", the ability to replicate, adapt (epigenetics), communicate, innovate, are far too complex to have assembled themselves by chance. (Whether a UI already had humans in mind is another question.) An atheist will, of course, still have faith in chance. The idea doesn't settle the God question, but since nobody knows how speciation occurs, it's surely worth considering.
Innovation and Speciation
by David Turell 
, Sunday, May 01, 2011, 15:32 (4954 days ago) @ dhw
Matt has drawn our attention to an article on the subject of bees and consciousness, which David regards as "a lot of yuck".-The article was twaddle. The author did not know the difference between conscious and consciousness. Matt seemed to present it as an intro into the idea of hive or species intelligence. That is not consciousness. The idea that information runs organisms has come to the fore in scientific philosophy and is covered in a recent book edited by Paul Davies:-http://www.amazon.com/Information-Nature-Reality-Physics-Metaphysics/dp/0521762251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304259784&sr=1-1-spell-Now this is important material and moves well beyond original neo-Darwinism. The radio signals from bacteria may be an indication of how some of group intelligence works. It may be a hint into parapsychology, telepathy, etc. Information is the key to making organic chemistry become life. Not by chance.
Innovation and Speciation
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, May 02, 2011, 14:45 (4953 days ago) @ David Turell
I do think this is a fascinating train of thought that bears further investigation. But, and I just know someone is going to try and spank me for this, I do not think this accounts for speciation as we have seen no evidence of the intermediaries or the emergence of new species. Innovation on an existing blueprint, yes, but not invention.
Innovation and Speciation
Matt drew our attention to an article concerning the possible consciousness of bees. I would prefer to leave open the question of consciousness, and instead concentrate on intelligence, which need not imply the various levels of self-awareness that we associate with consciousness. In particular I'm interested in the idea that the innovations which lead to speciation are caused by the deliberate, inventive combining of intelligent cells. I would like to draw a parallel here between communities of cells and communities of insects like bees and ants, which must at one stage have "invented" their complex architecture and social structures. -DAVID: The radio signals from bacteria may be an indication of how some sort of group intelligence works. It may be a hint into parapsychology, telepathy, etc.-And it may explain how smaller bodies combine to create more complex bodies in an inventive process leading to innovation and speciation ... two mysteries that nobody has yet succeeded in explaining, other than by unlikely sequences of countless random mutations. -DAVID: Information is the key to making organic chemistry come to life. -"Information" seems to be the "in" word at the moment. But all things contain information ... including sticks, stones and stars. The key to organic life cannot be "information" alone, but exchanges, combinations and interactions ... information passed on, processed, and above all utilized. This is what I mean by a form of intelligence: the ability to utilize information ... an ability which we presume, perhaps wrongly, is not to be found within a stone, say, as opposed to a bacterium. -Organic chemistry coming to life is not enough either. We have to account for evolution, because we should not take it for granted that life forms will automatically evolve, let alone that single-celled creatures will eventually evolve into human beings. -David says "the idea that information runs organisms has come to the fore in scientific philosophy", and Tony ... quite rightly in my view ... argues that this does not account for speciation. It accounts for adaptation and the preservation of species. My suggestion simply takes the process one step further: that cells can not only adapt intelligently to preserve the status quo, but can also ... exceptionally ... use information in order to invent. Instead of random mutations, then, we have deliberate mutations by inventive cells. I can only ask yet again (sorry if I'm being a bore) why this is any more fantastic than chance working its magic, or a Universal Intelligence pre-programming every stage until the process reaches humanity.-Let me also repeat, however, with great emphasis, that the idea of intelligent, inventive cells would NOT provide us with an argument either for or against chance or God. I myself would still be unable to believe that chance could create such a mechanism (just as I remain unable to believe that there could be such a thing as an eternal, self-generated God). That is a separate question.
Innovation and Speciation
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, May 03, 2011, 19:52 (4951 days ago) @ dhw
DHW,-The only flaw I see in this whole grand picture, and the part that makes me doubt, is that no where in the animal kingdom(that I am aware of) have we seen an example of invention. Adaptation to a stimulus, sure, we see it all the time. Innovation, as in refining a pre-existing mechanism to be more efficient, is also in evidence. However, invention, the act of spontaneously generating something new from abstract ideas, is not something that we have ever witnessed.-Contact, even communication between similar species does not account for invention either, as almost every known species communicates in one shape, form, or fashion. (Which, by the way, seems to be as something that should now officially go on the list as something that defines a living being - communication.) Using the article referencing bees, while I will gladly concede a hive intelligence, I have never seen a bee hive that show any meaningful changes to its design that would show signs of creativity.- All of this is to simply to define the limitations of intelligence as opposed to self-aware consciousness- Tony
Innovation and Speciation
TONY: The only flaw I see in this whole grand picture, and the part that makes me doubt, is that no where in the animal kingdom(that I am aware of) have we seen an example of invention. Adaptation to a stimulus, sure, we see it all the time. Innovation, as in refining a pre-existing mechanism to be more efficient, is also in evidence. However, invention, the act of spontaneously generating something new from abstract ideas, is not something that we have ever witnessed.-Thank you for this thoughtful response. I am, of course, groping in the dark, but so are we all. We know that invention has taken place ... that new organs and new species have come into being, but none of us have witnessed the process in action. We do not know how eyes, legs, wings came into existence, or how single-celled creatures managed to develop into dinosaurs, whales, eagles, humans...The Darwinian theory is random mutations, but have we ever witnessed new organs, new species being created by these, or by God's pre-preprogrammed mutations? Your perfectly justified objection applies to all the theories. TONY: Contact, even communication between similar species does not account for invention either, as almost every known species communicates in one shape, form, or fashion. (Which, by the way, seems to be as something that should now officially go on the list as something that defines a living being - communication.) Using the article referencing bees, while I will gladly concede a hive intelligence, I have never seen a bee hive that show any meaningful changes to its design that would show signs of creativity.-I used this only as an analogy. At some point, bees gathered into a community and invented a new architecture and a new social system. THAT was the act of creativity. The analogy is with cells at some point gathering into a community and inventing a new organ, a new species. Once established, the species remains as it is, adapting to change or being destroyed by it. However, in due course, a set of cells comes up with another invention, and this in turn leads to another species. If evolution happened, it can only have happened in this way, through innovation. All I'm suggesting is an alternative theory to that of random or God-given mutations: namely, mutations created by the intelligence of the cells themselves. The process is the same ... only the driving force is different (chance, God, innate intelligence). TONY: All of this is to simply define the limitations of intelligence as opposed to self-aware consciousness.-I have tried to make that distinction, but only because self-awareness is an added complication that will divert us from the main thrust of my suggestion. Single cells communicate and show signs of intelligent behaviour. That is enough to give us a mechanism for innovation as well as adaptation. (But of course it tells us nothing about the origin of the mechanism, which is a different question.)
Innovation and Speciation
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, May 04, 2011, 13:21 (4951 days ago) @ dhw
> I used this only as an analogy. At some point, bees gathered into a community and invented a new architecture and a new social system. THAT was the act of creativity. The analogy is with cells at some point gathering into a community and inventing a new organ, a new species. Once established, the species remains as it is, adapting to change or being destroyed by it. However, in due course, a set of cells comes up with another invention, and this in turn leads to another species. If evolution happened, it can only have happened in this way, through innovation. All I'm suggesting is an alternative theory to that of random or God-given mutations: namely, mutations created by the intelligence of the cells themselves. The process is the same ... only the driving force is different (chance, God, innate intelligence). > --It is the use of invented here that I have a problem with. As I stated previously there is a difference between adaptation, innovation and invention, it is small, but critical. I see the hive structure of bees as more likely an adaptation to a very simple problem. You have several hundred males born for every female. If that were to happen in the human population, the result would be much the same as it is for bees. Each female would have a harem of men and would be treated like a queen for the price of staying pregnant pretty much her entire life in order to keep the species alive. -In some species of bees the problem is artificially generated, as female bees will kill eggs they know to contain more females, or kill them as they are born. This is possibly an innovation that was done because of the success the bees mentioned above. Thrive by imitation of a successful system. This is common throughout nature.--> TONY: All of this is to simply define the limitations of intelligence as opposed to self-aware consciousness. > > I have tried to make that distinction, but only because self-awareness is an added complication that will divert us from the main thrust of my suggestion. Single cells communicate and show signs of intelligent behavior. That is enough to give us a mechanism for innovation as well as adaptation. (But of course it tells us nothing about the origin of the mechanism, which is a different question.)-I wasn't trying to hint in my post at the origins of the mechanism. I was simply trying to establish the framework for my point of view. Part of that framework is the cutoff between intelligence and self-awareness as it also implies the divide between innovation and invention(abstract creativity).
Innovation and Speciation
I had suggested an analogy between bees' intelligent invention of new architecture, plus a new social structure, and the possible intelligent combining of cells to create new organs and species.-TONY: It is the use of invented here that I have a problem with. As I stated previously there is a difference between adaptation, innovation and invention, it is small, but critical. I see the hive structure of bees as more likely an adaptation to a very simple problem.-You go on to explain why. I'm quite happy to withdraw the whole analogy if it clouds the issue, since the inventiveness or adaptability of bees is not my focus. The problem I'm trying to solve is that of innovation and speciation ... which I see as inseparable. I think there's a major difference in the evolutionary context between innovation/invention and adaptation (which preserves existing species), but even if the advance of epigenetics proved that adaptation could produce innovation, it would still make no difference to the argument. Adaptation itself could be the product of intelligent communication between cells, and I'm merely taking this one step further. I'm also happy to accept your distinction between innovation and invention, if you feel that invention entails abstract creativity (perhaps implying a human-type consciousness, which I'm anxious to avoid in this context). Again it doesn't affect the argument. For some unknown reason, new organs and species have come into existence, and no current theory has been borne out by evidence. My scenario, let me repeat, is that cells themselves have a form of communicative intelligence which every so often comes up with new combinations. If successful, these survive, and in due course up comes another new combination, and so the bush gradually grows, eventually flowering into little ole you and me...I find this more convincing than the Darwinian theory of chance mutations, and for an atheist it would reduce dependence on chance (only the origin of the intelligent mechanism would be a problem, but not the origin of organs and species). For a theist it would provide an alternative to the pre-programming theory, more in line with the let's-see-what-happens image of an experimental God (he leaves the cells to work things out, instead of directing them). It fits in well with the bush ... which in my opinion conforms less well to pre-planning ... it fits in whether the mechanism itself arose by chance or by design, and it fits in with discoveries relating to communications. So what does it NOT fit in with?
Innovation and Speciation
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, May 05, 2011, 13:39 (4950 days ago) @ dhw
Where it does not fit is in explaining adaptation that is not a direct response to an external stimulus. (Hence the reason for the critical identification of the difference between adaptation and invention)
Innovation and Speciation
As an alternative to blind chance and divine pre-programming, I have suggested that cells may have a form of intelligence which creates the innovations that cause speciation.-TONY: Where it does not fit is in explaining adaptation that is not a direct response to an external stimulus. (Hence the reason for the critical identification of the difference between adaptation and invention)-By definition, adaptation entails changing to fit in with new situations/conditions/ environments ... in other words it IS a direct response to external stimuli. If there are none, we have invention. I'm suggesting that BOTH processes may be the result of intelligent cells making changes. As things stand, we don't actually know whether innovation comes about independently of environmental changes. The Cambrian Explosion suggests a connection (an increase in oxygen?) but it makes no difference either way. If some cells can communicate and combine in order to adapt (while others can't, and the species becomes extinct), some may also do so in order to innovate. After all, the community of cells that we call the human brain also varies in intelligence and inventiveness. If people can put their faith in blind chance (i.e. random mutations) to create something new, or in the intelligence of an unknown, unknowable and inexplicable divine power, why not in the intelligence of the cells themselves?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 20, 2014, 01:27 (3839 days ago) @ dhw
More evidence of living processes antidating need by a billion years:-http://phys.org/news/2014-05-human-heart-billion-year-old-molecular-mechanism.html
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
DAVID: More evidence of living processes antidating need by a billion years: http://phys.org/news/2014-05-human-heart-billion-year-old-molecular-mechanism.html-QUOTE: "Basically," he says, "when we compare a human and a sea anemone, we're looking at somewhere between 700 million and a billion years' evolutionary separation. Anything that's not fundamentally critical to life as a mobile, multicellular animal is different. And the things we have in common were there in the nervous system of the animal we both evolved from; they were there in the ancestor of virtually all modern animal life other than sponges and comb jellies. Only the fundamental mechanisms are conserved. And this gives us a window into what things we have in common that are extremely important. It tells us a lot about the history of how animals evolved."-Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-05-human-heart-billion-year-old-molecular-mechanism.html#jCp-... stuff, but pre-planning is surely going a bit far, as is your "antedating need". The starlet sea anemone, which is still in existence, needs these fundamental mechanisms just as much as we do. May I suggest an alternative to the idea that your god planned the unnecessary sea anemone just so that later on the mechanisms could be used for us all-important humans between 700 million and a billion years later? Could it be that the starlet sea anemone's nervous system is just one of many innovations used and adapted by subsequent organisms to survive or exploit changing environmental conditions? And that all organs go back in the same way to earlier organs, just as all organisms go back to earlier organisms, whether they survived or not in the history of the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush? Or do you insist that every innovation leading to speciation (including those that have not survived) was part of your god's plan to produce humans?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 05:52 (3838 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Fascinating stuff, but pre-planning is surely going a bit far, as is your "antedating need". The starlet sea anemone, which is still in existence, needs these fundamental mechanisms just as much as we do. May I suggest an alternative to the idea that your god planned the unnecessary sea anemone just so that later on the mechanisms could be used for us all-important humans between 700 million and a billion years later? Could it be that the starlet sea anemone's nervous system is just one of many innovations used and adapted by subsequent organisms to survive or exploit changing environmental conditions? And that all organs go back in the same way to earlier organs, just as all organisms go back to earlier organisms, whether they survived or not in the history of the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush? Or do you insist that every innovation leading to speciation (including those that have not survived) was part of your god's plan to produce humans?-Either way you interpret it, evolution, as we discover it, created many processes in advance of the need for them. If God used evolution and perhaps guided it, then pre-planning is not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is to conclude that a chance process could do what was done and created. The complexity of a single cell, I believe, could not be the result of chance.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
DAVID: More evidence of living processes antidating need by a billion years: http://phys.org/news/2014-05-human-heart-billion-year-old-molecular-mechanism.html-dhw: Fascinating stuff, but pre-planning is surely going a bit far, as is your "antedating need". The starlet sea anemone, which is still in existence, needs these fundamental mechanisms just as much as we do. May I suggest an alternative to the idea that your god planned the unnecessary sea anemone just so that later on the mechanisms could be used for us all-important humans between 700 million and a billion years later? Could it be that the starlet sea anemone's nervous system is just one of many innovations used and adapted by subsequent organisms to survive or exploit changing environmental conditions? And that all organs go back in the same way to earlier organs, just as all organisms go back to earlier organisms, whether they survived or not in the history of the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush? Or do you insist that every innovation leading to speciation (including those that have not survived) was part of your god's plan to produce humans?-DAVID: Either way you interpret it, evolution, as we discover it, created many processes in advance of the need for them. If God used evolution and perhaps guided it, then pre-planning is not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is to conclude that a chance process could do what was done and created. The complexity of a single cell, I believe, could not be the result of chance.-Aw shucks, David, the issue here is not chance but the idea that the sea anemone's nervous system was "in advance of the need" and was part of God's "pre-planning". Pre-planning for what? Needed by what? The only answer I can think of is that you're suggesting God said: "I'm gonna give this unnecessary sea anemone an unnecessary nervous system so that in a billion years' time a necessary humanemone can have a necessary nervous system." By the same token, you may as well argue that he gave other organisms such innovations as hearts, legs, livers, brains, blood, kidneys, eyes, noses, ears, penises, etc. "in advance of the need for them". Don't you think this anthropocentric view of evolution is going just a bit too far?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Thursday, May 22, 2014, 21:43 (3836 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Or do you insist that every innovation leading to speciation (including those that have not survived) was part of your god's plan to produce humans?[/i] > > DAVID: What is unreasonable is to conclude that a chance process could do what was done and created. The complexity of a single cell, I believe, could not be the result of chance.[/i] > > dhw: Aw shucks, David, the issue here is not chance but the idea that the sea anemone's nervous system was "in advance of the need" and was part of God's "pre-planning". ......Don't you think this anthropocentric view of evolution is going just a bit too far?-It depends on your point of view. Somehow or other we got from the first single-celled life to complex 'us'. Of course everything needed had to be developed in something living, that is how evolution creates complexity. I simply ask, did complexity develop through chance. Were we predestined? Or are we here by chance? I know how much you doubt chance.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
dhw: Aw shucks, David, the issue here is not chance but the idea that the sea anemone's nervous system was "in advance of the need" and was part of God's "pre-planning". ......Don't you think this anthropocentric view of evolution is going just a bit too far?-DAVID: It depends on your point of view. Somehow or other we got from the first single-celled life to complex 'us'. Of course everything needed had to be developed in something living, that is how evolution creates complexity. I simply ask, did complexity develop through chance. Were we predestined? Or are we here by chance? I know how much you doubt chance.-You asked that simple question when I challenged the heading of this thread ("pre-planning") and the claim that the sea anemone's nervous system "antedated" any need for it. These two terms have nothing to do with chance, and everything to do with your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution. I do indeed doubt chance, which is why I have been championing the idea that there is an intelligent and inventive mechanism (origin unknown) within the cell/cell communities. That is a long, long, long way from claiming that the sea anemone's nervous system, not to mention every other human-type innovation in every other pre-human species., was not needed (by what? ... a question you have not answered), and is evidence of God's pre-planning for humans.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Friday, May 23, 2014, 18:49 (3835 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You asked that simple question when I challenged the heading of this thread ("pre-planning") and the claim that the sea anemone's nervous system "antedated" any need for it. These two terms have nothing to do with chance, and everything to do with your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution. I do indeed doubt chance, which is why I have been championing the idea that there is an intelligent and inventive mechanism (origin unknown) within the cell/cell communities. That is a long, long, long way from claiming that the sea anemone's nervous system, not to mention every other human-type innovation in every other pre-human species., was not needed (by what? ... a question you have not answered), and is evidence of God's pre-planning for humans.-My thought is simple. Evolution builds from one cell to our trillion of cells and processes. Evolution simply builds from simple to complex, an obvious arrangement, but complexity was not required to appear. Bacteria have been successful ever since they arrived. The flip side of my conjecture about pre-planning is that it is an obvious answer to why complexity progressed at all if not needed.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
David drew our attention to the sea anemone's nervous system, which he claims "antedates need by a billion years", and is evidence of God's pre-planning.-Under "Convergence" we had the following discussion
hw: Well, let me know when they prove that your God planned the adipose fin as a mere stepping stone to human arms and legs...-DAVID: Life is like a shotgun, spraying inventions in every direction. That is why the bush and not a tree.-Dhw: [...] You could hardly have made it clearer that evolution is a higgledy-piggledy process of random developments, innovations, extinctions, with no underlying plan and no fixed purpose.-And now, after the adipose fin, you are trying to use the sea anemone's nervous system as proof of God's pre-planning (see also under "Convergence"). DAVID: My thought is simple. Evolution builds from one cell to our trillion of cells and processes. Evolution simply builds from simple to complex, an obvious arrangement, but complexity was not required to appear. Bacteria have been successful ever since they arrived. The flip side of my conjecture about pre-planning is that it is an obvious answer to why complexity progressed at all if not needed.-We have long since agreed that the success of bacteria shows that complexity was not required. That does not mean that every innovation was geared to the production of humans! Once the intelligent, inventive mechanism (of unknown origin) was in place, wouldn't you say "spraying inventions in every direction" sounds less like pre-planning than an almighty free-for-all? A not unusual view of evolutionary history.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Saturday, May 24, 2014, 20:30 (3834 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: We have long since agreed that the success of bacteria shows that complexity was not required.-So why did complexity happen? With or without purpose. Teleology is the issue.-> dhw: That does not mean that every innovation was geared to the production of humans! -But perhaps it does. Either interpretation is valid.-> dhw:Once the intelligent, inventive mechanism (of unknown origin) was in place, wouldn't you say "spraying inventions in every direction" sounds less like pre-planning than an almighty free-for-all?-Again why was life given this amazing ability to invent all sorts of strange and exotic life forms? My answer is it allowed for the development of all the necessary complex parts of humans.-> dhw: A not unusual view of evolutionary history.-A usual materialistic view lacking the consideratioon of the possibility or perhaps, the probability of teleology.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
dhw: Once the intelligent, inventive mechanism (of unknown origin) was in place,. Wouldn't you say "spraying inventions in every direction" sounds less like pre-planning than an almighty free-for-all?-DAVID: Again why was life given this amazing ability to invent all sorts of strange and exotic life forms? My answer is it allowed for the development of all the necessary complex parts of humans.-"Allowed for" is clear, since we are here, but I'm not sure about the rest of your terminology. Life doesn't invent anything (and "was given" automatically suggests a giver). On the assumption that all living forms descend from earlier living forms ... which you and I both believe ... it is living organisms that have this amazing ability to invent, whether a god gave it to them or not. But what I'm challenging is the claim that the adipose fin and the sea anemone's nervous system antedated their need, and that all these "strange and exotic life forms" (vast numbers of which have gone extinct) were part of a specific plan leading to humans. Under "Convergence" you write: "The way evolution has proceeded is by invention, trial and error". Yes indeed. Success leads to survival, and error leads to extinction. The sea anemone has survived, so why was its nervous system not "needed"? (Apart from the fact that NOTHING beyond bacteria was "needed", including humans.) You write: "But still the amazing fact is we arrived, against all need for something so complex to survive in the Earth's climate and challenges." The sea anemone also arrived and survived "against all need", and so did the shark, the camel, the elephant, the grasshopper, the ant etc. etc. You write: "Still smells of purpose to me." So are the sea anemone, shark, camel, elephant etc. NOT part of God's purpose? Then why did he "allow for" them? You always tell us not to attribute thoughts to your God, so may I ask why it is so important for you to impose your view of his purpose on what you have agreed is the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Sunday, May 25, 2014, 18:32 (3833 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: You write: "Still smells of purpose to me." So are the sea anemone, shark, camel, elephant etc. NOT part of God's purpose? Then why did he "allow for" them? You always tell us not to attribute thoughts to your God, so may I ask why it is so important for you to impose your view of his purpose on what you have agreed is the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution?-If all those organs appeared against no obvious need, why did they appear? Purpose is the only answer to me. You assume complexity is all by chance.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
dhw: You write: "Still smells of purpose to me." So are the sea anemone, shark, camel, elephant etc. NOT part of God's purpose? Then why did he "allow for" them? You always tell us not to attribute thoughts to your God, so may I ask why it is so important for you to impose your view of his purpose on what you have agreed is the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution?-DAVID: If all those organs appeared against no obvious need, why did they appear? Purpose is the only answer to me. You assume complexity is all by chance.-No, not by chance. I'm suggesting that once the mechanism (origin unknown) for adaptation and innovation was in place, organisms adapted and innovated in accordance with the needs and opportunities presented by an ever changing environment. The mechanism (possibly invented by your God) works by its own intelligent design, not by chance. Nothing was "needed" beyond the first forms of life, and so every innovation goes back to the inventiveness of the cell or cell communities. I do not see how you can claim that the adipose fin, or the sea anemone's nervous system, or the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings of evolution denote pre-planning for the single purpose of producing humans. Why should not "spraying inventions in every direction" denote that all these life forms arose without any overriding purpose, simply for their own sake, with the sea anemone going its own way to serve its own ends, just as every other form of life has gone its own way, including ourselves, our contemporary species, and their and our predecessors? Once again, may I ask why it is so important to you to read this anthropocentric purpose into your God's mind, whereas otherwise you always warn us NOT to impose our ideas on him?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Monday, May 26, 2014, 20:26 (3832 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Why should not "spraying inventions in every direction" denote that all these life forms arose without any overriding purpose, simply for their own sake, with the sea anemone going its own way to serve its own ends, just as every other form of life has gone its own way, including ourselves, our contemporary species, and their and our predecessors? Once again, may I ask why it is so important to you to read this anthropocentric purpose into your God's mind, whereas otherwise you always warn us NOT to impose our ideas on him?-I think because of the surprising result. Scientient beings in a universe that otherwise has no one else wondering why? We are extremely unique, with no demonstrable need to force us to be produced. Just a fluke of luck I guess. Just a flip of the coin. It still reeks of purpose to me.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
dhw: Why should not "spraying inventions in every direction" denote that all these life forms arose without any overriding purpose, simply for their own sake, with the sea anemone going its own way to serve its own ends, just as every other form of life has gone its own way, including ourselves, our contemporary species, and their and our predecessors? Once again, may I ask why it is so important to you to read this anthropocentric purpose into your God's mind, whereas otherwise you always warn us NOT to impose our ideas on him?-DAVID: I think because of the surprising result. Scientient beings in a universe that otherwise has no one else wondering why? We are extremely unique, with no demonstrable need to force us to be produced. Just a fluke of luck I guess. Just a flip of the coin. It still reeks of purpose to me.-There was no demonstrable need to force the production of any organisms beyond bacteria, so that argument goes out of the window. But in my opinion our unique degree of consciousness is an argument well worth pursuing. With my atheist's hat on, I'd have no difficulty believing in the progression through different levels of consciousness once the initial mechanism for adaptation and innovation had started operating. With my theist's hat on, same again, except that God made the mechanism. I can then offer three theistic scenarios: 1) he sat back and let evolution follow its own course; 2) he didn't know how to achieve the "purpose" you've assigned to him and had to keep experimenting; 3) he had a great idea a few hundred thousand years ago and popped in to make some adjustments. All three of these (plus the atheistic version) seem to me to fit in far more snugly with the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolutionary comings and goings than the sea anemone's nervous system "antedating the need" and being "pre-planned" to finish up inside you and me a billion years later. But maybe you are not looking for a snug fit.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 21:46 (3831 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: There was no demonstrable need to force the production of any organisms beyond bacteria, so that argument goes out of the window.-No it doesn't. Complexity could have stopped at any point along the way, but it didn't-> dhw: But in my opinion our unique degree of consciousness is an argument well worth pursuing. With my atheist's hat on, I'd have no difficulty believing in the progression through different levels of consciousness once the initial mechanism for adaptation and innovation had started operating. With my theist's hat on, same again, except that God made the mechanism. ..... But maybe you are not looking for a snug fit.-The atheist way is by chance, and I cannot guess at the theist way. I don't think there is a snug fit. And the development of a nerve cell was a giant leap. A nerve cell is like no other cell. So you don't see purpose and I do.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
Dhw: I can [...] offer three theistic scenarios: 1) [God] sat back and let evolution follow its own course; 2) he didn't know how to achieve the "purpose" you've assigned to him and had to keep experimenting; 3) he had a great idea a few hundred thousand years ago and popped in to make some adjustments. All three of these (plus the atheistic version) seem to me to fit in far more snugly with the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolutionary comings and goings than the sea anemone's nervous system "antedating the need" and being "pre-planned" to finish up inside you and me a billion years later. But maybe you are not looking for a snug fit. DAVID: I don't think there is a snug fit. And the development of a nerve cell was a giant leap. A nerve cell is like no other cell. So you don't see purpose and I do.-There are vast numbers of giant leaps between bacteria and us. Are you saying that each one was pre-planned for the sake of producing humans? I've allowed for purpose in 2) and 3), which seem to me to fit in better with the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolutionary comings and goings than "antedating the need" and "pre-planning". May I ask why you think the latter is a more likely alternative?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 17:38 (3830 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:There are vast numbers of giant leaps between bacteria and us. Are you saying that each one was pre-planned for the sake of producing humans? I've allowed for purpose in 2) and 3), which seem to me to fit in better with the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolutionary comings and goings than "antedating the need" and "pre-planning". May I ask why you think the latter is a more likely alternative?-I was not clear. I don't see how there can be a chosen method. You want exactitude and I don't have it. I simply see purpose in humans appearing, and evolution was obviously used. That is as far as I can go, except that chance is not an answer, so there had to be directionality by some method within the evolutionary process. This questioning shows the background of your agnosticism. You want exactness and such proofs don't exist. I am distilling odds in my head, not Matt's approved method.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
dhw: There are vast numbers of giant leaps between bacteria and us. Are you saying that each one was pre-planned for the sake of producing humans? I've allowed for purpose in 2) and 3), which seem to me to fit in better with the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolutionary comings and goings than "antedating the need" and "pre-planning". May I ask why you think the latter is a more likely alternative?-DAVID: I was not clear. I don't see how there can be a chosen method. You want exactitude and I don't have it. I simply see purpose in humans appearing, and evolution was obviously used. That is as far as I can go, except that chance is not an answer, so there had to be directionality by some method within the evolutionary process. This questioning shows the background of your agnosticism. You want exactness and such proofs don't exist. I am distilling odds in my head, not Matt's approved method.-This is an interesting angle, because I see our discussion the opposite way! I objected to two of your statements because they were too precise for me: namely, that the sea anemone's nervous system "antedated need" and was "pre-planned". In other words, your God already intended to produce humans, and the sea anemone's nervous system was merely a stepping-stone towards us, a billion years later. The ramifications of your own directionality theory include God's pre-planning of every innovation leading to humans, and it provides no explanation for the vast scale and range of organisms that have come and gone. I've offered different scenarios, which include two that allow for your God, his "purpose", and the higgledy-piggledy bush. I don't expect proof (which I know does not exist), but am simply asking why you prefer your very exact "antedating" and "pre-planning" interpretation of evolution to other equally "purposeful" but less restricted alternatives.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Thursday, May 29, 2014, 18:54 (3829 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:I don't expect proof (which I know does not exist), but am simply asking why you prefer your very exact "antedating" and "pre-planning" interpretation of evolution to other equally "purposeful" but less restricted alternatives.-But I don't see the entire bush as purposeful, but large parts are. If we arrived against all odds, then there had to be directionalty, as I have always stated. And lots of the bush provide the balance we see in nature as things eat things. We introduce the wrong animal or plant and look what happens.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
I'm combining this thread with the one on ants, as the arguments concerning pre-planning and the intelligent cell are now overlapping.-dhw: I don't expect proof (which I know does not exist), but am simply asking why you prefer your very exact "antedating" and "pre-planning" interpretation of evolution to other equally "purposeful" but less restricted alternatives. DAVID: But I don't see the entire bush as purposeful, but large parts are. If we arrived against all odds, then there had to be directionalty, as I have always stated. And lots of the bush provide the balance we see in nature as things eat things. We introduce the wrong animal or plant and look what happens.-So the sea anemone's nervous system was pre-planned to be passed through billions of organisms to give us humans a nervous system. How about, say, bloodsucking, malaria-carrying mosquitoes? No use to us and didn't provide any new organs for us to inherit. An accident? Separate creation? Or the product of an inventive mechanism functioning independently of God's pre-planning? The teleological alternatives to your "pre-planning", "antedating the need" scenario were God experimenting to find the formula for humans (oops, a mosquito!), or letting intelligent cell communities do their own thing (ugh, a mosquito!) until a few hundred thousand years ago he thought of creating the most weird and wonderful creature of all, which is you. Oh, all right then, me! No problem explaining the mosquito with either of these theistic scenarios. So once more, why do you prefer preplanning and antedating the need (sea anemone's nervous system), which leaves us with The Unsolved Mystery of the Mosquito? Dhw (under "Ant colony"): If innovations don't work, they won't survive. "Punctuated equilibrium" suggests sudden bursts of activity, and clearly the Cambrian Explosion was one ... but "sudden" is a relative term. The period lasted for about 50 million years, which allows for quite a few generations! Either the cell communities cooperated to invent these new organs within the given time frame, or you are going to have reject evolution and revert to special creation, or to your God pre-programming every single innovation in the first few forms of life, to be passed down through billions of generations of billions of species.-DAVID: But you are ignoring the abrupt appearance of whole animals with whole previously absent organ systems. Yes these appearances covered 50 million years, but with no antecedents for any of them!-So were they specially created, or pre-programmed in the first few forms of life, or did the intelligent mechanism which your God may have created respond to unprecedented changes in the environment, over a 50 million year period, with an unprecedented burst of inventiveness?-Dhw: Once the organ has been invented, the cells will certainly follow the established patterns, just as ants do, but I have specified the cell communities that innovate. This takes us back to my comment above. Are you arguing for special creation, or for the very first forms of life being preprogrammed with billions of innovations to be passed down etc.? DAVID: Your specification is not God's. I have no idea how God did it. I just know the simple fact that evolution produced us with no obvious natural reason for that invention.-But you HAVE specified how your God did it: according to you he pre-planned all the organs necessary for humans. It's your very specific interpretation of evolution, focusing on the human "line" and "no-idea"-ing the rest, that I'm questioning and to which I'm offering alternatives.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by GateKeeper , Friday, May 30, 2014, 20:28 (3828 days ago) @ dhw
God did it through evolution?-But why would god even gave to "do it"? Did you create your teeth?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by GateKeeper , Friday, May 30, 2014, 22:51 (3828 days ago) @ GateKeeper
"gave" is "have". anything touching the right key counts.-sorry.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Friday, May 30, 2014, 23:42 (3828 days ago) @ GateKeeper
GK: God did it through evolution? > > But why would god even (gave?) to "do it"? Did you create your teeth?-Even with the typo, it seems you favor pre-planning?
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by GateKeeper , Saturday, May 31, 2014, 01:33 (3828 days ago) @ David Turell
yep, I would say you and I are very close to the same belief. Closest I have seen really. We are applying the scientific method. I went to disprove "god". The more I learned the harder it became to do so.-religion? That's small potatoes.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
GATEKEEPER: God did it through evolution? But why would god even have to do it? Did you create your teeth?-I'm not quite sure what you're responding to here. It's always helpful if you reproduce the point you're commenting on.-I need to clarify my own position to you. I am an agnostic, but in this particular discussion I'm challenging David's (to me) very rigid interpretation of the evolutionary process as having been preplanned with humans in mind. Even if I believed in his God (I must stress that I neither believe nor disbelieve), I would still find this inconsistent with the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. I have proposed that evolution is brought about by an inventive mechanism within the cell communities of existing organisms, responding to the needs or opportunities created by changing environments. This mechanism might have been designed by a god (theistic view), or it might have come about by chance (atheistic view), but there is a third, panpsychist option which I will return to eventually. So my answer to your second question is: no ... there may not be a god, but even if there is a god, evolution may have had its own impetus without an end purpose. As for my teeth, I did not create them, but I am deeply grateful to my dentist for helping me to preserve them! Perhaps you would explain the reason for your question.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by GateKeeper , Saturday, May 31, 2014, 14:06 (3828 days ago) @ dhw
My bad guy. I have to say I think you guys are "professionals". me ... not so much.-Although, My must admit, that nobody, and I mean nobody on this planet can answer yes or no for you. I tell many "students. if your sage tells you I am wrong. You bring that sage to me. Sorry for the arrogance. But I draw the line when we are supposed to be 'teaching" others. And I know what I DON"T know.-At best we can answer with the information we have. Many, and I mean many, overstate or flat out mislead people. That my friend is a peeve of mine. If we use science, we have rules. If we don't not play by these rules then I may just take issue. I am more with rom on this 'god" thing. The only difference is I am not afraid to predict what T2 may be ... if we setup V/T=V/T.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Saturday, May 31, 2014, 15:40 (3828 days ago) @ GateKeeper
> GK: At best we can answer with the information we have. Many, and I mean many, overstate or flat out mislead people. That my friend is a peeve of mine. If we use science, we have rules. If we don't not play by these rules then I may just take issue. I am more with rom on this 'god" thing. -We are not 'professionals', and use of the Bible is avoided, since it is man's view of what God might have done or is doing. God is remote and unknowable as is discussed in Stefan Einhorn's book, A Concealed God, 2002. The atheists make fun of the Bible, (Dawkins especially) so it is best to use the findings presented by science and discuss the possible implications.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by GateKeeper , Saturday, May 31, 2014, 16:30 (3828 days ago) @ David Turell
we differ there. -"god" may be knowable. That is not saying "WE WILL KNOW". I guess I have less faith in "never will know". And, this difference isn't that big to me. You and I basically agree on god. I think that is cool because you are the closest I ever met.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Friday, May 30, 2014, 23:34 (3828 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: So once more, why do you prefer preplanning and antedating the need (sea anemone's nervous system), which leaves us with The Unsolved Mystery of the Mosquito?-I admit that evoluton is a bush with many side inventions and I have suggested that nature requires a balance of the eaters and the eaten since life requires constent ingestion of energy. I focus on one issue. Why are humans here at the pinnacle of evolution? You keep focusing on how. As it is obvious, I don't really understand how, except I see purpose in exaptations, in developments that demands of nature didn't call for, and other developments which appear to prepare for humans. Why did only humans grow the huge brains, develolp bipedalism, marvelously dexterous hands. Nothing in nature demanded it. Yet it happened. If you can't see purpose why do I? Because it seems obvious to me. > > dhw;So were they specially created, or pre-programmed in the first few forms of life, or did the intelligent mechanism which your God may have created respond to unprecedented changes in the environment, over a 50 million year period, with an unprecedented burst of inventiveness?-You are again skipping over the obvious abrupt appearance of these fully developed animals with a full complement of organ systems. From no where, from no precursors. Looks like preprogrqamming to me. It is definitely not Darwin theory. > > dhw: But you HAVE specified how your God did it: according to you he pre-planned all the organs necessary for humans. It's your very specific interpretation of evolution, focusing on the human "line" and "no-idea"-ing the rest, that I'm questioning and to which I'm offering alternatives.-Your alternatives all question the purposeful appearance of humans. All I am doing is pointing out that humans are not necessary, but they are here, and I wonder why, and answer my wonder with a solution that makes sense to me.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
DAVID: I focus on one issue. Why are humans here at the pinnacle of evolution? You keep focusing on how.-When you entitle your thread: "Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning" you are focusing on how, not why, and that is why I object. I find it difficult to imagine your God preprogramming all human-related innovations into the first forms of life, to be passed down through billions of generations of billions of organisms, especially when there are alternative ways in which he could have achieved his purpose (if he exists, and if he had such a purpose). DAVID: Your alternatives all question the purposeful appearance of humans. All I am doing is pointing out that humans are not necessary, but they are here, and I wonder why, and answer my wonder with a solution that makes sense to me.-I have offered two alternatives that do not question purpose: 1) God experimenting in order to fulfil his purpose; 2) humans were not the ORIGINAL purpose, but he let evolution run its course, and intervened when he had the idea for humans ... which means the human purpose came later. My object in making these proposals was to find a theistic scenario that would explain the higgledy-piggledy bush and what you call its "side inventions" ... a problem which your pre-planning scenario fails to address.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Saturday, May 31, 2014, 15:21 (3828 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: I have offered two alternatives that do not question purpose: 1) God experimenting in order to fulfil his purpose; 2) humans were not the ORIGINAL purpose, but he let evolution run its course, and intervened when he had the idea for humans ... which means the human purpose came later. My object in making these proposals was to find a theistic scenario that would explain the higgledy-piggledy bush and what you call its "side inventions" ... a problem which your pre-planning scenario fails to address.-I appreciate your offer to help me. Suggestion (2) defines an indecisive God so it is a nonstarter. Suggestion (1) is less indecisive, but no less a wrong approach, since it makes God dither. I work from the following premises: 1) Humans were the goal from the beginnning. This explains the very unnecessary arrival of our clan. 2) Evolution was the chosen method to achieve the goal. 3) Evolution appears to require a broad variety of life forms, animal and plant to offer choices for selection and provide for a proper balance of nature. thus the bush. 4) Therefore, as always, keepiong purpose in the forefront, guidance and pre-planning have to be strongly considered. 5) Not fully understanding the mothod is OK if one stands with Paul Davies: the arrival of sentient beings starting from an in organic universe is a point of profound significance. Asking 'why' is much more important than wondering 'how'.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 06, 2015, 14:19 (3335 days ago) @ David Turell
New evidence for pre-planning in this study on ocean algae having an advanced setup to survive on land:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151005151419.htm-"The team of scientists from the John Innes Centre, the University of Wisconsin -- Madison and other international collaborators, has discovered how an ancient alga was able to inhabit land, before it went on to evolve into the world's first plant and colonise the earth.-***-"The previous discovery of 450 million year old fossilised spores similar to the spores of the AM fungi suggests this fungi would have been present in the environment encountered by the first land plants. Remnants of prehistoric fungi have also been found inside the cells of the oldest plant macro-fossils, reinforcing this idea. However, scientists were not clear how the algal ancestor of land plants could have survived long enough to mediate a quid pro quo arrangement with a fungi. This new finding points to the alga developing this crucial capability while still living in the earth's oceans! (my bold)-***-"Dr Delaux and colleagues analysed DNA and RNA of some of the earliest known land plants and green algae and found evidence that their shared algal ancestor living in the Earth's waters already possessed the set of genes, or symbiotic pathways, it needed to detect and interact with the beneficial AM fungi.-"The team of scientists believes this capability was pivotal in enabling the alga to survive out of the water and to colonise the earth. By working with the fungi to find sustenance, the alga was able to buy time to adapt and evolve in a very different and seemingly infertile environment.-"Dr Delaux said: "At some point 450 million years ago, alga from the earth's waters splashed up on to barren land. Somehow it survived and took root, a watershed moment that kick-started the evolution of life on earth. Our discovery shows for the first time that the alga already knew how to survive on land while it was still in the water. Without the development of this pre-adapted capability in alga, the earth could be a very different place today."-Comment: Looks like guided evolution to me.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Thursday, October 08, 2015, 14:29 (3333 days ago) @ David Turell
Why hasn't anyone commented on my last entry? Perfect example of pre=planning.
Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning
by David Turell , Monday, October 12, 2015, 18:39 (3328 days ago) @ David Turell
More on 'pre-planning' information has appeared, a paper and a discussion about possible examples of speciation and epigenetic changes. There is a review of Reznick's recent continuing work on guppies and the forcing of epigenetic responses in the wild coupled with Lee Spetner's comments on this research from his 1997 book on built-in pre-planning:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/real-time-evolution-happening-under-our-nose/-"Part of Spetner's argument is that many adaptive changes we see in nature are in fact not examples of a Darwinian process of chance changes + natural selection, but instead the result of specific programming capabilities in the organism to allow it to respond to changes in the environment. Indeed, what caught my eye about the article my friend forwarded is that Spetner had discussed Reznick's earlier experiments in that very context.-"After describing two different predators of the guppies: (i) the cichlid, which prey on large mature guppies; and (ii) the killfish, which prey on small immature guppies, Spetner continues:- "Reznick and his team took 200 guppies from the Aripo [river in Trinidad] and put them in a tributary of the river that is home to the killfish but has no cichlids and had no guppies. Changes soon appeared in the newly introduced guppies. The fish population soon changed to what would normally be found in the presence of the killfish, and Reznick found the changes to be heritable.-"The full change in the guppy population was observed as soon as the first samples were drawn, which was after only two years. One trait studied, the age of males at maturity, achieved its terminal value in only four years. The evolutionary rate calculated from this observation is some ten million times the rate of evolution induced from observations of the fossil record [Reznick et al. 1997].-"Reznick interpreted these changes as the result of natural selection acting on variation already in the population. Could natural selection have acted so fast as to change the entire population in only two years?-"Spetner goes on to argue that the adaptive change observed in the guppies is more likely the result of a programmed response to environmental change, and provides several examples of such changes in other species.-Comment: Reznick is finding rapid (one year) changes. Behe has identified a true Darwinian change:-"There are no doubt quite a number of legitimate, confirmed examples of random mutation + natural selection producing an important biological effect. For example, I think Behe's review of malaria/sickle cell trait is a legitimate example of Darwinian evolution in action. And the circumstances of that example are rather telling: (a) large population size, (b) meaningful amount of time, (c) very strong selection pressure, (d) and change that can be caused by one or two single-point mutations."-***-Reznick article: http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/31276 -"Our research shows that these fish adapted to their new habitats in less than one year, or three to four generations, which is even faster than we previously thought,” said Gordon, who is now at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, and is a postdoctoral researcher funded by the Academy of Finland.-"The findings, which appeared online Aug. 19 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show how real time evolution can be resolved into differences among fathers in siring sons, which could be attributed to how successful the father is in finding mates or how long he lives. It also shows how evolution can link these differences to heritable individual attributes.-“'People think of evolution as historical. They don't think of it as something that's happening under our nose. It is a contemporary process. People are skeptical; they don't believe in evolution because they can't see it. Here, we see it. We can see if something makes you better able to make babies and live longer,” Reznick said"-Comment: No question that random chance mutation/natural selection occurs, as above, but it is not present enough to drive evolution in the time scales we know.
Innovation, Speciation: Darwin's finches epigenetic
by David Turell , Monday, April 10, 2017, 18:42 (2782 days ago) @ David Turell
A careful study of five branches of Galapagos finches:
https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/6/8/1972/569028/Epigenetics-and-the-Evolution-of-D...
Abstract
The prevailing theory for the molecular basis of evolution involves genetic mutations that ultimately generate the heritable phenotypic variation on which natural selection acts. However, epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of phenotypic variation may also play an important role in evolutionary change. A growing number of studies have demonstrated the presence of epigenetic inheritance in a variety of different organisms that can persist for hundreds of generations. The possibility that epigenetic changes can accumulate over longer periods of evolutionary time has seldom been tested empirically. This study was designed to compare epigenetic changes among several closely related species of Darwin’s finches, a well-known example of adaptive radiation. Erythrocyte DNA was obtained from five species of sympatric Darwin’s finches that vary in phylogenetic relatedness. Genome-wide alterations in genetic mutations using copy number variation (CNV) were compared with epigenetic alterations associated with differential DNA methylation regions (epimutations). Epimutations were more common than genetic CNV mutations among the five species; furthermore, the number of epimutations increased monotonically with phylogenetic distance. Interestingly, the number of genetic CNV mutations did not consistently increase with phylogenetic distance. The number, chromosomal locations, regional clustering, and lack of overlap of epimutations and genetic mutations suggest that epigenetic changes are distinct and that they correlate with the evolutionary history of Darwin’s finches. The potential functional significance of the epimutations was explored by comparing their locations on the genome to the location of evolutionarily important genes and cellular pathways in birds. Specific epimutations were associated with genes related to the bone morphogenic protein, toll receptor, and melanogenesis signaling pathways. Species-specific epimutations were significantly overrepresented in these pathways. As environmental factors are known to result in heritable changes in the epigenome, it is possible that epigenetic changes contribute to the molecular basis of the evolution of Darwin’s finches.
Comment: Each island in the chain differs in environment, which drives the species adaptations, mainly beak sizes.
Innovation, Speciation: Darwin's finches epigenetic
by David Turell , Friday, August 25, 2017, 20:19 (2645 days ago) @ David Turell
More genetic analysis showing methylation patterns:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170824093814.htm
"By studying rural and urban populations of two species of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands, researchers were able to show that while there was very little genetic variation, there were substantial epigenetic differences that could be related to environmental differences resulting from urbanization.
***
"Dr Michael Skinner, senior author from Washington State University, said: "In the finches that we studied, epigenetic alterations between the populations were dramatic, but minimal genetic changes where observed. We believe that the epigenetic differences may be a heritable component that might explain the rapid adaptation of Darwin's finches to an urban environment. These species of finch have distinct diets which could explain the differences in methylation patterns as diet is known to influence epigenetics. This is a novel mechanism which is not seriously considered in evolutionary biology at this time."
"Epigenetics, particularly a chemical modification to DNA known as methylation, has emerged as a heritable component linked to differences between members of a population and might play a role in the molecular basis of evolutionary change. DNA methylation can be induced by the environment and can impact gene expression, leading to changes in physical traits such as size.
***
"Genetic analysis of the birds revealed very little differences in genetic make-up between the rural and urban populations of both species. Analysis of DNA methylation patterns revealed significant differences between urban and rural populations for both species.
"This study compared just two populations of finches so it cannot be said with certainty that urbanization is the key influencer of epigenetics or morphology. However the results are consistent with a potential role of epigenetic variation in rapid adaptation to changing environments. Future studies are needed to determine what direct effects DNA methylation has on physical traits, and to what extent these methylation patterns may play a role in evolution."
Comment: Further evidence that epigenetics caused the variation in the Darwin finches.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Sunday, November 25, 2018, 21:22 (2188 days ago) @ David Turell
Studies of genome wide DNA decoding suggest species reinvent themselves at intervals of
1-200,000 years:
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html
"It is textbook biology, for example, that species with large, far-flung populations—think ants, rats, humans—will become more genetically diverse over time.
"But is that true?
"The answer is no," said Stoeckle, lead author of the study, published in the journal Human Evolution.
"For the planet's 7.6 billion people, 500 million house sparrows, or 100,000 sandpipers, genetic diversity "is about the same," he told AFP.
"The study's most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
"This conclusion is very surprising, and I fought against it as hard as I could," Thaler told AFP.
"That reaction is understandable: How does one explain the fact that 90 percent of animal life, genetically speaking, is roughly the same age?
***
"Mitochondria contain 37 genes, and one of them, known as COI, is used to do DNA barcoding.
"Unlike the genes in nuclear DNA, which can differ greatly from species to species, all animals have the same set of mitochondrial DNA, providing a common basis for comparison.
***
"On the one hand, the COI gene sequence is similar across all animals, making it easy to pick out and compare.
"On the other hand, these mitochondrial snippets are different enough to be able to distinguish between each species.
***
"In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans.
***
"Which brings us back to our question: why did the overwhelming majority of species in existence today emerge at about the same time?
"Environmental trauma is one possibility, explained Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University.
"'Viruses, ice ages, successful new competitors, loss of prey—all these may cause periods when the population of an animal drops sharply," he told AFP, commenting on the study.
"'In these periods, it is easier for a genetic innovation to sweep the population and contribute to the emergence of a new species."
"But the last true mass extinction event was 65.5 million years ago when a likely asteroid strike wiped out land-bound dinosaurs and half of all species on Earth. This means a population "bottleneck" is only a partial explanation at best.
***
"The simplest interpretation is that life is always evolving," said Stoeckle.
"'It is more likely that—at all times in evolution—the animals alive at that point arose relatively recently."
"In this view, a species only lasts a certain amount of time before it either evolves into something new or goes extinct.
"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between.
"'If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies," said Thaler. "They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.'"
"The absence of "in-between" species is something that also perplexed Darwin, he said."
Comment: The 'inbetween' is the gaps we see in the fossil record. This might explain, in a way, how the gaps occur, but not the underlying cause. God in action?
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Sunday, November 25, 2018, 21:30 (2188 days ago) @ David Turell
Studies of genome wide DNA decoding suggest species reinvent themselves at intervals of
1-200,000 years:https://phys.org/news/2018-05-gene-survey-reveals-facets-evolution.html
"It is textbook biology, for example, that species with large, far-flung populations—think ants, rats, humans—will become more genetically diverse over time.
"But is that true?
"The answer is no," said Stoeckle, lead author of the study, published in the journal Human Evolution.
"For the planet's 7.6 billion people, 500 million house sparrows, or 100,000 sandpipers, genetic diversity "is about the same," he told AFP.
"The study's most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
"This conclusion is very surprising, and I fought against it as hard as I could," Thaler told AFP.
"That reaction is understandable: How does one explain the fact that 90 percent of animal life, genetically speaking, is roughly the same age?
***
"Mitochondria contain 37 genes, and one of them, known as COI, is used to do DNA barcoding.
"Unlike the genes in nuclear DNA, which can differ greatly from species to species, all animals have the same set of mitochondrial DNA, providing a common basis for comparison.
***
"On the one hand, the COI gene sequence is similar across all animals, making it easy to pick out and compare.
"On the other hand, these mitochondrial snippets are different enough to be able to distinguish between each species.
***
"In analysing the barcodes across 100,000 species, the researchers found a telltale sign showing that almost all the animals emerged about the same time as humans.
***
"Which brings us back to our question: why did the overwhelming majority of species in existence today emerge at about the same time?
"Environmental trauma is one possibility, explained Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University.
"'Viruses, ice ages, successful new competitors, loss of prey—all these may cause periods when the population of an animal drops sharply," he told AFP, commenting on the study.
"'In these periods, it is easier for a genetic innovation to sweep the population and contribute to the emergence of a new species."
"But the last true mass extinction event was 65.5 million years ago when a likely asteroid strike wiped out land-bound dinosaurs and half of all species on Earth. This means a population "bottleneck" is only a partial explanation at best.
***
"The simplest interpretation is that life is always evolving," said Stoeckle.
"'It is more likely that—at all times in evolution—the animals alive at that point arose relatively recently."
"In this view, a species only lasts a certain amount of time before it either evolves into something new or goes extinct.
"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between.
"'If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies," said Thaler. "They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.'" (my bold)
"The absence of "in-between" species is something that also perplexed Darwin, he said."
Comment: The 'inbetween' is the gaps we see in the fossil record. This might explain, in a way, how the gaps occur, but not the underlying cause. God in action? These findings offer no support for 'natural' chance evolution, with no 'inbetween' found.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, November 26, 2018, 01:03 (2188 days ago) @ David Turell
"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between.
"'If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies," said Thaler. "They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.'" (my bold)
"The absence of "in-between" species is something that also perplexed Darwin, he said."
Comment: The 'inbetween' is the gaps we see in the fossil record. This might explain, in a way, how the gaps occur, but not the underlying cause. God in action? These findings offer no support for 'natural' chance evolution, with no 'inbetween' found.
Or is it possible that there were epochs, periods, one might even say 'days', of creative activity, followed by a period of settling as the environmental changes they were created to implement came about. Could it be possible that animals were created 'according to their kinds', with all that 'in-between' space explicitly defining their genetic possibility space programmatically exactly as I have hypothesized? And, if so, what's wrong with that?
The last question is this. On what grounds do we claim to know more than our ancestors, those wonderful minds that formulated the ancient writings that have endured for thousands of years? What do we think we have, and know, that they didn't, and by what objective measure do we make that claim?
--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
QUOTES: "Which brings us back to our question: why did the overwhelming majority of species in existence today emerge at about the same time?
"Environmental trauma is one possibility, explained Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University.
"But the last true mass extinction event was 65.5 million years ago when a likely asteroid strike wiped out land-bound dinosaurs and half of all species on Earth. This means a population "bottleneck" is only a partial explanation at best.
***
"The simplest interpretation is that life is always evolving," said Stoeckle.
"'It is more likely that—at all times in evolution—the animals alive at that point arose relatively recently."
"In this view, a species only lasts a certain amount of time before it either evolves into something new or goes extinct.”
Tantalising! We would need to know precisely when and where the old species gave way to the new, and precisely what were the conditions at the time. We are going back tens and hundreds of millions of years, so just how precise is our knowledge?
David’s comment: The 'inbetween' is the gaps we see in the fossil record. This might explain, in a way, how the gaps occur, but not the underlying cause. God in action? These findings offer no support for 'natural' chance evolution, with no 'inbetween' found.
TONY: Or is it possible that there were epochs, periods, one might even say 'days', of creative activity, followed by a period of settling as the environmental changes they were created to implement came about. Could it be possible that animals were created 'according to their kinds', with all that 'in-between' space explicitly defining their genetic possibility space programmatically exactly as I have hypothesized? And, if so, what's wrong with that?
I also find it logical that changing environmental conditions could be a determining factor in old species dying out and new species emerging. In the light of the above, I would like to ask David why he thinks his God kept changing the environment, killing off one lot of species and designing another lot, if he was always in full control but all he really wanted was to produce H. sapiens. I would like to ask Tony the same question without what follows my “if”.
TONY: The last question is this. On what grounds do we claim to know more than our ancestors, those wonderful minds that formulated the ancient writings that have endured for thousands of years? What do we think we have, and know, that they didn't, and by what objective measure do we make that claim?
Firstly, what do we know about what? If you are talking about the origin of the universe, of life, of speciation, “thousands of years” does not mean your writers had a greater understanding than we do of events that happened millions and billions of years ago. In geological time, they were almost as far away as we are from the beginning of life and the bulk of life’s history. And so your question can be posed both ways. (Or do you reject the possibility that subsequent humans may also have had "wonderful" minds?) Secondly, who are “we”? There are some humans who believe in God, and believe in separate creation, as described in the Bible. There are others who believe in God and believe he created a process of evolution. There are others who believe in evolution, but also believe that it happened without God. And there is no reason to assume that their hypothetical accounts are any more or any less valid than the accounts written thousands of years ago by other humans. Thirdly, and most importantly of all, there are no objective measures to support any claims, theistic or atheistic. The only objective measure would be if there was a God and he revealed himself to us all. So either you take a leap of faith and believe in one of the subjective interpretations, or you remain without a belief.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Monday, November 26, 2018, 20:41 (2187 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTES: "Which brings us back to our question: why did the overwhelming majority of species in existence today emerge at about the same time?
"Environmental trauma is one possibility, explained Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University.
"But the last true mass extinction event was 65.5 million years ago when a likely asteroid strike wiped out land-bound dinosaurs and half of all species on Earth. This means a population "bottleneck" is only a partial explanation at best.
***
"The simplest interpretation is that life is always evolving," said Stoeckle.
"'It is more likely that—at all times in evolution—the animals alive at that point arose relatively recently."
"In this view, a species only lasts a certain amount of time before it either evolves into something new or goes extinct.”Tantalising! We would need to know precisely when and where the old species gave way to the new, and precisely what were the conditions at the time. We are going back tens and hundreds of millions of years, so just how precise is our knowledge?
David’s comment: The 'inbetween' is the gaps we see in the fossil record. This might explain, in a way, how the gaps occur, but not the underlying cause. God in action? These findings offer no support for 'natural' chance evolution, with no 'inbetween' found.
TONY: Or is it possible that there were epochs, periods, one might even say 'days', of creative activity, followed by a period of settling as the environmental changes they were created to implement came about. Could it be possible that animals were created 'according to their kinds', with all that 'in-between' space explicitly defining their genetic possibility space programmatically exactly as I have hypothesized? And, if so, what's wrong with that?
dhw: I also find it logical that changing environmental conditions could be a determining factor in old species dying out and new species emerging. In the light of the above, I would like to ask David why he thinks his God kept changing the environment, killing off one lot of species and designing another lot, if he was always in full control but all he really wanted was to produce H. sapiens.
See my answer today under this topic. The question answers itself. God arranged for each stage of development and complexity according to plan. And now we know why bacteria are still here! Sorry you can't follow the reasoning and constantly see God as primarily human.
I would like to ask Tony the same question without what follows my “if”.
TONY: The last question is this. On what grounds do we claim to know more than our ancestors, those wonderful minds that formulated the ancient writings that have endured for thousands of years? What do we think we have, and know, that they didn't, and by what objective measure do we make that claim?dhw: Firstly, what do we know about what? If you are talking about the origin of the universe, of life, of speciation, “thousands of years” does not mean your writers had a greater understanding than we do of events that happened millions and billions of years ago. In geological time, they were almost as far away as we are from the beginning of life and the bulk of life’s history. And so your question can be posed both ways. (Or do you reject the possibility that subsequent humans may also have had "wonderful" minds?) Secondly, who are “we”? There are some humans who believe in God, and believe in separate creation, as described in the Bible. There are others who believe in God and believe he created a process of evolution. There are others who believe in evolution, but also believe that it happened without God. And there is no reason to assume that their hypothetical accounts are any more or any less valid than the accounts written thousands of years ago by other humans. Thirdly, and most importantly of all, there are no objective measures to support any claims, theistic or atheistic. The only objective measure would be if there was a God and he revealed himself to us all. So either you take a leap of faith and believe in one of the subjective interpretations, or you remain without a belief.
I am proof that with enough studies of the current scientific evidence and knowledge thereof, faith is achievable. Navel gazing is of no help.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Monday, November 26, 2018, 18:56 (2187 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
"And yet—another unexpected finding from the study—species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there's nothing much in between.
"'If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies," said Thaler. "They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.'" (my bold)
"The absence of "in-between" species is something that also perplexed Darwin, he said."
David: Comment: The 'inbetween' is the gaps we see in the fossil record. This might explain, in a way, how the gaps occur, but not the underlying cause. God in action? These findings offer no support for 'natural' chance evolution, with no 'inbetween' found.
Tony: Or is it possible that there were epochs, periods, one might even say 'days', of creative activity, followed by a period of settling as the environmental changes they were created to implement came about. Could it be possible that animals were created 'according to their kinds', with all that 'in-between' space explicitly defining their genetic possibility space programmatically exactly as I have hypothesized? And, if so, what's wrong with that?The last question is this. On what grounds do we claim to know more than our ancestors, those wonderful minds that formulated the ancient writings that have endured for thousands of years? What do we think we have, and know, that they didn't, and by what objective measure do we make that claim?
I'm with Tony. I do not agree with Darwin's concept of common descent in which each stage of life somehow makes the next more complex stage. Darwin does not explain the fossil gaps, which he knew were a major problem, that he expected to be filled. On the opposite the gaps are much more obvious and much worse for Darwin.
I view God as starting life with single cells, and after bacteria were perfected/programmed to have 'reasonable' responses to changing stimuli, moved on to develop multicellular forms with sexual production, which allowed for more complex advances.
Species appear and disappear with no truly minor transitions. Each species may modify a bit but each is still the same species. In the transportation industry the model T and the Rolls are the same species. The double-decker bus is a different spec is form of transportation as is the airplane, but the Wright Brothers wood and cloth biplane are the same species as a 787. A teacup Doberman can breed with a wolf. Dogs are still wolves!
But we still have bacteria, from the beginning, but 99% of all species are gone. Now we know why as the microbiome is studied. They perform necessary biomechanical services to all organisms as everything reaches a more advanced state. Bacteria have purpose!
I view Darwin as totally dead: survival is aided by species adaptation while they exist, but nothing more. 99% disappear without creating the next step. They did not survive to make the new species. They existed as an advance in complexity or especially in diversity since life must eat to live.
My view of Darwin's common descent is not his common descent or DHW's version.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
TONY: The last question is this. On what grounds do we claim to know more than our ancestors, those wonderful minds that formulated the ancient writings that have endured for thousands of years? What do we think we have, and know, that they didn't, and by what objective measure do we make that claim?
DAVID: I'm with Tony. I do not agree with Darwin's concept of common descent in which each stage of life somehow makes the next more complex stage. Darwin does not explain the fossil gaps, which he knew were a major problem, that he expected to be filled. On the opposite the gaps are much more obvious and much worse for Darwin.
Until now you have said that common descent is all that remains of Darwin’s theory, and have suggested that your God either preprogrammed all the innovations from the beginning (which would mean they had to be passed on – not newly created) or personally dabbled them (e.g. fiddling with existing pre-whales, as opposed to creating whales from scratch). Now apparently you are with Tony, who believes that each species (broad sense – see below) was created separately.
DAVID: I view God as starting life with single cells, and after bacteria were perfected/programmed to have 'reasonable' responses to changing stimuli, moved on to develop multicellular forms with sexual production, which allowed for more complex advances.
Nothing here that runs counter to common descent.
DAVID: Species appear and disappear with no truly minor transitions. Each species may modify a bit but each is still the same species. […] A teacup Doberman can breed with a wolf. Dogs are still wolves!
A problem of definition. Species (broad sense) are organisms which are able to reproduce with one another. I agree with you. It is misleading to say that dogs and wolves are different species. But this does not run counter to common descent. A lot can happen in 3.X thousand million years!
DAVID: But we still have bacteria, from the beginning, but 99% of all species are gone. Now we know why as the microbiome is studied. They perform necessary biomechanical services to all organisms as everything reaches a more advanced state. Bacteria have purpose!
The fact that 99% of all species are gone and that bacteria have survived and perform all kinds of important functions for all forms of life, including themselves and us, has nothing whatsoever to do with common descent versus separate creation.
DAVID: I view Darwin as totally dead: survival is aided by species adaptation while they exist, but nothing more. 99% disappear without creating the next step. They did not survive to make the new species. They existed as an advance in complexity or especially in diversity since life must eat to live.
If an organism disappears, then of course it has nothing to do with the next step. It is only those that survive that can produce the next step! In other words, if 100% of species were wiped out, there would be no more life and no more evolution. How does this prove that life forms did not descend from earlier life forms?
DAVID: My view of Darwin's common descent is not his common descent or DHW's version.
The only relevant piece of information you have given us in this post is the gaps in the fossil records, which as you say Darwin himself acknowledged. The problem has not been solved, which is why speciation (broad sense) remains a mystery (and why atheists call your hypothetical solution God of the Gaps). Since you are “with Tony”, are you now arguing for separate creation of species and jettisoning the 3.X-billion-year-old computer programme and/or dabble theory?
dhw: I also find it logical that changing environmental conditions could be a determining factor in old species dying out and new species emerging. In the light of the above, I would like to ask David why he thinks his God kept changing the environment, killing off one lot of species and designing another lot, if he was always in full control but all he really wanted was to produce H. sapiens.
DAVID: The question answers itself. God arranged for each stage of development and complexity according to plan. And now we know why bacteria are still here! Sorry you can't follow the reasoning and constantly see God as primarily human.
If God exists, of course he is not “primarily human”. That does not mean he does not share characteristics and logic with the beings he is supposed to have made “in his image”. (See the “Neanderthal" thread). I’m afraid the idea that your God planned every evolutionary change and used bacteria in the process (plus the fact that evolution has gone on for 3.X billion years) does not provide a logical reason for him constantly changing the environment, and designing and killing off 99% of species, lifestyles and natural wonders if his purpose was to produce H. sapiens. You did once suggest that he was experimenting. Yes, that would be a logical link – but you quickly withdrew it when I pointed out that it could only mean he didn’t know what he wanted, or he didn’t know how to get what he wanted, i.e. wasn’t in full control. That doesn't fit in with your fixed image of your God.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 28, 2018, 05:30 (2186 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I'm with Tony. I do not agree with Darwin's concept of common descent in which each stage of life somehow makes the next more complex stage. Darwin does not explain the fossil gaps, which he knew were a major problem, that he expected to be filled. On the opposite the gaps are much more obvious and much worse for Darwin.
dhw: Until now you have said that common descent is all that remains of Darwin’s theory, and have suggested that your God either preprogrammed all the innovations from the beginning (which would mean they had to be passed on – not newly created) or personally dabbled them (e.g. fiddling with existing pre-whales, as opposed to creating whales from scratch). Now apparently you are with Tony, who believes that each species (broad sense – see below) was created separately.
I've never said species were never created separately. You read my words thru Darwin's eyes. All along I have discussed a pre-programmed or dabbled control by God of evolution's total progress. The latest DNA findings tip me to being more insistent. My version of common descent is each step is related to a past step as more and more complex organisms appear. Remember my 'drive to complexity' built in to the process. Just God in action. There has never been any evidence that an earlier species can evolve itself into the next stage. I'll stick with the evidence we have from the gaps, which become more permanent as time and searching for fossils continues.
DAVID: I view God as starting life with single cells, and after bacteria were perfected/programmed to have 'reasonable' responses to changing stimuli, moved on to develop multicellular forms with sexual production, which allowed for more complex advances.dhw: Nothing here that runs counter to common descent.
Of course not.
DAVID: I view Darwin as totally dead: survival is aided by species adaptation while they exist, but nothing more. 99% disappear without creating the next step. They did not survive to make the new species. They existed as an advance in complexity or especially in diversity since life must eat to live.dhw: If an organism disappears, then of course it has nothing to do with the next step. It is only those that survive that can produce the next step! In other words, if 100% of species were wiped out, there would be no more life and no more evolution. How does this prove that life forms did not descend from earlier life forms?
They did descend stepwise under God's guidance.
DAVID: My view of Darwin's common descent is not his common descent or DHW's version.dhw: Since you are “with Tony”, are you now arguing for separate creation of species and jettisoning the 3.X-billion-year-old computer programme and/or dabble theory?
I've always really been with Tony. Pre-pregramming steps or dabbling is really the same concept .
dhw: I also find it logical that changing environmental conditions could be a determining factor in old species dying out and new species emerging. In the light of the above, I would like to ask David why he thinks his God kept changing the environment, killing off one lot of species and designing another lot, if he was always in full control but all he really wanted was to produce H. sapiens.DAVID: The question answers itself. God arranged for each stage of development and complexity according to plan. And now we know why bacteria are still here! Sorry you can't follow the reasoning and constantly see God as primarily human.
dhw: If God exists, of course he is not “primarily human”. That does not mean he does not share characteristics and logic with the beings he is supposed to have made “in his image”. (See the “Neanderthal" thread). I’m afraid the idea that your God planned every evolutionary change and used bacteria in the process (plus the fact that evolution has gone on for 3.X billion years) does not provide a logical reason for him constantly changing the environment, and designing and killing off 99% of species, lifestyles and natural wonders if his purpose was to produce H. sapiens. You did once suggest that he was experimenting.
When did you think that 99% survival would leave any room on Earth for the new arrivals?
dhw: You did once suggest that he was experimenting. Yes, that would be a logical link – but you quickly withdrew it when I pointed out that it could only mean he didn’t know what he wanted, or he didn’t know how to get what he wanted, i.e. wasn’t in full control. That doesn't fit in with your fixed image of your God.
It is possible God experimented on the way. Religions claim God is totally omniscient but I have no proof of that, so experimentation is a consideration.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
dhw: Until now you have said that common descent is all that remains of Darwin’s theory, and have suggested that your God either preprogrammed all the innovations from the beginning (which would mean they had to be passed on – not newly created) or personally dabbled them (e.g. fiddling with existing pre-whales, as opposed to creating whales from scratch). Now apparently you are with Tony, who believes that each species (broad sense – see below) was created separately.
DAVID: I've never said species were never created separately. You read my words thru Darwin's eyes. All along I have discussed a pre-programmed or dabbled control by God of evolution's total progress.
You can’t pass a programme along to something that doesn’t exist, and you can’t dabble with something that doesn’t exist. Either you believe in common descent or you believe in separate creation.
DAVID: The latest DNA findings tip me to being more insistent. My version of common descent is each step is related to a past step as more and more complex organisms appear.
That is also Darwin’s version of common descent. What you do not accept (and nor do I) is Darwin’s theory concerning the mechanisms which make this happen.
DAVID: Remember my 'drive to complexity' built in to the process. Just God in action. There has never been any evidence that an earlier species can evolve itself into the next stage.
Nobody knows how speciation (broad sense) happens. There has never been any evidence for any of the hypotheses, including yours, Darwin’s and mine.
DAVID: I'll stick with the evidence we have from the gaps, which become more permanent as time and searching for fossils continues.
A gap is not evidence of anything, but it is a perfectly reasonable argument for questioning Darwin’s theory – as he acknowledged himself. That doesn’t get us any nearer to solving the mystery.
DAVID: I view Darwin as totally dead: survival is aided by species adaptation while they exist, but nothing more. 99% disappear without creating the next step. They did not survive to make the new species. They existed as an advance in complexity or especially in diversity since life must eat to live.
dhw: If an organism disappears, then of course it has nothing to do with the next step. It is only those that survive that can produce the next step! In other words, if 100% of species were wiped out, there would be no more life and no more evolution. How does this prove that life forms did not descend from earlier life forms?
DAVID: They did descend stepwise under God's guidance.
So Darwin is not totally dead, since you accept his theory of common descent as opposed to separate creation. But you believe your God guided the process.
dhw: Since you are “with Tony”, are you now arguing for separate creation of species and jettisoning the 3.X-billion-year-old computer programme and/or dabble theory?
DAVID: I've always really been with Tony. Pre-pregramming steps or dabbling is really the same concept.
They are not the same at all. But we shall have to leave Tony to tell us whether he agrees with your version of separate creation as common descent.
dhw: I’m afraid the idea that your God planned every evolutionary change and used bacteria in the process (plus the fact that evolution has gone on for 3.X billion years) does not provide a logical reason for him constantly changing the environment, and designing and killing off 99% of species, lifestyles and natural wonders if his purpose was to produce H. sapiens.
DAVID: When did you think that 99% survival would leave any room on Earth for the new arrivals?
So your God specially designed 1000 life forms (just a number), then killed 990 of them off because there was no room for the one he really wanted, and although the ten he left alive still weren’t what he really wanted, they somehow eventually led to the one he really wanted, H. sapiens, whose brain and body he then specially designed. And that’s also why he specially designed the whale, 50,000 different spider webs, and the weaverbird’s nest. The story becomes curiouser and curiouser.
dhw: You did once suggest that he was experimenting. Yes, that would be a logical link – but you quickly withdrew it when I pointed out that it could only mean he didn’t know what he wanted, or he didn’t know how to get what he wanted, i.e. wasn’t in full control. That doesn't fit in with your fixed image of your God.
DAVID: It is possible God experimented on the way. Religions claim God is totally omniscient but I have no proof of that, so experimentation is a consideration.
Now we’re talking. We must allow for the very human possibility that either your God doesn’t know what he wants, or knows what he wants but doesn’t know how to get it. (He is not omniscient.) There is no proof either that your God is in total control, or WANTS to be in total control, or created all the varieties of life as steppingstones to humans, or has no characteristics in common with the creature he created in his own image. It is all conjecture. But if experimentation is a possible consideration, so too is the unproven hypothesis that he created life because as first cause he was all alone and wanted something to occupy his sourceless, eternal, immaterial mind. If he can be ignorant, he can also be in need of something to do in the course of eternity.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 28, 2018, 18:47 (2185 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You can’t pass a programme along to something that doesn’t exist, and you can’t dabble with something that doesn’t exist. Either you believe in common descent or you believe in separate creation.
My view of common descent hasn't changed. God developed one stage at a time from what He had created previously. The earliest forms (bacteria) may have contained a progressive mechanism He supervised until He decided to add further instructions. My view of common descent is like Darwin's notation of a tree. but each stage is originated by God. Is it separate creation? Yes, but not a completely new form, it is a modification of the past form, so the changes are not completely discontinuous.
dhw: So Darwin is not totally dead, since you accept his theory of common descent as opposed to separate creation. But you believe your God guided the process.
Dead as a door nail. God made each step as a modification of the previous forms.
dhw: So your God specially designed 1000 life forms (just a number), then killed 99% of them off because there was no room for the one he really wanted, and although the ten he left alive still weren’t what he really wanted, they somehow eventually led to the one he really wanted, H. sapiens, whose brain and body he then specially designed. ...The story becomes curiouser and curiouser.
I'm glad I aroused your curiosity. Darwin's 'common descent' is 'descent with modification'. In my view God is the modifier at each new stage and therefore we see descent with modification.
DAVID: It is possible God experimented on the way. Religions claim God is totally omniscient but I have no proof of that, so experimentation is a consideration.dhw: Now we’re talking. We must allow for the very human possibility that either your God doesn’t know what he wants, or knows what he wants but doesn’t know how to get it. (He is not omniscient.) There is no proof either that your God is in total control, or WANTS to be in total control, or created all the varieties of life as steppingstones to humans, or has no characteristics in common with the creature he created in his own image. It is all conjecture. But if experimentation is a possible consideration, so too is the unproven hypothesis that he created life because as first cause he was all alone and wanted something to occupy his sourceless, eternal, immaterial mind. If he can be ignorant, he can also be in need of something to do in the course of eternity.
Now in your very imaginative mind you have created a mindless, purposeless lonely God wandering around wondering what to do, and probably wondering what caused Him to be there at all and certainly why He existed. Yet you can't explain the design in life you recognize.
I suggest you look at this site which exposes some of the real complexity of living tissue. Just glance at it. Absorbing it all would take weeks. You need to open your mind to the real complexity that we simply name without immersing ourselves in during our discussion:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mechanosensing-and-mechanotransduction-h...
"So, what have we learned from this long discussion?
The transition to metazoa implies a whole new world of functional complexity, a specific general plan that allows the implementation of tissues, organs, body plans.
Part of it is, of course, cell differentiation: each cell must be guided to its final state, its final specific phenotype, starting from one common genome/epigenome. This was the subject of my previous OP about transcription regulation.
But another important part of it is cell location, in time and space. The ordered guidance of each body cell to the right place and to the right functional connections is the foundation for the implementation of the general plan, which is made of specialized tissues that make specialized organs and consistent global organisms.
Cells exist in a complex 3D environment created, maintained and dynamically restructured by the cells themselves: the ECM.
The interaction between cells and the ECM is essential to many cell functions, starting with cell shape, and including cell migration in development and for other functional needs.
The interaction between cells and the ECM is not only chemical, but essentially mechanic.
The Integrins and the Focal Adhesions are an extremely dynamic system that links the ECM to the cytoskeleton, in particular to actin.
Cell migration is realized by the integration of an extremely rich network of signals, both mechanical and biochemical. Cell-cell interactions have also a leading role.
How that integration is achieved by each specific cell is still not understood.
Indeed, a lot of the essential aspects of all these issues are still poorly understood.
The axonal growth cone is another example of “migration” of a cell structure, which involves billions of specific pathways. The whole structure of the central nervous system depends on those processes.
Whatever the mechanisms that we still don’t understand, it is rather clear that coordinated cell migration and axon growth require not only the amazing structures and integration abilities in each individual cell, but also the cooperation of many different actors: the migrating cell, the ECM, guiding proteins and ligands, intermediate cells, the final target, and probably many other components."
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
dhw: So Darwin is not totally dead, since you accept his theory of common descent as opposed to separate creation. But you believe your God guided the process.
David: Dead as a door nail. God made each step as a modification of the previous forms.
Followed by:
Darwin's 'common descent' is 'descent with modification'. In my view God is the modifier at each new stage and therefore we see descent with modification.
Darwin sees common descent as “descent with modification”, and you see common descent as “descent with modification”, and therefore Darwin’s common descent as “descent with modification” is as dead as a doornail. Alice would be proud of you.
DAVID: It is possible God experimented on the way. Religions claim God is totally omniscient but I have no proof of that, so experimentation is a consideration.
dhw: Now we’re talking. We must allow for the very human possibility that either your God doesn’t know what he wants, or knows what he wants but doesn’t know how to get it. (He is not omniscient.) There is no proof either that your God is in total control, or WANTS to be in total control, or created all the varieties of life as steppingstones to humans, or has no characteristics in common with the creature he created in his own image. It is all conjecture. But if experimentation is a possible consideration, so too is the unproven hypothesis that he created life because as first cause he was all alone and wanted something to occupy his sourceless, eternal, immaterial mind. If he can be ignorant, he can also be in need of something to do in the course of eternity.
DAVID: Now in your very imaginative mind you have created a mindless, purposeless lonely God wandering around wondering what to do, and probably wondering what caused Him to be there at all and certainly why He existed. Yet you can't explain the design in life you recognize.
Not mindless – if he exists he IS a mind! Not purposeless, because he gives himself a purpose. Lonely? Why not? Even you, when challenged on the subject of his purpose, speculated that he wants a relationship with us. Why would he want that? What on earth or in heaven that has to do with design I don’t know. We are talking about your God’s purpose for designing life, so now you scurry back to design itself as if that was an issue between us.
The article does raise an interesting question, though, which I’m sure you’d prefer to talk about:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mechanosensing-and-mechanotransduction-h...
QUOTES: How that integration is achieved by each specific cell is still not understood. Indeed a lot of the essential aspects of all these issues are still poorly understood.
[…] Whatever the mechanisms that we still don’t understand, it is rather clear that coordinated cell migration and axon growth require not only the amazing structures and integration abilities in each individual cell, but also the cooperation of many different actors: the migrating cell, the ECM, guiding proteins and ligands, intermediate cells, the final target, and probably many other components."
Yes indeed, each individual cell has amazing abilities, and cells cooperate to make bodies function. One might almost be inclined to believe in cellular intelligence. Indeed, some scientists do.
But now perhaps you’ll tell me why a God who is capable of not knowing what he wants, or of knowing what he wants but having trouble working out how to get it, is incapable of wanting something to keep himself occupied.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Thursday, November 29, 2018, 15:42 (2184 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Now in your very imaginative mind you have created a mindless, purposeless lonely God wandering around wondering what to do, and probably wondering what caused Him to be there at all and certainly why He existed. Yet you can't explain the design in life you recognize.
Not mindless – if he exists he IS a mind! Not purposeless, because he gives himself a purpose. Lonely? Why not? Even you, when challenged on the subject of his purpose, speculated that he wants a relationship with us. Why would he want that? What on earth or in heaven that has to do with design I don’t know. We are talking about your God’s purpose for designing life, so now you scurry back to design itself as if that was an issue between us.
The article does raise an interesting question, though, which I’m sure you’d prefer to talk about:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mechanosensing-and-mechanotransduction-h...QUOTES: How that integration is achieved by each specific cell is still not understood. Indeed a lot of the essential aspects of all these issues are still poorly understood.
[…] Whatever the mechanisms that we still don’t understand, it is rather clear that coordinated cell migration and axon growth require not only the amazing structures and integration abilities in each individual cell, but also the cooperation of many different actors: the migrating cell, the ECM, guiding proteins and ligands, intermediate cells, the final target, and probably many other components."Yes indeed, each individual cell has amazing abilities, and cells cooperate to make bodies function. One might almost be inclined to believe in cellular intelligence. Indeed, some scientists do.
dhw: But now perhaps you’ll tell me why a God who is capable of not knowing what he wants, or of knowing what he wants but having trouble working out how to get it, is incapable of wanting something to keep himself occupied.
I don't know why you are suddenly asking me questions about an image of God that is yours, not mine. I view God as purposeful in everything He does. He is The Creator in religions' concept of Him. I really no nothing more about HIM. He understands the complexity of life He has designed, because He knew how to do it and make it perpetually alive. I don't scurry back to design. Design and God are totally intertwined in any philosophic view of the question whether God exists. Design is why you admit you are agnostic. When you delve into God's personality you are getting back to Adler's wise admonition He is a personage like no other person. He is pure energy and we are material persons who have minds and reason, and are a little similar to Him but no more. When you try to make God a person like us, you are in very murky waters, with guesses and nothing more.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
dhw: But now perhaps you’ll tell me why a God who is capable of not knowing what he wants, or of knowing what he wants but having trouble working out how to get it, is incapable of wanting something to keep himself occupied.
DAVID: I don't know why you are suddenly asking me questions about an image of God that is yours, not mine. I view God as purposeful in everything He does.
There is nothing sudden here. We have been discussing this for ages! What is the point in telling us that God is purposeful if you refuse to discuss what that purpose might be? In fact you tell us that his purpose in specially designing 50,000 spider webs etc. etc. was to specially design H. sapiens. That does not seem logical to me. But you are prepared to consider the possibility that he was experimenting, i.e. did not know what he wanted, or knew what he wanted, but didn’t know how to get it. Hence the question I asked you above, which you refuse to answer. For the sake of brevity, I will comment in brackets on the rest of your post.
DAVID: He is The Creator in religions' concept of Him. (Yes.) I really know nothing more about HIM. (Nobody knows any more, so why do you insist that his purpose in creating 50,000 webs etc. was to produce humans?) He understands the complexity of life He has designed, because He knew how to do it and make it perpetually alive. (Obviously, if he created it. But you keep telling us he was purposeful, and then you refuse to discuss his possible purpose – see above.) I don't scurry back to design. Design and God are totally intertwined in any philosophic view of the question whether God exists. (This whole discussion is about his purpose, not about whether he exists.) Design is why you admit you are agnostic. (Yes.) When you delve into God's personality you are getting back to Adler's wise admonition He is a personage like no other person. (We cannot KNOW anything, including whether your God exists, but this forum exists to discuss all the related subjects. I do not think a possible God’s nature and purpose should be off limits, especially when you go on and on about your God’s purposefulness). He is pure energy and we are material persons who have minds and reason, and are a little similar to Him but no more. When you try to make God a person like us, you are in very murky waters, with guesses and nothing more. (I am not making him a person like us. I am suggesting he may have some of our characteristics if we are created “in his image”. You have agreed on the possibility that evolution might be an experiment - endowing him with human ignorance of one kind or another. And so we come back to my original question: if one possibility is the human-type desire to find out what would happen if…or to find a way of creating what he wants to create, why do you refuse to accept that another possibility might be the human-type desire for an occupation?)
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Friday, November 30, 2018, 18:39 (2183 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: But now perhaps you’ll tell me why a God who is capable of not knowing what he wants, or of knowing what he wants but having trouble working out how to get it, is incapable of wanting something to keep himself occupied.
DAVID: I don't know why you are suddenly asking me questions about an image of God that is yours, not mine. I view God as purposeful in everything He does.
dhw:There is nothing sudden here. We have been discussing this for ages! What is the point in telling us that God is purposeful if you refuse to discuss what that purpose might be? In fact you tell us that his purpose in specially designing 50,000 spider webs etc. etc. was to specially design H. sapiens. That does not seem logical to me. But you are prepared to consider the possibility that he was experimenting, i.e. did not know what he wanted, or knew what he wanted, but didn’t know how to get it. Hence the question I asked you above, which you refuse to answer. For the sake of brevity, I will comment in brackets on the rest of your post.
DAVID: He is The Creator in religions' concept of Him. (Yes.) I really know nothing more about HIM. (Nobody knows any more, so why do you insist that his purpose in creating 50,000 webs etc. was to produce humans?) He understands the complexity of life He has designed, because He knew how to do it and make it perpetually alive. (Obviously, if he created it. But you keep telling us he was purposeful, and then you refuse to discuss his possible purpose – see above.) I don't scurry back to design. Design and God are totally intertwined in any philosophic view of the question whether God exists. (This whole discussion is about his purpose, not about whether he exists.) Design is why you admit you are agnostic. (Yes.) When you delve into God's personality you are getting back to Adler's wise admonition He is a personage like no other person. (We cannot KNOW anything, including whether your God exists, but this forum exists to discuss all the related subjects. I do not think a possible God’s nature and purpose should be off limits, especially when you go on and on about your God’s purposefulness). He is pure energy and we are material persons who have minds and reason, and are a little similar to Him but no more. When you try to make God a person like us, you are in very murky waters, with guesses and nothing more. (I am not making him a person like us. I am suggesting he may have some of our characteristics if we are created “in his image”. You have agreed on the possibility that evolution might be an experiment - endowing him with human ignorance of one kind or another. And so we come back to my original question: if one possibility is the human-type desire to find out what would happen if…or to find a way of creating what he wants to create, why do you refuse to accept that another possibility might be the human-type desire for an occupation?)
In all of the above mashed get-together paragraph in one strange theme. You ask what is God's purpose and I keep telling everyone it was to create current humans, and then you tell me I haven't answered you which means that you want to know about His underlying thought pattern as to why He chose that purpose. I don't know why you need that guess on my part. It is all part of your attempt to study Him as if He were human or part human due to the fact that He and we have consciousness. What is wrong with accepting that we humans are the current and probably the real end point of a long process? And simply being satisfied with it? Dayenu. Do you think His motives are nefarious? Knowing his motives will not help you accept God. Nor will guessing create any more understanding of God than we have now.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
dhw: But now perhaps you’ll tell me why a God who is capable of not knowing what he wants, or of knowing what he wants but having trouble working out how to get it, is incapable of wanting something to keep himself occupied.
DAVID: […] I view God as purposeful in everything He does.
You still refuse to answer my question.
DAVID: He is The Creator in religions' concept of Him. (Yes.) I really know nothing more about HIM. (Nobody knows any more, so why do you insist that his purpose in creating 50,000 webs etc. was to produce humans?) He understands the complexity of life He has designed, because He knew how to do it and make it perpetually alive.(Obviously, if he created it. But you keep telling us he was purposeful, and then you refuse to discuss his possible purpose – see above.) I don't scurry back to design. Design and God are totally intertwined in any philosophic view of the question whether God exists. (This whole discussion is about his purpose, not about whether he exists.) Design is why you admit you are agnostic. (Yes.) When you delve into God's personality you are getting back to Adler's wise admonition He is a personage like no other person. (We cannot KNOW anything, including whether your God exists, but this forum exists to discuss all the related subjects. I do not think a possible God’s nature and purpose should be off limits, especially when you go on and on about your God’s purposefulness). He is pure energy and we are material persons who have minds and reason, and are a little similar to Him but no more. When you try to make God a person like us, you are in very murky waters, with guesses and nothing more. (I am not making him a person like us. I am suggesting he may have some of our characteristics if we are created “in his image”. You have agreed on the possibility that evolution might be an experiment - endowing him with human ignorance of one kind or another. And so we come back to my original question: if one possibility is the human-type desire to find out what would happen if…or to find a way of creating what he wants to create, why do you refuse to accept that another possibility might be the human-type desire for an occupation?)
DAVID: In all of the above mashed get-together paragraph in one strange theme. You ask what is God's purpose and I keep telling everyone it was to create current humans, and then you tell me I haven't answered you which means that you want to know about His underlying thought pattern as to why He chose that purpose.
The mashed get-together paragraph answers your mashed get-together reflections on the subject of a purposeful God. If God does exist, and his purpose in creating life was to create humans, it is perfectly natural to ask about his purpose in creating humans and every other life form. And you can’t identify a purpose without trying to read the "thought patterns" of the doer.
DAVID: I don't know why you need that guess on my part. It is all part of your attempt to study Him as if He were human or part human due to the fact that He and we have consciousness. What is wrong with accepting that we humans are the current and probably the real end point of a long process? And simply being satisfied with it? Dayenu. Do you think His motives are nefarious? Knowing his motives will not help you accept God. Nor will guessing create any more understanding of God than we have now.
The problem is not your belief that humans are the current end point in terms of our consciousness, but your belief that he created 50,000 spider webs etc. as stepping stones to humans. (But see the "Neanderthal" thread). You want me to believe that there is a being who potentially has total control over me, but not ask about his nature and purpose! The subject has preoccupied theologians ever since they first produced the idea of a single God. “Knowing his motives will not help you accept God.” What should I “accept”? That there is a conscious mind which specially created me and all my fellow creatures but it doesn't matter why, or what he might be like? I might as well believe in the sun or in chance as my creator. If his nature and purpose don’t matter, should I “accept” the God of Deism, who created life and left it to run its own course, i.e. a non-interventionist God (which I have proposed as a possible theistic explanation for the higgledy-piggledy history of life)? Well no, because you said on the Einstein thread that you believe he has guided you through your life. (I asked if you thought he also guided the lives of tyrants and their victims and of victims of natural disasters, but you had no idea.) So you believe in a God who has benevolent feelings towards you, but you don’t want anyone else to conjecture why he created the rest of his creations or what sort of feelings (if any) he might have about them.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Saturday, December 01, 2018, 18:52 (2182 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: In all of the above mashed get-together paragraph in one strange theme. You ask what is God's purpose and I keep telling everyone it was to create current humans, and then you tell me I haven't answered you which means that you want to know about His underlying thought pattern as to why He chose that purpose.
dhw: The mashed get-together paragraph answers your mashed get-together reflections on the subject of a purposeful God. If God does exist, and his purpose in creating life was to create humans, it is perfectly natural to ask about his purpose in creating humans and every other life form. And you can’t identify a purpose without trying to read the "thought patterns" of the doer.
DAVID: I don't know why you need that guess on my part. It is all part of your attempt to study Him as if He were human or part human due to the fact that He and we have consciousness. What is wrong with accepting that we humans are the current and probably the real end point of a long process? And simply being satisfied with it? Dayenu. Do you think His motives are nefarious? Knowing his motives will not help you accept God. Nor will guessing create any more understanding of God than we have now.
dhw: The problem is not your belief that humans are the current end point in terms of our consciousness, but your belief that he created 50,000 spider webs etc. as stepping stones to humans. (But see the "Neanderthal" thread). You want me to believe that there is a being who potentially has total control over me, but not ask about his nature and purpose! The subject has preoccupied theologians ever since they first produced the idea of a single God. “Knowing his motives will not help you accept God.” What should I “accept”? That there is a conscious mind which specially created me and all my fellow creatures but it doesn't matter why, or what he might be like? I might as well believe in the sun or in chance as my creator. If his nature and purpose don’t matter, should I “accept” the God of Deism, who created life and left it to run its own course, i.e. a non-interventionist God (which I have proposed as a possible theistic explanation for the higgledy-piggledy history of life)? Well no, because you said on the Einstein thread that you believe he has guided you through your life. (I asked if you thought he also guided the lives of tyrants and their victims and of victims of natural disasters, but you had no idea.) So you believe in a God who has benevolent feelings towards you, but you don’t want anyone else to conjecture why he created the rest of his creations or what sort of feelings (if any) he might have about them.
Your problem with me is my position about religious teachings. I have chosen to ignore them as much as I can considering I was raised Jewish, and to try and ascertain God's methods of creation through science, and even to decide upon a belief in God through a study of science. As you know the complexity of life's biochemistry has led me to accept God as a designer. Because of your position outside belief, you started this site to explore agnosticism, and have asked me questions you have, which I don't consider important to my decision. So I guess and you poke fun. Adler supports my position. In politeness as a guest here, I'll try and give answers I deem reasonable to me as to the inner workings of God's mind. But I view it as a black box. Specifically I do not believe a God, who so carefully produced human consciousness so that we can think about Him, would abandon the project. No deism! As for not wanting anyone to make conjectures about Him, I don't want to stop anyone from thinking about God. but I will object to asking me to humanize Him as in our discussions. My own private feelings about my relationship with God are open for all to see. But they are an enclosed set of beliefs meant only for me. Does God relate to anyone else? Adler says 50/50 and I accept that. So please consider your mental struggles about God as an open project and continue. I'll accept what I see as consistent with my approach.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: Your problem with me is my position about religious teachings. I have chosen to ignore them as much as I can considering I was raised Jewish, and to try and ascertain God's methods of creation through science, and even to decide upon a belief in God through a study of science. As you know the complexity of life's biochemistry has led me to accept God as a designer.
I have absolutely no problem with your position concerning design. As regards religious teachings, I am as sceptical as you are about them. That is why I am sometimes surprised when you call upon their support to oppose my hypotheses, e.g. on the matter of your God deliberately sacrificing total control: “No one in the religions agrees with you. Remember you are reinterpreting their God.” (“Neanderthal” thread, 25 November) It is your position as regards your God’s purposes and methods that I find problematical.
DAVID: Because of your position outside belief, you started this site to explore agnosticism, and have asked me questions you have, which I don't consider important to my decision.
I did not start this site to explore agnosticism! I started it to explore all the fundamental questions which agnostics cannot answer, in the hope that a public forum might shed light on some of the mysteries. I have not asked you any questions concerning your decision to believe in God, since I accept the logic of your design argument – a major reason for my inability to embrace atheism – and I accept the obvious fact that all life requires energy. The questions I have asked you concern your fixed belief that your God designed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life, that innovations were designed before needed, and that every variety of life was a stepping stone to the brain and body of H. sapiens. You would hardly have come up with these hypotheses if they were not important to you.
DAVID: So I guess and you poke fun.
The expression “poke fun” does not answer my request for logical answers to the above questions.
DAVID: Adler supports my position. In politeness as a guest here, I'll try and give answers I deem reasonable to me as to the inner workings of God's mind. But I view it as a black box. Specifically I do not believe a God, who so carefully produced human consciousness so that we can think about Him, would abandon the project. No deism! As for not wanting anyone to make conjectures about Him, I don't want to stop anyone from thinking about God. but I will object to asking me to humanize Him as in our discussions.
And yet you never cease to emphasize your God’s purposefulness. I can see no logic in insisting that God only has one purpose – the production of H. sapiens – and then refusing even to consider why he might have wanted to create H. sapiens, let alone why he specially designed every life form etc., in order to fulfil that one purpose (but see the "Neanderthal" thread). I am NOT asking you to regard your God as a human being, but even you have conceded that he may have certain traits in common with us. I really don’t know why “so that we can think about him” is less humanizing than “so he can watch us and all our fellow creatures evolve in our different ways.”
DAVID: My own private feelings about my relationship with God are open for all to see. But they are an enclosed set of beliefs meant only for me. Does God relate to anyone else? Adler says 50/50 and I accept that. So please consider your mental struggles about God as an open project and continue. I'll accept what I see as consistent with my approach.
Perfectly fair, and yes indeed, the project remains open, which is why I continue to question your interpretation of your God’s purpose and method in the context of life’s history. I have explained why I find your hypotheses illogical, while you have explained why you find my own hypothesis unlikely (which I accept to the extent that there is no proof) but have not yet pointed out any logical flaw in the thinking.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Sunday, December 02, 2018, 15:49 (2181 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have absolutely no problem with your position concerning design. As regards religious teachings, I am as sceptical as you are about them. That is why I am sometimes surprised when you call upon their support to oppose my hypotheses, e.g. on the matter of your God deliberately sacrificing total control: “No one in the religions agrees with you. Remember you are reinterpreting their God.” (“Neanderthal” thread, 25 November) It is your position as regards your God’s purposes and methods that I find problematical.
I've explained my positions as coming from my personal studies. And I am totally comfortable with them. You keep hunting for God's motives underlying the results of His creation. I never did until you pushed me, since it doesn't matter to me. I may be the wrong foil for you. Tony miht offer different help.
DAVID: Because of your position outside belief, you started this site to explore agnosticism, and have asked me questions you have, which I don't consider important to my decision.dhw: I did not start this site to explore agnosticism! I started it to explore all the fundamental questions which agnostics cannot answer, in the hope that a public forum might shed light on some of the mysteries...The questions I have asked you concern your fixed belief that your God designed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life, that innovations were designed before needed, and that every variety of life was a stepping stone to the brain and body of H. sapiens. You would hardly have come up with these hypotheses if they were not important to you.
Design is the key to my acceptance of God. My hypotheses all fit as God, the Designer with a goal of humans through evolution. What we know about evolution fits my hypothesis and faith.
DAVID: Adler supports my position. In politeness as a guest here, I'll try and give answers I deem reasonable to me as to the inner workings of God's mind. But I view it as a black box. Specifically I do not believe a God, who so carefully produced human consciousness so that we can think about Him, would abandon the project. No deism! As for not wanting anyone to make conjectures about Him, I don't want to stop anyone from thinking about God. but I will object to asking me to humanize Him as in our discussions.
dhw: And yet you never cease to emphasize your God’s purposefulness. I can see no logic in insisting that God only has one purpose –
Since only we recognize God exists, and that creates a special relationship, why should we search for other motives? I'm not.
DAVID: My own private feelings about my relationship with God are open for all to see. But they are an enclosed set of beliefs meant only for me. Does God relate to anyone else? Adler says 50/50 and I accept that. So please consider your mental struggles about God as an open project and continue. I'll accept what I see as consistent with my approach.dhw: Perfectly fair, and yes indeed, the project remains open, which is why I continue to question your interpretation of your God’s purpose and method in the context of life’s history. I have explained why I find your hypotheses illogical, while you have explained why you find my own hypothesis unlikely (which I accept to the extent that there is no proof) but have not yet pointed out any logical flaw in the thinking.
You have wandered far afield but many suppositions about God's motives can seem logical since our knowledge of God comes mainly from religious pronouncements, which are just human thoughts.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
dhw: I have absolutely no problem with your position concerning design. […] It is your position as regards your God’s purposes and methods that I find problematical.
DAVID: I've explained my positions as coming from my personal studies. And I am totally comfortable with them. You keep hunting for God's motives underlying the results of His creation. I never did until you pushed me, since it doesn't matter to me. I may be the wrong foil for you. Tony miht offer different help.
We have spent years debating your belief that your God personally designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct in order to fulfil his one and only purpose: to produce humans who would think about him. You have now agreed that all these varieties are not stepping stones to humans, but exist or existed only as parts of changing econiches and nothing more. God’s “motives underlying the results of His creation” means his purpose, and throughout our discussions, you have insisted that God is purposeful in all he does. But now you are only interested in his purpose for creating you and me, which is to think about him (a nice example of humanization). Throughout the years I am delighted to say you have also presented ideas and especially information to me that I might never have thought about or known in the past. That is indeed the function of this forum. However, you don’t like me presenting you with ideas that you might never have thought about before. And so suddenly your God’s purpose and method for the whole of life and evolution don’t matter any more. 
DAVID: Because of your position outside belief, you started this site to explore agnosticism, and have asked me questions you have, which I don't consider important to my decision.
dhw: I did not start this site to explore agnosticism! I started it to explore all the fundamental questions which agnostics cannot answer, in the hope that a public forum might shed light on some of the mysteries...The questions I have asked you concern your fixed belief that your God designed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life, that innovations were designed before needed, and that every variety of life was a stepping stone to the brain and body of H. sapiens. You would hardly have come up with these hypotheses if they were not important to you.
DAVID: Design is the key to my acceptance of God. My hypotheses all fit as God, the Designer with a goal of humans through evolution. What we know about evolution fits my hypothesis and faith.
I accept the design argument. I do not see how your God’s special design of 50,000 spiders’ webs, whale fins and weaverbirds’ nests fits the hypothesis that every variety of life is/was a stepping stone to humans. Nor do you, which is why you now say that all these varieties serve/served to provide energy for life, and nothing more. But this would be true even if there were no humans, and so we are still faced with the problem below.
DAVID: Since only we recognize God exists, and that creates a special relationship, why should we search for other motives? I'm not.
Again, that would make sense if we were the only organism that God specially designed. But according to you, he also specially designed every other species, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct. Why would he specially design all of them if what he wanted was us? I offer you possible answers: he didn’t specially design all of them, or we were not his one and only purpose, or we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, or we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis.
dhw: I have explained why I find your hypotheses illogical, while you have explained why you find my own hypothesis unlikely (which I accept to the extent that there is no proof) but have not yet pointed out any logical flaw in the thinking.
DAVID: You have wandered far afield but many suppositions about God's motives can seem logical since our knowledge of God comes mainly from religious pronouncements, which are just human thoughts.
We have no knowledge of God, and that extends even as far as his existence. All we have are our human thoughts, and all we can do is test their logic in our human way. Your thoughts about design are 100% logical. But you would rather not discuss the logic of your hypothesis concerning his purpose and method for evolution.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Monday, December 03, 2018, 17:20 (2180 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have absolutely no problem with your position concerning design. […] It is your position as regards your God’s purposes and methods that I find problematical.
DAVID: I've explained my positions as coming from my personal studies. And I am totally comfortable with them. You keep hunting for God's motives underlying the results of His creation. I never did until you pushed me, since it doesn't matter to me. I may be the wrong foil for you. Tony might offer different help.
dhw: We have spent years debating your belief that your God personally designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct in order to fulfil his one and only purpose: to produce humans who would think about him. You have now agreed that all these varieties are not stepping stones to humans, but exist or existed only as parts of changing econiches and nothing more. God’s “motives underlying the results of His creation” means his purpose, and throughout our discussions, you have insisted that God is purposeful in all he does. But now you are only interested in his purpose for creating you and me, which is to think about him (a nice example of humanization). Throughout the years I am delighted to say you have also presented ideas and especially information to me that I might never have thought about or known in the past. That is indeed the function of this forum. However, you don’t like me presenting you with ideas that you might never have thought about before. And so suddenly your God’s purpose and method for the whole of life and evolution don’t matter any more.
I have never changed from my positions. I have been pleased to educate you, and in politeness (as previously noted) have tried to respond to your inquires into God's mind. But you have reached a point in trying to humanize God's thought process and I've never gone there. I've concentrated on the science of reality as looking at 'how' God did what he did, without wondering about the 'why' He did it. I've spent most of my time exposing you to the design argument. I'm simply telling you I am in foreign territory, to which I object constantly, while criticizing your humanizing approach.
DAVID: Design is the key to my acceptance of God. My hypotheses all fit as God, the Designer with a goal of humans through evolution. What we know about evolution fits my hypothesis and faith.
dhw: I accept the design argument. I do not see how your God’s special design of 50,000 spiders’ webs, whale fins and weaverbirds’ nests fits the hypothesis that every variety of life is/was a stepping stone to humans. Nor do you, which is why you now say that all these varieties serve/served to provide energy for life, and nothing more. But this would be true even if there were no humans, and so we are still faced with the problem below.
You are stressing the word 'steppingstone' too strongly. All stages of evolution and diversity are steps to reaching humans, nothing more. The diversity of design of living forms is to set up delicate econiches to provide food, nothing more, for life to survive the lengthy process of evolving life with humans as the current and probably last endpoint. From what I have presented, do you doubt about the delicacy of econiche balances?
DAVID: Since only we recognize God exists, and that creates a special relationship, why should we search for other motives? I'm not.dhw: Again, that would make sense if we were the only organism that God specially designed. But according to you, he also specially designed every other species, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct. Why would he specially design all of them if what he wanted was us? I offer you possible answers: he didn’t specially design all of them, or we were not his one and only purpose, or we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, or we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis.
Those econiches are designed to provide energy. I don't know why God chose to evolve humans, when religions, if correct, tell us He could do anything He wanted. The Bible tries to tell us He made Adam from dirt. Maybe the evolutionary process was the only way He could do it. I've said this before.
dhw: I have explained why I find your hypotheses illogical, while you have explained why you find my own hypothesis unlikely (which I accept to the extent that there is no proof) but have not yet pointed out any logical flaw in the thinking.
DAVID: You have wandered far afield but many suppositions about God's motives can seem logical since our knowledge of God comes mainly from religious pronouncements, which are just human thoughts.
dhw: We have no knowledge of God, and that extends even as far as his existence. All we have are our human thoughts, and all we can do is test their logic in our human way. Your thoughts about design are 100% logical. But you would rather not discuss the logic of your hypothesis concerning his purpose and method for evolution.
I use what I see science present to explain the design that is obvious. God's mind is a black box to me.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
Throughout the years I am delighted to say you have also presented ideas and especially information to me that I might never have thought about or known in the past. That is indeed the function of this forum. However, you don’t like me presenting you with ideas that you might never have thought about before. And so suddenly your God’s purpose and method for the whole of life and evolution don’t matter any more.
DAVID: I have never changed from my positions. I have been pleased to educate you, and in politeness (as previously noted) have tried to respond to your inquires into God's mind. But you have reached a point in trying to humanize God's thought process and I've never gone there.
Twice in the last few days, without my asking, you have stated that your God wants us to think about him and wants a relationship with us. But this is not humanization? You insist that he designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder although his sole purpose was to create us; later you admit that you do not know “why God chose to evolve humans when religions, if correct, tell us he could do anything he wanted.” Your “don’t know” concerns the enormous logical gap between your hypotheses, but you would rather not think about that.
DAVID: I've concentrated on the science of reality as looking at 'how' God did what he did, without wondering about the 'why' He did it. I've spent most of my time exposing you to the design argument. I'm simply telling you I am in foreign territory, to which I object constantly, while criticizing your humanizing approach.
And yet you harp on about God’s purposefulness, and you tell us his one purpose was to create us and you spontaneously tell us why (see above). I have long since accepted the design argument, which along with psychic experiences is the reason for my agnosticism (as opposed to atheism). We are all in foreign territory, but although you don’t know why your God specially designed all life forms although his purpose was to produce us – two hypotheses that have nothing whatsoever to do with science – you refuse to consider any other hypotheses.
dhw: I do not see how your God’s special design of 50,000 spiders’ webs, whale fins and weaverbirds’ nests fits the hypothesis that every variety of life is/was a stepping stone to humans. Nor do you [… ]
DAVID: You are stressing the word 'steppingstone' too strongly. All stages of evolution and diversity are steps to reaching humans, nothing more.
There is no connection. All stages of evolution and diversity are steps towards every single life form that ever lived, including the current whale, baleen, weaverbird, spider, duckbilled platypus and human.
DAVID: The diversity of design of living forms is to set up delicate econiches to provide food, nothing more, for life to survive the lengthy process of evolving life with humans as the current and probably last endpoint. From what I have presented, do you doubt about the delicacy of econiche balances?
I have never doubted the delicacy of ever changing econiches. Case closed. Logical gap between your two hypotheses still wide open. You admit you can’t close it, but you won’t admit that this gap in your reasoning might mean that one or both of these hypotheses may be wrong.
Dhw: I offer you possible answers: he didn’t specially design all of them, or we were not his one and only purpose, or we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, or we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis.
DAVID: I don't know why God chose to evolve humans, when religions, if correct, tell us He could do anything He wanted. The Bible tries to tell us He made Adam from dirt. Maybe the evolutionary process was the only way He could do it. I've said this before.
You don’t know why, but you refuse to consider any of the logical answers above.
xxxxxx
Under "Marine snow")
DAVID: Surprise! Mammals in the ocean add to the bottom food supply as they die and decompose. Another example of how delicate econiches are set up to provide food supply. The niches are part of God's design for life to survive and evolve over long stretches of time. I'm sorry dhw can't see the logic.
Apart from the bit about “God’s design”, it is not logic but a simple and obvious fact. All forms of life provide energy, and without energy, life would die out. This would be true if there were no humans, and it would be true if your God did not specially design every form of life. You are latching onto this as if it somehow provided evidence for your two hypotheses (God designed every life form, and his purpose was to produce humans who would think about him). You don’t know why he chose to specially design every life form for 3+ billion years in order to specially design the brain and body of H. sapiens, but God's logic is different from ours (another of your get-out mantras). Maybe God's logic is different from yours, and one or both of your hypotheses are wrong.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 04, 2018, 18:19 (2179 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I have never changed from my positions. I have been pleased to educate you, and in politeness (as previously noted) have tried to respond to your inquires into God's mind. But you have reached a point in trying to humanize God's thought process and I've never gone there.
dhw: Twice in the last few days, without my asking, you have stated that your God wants us to think about him and wants a relationship with us. But this is not humanization? You insist that he designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder although his sole purpose was to create us; later you admit that you do not know “why God chose to evolve humans when religions, if correct, tell us he could do anything he wanted.” Your “don’t know” concerns the enormous logical gap between your hypotheses, but you would rather not think about that.
You want me to fill in guesses about God's motives. I try to be polite. I don't know them, and since I am satisfied with what He created I'm not inclined to go further. Why you want to probe into something we cannot answer is beyond my understanding.
dhw:And yet you harp on about God’s purposefulness, and you tell us his one purpose was to create us and you spontaneously tell us why (see above). I have long since accepted the design argument, which along with psychic experiences is the reason for my agnosticism (as opposed to atheism). We are all in foreign territory, but although you don’t know why your God specially designed all life forms although his purpose was to produce us – two hypotheses that have nothing whatsoever to do with science – you refuse to consider any other hypotheses.
I've given my clear reasons.
DAVID: The diversity of design of living forms is to set up delicate econiches to provide food, nothing more, for life to survive the lengthy process of evolving life with humans as the current and probably last endpoint. From what I have presented, do you doubt about the delicacy of econiche balances?dhw: I have never doubted the delicacy of ever changing econiches. Case closed. Logical gap between your two hypotheses still wide open. You admit you can’t close it, but you won’t admit that this gap in your reasoning might mean that one or both of these hypotheses may be wrong.
I literally don't see your gap.
Dhw: I offer you possible answers: he didn’t specially design all of them, or we were not his one and only purpose, or we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, or we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis.DAVID: I don't know why God chose to evolve humans, when religions, if correct, tell us He could do anything He wanted. The Bible tries to tell us He made Adam from dirt. Maybe the evolutionary process was the only way He could do it. I've said this before.
dhw: You don’t know why, but you refuse to consider any of the logical answers above.
Frankly I think you are illogical. The diversity of life must exist to supply eaten energy for life to survive for 3.5+ billion years.
xxxxxx
Under "Marine snow")DAVID: Surprise! Mammals in the ocean add to the bottom food supply as they die and decompose. Another example of how delicate econiches are set up to provide food supply. The niches are part of God's design for life to survive and evolve over long stretches of time. I'm sorry dhw can't see the logic.
dhw: Apart from the bit about “God’s design”, it is not logic but a simple and obvious fact. All forms of life provide energy, and without energy, life would die out. This would be true if there were no humans, and it would be true if your God did not specially design every form of life. You are latching onto this as if it somehow provided evidence for your two hypotheses (God designed every life form, and his purpose was to produce humans who would think about him). You don’t know why he chose to specially design every life form for 3+ billion years in order to specially design the brain and body of H. sapiens, but God's logic is different from ours (another of your get-out mantras). Maybe God's logic is different from yours, and one or both of your hypotheses are wrong.
I've told you why over and over. Sorry you can't see it.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: You want me to fill in guesses about God's motives. I try to be polite. I don't know them, and since I am satisfied with what He created I'm not inclined to go further. Why you want to probe into something we cannot answer is beyond my understanding.
We have spent ten years together probing into questions we cannot answer. However, you have been quite specific about your God’s motives and methods, although nobody can possibly know them: he created life in order to produce us so that we would think about him and have a relationship with him, and his method was the special design of every life form and econiche extant and extant in the history of evolution, but you don’t know why he chose this method. I have attempted to bridge this logical gap between your two hypotheses.
Dhw: I offer you possible answers: he didn’t specially design all of them, or we were not his one and only purpose, or we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, or we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis.
DAVID: I don't know why God chose to evolve humans, when religions, if correct, tell us He could do anything He wanted. The Bible tries to tell us He made Adam from dirt. Maybe the evolutionary process was the only way He could do it. I've said this before.
dhw: You don’t know why, but you refuse to consider any of the logical answers above.
DAVID: Frankly I think you are illogical. The diversity of life must exist to supply eaten energy for life to survive for 3.5+ billion years.
I accept the obvious statement that all life supplies energy, and will do so until life ceases to exist. I also accept your argument that life and evolution provide evidence for design, with the proviso that if your God exists, it is possible (not a fact, and not even a belief) that he provided the first cells with an autonomous mechanism for design. Neither of these points is an issue. Once more: Our disagreement is over your insistence that your God specially designed every life form and econiche at every stage of evolution, you don’t know why he chose this method to fulfil his sole purpose of designing us, but you don’t want to consider any hypothesis that attempts to fill the gap in your reasoning. Perhaps we should leave it at that, as I have obviously offended you, which is the last thing I would want to do. However, what you cannot expect me to do is leave unchallenged any further statements you make in defence of your hypotheses or in opposition to my own. Below are two such comments:
DAVID (under ”Hominins later in Arabia”): Disappearance of a hominin type is not like turning off a light bulb. They die off slowly. That H. sapiens and H. erectus lived side by side suggests sapiens appeared with no intermediate forms. H. sapiens by direct creation is possible.
Yet again this raises the question of why, if you think your God was capable of direct creation of H. sapiens - his one and only purpose - he chose to specially create the whale, the 50,000 webs, the weaverbird’s nest etc. to keep life going until he could specially create us. And why all the other contemporary forms of human? You have said you don’t know, which in my view should at least leave you open to the possibility that one or other of your hypotheses is wrong.
DAVID (article on beavers): An ecological article much too long to summarize. It shows how life influences the ecology and the necessary econiches, while changing the local Earth. It answers dhw's attempt to downplay econiches.
Thank you for this interesting article, and for editing it. No thanks for the comment at the end. I have never disagreed that econiches are changing all the time, all life forms provide necessary food for other life forms, life cannot continue without energy etc. etc. The one disagreement I have with you is your fixed idea that all life forms and econiches are/were specially and individually preprogrammed/dabbled by your God, and are/were all “stepping stones” to keep life going for the sole purpose of producing humans.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 05, 2018, 19:59 (2178 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You want me to fill in guesses about God's motives. I try to be polite. I don't know them, and since I am satisfied with what He created I'm not inclined to go further. Why you want to probe into something we cannot answer is beyond my understanding.
dhw: We have spent ten years together probing into questions we cannot answer. However, you have been quite specific about your God’s motives and methods, although nobody can possibly know them: he created life in order to produce us so that we would think about him and have a relationship with him, and his method was the special design of every life form and econiche extant and extant in the history of evolution, but you don’t know why he chose this method. I have attempted to bridge this logical gap between your two hypotheses.
I see no logical gap. I have no way of knowing why He chose stepwise evolution instead of direct creation a'la the Bible.
DAVID: Frankly I think you are illogical. The diversity of life must exist to supply eaten energy for life to survive for 3.5+ billion years.I accept the obvious statement that all life supplies energy, and will do so until life ceases to exist. I also accept your argument that life and evolution provide evidence for design, with the proviso that if your God exists, it is possible (not a fact, and not even a belief) that he provided the first cells with an autonomous mechanism for design. Neither of these points is an issue. Once more: Our disagreement is over your insistence that your God specially designed every life form and econiche at every stage of evolution, you don’t know why he chose this method to fulfil his sole purpose of designing us, but you don’t want to consider any hypothesis that attempts to fill the gap in your reasoning. Perhaps we should leave it at that, as I have obviously offended you, which is the last thing I would want to do. However, what you cannot expect me to do is leave unchallenged any further statements you make in defence of your hypotheses or in opposition to my own. Below are two such comments:
You have not offended me. You are entering an area of supposition which I do not think is worth pursuing since no reasonable conclusions are possible.
DAVID (under ”Hominins later in Arabia”): Disappearance of a hominin type is not like turning off a light bulb. They die off slowly. That H. sapiens and H. erectus lived side by side suggests sapiens appeared with no intermediate forms. H. sapiens by direct creation is possible.dhw: Yet again this raises the question of why, if you think your God was capable of direct creation of H. sapiens - his one and only purpose - he chose to specially create the whale, the 50,000 webs, the weaverbird’s nest etc. to keep life going until he could specially create us. And why all the other contemporary forms of human? You have said you don’t know, which in my view should at least leave you open to the possibility that one or other of your hypotheses is wrong.
I see my hypotheses are tying together, right or wrong. Life cannot evolve unless it eats all along the way. God creates what He needs to create.
DAVID (article on beavers): An ecological article much too long to summarize. It shows how life influences the ecology and the necessary econiches, while changing the local Earth. It answers dhw's attempt to downplay econiches.dhw: Thank you for this interesting article, and for editing it. No thanks for the comment at the end. I have never disagreed that econiches are changing all the time, all life forms provide necessary food for other life forms, life cannot continue without energy etc. etc. The one disagreement I have with you is your fixed idea that all life forms and econiches are/were specially and individually preprogrammed/dabbled by your God, and are/were all “stepping stones” to keep life going for the sole purpose of producing humans.
Well, that is clear and logical as a disagreement. You are still with Darwin, and I am not.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: You want me to fill in guesses about God's motives. I try to be polite. I don't know them, and since I am satisfied with what He created I'm not inclined to go further. Why you want to probe into something we cannot answer is beyond my understanding.
dhw: We have spent ten years together probing into questions we cannot answer. However, you have been quite specific about your God’s motives and methods, although nobody can possibly know them: he created life in order to produce us so that we would think about him and have a relationship with him, and his method was the special design of every life form and econiche extant and extant in the history of evolution, but you don’t know why he chose this method. I have attempted to bridge this logical gap between your two hypotheses.
DAVID: I see no logical gap. I have no way of knowing why He chose stepwise evolution instead of direct creation a'la the Bible.
You can’t find a logical link between your two hypotheses, but you see no gap. I’d hate to be your passenger when you try to drive your car across a river without a bridge.
Dhw: […] you don’t know why he chose this method to fulfil his sole purpose of designing us, but you don’t want to consider any hypothesis that attempts to fill the gap in your reasoning. Perhaps we should leave it at that, as I have obviously offended you, which is the last thing I would want to do. However, what you cannot expect me to do is leave unchallenged any further statements you make in defence of your hypotheses or in opposition to my own. Below are two such comments:
DAVID: You have not offended me. You are entering an area of supposition which I do not think is worth pursuing since no reasonable conclusions are possible.
Thank you. Unfortunately you have reached two conclusions, and they are so contradictory that you cannot explain them. And yet you regard them as reasonable. I offered you four reasonable conclusions (repeated in yesterday’s post), you have yet to query the logic of any of them, but you prefer to ignore them.
DAVID (under ”Hominins later in Arabia”): Disappearance of a hominin type is not like turning off a light bulb. They die off slowly. That H. sapiens and H. erectus lived side by side suggests sapiens appeared with no intermediate forms. H. sapiens by direct creation is possible.
dhw: Yet again this raises the question of why, if you think your God was capable of direct creation of H. sapiens - his one and only purpose - he chose to specially create the whale, the 50,000 webs, the weaverbird’s nest etc. to keep life going until he could specially create us. And why all the other contemporary forms of human? You have said you don’t know, which in my view should at least leave you open to the possibility that one or other of your hypotheses is wrong.
DAVID: I see my hypotheses are tying together, right or wrong. Life cannot evolve unless it eats all along the way. God creates what He needs to create.
You admit that you can’t find a way of tying your hypotheses together, yes all life depends on food, and if your God exists, I suggest he creates what he wants to create. Why “needs” to create?
DAVID (article on beavers): An ecological article much too long to summarize. It shows how life influences the ecology and the necessary econiches, while changing the local Earth. It answers dhw's attempt to downplay econiches.
dhw: Thank you for this interesting article, and for editing it. No thanks for the comment at the end. I have never disagreed that econiches are changing all the time, all life forms provide necessary food for other life forms, life cannot continue without energy etc. etc. The one disagreement I have with you is your fixed idea that all life forms and econiches are/were specially and individually preprogrammed/dabbled by your God, and are/were all “stepping stones” to keep life going for the sole purpose of producing humans.
DAVID: Well, that is clear and logical as a disagreement. You are still with Darwin, and I am not.
Nothing to do with Darwin, and I wish you would stick to the point and stop relying on the word “Darwin” to distract attention from the arguments!
See the “Neanderthal thread”.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Thursday, December 06, 2018, 19:09 (2177 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You want me to fill in guesses about God's motives. I try to be polite. I don't know them, and since I am satisfied with what He created I'm not inclined to go further. Why you want to probe into something we cannot answer is beyond my understanding.
dhw: We have spent ten years together probing into questions we cannot answer. However, you have been quite specific about your God’s motives and methods, although nobody can possibly know them: he created life in order to produce us so that we would think about him and have a relationship with him, and his method was the special design of every life form and econiche extant and extant in the history of evolution, but you don’t know why he chose this method. I have attempted to bridge this logical gap between your two hypotheses.
DAVID: I see no logical gap. I have no way of knowing why He chose stepwise evolution instead of direct creation a'la the Bible.
dhw: You can’t find a logical link between your two hypotheses, but you see no gap. I’d hate to be your passenger when you try to drive your car across a river without a bridge.
I'm not Teddy Kennedy. You have the link problem. I don't try to read God's mind as you keep trying to do. I guess God is not logical to you, but we see what He did, and taht is what I accept.
DAVID: You have not offended me. You are entering an area of supposition which I do not think is worth pursuing since no reasonable conclusions are possible.dhw: Thank you. Unfortunately you have reached two conclusions, and they are so contradictory that you cannot explain them. And yet you regard them as reasonable. I offered you four reasonable conclusions (repeated in yesterday’s post), you have yet to query the logic of any of them, but you prefer to ignore them.
See above
dhw: Yet again this raises the question of why, if you think your God was capable of direct creation of H. sapiens - his one and only purpose - he chose to specially create the whale, the 50,000 webs, the weaverbird’s nest etc. to keep life going until he could specially create us. And why all the other contemporary forms of human? You have said you don’t know, which in my view should at least leave you open to the possibility that one or other of your hypotheses is wrong.DAVID: I see my hypotheses are tying together, right or wrong. Life cannot evolve unless it eats all along the way. God creates what He needs to create.
dhw: You admit that you can’t find a way of tying your hypotheses together, yes all life depends on food, and if your God exists, I suggest he creates what he wants to create. Why “needs” to create?
You refuse to tie together the need for niches to feed life for the length of time for evolution to reach the human stage. God saw the need for them and created them as part of His plan. Totally logical.
DAVID (article on beavers): An ecological article much too long to summarize. It shows how life influences the ecology and the necessary econiches, while changing the local Earth. It answers dhw's attempt to downplay econiches.dhw: Thank you for this interesting article, and for editing it. No thanks for the comment at the end. I have never disagreed that econiches are changing all the time, all life forms provide necessary food for other life forms, life cannot continue without energy etc. etc. The one disagreement I have with you is your fixed idea that all life forms and econiches are/were specially and individually preprogrammed/dabbled by your God, and are/were all “stepping stones” to keep life going for the sole purpose of producing humans.
DAVID: Well, that is clear and logical as a disagreement. You are still with Darwin, and I am not.
dhw: Nothing to do with Darwin, and I wish you would stick to the point and stop relying on the word “Darwin” to distract attention from the arguments!
Unless you accept a designer you are left floundering around with hypotheses that remind me directly of Darwin.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: I see no logical gap. I have no way of knowing why He chose stepwise evolution instead of direct creation a'la the Bible.
dhw: You can’t find a logical link between your two hypotheses, but you see no gap. I’d hate to be your passenger when you try to drive your car across a river without a bridge.
DAVID: I'm not Teddy Kennedy. You have the link problem. I don't try to read God's mind as you keep trying to do. I guess God is not logical to you, but we see what He did, and taht is what I accept.
It is you who are not logical to me! Your illogical reading of your God’s mind is that his sole purpose was to produce H. sapiens in order to have a relationship with us, he could have done so directly but instead he chose to specially create millions of other life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders, and you don’t know why. But you deny that there is a gap in your reasoning.
DAVID: I see my hypotheses are tying together, right or wrong. Life cannot evolve unless it eats all along the way. God creates what He needs to create.
dhw: You admit that you can’t find a way of tying your hypotheses together, yes all life depends on food, and if your God exists, I suggest he creates what he wants to create. Why “needs” to create?
DAVID: You refuse to tie together the need for niches to feed life for the length of time for evolution to reach the human stage. God saw the need for them and created them as part of His plan. Totally logical.
Niches are needed to feed life. This has always been so, is still so, and will continue to be so, and up until now evolution has reached the stage of whales, weaverbirds’ nests, 50,000 spider webs, the duckbilled platypus and humans. And so once more: this does not explain why your God specially created millions of niches extant and extinct when his sole purpose was to produce H.sapiens which, according to you, he could have done directly and you don't know why he "chose" not to.
dhw: I wish you would stick to the point and stop relying on the word “Darwin” to distract attention from the arguments! See the “Neanderthal thread”.
DAVID: Unless you accept a designer you are left floundering around with hypotheses that remind me directly of Darwin.
Here once more are four theistic proposals to stop you “floundering around” as you fail to explain why your God specially designed millions of life forms etc. instead of doing what he actually wanted to do:
1) he didn’t specially design all of them, 2) we were not his one and only purpose, 3) we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, 4) we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis. Do please explain why you find them illogical, but please don’t bother to tell us why they remind you of Darwin.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Friday, December 07, 2018, 18:26 (2176 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I'm not Teddy Kennedy. You have the link problem. I don't try to read God's mind as you keep trying to do. I guess God is not logical to you, but we see what He did, and taht is what I accept.
dhw: It is you who are not logical to me! Your illogical reading of your God’s mind is that his sole purpose was to produce H. sapiens in order to have a relationship with us, he could have done so directly but instead he chose to specially create millions of other life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders, and you don’t know why. But you deny that there is a gap in your reasoning.
How can I know why God chose evolution instead of direct creation? That is the evidence presented. I've offered the very logical reason that life has to eat and the diversity supplies the energy for evolutionary time to pass. Instead you are totally illogical about a gap I don't see. What gap?
DAVID: You refuse to tie together the need for niches to feed life for the length of time for evolution to reach the human stage. God saw the need for them and created them as part of His plan. Totally logical.dhw: Niches are needed to feed life. This has always been so, is still so, and will continue to be so, and up until now evolution has reached the stage of whales, weaverbirds’ nests, 50,000 spider webs, the duckbilled platypus and humans. And so once more: this does not explain why your God specially created millions of niches extant and extinct when his sole purpose was to produce H.sapiens which, according to you, he could have done directly and you don't know why he "chose" not to.
Once again you want me to read God's mind, while no one can, even though you keep trying.
dhw: I wish you would stick to the point and stop relying on the word “Darwin” to distract attention from the arguments! See the “Neanderthal thread”.DAVID: Unless you accept a designer you are left floundering around with hypotheses that remind me directly of Darwin.
dhw: Here once more are four theistic proposals to stop you “floundering around” as you fail to explain why your God specially designed millions of life forms etc. instead of doing what he actually wanted to do:
1) he didn’t specially design all of them, 2) we were not his one and only purpose, 3) we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, 4) we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis. Do please explain why you find them illogical, but please don’t bother to tell us why they remind you of Darwin.
Once again, God can create humans by any method He wishes. He obviously chose an evolutionary process. Accept God's obvious method and there is no gap, except in your thinking which insists upon entering His mind for an exact purpose. And, of course, you would add, 'if He exists' and there is a mind to enter.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: [...] You have the link problem. I don't try to read God's mind as you keep trying to do. I guess God is not logical to you, but we see what He did, and taht is what I accept.
dhw: It is you who are not logical to me! Your illogical reading of your God’s mind is that his sole purpose was to produce H. sapiens in order to have a relationship with us, he could have done so directly but instead he chose to specially create millions of other life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders, and you don’t know why. But you deny that there is a gap in your reasoning.
DAVID: How can I know why God chose evolution instead of direct creation? That is the evidence presented. I've offered the very logical reason that life has to eat and the diversity supplies the energy for evolutionary time to pass. Instead you are totally illogical about a gap I don't see. What gap?
Once more: you insist that he personally designed 50,000 spider webs, baleens, the weaverbird’s nest, plus 3+ billion years’ worth of innovations, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct, so that everything could eat everything else to keep life going while time passed. But his sole purpose was to produce us so that we would think about him and have a relationship with him. With the full control you attribute to him, you say he could have achieved his purpose directly, and so you don’t know why he chose to create us in this manner. The bit that you don’t know is the gap. And I have suggested several ways in which you can do away with it, but you continue to ignore them (see below).
DAVID: You refuse to tie together the need for niches to feed life for the length of time for evolution to reach the human stage. God saw the need for them and created them as part of His plan. Totally logical.
dhw: Niches are needed to feed life. This has always been so, is still so, and will continue to be so, and up until now evolution has reached the stage of whales, weaverbirds’ nests, 50,000 spider webs, the duckbilled platypus and humans. And so once more: this does not explain why your God specially created millions of niches extant and extinct when his sole purpose was to produce H.sapiens which, according to you, he could have done directly and you don't know why he "chose" not to.
DAVID: Once again you want me to read God's mind, while no one can, even though you keep trying.
It is your reading of your God’s mind that I keep challenging, but (a) you don’t seem to realize that when you specify your God’s purpose you are trying to read his mind, and (b) you persist in refusing to recognize that your reading of his mind makes no sense in relation to the method you propose. You admit that you can’t link the two together but you still won’t admit that this represents a gap in your reasoning!
dhw: Here once more are four theistic proposals to stop you “floundering around” as you fail to explain why your God specially designed millions of life forms etc. instead of doing what he actually wanted to do:
1) he didn’t specially design all of them, 2) we were not his one and only purpose, 3) we (with our self-awareness) were his only purpose but he didn’t know how to make us, 4) we came late on in his thinking. All of these fit the history of life as we know it, and they bridge the enormous gap in your hypothesis. Do please explain why you find them illogical, but please don’t bother to tell us why they remind you of Darwin.
DAVID: Once again, God can create humans by any method He wishes. He obviously chose an evolutionary process.
You and I agree that evolution took place. But if you can’t see any way in which the method fits the purpose, there might just possibly be a fault in your interpretation of one or both. Hence the above proposals, which you continue to ignore. May I presume you can’t find any logical flaw in them?
DAVID: Accept God's obvious method and there is no gap, except in your thinking which insists upon entering His mind for an exact purpose. […]
You are not asking me to accept your God’s method. You are asking me to accept your interpretation of evolution as a means of fulfilling your interpretation of your God’s intentions, even though you yourself can’t find any way to link the method and the exact, anthropocentric purpose which YOU impose on him.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Saturday, December 08, 2018, 22:06 (2175 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: How can I know why God chose evolution instead of direct creation? That is the evidence presented. I've offered the very logical reason that life has to eat and the diversity supplies the energy for evolutionary time to pass. Instead you are totally illogical about a gap I don't see. What gap?
dhw: Once more: you insist that he personally designed 50,000 spider webs, baleens, the weaverbird’s nest, plus 3+ billion years’ worth of innovations, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct, so that everything could eat everything else to keep life going while time passed. But his sole purpose was to produce us so that we would think about him and have a relationship with him. With the full control you attribute to him, you say he could have achieved his purpose directly, and so you don’t know why he chose to create us in this manner. The bit that you don’t know is the gap. And I have suggested several ways in which you can do away with it, but you continue to ignore them (see below).
I don't believe my God would do it your way.
DAVID: Once again you want me to read God's mind, while no one can, even though you keep trying.It is your reading of your God’s mind that I keep challenging, but (a) you don’t seem to realize that when you specify your God’s purpose you are trying to read his mind, and (b) you persist in refusing to recognize that your reading of his mind makes no sense in relation to the method you propose. You admit that you can’t link the two together but you still won’t admit that this represents a gap in your reasoning!
Based on what we know, my reasoning make perfect sense to me. I'm sorry it makes no sense to you, but the unusual result of a human with consciousness suggests purpose. Davies has made the same point in his writings, although he doesn't goes as far as to accept God.
DAVID: Once again, God can create humans by any method He wishes. He obviously chose an evolutionary process.dhw: You and I agree that evolution took place. But if you can’t see any way in which the method fits the purpose, there might just possibly be a fault in your interpretation of one or both. Hence the above proposals, which you continue to ignore. May I presume you can’t find any logical flaw in them?
God is allowed to pick His method. You question it, I don't. That is our difference.
DAVID: Accept God's obvious method and there is no gap, except in your thinking which insists upon entering His mind for an exact purpose. […]dhw: You are not asking me to accept your God’s method. You are asking me to accept your interpretation of evolution as a means of fulfilling your interpretation of your God’s intentions, even though you yourself can’t find any way to link the method and the exact, anthropocentric purpose which YOU impose on him.
Repeat: I simply accept what God does. You don't. He evolved us, End of story.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 15:14 (1864 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 15:26
Once again a new study does not find descent with modification at the genome level, in embryo formation:
https://elifesciences.org/articles/46711
"Abstract
Unrelated genes establish head-to-tail polarity in embryos of different fly species, raising the question of how they evolve this function. We show that in moth flies (Clogmia, Lutzomyia), a maternal transcript isoform of odd-paired (Zic) is localized in the anterior egg and adopted the role of anterior determinant without essential protein change. Additionally, Clogmia lost maternal germ plasm, which contributes to embryo polarity in fruit flies (Drosophila). In culicine (Culex, Aedes) and anopheline mosquitoes (Anopheles), embryo polarity rests on a previously unnamed zinc finger gene (cucoid), or pangolin (dTcf), respectively. These genes also localize an alternative transcript isoform at the anterior egg pole. Basal-branching crane flies (Nephrotoma) also enrich maternal pangolin transcript at the anterior egg pole, suggesting that pangolin functioned as ancestral axis determinant in flies. In conclusion, flies evolved an unexpected diversity of anterior determinants, and alternative transcript isoforms with distinct expression can adopt fundamentally distinct developmental roles."
***
"eLife digest
With very few exceptions, animals have ‘head’ and ‘tail’ ends that develop when they are an embryo. The genes involved in specifying these ends vary between species and even closely-related animals may use different genes for the same roles. For example, the products of two unrelated genes called bicoid in fruit flies and panish in common midges accumulate at one end of their respective eggs to distinguish head from tail ends. It remained unclear how other fly species, which have neither a bicoid nor a panish gene, distinguish the head from the tail end, or how genes can evolve the specific function of bicoid and panish.
***
"Here, Yoon et al. identified three unrelated genes that perform similar roles to bicoid and panish in the embryos of several different moth flies and mosquitoes. These genes appear to have acquired their activity because one of their alternative transcripts accumulated at the future head end, rather than through mutations in the protein-coding sequences. Studying multiple species also made it clear that panish inherited its function from a localized alternative transcript of an old gene that duplicated and diverged.
"These findings suggest that alternative transcription may provide opportunities for genes to evolve new roles in fundamental processes in flies. Most animal genes use alternative start and stop sites for transcription, but the reasons for this remain largely obscure. This is especially the case in the human brain. The findings of Yoon et al., therefore, raise the question of whether alternative transcription has played an important role in the evolution of the human brain." (my bold)
Comment: Note Cornelius Hunter's take: "The genetics and molecular mechanisms involved in animal egg orientation should reveal a “grand pattern” of similarity across different species, especially closely-related ones.
***
Evolutionists cannot have it both ways. They cannot prove their theory when the findings work for them, and softly walk away when the findings do not work. If Evidence X is a powerful proof text of evolution, then Evidence NOT X is a monumental falsification."
https://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2019/10/new-research-on-animal-egg-orientation.html
These closely related insects set up their embryological orientation in different genetic ways.
Also note my bold in the digest. A guide to how God dabbles to create a new form of human brain. Phenotype may look like descent with modification, but the secrets of modification lie in the genome alterations, which appear to be unrelated, not modified
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: These closely related insects set up their embryological orientation in different genetic ways.
DAVID: Also note my bold in the digest. A guide to how God dabbles to create a new form of human brain. Phenotype may look like descent with modification, but the secrets of modification lie in the genome alterations, which appear to be unrelated, not modified.
According to you, your God either preprogrammed or directly dabbled every modification in every life form throughout evolution, even though all he wanted was to design H. sapiens. Maybe your God gave cells/cell communities the inventive intelligence that enabled them to make their own modifications and innovations according to conditions in which different groups found themselves. I’m afraid this will always be my response when you get your God dabbling.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Thursday, October 17, 2019, 13:26 (1863 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: These closely related insects set up their embryological orientation in different genetic ways.
DAVID: Also note my bold in the digest. A guide to how God dabbles to create a new form of human brain. Phenotype may look like descent with modification, but the secrets of modification lie in the genome alterations, which appear to be unrelated, not modified.dhw: According to you, your God either preprogrammed or directly dabbled every modification in every life form throughout evolution, even though all he wanted was to design H. sapiens. Maybe your God gave cells/cell communities the inventive intelligence that enabled them to make their own modifications and innovations according to conditions in which different groups found themselves. I’m afraid this will always be my response when you get your God dabbling.
Each of our views are quite clear. But you have to use my God to help the cell committees. Are you sure He did that. No.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: These closely related insects set up their embryological orientation in different genetic ways.
DAVID: Also note my bold in the digest. A guide to how God dabbles to create a new form of human brain. Phenotype may look like descent with modification, but the secrets of modification lie in the genome alterations, which appear to be unrelated, not modified.
dhw: According to you, your God either preprogrammed or directly dabbled every modification in every life form throughout evolution, even though all he wanted was to design H. sapiens. Maybe your God gave cells/cell communities the inventive intelligence that enabled them to make their own modifications and innovations according to conditions in which different groups found themselves. I’m afraid this will always be my response when you get your God dabbling.
DAVID: Each of our views are quite clear. But you have to use my God to help the cell committees. Are you sure He did that. No.
I don’t know what you mean. My proposal is that the cell communities act autonomously, and if God exists, then he designed them to do just that. I am not sure of anything, but I must confess I find this possibility more convincing than your own divine preprogramming/dabbling proposal in which you have a fixed belief.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Friday, October 18, 2019, 17:11 (1861 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: These closely related insects set up their embryological orientation in different genetic ways.
DAVID: Also note my bold in the digest. A guide to how God dabbles to create a new form of human brain. Phenotype may look like descent with modification, but the secrets of modification lie in the genome alterations, which appear to be unrelated, not modified.
dhw: According to you, your God either preprogrammed or directly dabbled every modification in every life form throughout evolution, even though all he wanted was to design H. sapiens. Maybe your God gave cells/cell communities the inventive intelligence that enabled them to make their own modifications and innovations according to conditions in which different groups found themselves. I’m afraid this will always be my response when you get your God dabbling.
DAVID: Each of our views are quite clear. But you have to use my God to help the cell committees. Are you sure He did that. No.
dhw: I don’t know what you mean. My proposal is that the cell communities act autonomously, and if God exists, then he designed them to do just that. I am not sure of anything, but I must confess I find this possibility more convincing than your own divine preprogramming/dabbling proposal in which you have a fixed belief.
And if God did not give cell communities the information to act autonomously, where did they get the information to do the new designs? Thin air?
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
DAVID: Each of our views are quite clear. But you have to use my God to help the cell committees. Are you sure He did that. No.
dhw: I don’t know what you mean. My proposal is that the cell communities act autonomously, and if God exists, then he designed them to do just that. I am not sure of anything, but I must confess I find this possibility more convincing than your own divine preprogramming/dabbling proposal in which you have a fixed belief.
DAVID: And if God did not give cell communities the information to act autonomously, where did they get the information to do the new designs? Thin air?
If God exists, he would not have given them “information” but the ability to consciously and autonomously process information, communicate with others, take decisions etc., the source of which is unknown in all organisms, including ourselves. Your question simply ignores the agnostic’s dilemma. The ability itself suggests design and hence a designer, but the very concept of an eternal, sourceless, designing mind which can create a universe is just as difficult to believe in as the idea that chance can create organisms with this ability.
Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding
by David Turell , Saturday, October 19, 2019, 18:56 (1860 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Each of our views are quite clear. But you have to use my God to help the cell committees. Are you sure He did that. No.
dhw: I don’t know what you mean. My proposal is that the cell communities act autonomously, and if God exists, then he designed them to do just that. I am not sure of anything, but I must confess I find this possibility more convincing than your own divine preprogramming/dabbling proposal in which you have a fixed belief.
DAVID: And if God did not give cell communities the information to act autonomously, where did they get the information to do the new designs? Thin air?
dhw: If God exists, he would not have given them “information” but the ability to consciously and autonomously process information, communicate with others, take decisions etc., the source of which is unknown in all organisms, including ourselves. Your question simply ignores the agnostic’s dilemma. The ability itself suggests design and hence a designer, but the very concept of an eternal, sourceless, designing mind which can create a universe is just as difficult to believe in as the idea that chance can create organisms with this ability.
We'll continue on opposite sides of the issue. The designs I see require a designer.
Innovation, Speciation: Darwin's finches theory doubted
by David Turell , Friday, January 25, 2019, 01:28 (2128 days ago) @ David Turell
As a result of examining all sorts of birds beaks, Darwin's theory about the finches as simply evolving their beaks to fit the food supply is not supported:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190122115043.htm
"The observation that Galapagos finch species possessed different beak shapes to obtain different foods was central to the theory of evolution by natural selection, and it has been assumed that this form-function relationship holds true across all species of bird.
"However, a new study published in the journal Evolution suggests the beaks of birds are not as adapted to the food types they feed on as it is generally believed.
***
"By measuring beak shape in a wide range of modern bird species from museum collections and looking at information about how the beak is used by different species to eat different foods, the team were able to assess the link between beak shape and feeding behaviour.
***
"Guillermo Navalón, lead author of the study and a final year PhD student at Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, added: "The connection between beak shapes and feeding ecology in birds was much weaker and more complex than we expected and that while there is definitely a relationship there, many species with similarly shaped beaks forage in entirely different ways and on entirely different kinds of food.
"'This is something that has been shown in other animal groups, but in birds this relationship was always assumed to be stronger."
"Co-author, Dr Jesús Marugán-Lobón from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, said: "These results only made sense when you realise birds use the beak for literally everything!
"'Therefore, also makes sense they evolved a versatile tool not just for getting food, but also to accomplish many other tasks."
***
"'We looked at a huge range of beak shapes and feeding ecologies: hummingbirds, eagles, parrots, puffins, flamingos, pretty much every beak you can think of."
"Guillermo Navalón added: "These results have important implications for the study of fossil birds.
"'We have to be careful about inferring ecology in ancient birds, which we often assume based solely on the shape of the beak."
Comment: The finches are losing their prime importance in Darwin's theories. On the other hand it is clear the finch beaks do fit the type of seed they are encountering.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Thursday, May 11, 2017, 21:23 (2751 days ago) @ dhw
A video of the whale metamorphosis from land to aquatic. Note the short 45 second version to save time. These changes require an enormous amount of planning beforehand. It involves visualizing the future form. It requires a mind:
https://aeon.co/videos/watch-as-the-whale-becomes-itself-slowly-slowly-from-land-to-sea...
How does one arrange for the nostrils to go from the snout to the top of the back behind the skull? Planning!
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: A video of the whale metamorphosis from land to aquatic. Note the short 45 second version to save time. These changes require an enormous amount of planning beforehand. It involves visualizing the future form. It requires a mind:
https://aeon.co/videos/watch-as-the-whale-becomes-itself-slowly-slowly-from-land-to-sea...
How does one arrange for the nostrils to go from the snout to the top of the back behind the skull? Planning!
QUOTATION: The resulting animation, Whalevolution, emphasises that a single strand of evolutionary history isn’t characterised by a series of distinct species, but rather, as Charles Darwin put it, an ‘infinitude of connecting links’.
So what happened? Did the poor old pre-whale have to hang around on land till your God shifted its nostrils? What an amazing turn-around in your thinking! One moment you have your God fully equipping fish with all the bits and pieces necessary BEFORE they step onto dry land, and the next you have your God doing an itsy-bitsy job on the heading-for-water pre-whale, with each stage exquisitely planned until at last he produces the whale he wants – although, wait for it, the one thing he really wants is humans.
Here’s another theory: maybe the fish that stepped onto land, and the animal that stepped into the water, gradually made adjustments to themselves until they had reached the optimum form to suit their new environment.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Friday, May 12, 2017, 15:16 (2751 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: A video of the whale metamorphosis from land to aquatic. Note the short 45 second version to save time. These changes require an enormous amount of planning beforehand. It involves visualizing the future form. It requires a mind:
https://aeon.co/videos/watch-as-the-whale-becomes-itself-slowly-slowly-from-land-to-sea...
How does one arrange for the nostrils to go from the snout to the top of the back behind the skull? Planning!QUOTATION: The resulting animation, Whalevolution, emphasises that a single strand of evolutionary history isn’t characterised by a series of distinct species, but rather, as Charles Darwin put it, an ‘infinitude of connecting links’.
dhw: So what happened? Did the poor old pre-whale have to hang around on land till your God shifted its nostrils? What an amazing turn-around in your thinking! One moment you have your God fully equipping fish with all the bits and pieces necessary BEFORE they step onto dry land, and the next you have your God doing an itsy-bitsy job on the heading-for-water pre-whale, with each stage exquisitely planned until at last he produces the whale he wants – although, wait for it, the one thing he really wants is humans.
Here’s another theory: maybe the fish that stepped onto land, and the animal that stepped into the water, gradually made adjustments to themselves until they had reached the optimum form to suit their new environment.
As usual you've skipped the entire point. A land animal goes through eight or nine stages to become an aquatic animal hugely complicating all aspects of its phenotype with gaps between the stages, not tiny steps. For example, sex requires a specialized vagina, suckling milk with specialized adaptation. I was not supporting the tiresome quoted Darwinism. Difficult transitions require advanced mental planning with an imagination of the future requirements.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: So what happened? Did the poor old pre-whale have to hang around on land till your God shifted its nostrils? What an amazing turn-around in your thinking! One moment you have your God fully equipping fish with all the bits and pieces necessary BEFORE they step onto dry land, and the next you have your God doing an itsy-bitsy job on the heading-for-water pre-whale, with each stage exquisitely planned until at last he produces the whale he wants – although, wait for it, the one thing he really wants is humans.
Here’s another theory: maybe the fish that stepped onto land, and the animal that stepped into the water, gradually made adjustments to themselves until they had reached the optimum form to suit their new environment.
DAVID: As usual you've skipped the entire point. A land animal goes through eight or nine stages to become an aquatic animal hugely complicating all aspects of its phenotype with gaps between the stages, not tiny steps. For example, sex requires a specialized vagina, suckling milk with specialized adaptation. I was not supporting the tiresome quoted Darwinism. Difficult transitions require advanced mental planning with an imagination of the future requirements.
Your “entire point” is that ALL species, lifestyles and natural wonders – including whales, weaverbirds’ nests, monarch butterflies’ metamorphoses and migration – required advance planning by your God in order to supply the energy to keep life going until he designed the one thing he wanted to design, which was humans. But I know you prefer to separate all these elements of your “entire point”, because taken together they don’t make much sense. You have now added the hypothesis that whenever environmental change was involved, your God changed the structures before changing the environment. And so fish were fully equipped before they stepped onto the land, and the monarch was fully equipped and instructed before God changed the climate and forced it to emigrate. However, this doesn’t quite fit in with the pre-whale, which apparently took to the water and needed a succession of dabbles before God got what he wanted (faulty programming perhaps, or experimenting, or making mistakes, or forgetting certain bits and pieces?), although what he really wanted was humans. There is no denying the complexity of the adaptations you have mentioned, but there is no logic to link the above collection of disjointed “guesses” you have made to explain the process.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Saturday, May 13, 2017, 15:02 (2750 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As usual you've skipped the entire point. A land animal goes through eight or nine stages to become an aquatic animal hugely complicating all aspects of its phenotype with gaps between the stages, not tiny steps. For example, sex requires a specialized vagina, suckling milk with specialized adaptation. I was not supporting the tiresome quoted Darwinism. Difficult transitions require advanced mental planning with an imagination of the future requirements.dhw: Your “entire point” is that ALL species, lifestyles and natural wonders – including whales, weaverbirds’ nests, monarch butterflies’ metamorphoses and migration – required advance planning by your God in order to supply the energy to keep life going until he designed the one thing he wanted to design, which was humans. But I know you prefer to separate all these elements of your “entire point”, because taken together they don’t make much sense.
I sorry you don't see the 'sense'. It would make no sense if all God produced was humans.
dhw:You have now added the hypothesis that whenever environmental change was involved, your God changed the structures before changing the environment. And so fish were fully equipped before they stepped onto the land, and the monarch was fully equipped and instructed before God changed the climate and forced it to emigrate.
I don't look at animal's structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order. I view changes in species as purposeful, and think Darwin's view of struggle for survivability as a minor point.
dhw: However, this doesn’t quite fit in with the pre-whale, which apparently took to the water and needed a succession of dabbles before God got what he wanted (faulty programming perhaps, or experimenting, or making mistakes, or forgetting certain bits and pieces?),
We have no idea why a land animal decided to go into an aquatic environment with all the biologic complications associated with it. It must be God's guidance.
dhw: There is no denying the complexity of the adaptations you have mentioned, but there is no logic to link the above collection of disjointed “guesses” you have made to explain the process.
I haven't been disjointed in demonstrating the complexity of this animal's evolution. It requires God's planning. Why He wanted whales is beyond my reasoning. Certainly not just for whale oil lamps before electricity. In Japan I had whale steak. Delicious, but I don't want them hunted any longer.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: Your “entire point” is that ALL species, lifestyles and natural wonders – including whales, weaverbirds’ nests, monarch butterflies’ metamorphoses and migration – required advance planning by your God in order to supply the energy to keep life going until he designed the one thing he wanted to design, which was humans. But I know you prefer to separate all these elements of your “entire point”, because taken together they don’t make much sense.
DAVID: I sorry you don't see the 'sense'. It would make no sense if all God produced was humans.
Of course not. But that doesn’t mean he had to design every species etc. individually for the sake of humans. Look at your own bewilderment:
DAVID: We have no idea why a land animal decided to go into an aquatic environment with all the biologic complications associated with it. It must be God's guidance.
You have no idea why it entered the water, or why your God would “guide” it into the water and design all its complicated adaptations when all he wanted to do was design humans (see below). How about the possibility that the land animal decided for itself (without God’s guidance) to enter the water because at that particular time and place there was more food in the water than there was on dry land? And as its move into the water was successful, stage by stage it adapted itself to life in the water (using its perhaps God-given intelligent, structure-changing, adaptive, inventive mechanism), until its whole body had reached an optimum form? Does this make sense or not?
dhw:You have now added the hypothesis that whenever environmental change was involved, your God changed the structures before changing the environment. And so fish were fully equipped before they stepped onto the land, and the monarch was fully equipped and instructed before God changed the climate and forced it to emigrate.
DAVID: I don't look at animal's structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order.
Good. So we can now discard your theory that your God planned innovations, lifestyles etc. in advance of the environmental changes that they countered or exploited.
DAVID: I view changes in species as purposeful, and think Darwin's view of struggle for survivability as a minor point.
I also view them as purposeful, and to survival I add improvement, both of which I regard as supremely important, because once we have multicellularity, we have organisms both competing and cooperating, partly no doubt in order to improve their chances of survival.
dhw: There is no denying the complexity of the adaptations you have mentioned, but there is no logic to link the above collection of disjointed “guesses” you have made to explain the process.
DAVID: I haven't been disjointed in demonstrating the complexity of this animal's evolution. It requires God's planning. Why He wanted whales is beyond my reasoning.
Of course there is nothing disjointed in your account of the whale’s complex evolution. What is “beyond your reasoning” is why God “wanted” the whale and every other species, lifestyle and natural wonder in order to provide energy until he designed the one thing he wanted, which was humans. You have acknowledged that my alternatives make perfect sense, but you prefer an explanation that makes no sense even to you.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Sunday, May 14, 2017, 22:05 (2748 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We have no idea why a land animal decided to go into an aquatic environment with all the biologic complications associated with it. It must be God's guidance.
dhw: You have no idea why it entered the water, or why your God would “guide” it into the water and design all its complicated adaptations when all he wanted to do was design humans (see below). How about the possibility that the land animal decided for itself (without God’s guidance) to enter the water because at that particular time and place there was more food in the water than there was on dry land? And as its move into the water was successful, stage by stage it adapted itself to life in the water (using its perhaps God-given intelligent, structure-changing, adaptive, inventive mechanism), until its whole body had reached an optimum form? Does this make sense or not?
Your proposal is a very simpli8stic view of what must have happened. Polar bears hunt in the water but they don't change into aquatic animals. The physical changes to the body are enormous in the eight stages to convert to whales. Each gap from one fossil to the next are giant jumps of change. We do not see tentative experimental forms. Your theory makes no sense to me from the evidence we have.
DAVID: I don't look at animal's structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order.
dhw: Good. So we can now discard your theory that your God planned innovations, lifestyles etc. in advance of the environmental changes that they countered or exploited.
I never theorized that way. I'm convinced speciation is separate from environment and even competition between animal types. I reject most of Darwin theory. Gould pointed out the huge gaps. They are not filled. Speciation occurred, but we don't know why, except to invoke God.
DAVID: I view changes in species as purposeful, and think Darwin's view of struggle for survivability as a minor point.dhw: I also view them as purposeful, and to survival I add improvement, both of which I regard as supremely important, because once we have multicellularity, we have organisms both competing and cooperating, partly no doubt in order to improve their chances of survival.
You haven't explained speciation with the above. Bacteria compete and cooperate just as much as multicellular.
DAVID: I haven't been disjointed in demonstrating the complexity of this animal's evolution. It requires God's planning. Why He wanted whales is beyond my reasoning.
dhw: Of course there is nothing disjointed in your account of the whale’s complex evolution. What is “beyond your reasoning” is why God “wanted” the whale and every other species, lifestyle and natural wonder in order to provide energy until he designed the one thing he wanted, which was humans. You have acknowledged that my alternatives make perfect sense, but you prefer an explanation that makes no sense even to you.
My explanation is an overall view. Your alternatives can fit the history but don't end up in an overall perspective that fits everything together as I view mine does.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: How about the possibility that the land animal decided for itself (without God’s guidance) to enter the water because at that particular time and place there was more food in the water than there was on dry land? And as its move into the water was successful, stage by stage it adapted itself to life in the water (using its perhaps God-given intelligent, structure-changing, adaptive, inventive mechanism), until its whole body had reached an optimum form? Does this make sense or not?
DAVID: Your proposal is a very simplistic view of what must have happened. Polar bears hunt in the water but they don't change into aquatic animals. The physical changes to the body are enormous in the eight stages to convert to whales. Each gap from one fossil to the next are giant jumps of change. We do not see tentative experimental forms. Your theory makes no sense to me from the evidence we have.
I’m sorry it makes no sense to you, but I’m surprised you can find sense in a theory that the pre-whale entered the water for no conceivable reason (except that your God guided it), and God specially designed eight different stages rather just create the whale he wanted, and you don’t know why he wanted the whale in the first place when all he really wanted was humans.
DAVID: I don't look at animal's structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order.
dhw: Good. So we can now discard your theory that your God planned innovations, lifestyles etc. in advance of the environmental changes that they countered or exploited.
DAVID: I never theorized that way. I'm convinced speciation is separate from environment and even competition between animal types. I reject most of Darwin theory. Gould pointed out the huge gaps. They are not filled. Speciation occurred, but we don't know why, except to invoke God.
Under “new review of epigenetic studies” I pointed out that your advance planning scenario meant that your God must have given fish their animal legs and lungs before making them leave the water, and he designed the monarch’s metamorphoses and navigation before forcing it to emigrate. As opposed to rejecting this interpretation, you commented: “Perfectly reasonable scenario”. On 12 May, you wrote: “the evolution of the conditions on Earth and the evolution of life obviously co-evolved”. So how can fish become land animals and land animals adapt to aquatic life “separate from environment”? Invoking God does not mean that God must personally have designed every species and lifestyle and natural wonder, or that he did so in order to produce humans.
DAVID: I view changes in species as purposeful, and think Darwin's view of struggle for survivability as a minor point.
dhw: I also view them as purposeful, and to survival I add improvement, both of which I regard as supremely important, because once we have multicellularity, we have organisms both competing and cooperating, partly no doubt in order to improve their chances of survival.
DAVID: You haven't explained speciation with the above. Bacteria compete and cooperate just as much as multicellular.
Nobody can explain speciation. We can only hypothesize, but speciation is the result of cell communities combining in different ways. The idea that they do so in order to improve their chances of survival makes perfect sense to me, though apparently not to you. Similarly, organisms might develop different lifestyles through migration, symbiosis, parasitism etc. All geared to survival and/or improvement.
dhw: You have acknowledged that my alternatives make perfect sense, but you prefer an explanation that makes no sense even to you.
DAVID: My explanation is an overall view. Your alternatives can fit the history but don't end up in an overall perspective that fits everything together as I view mine does.
As above: you don’t know why the whale entered the water, or why your God needed eight separate attempts at designing it, or why he wanted whales in the first place when all he really wanted was humans, so how does it all fit together?
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Monday, May 15, 2017, 15:14 (2748 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, May 15, 2017, 15:41
dhw: I’m sorry it makes no sense to you, but I’m surprised you can find sense in a theory that the pre-whale entered the water for no conceivable reason (except that your God guided it), and God specially designed eight different stages rather just create the whale he wanted, and you don’t know why he wanted the whale in the first place when all he really wanted was humans.
No, I don't know how God's mind works. My point is simply that changing a large land animal to an aquatic animal is a master challenge of evolution. Simply, why bother. But that is my reaction. God bothered.
dhw: Nobody can explain speciation. We can only hypothesize, but speciation is the result of cell communities combining in different ways. The idea that they do so in order to improve their chances of survival makes perfect sense to me, though apparently not to you. Similarly, organisms might develop different lifestyles through migration, symbiosis, parasitism etc. All geared to survival and/or improvement.
You tell me that nobody can explain speciation and then bring up your mindless cell committees to explain the huge gaps in form between species evolutionary changes.
dhw: You have acknowledged that my alternatives make perfect sense, but you prefer an explanation that makes no sense even to you.
DAVID: My explanation is an overall view. Your alternatives can fit the history but don't end up in an overall perspective that fits everything together as I view mine does.dhw: As above: you don’t know why the whale entered the water, or why your God needed eight separate attempts at designing it, or why he wanted whales in the first place when all he really wanted was humans, so how does it all fit together?
Don't you realize the eight steps are giant evolutionary changes in each form? This is evolution of an animal, not eight desultory vague attempts as you imply. And it all fits together as the bush of life, part of the econiches of the ocean balancer of life for a food energy supply.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: No, I don't know how God's mind works. My point is simply that changing a large land animal to an aquatic animal is a master challenge of evolution. Simply, why bother. But that is my reaction. God bothered.
According to you, every innovation, individual lifestyle and natural wonder is a “master challenge” that only God can meet. But I can understand why an organism might “bother” to go from land to water: for instance, the choice might lie between starving on land and finding food in the water. However, I can’t understand why a god whose only wish was to create humans would bother to design eight different stages of transition from a land animal to a water animal. I’d better remind you, though, that this is not an argument against the existence of God – only an argument against your interpretation of “how God’s mind works” (i.e. he preprogrammed or dabbled the whole of evolution’s history, including the eight stages of the whale, because that was his chosen way of producing humans).
dhw: Nobody can explain speciation. We can only hypothesize, but speciation is the result of cell communities combining in different ways. The idea that they do so in order to improve their chances of survival makes perfect sense to me, though apparently not to you. Similarly, organisms might develop different lifestyles through migration, symbiosis, parasitism etc. All geared to survival and/or improvement.
DAVID: You tell me that nobody can explain speciation and then bring up your mindless cell committees to explain the huge gaps in form between species evolutionary changes.
My hypothesis is the exact opposite: that cell communities are not mindless, even if they do not have human brains. Your ironic switch from my “communities” to your “committees” shows that you are only willing to think of intelligence in human terms. Organisms ARE cell communities, and I don’t know why you should find it so difficult to believe that they might want to survive and might possibly look for new ways of doing so.
DAVID: My explanation is an overall view. Your alternatives can fit the history but don't end up in an overall perspective that fits everything together as I view mine does.
dhw: As above: you don’t know why the whale entered the water, or why your God needed eight separate attempts at designing it, or why he wanted whales in the first place when all he really wanted was humans, so how does it all fit together?
DAVID: Don't you realize the eight steps are giant evolutionary changes in each form? This is evolution of an animal, not eight desultory vague attempts as you imply. And it all fits together as the bush of life, part of the econiches of the ocean balancer of life for a food energy supply.
All you are telling us now is that the whale evolved in eight stages and is part of the bush of life. The answer to how this fits in with the rest of your theory is the above string of “don’t knows”!
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 15:15 (2747 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You tell me that nobody can explain speciation and then bring up your mindless cell committees to explain the huge gaps in form between species evolutionary changes.
dhw: My hypothesis is the exact opposite: that cell communities are not mindless, even if they do not have human brains. Your ironic switch from my “communities” to your “committees” shows that you are only willing to think of intelligence in human terms. Organisms ARE cell communities, and I don’t know why you should find it so difficult to believe that they might want to survive and might possibly look for new ways of doing so.
I agree that simple adaptations can occur from cellular input, epigenetic changes. It is when you want to jump the fossil gaps that I object logically. The gaps require foresight of the future design and planning. Logical.
dhw: All you are telling us now is that the whale evolved in eight stages and is part of the bush of life. The answer to how this fits in with the rest of your theory is the above string of “don’t knows”!
Have you looked at each stage? Can you explain the gaps? I can't, but what I can do is analyze the need for planning, design and the ability to imagine the changes required in the next form. That requires mental work, doesn't it. Cells logically can't do that, only minor adaptations. The whale plays a large role in the econiches of ocean life.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: […] Organisms ARE cell communities, and I don’t know why you should find it so difficult to believe that they might want to survive and might possibly look for new ways of doing so.
DAVID: I agree that simple adaptations can occur from cellular input, epigenetic changes. It is when you want to jump the fossil gaps that I object logically. The gaps require foresight of the future design and planning. Logical.
Yet again: We know cells/cell communities can adapt, so maybe instead of your God personally designing every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder (in order to produce humans), he also enabled them to design their own. It’s a hypothesis. These designs may have been triggered by environmental changes, as opposed to being planned and designed in advance of environmental changes – a scenario which a couple of days ago you said you had never advocated (though your 3.8-billion-year computer programme CAN only precede the environmental changes and surely must at least allow for them) because you are “convinced speciation is separate from environment”. Your God’s eight-stage design of the whale therefore apparently had nothing to do with the pre-whale moving from the land environment to the water environment. Does this really make sense to you?
dhw: All you are telling us now is that the whale evolved in eight stages and is part of the bush of life. The answer to how this fits in with the rest of your theory is the above string of “don’t knows”!
DAVID: Have you looked at each stage? Can you explain the gaps? I can't, but what I can do is analyze the need for planning, design and the ability to imagine the changes required in the next form. That requires mental work, doesn't it. Cells logically can't do that, only minor adaptations. The whale plays a large role in the econiches of ocean life.
And yet again: we don’t know how much “mental work” cells are capable of. And yet again: yes, the changes are complex, and the whale is part of the bush of life, and because it is large, it is a large part of the bush of life. But you don’t know why God made the whale enter the water, why he designed it in eight separate phases, or above all why he wanted whales in the first place when all he really wanted was humans, so when you say that your explanation is an “overall view” which provides “an overall perspective that fits everything together”, you don’t actually know how your view fits everything together. That is why I question it and offer an alternative view (not dogma, not masquerading as fact, just a hypothesis) which even you agree does fit everything together.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 17, 2017, 15:16 (2746 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I agree that simple adaptations can occur from cellular input, epigenetic changes. It is when you want to jump the fossil gaps that I object logically. The gaps require foresight of the future design and planning. Logical.
dhw: Yet again: We know cells/cell communities can adapt, so maybe instead of your God personally designing every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder (in order to produce humans), he also enabled them to design their own. It’s a hypothesis.
A hypothesis without any merit. You are, once again, glossing over the fossil gaps. they require advanced design planning, well beyond the capacity of cells which can arrange for simple adaptation.
dhw: These designs may have been triggered by environmental changes, as opposed to being planned and designed in advance of environmental changes – a scenario which a couple of days ago you said you had never advocated (though your 3.8-billion-year computer programme CAN only precede the environmental changes and surely must at least allow for them) because you are “convinced speciation is separate from environment”.
Environment triggers adaptations, but speciation probably does not relate to environment with evidence we have in relation to the development of H. sapiens.
dhw: Your God’s eight-stage design of the whale therefore apparently had nothing to do with the pre-whale moving from the land environment to the water environment. Does this really make sense to you?
Turn your idea around. Prior speciation changes allowed an early stage to try out the water.
dhw: All you are telling us now is that the whale evolved in eight stages and is part of the bush of life. The answer to how this fits in with the rest of your theory is the above string of “don’t knows”!
DAVID: Have you looked at each stage? Can you explain the gaps? I can't, but what I can do is analyze the need for planning, design and the ability to imagine the changes required in the next form. That requires mental work, doesn't it. Cells logically can't do that, only minor adaptations. The whale plays a large role in the econiches of ocean life.
dhw: so when you say that your explanation is an “overall view” which provides “an overall perspective that fits everything together”, you don’t actually know how your view fits everything together. That is why I question it and offer an alternative view (not dogma, not masquerading as fact, just a hypothesis) which even you agree does fit everything together.
I've explained over and over how it all fits together. It is not my fault that you don't accept the parts.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: We know cells/cell communities can adapt, so maybe instead of your God personally designing every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder (in order to produce humans), he also enabled them to design their own. It’s a hypothesis.
DAVID: A hypothesis without any merit. You are, once again, glossing over the fossil gaps. they require advanced design planning, well beyond the capacity of cells which can arrange for simple adaptation.
Two unknowns: 1) what causes speciation? 2) What is the full potential of cells/cell communities? We both offer unproven and probably unprovable hypotheses for 1). You insist that you know the answer to 2). Stalemate.
dhw: These designs may have been triggered by environmental changes, as opposed to being planned and designed in advance of environmental changes – a scenario which a couple of days ago you said you had never advocated […] because you are “convinced speciation is separate from environment”.
DAVID: Environment triggers adaptations, but speciation probably does not relate to environment with evidence we have in relation to the development of H. sapiens.
Nobody knows what triggered speciation, including that of H. sapiens. There is no “probably” except in your wishful thinking. Hence the astonishing intellectual somersaults you are trying and failing to perform, as follows:
dhw: Your God’s eight-stage design of the whale therefore apparently had nothing to do with the pre-whale moving from the land environment to the water environment. Does this really make sense to you?
DAVID: Turn your idea around. Prior speciation changes allowed an early stage to try out the water.
And under “genome complexity”:
DAVID: As I've explained today the link is the other way around than your thought: prior speciation allows the animal to enter a new environment.
Sunday 14 May:
DAVID: I don’t look at animals’ structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order.
Dhw: Good. So now we can discard your theory that your God planned innovation, lifestyles etc. in advance of the environmental changes that they countered or exploited.
DAVID: I never theorized that way. I’m convinced speciation is separate from environment…
Three days later, your God plans speciation in advance so that the animal can enter a new environment. Somersault after somersault, and I shan’t mention where you land.
dhw: …so when you say that your explanation is an “overall view” which provides “an overall perspective that fits everything together”, you don’t actually know how your view fits everything together. […]
DAVID: I've explained over and over how it all fits together. It is not my fault that you don't accept the parts.
You don’t know why the whale entered the water, why your God designed it in eight different stages, or why he designed it at all since the only thing he wanted to design was humans. With regard to lifestyles and natural wonders – which apparently he also designed individually – their function was to keep life going, but again that has no explicable link with the focal point of your theory, which is that all he wanted to produce was humans. The problem is not that I don’t accept the parts; the problem is that the parts don’t fit the theory. And a theory that does not explain the parts simply isn’t credible.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Thursday, May 18, 2017, 15:01 (2745 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Nobody knows what triggered speciation, including that of H. sapiens. There is no “probably” except in your wishful thinking.
dhw: Three days later, your God plans speciation in advance so that the animal can enter a new environment. Somersault after somersault, and I shan’t mention where you land.
dhw: You don’t know why the whale entered the water, why your God designed it in eight different stages, or why he designed it at all since the only thing he wanted to design was humans. With regard to lifestyles and natural wonders – which apparently he also designed individually – their function was to keep life going, but again that has no explicable link with the focal point of your theory, which is that all he wanted to produce was humans. The problem is not that I don’t accept the parts; the problem is that the parts don’t fit the theory. And a theory that does not explain the parts simply isn’t credible.
All of the discussion we have recently had has led to my realization that we clearly see adaptations to environment, but not speciation as a result of environment. Darwin assumes that, but it very well not be a necessary relationship. Speciation can precede changing environments in which to live. Since I believe that God created species my theories all fit together. That is what you do not see as credible.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: The problem is not that I don’t accept the parts; the problem is that the parts don’t fit the theory. And a theory that does not explain the parts simply isn’t credible.
DAVID: All of the discussion we have recently had has led to my realization that we clearly see adaptations to environment, but not speciation as a result of environment.
Of course we clearly see adaptations to the environment, but nobody has “seen” speciation. That doesn’t mean “speciation is separate from environment”, especially when three days after making this claim you say “prior speciation allows the animal to enter a new environment”, after also saying that you “don’t look at animals’ structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order”. Your views change day by day, so let’s see where we stand today. The subject of this thread is the whale. Do you now believe that your God embarked on an eight-stage design of the pre-whale to allow it to enter a new environment? If so, do you still believe there is no link between speciation and the environment?
DAVID: Since I believe that God created species my theories all fit together. That is what you do not see as credible.
And yet you do not know why your God made the pre-whale enter the water, why he designed it in eight stages, or why he wanted to design it in the first place although his one and only purpose was to design human beings. And it’s not just species: you keep insisting that he also designed all the lifestyles and natural wonders, although his one and only purpose...etc. I’d better just repeat that we all know life requires energy, but as you have agreed many times, that is irrelevant to the main focus of your theory, which is that your God’s one and only purpose…etc., and everything else was related to that. And THAT is the theory that has you changing your mind day by day: God is/is not in total control; experimentation is/is not “off the reservation”; speciation is/is not connected with environmental change…If only you would modify your dogma to accommodate the POSSIBILITY that your God did NOT design everything, and/or did NOT gear the WHOLE of evolution to the SOLE purpose of creating humans, you wouldn’t get into this mess!
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Friday, May 19, 2017, 14:51 (2744 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: All of the discussion we have recently had has led to my realization that we clearly see adaptations to environment, but not speciation as a result of environment.
dhw: so let’s see where we stand today. The subject of this thread is the whale. Do you now believe that your God embarked on an eight-stage design of the pre-whale to allow it to enter a new environment? If so, do you still believe there is no link between speciation and the environment?
God managed the whale change from land to sea. Darwin-style evolution can't do it. Speciation first to allow this transfer of living environment.
DAVID: Since I believe that God created species my theories all fit together. That is what you do not see as credible.dhw: And yet you do not know why your God made the pre-whale enter the water, why he designed it in eight stages, or why he wanted to design it in the first place although his one and only purpose was to design human beings.
In looking at the bush of life, I've consistently given you the answer you fully know: energy for life to continue until humans are evolved. To know 'why whales' I must enter God's mind. You know I can't.
dhw: And it’s not just species: you keep insisting that he also designed all the lifestyles and natural wonders, although his one and only purpose...etc. I’d better just repeat that we all know life requires energy, but as you have agreed many times, that is irrelevant to the main focus of your theory, which is that your God’s one and only purpose…etc., and everything else was related to that. And THAT is the theory that has you changing your mind day by day: God is/is not in total control; experimentation is/is not “off the reservation”; speciation is/is not connected with environmental change…If only you would modify your dogma to accommodate the POSSIBILITY that your God did NOT design everything, and/or did NOT gear the WHOLE of evolution to the SOLE purpose of creating humans, you wouldn’t get into this mess!
Your mess, not mine. Accept God and it all makes sense. God is in control, either with dabbles or not, with experimentation or not. We cannot know those details. My guess is most speciation is a drive to complexity, not environmental change. Recognize that statement from years ago? My basic thoughts at all consistent.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: … Do you now believe that your God embarked on an eight-stage design of the pre-whale to allow it to enter a new environment? If so, do you still believe there is no link between speciation and the environment?
DAVID: God managed the whale change from land to sea. Darwin-style evolution can't do it. Speciation first to allow this transfer of living environment.
We are not discussing Darwin. So you are now abandoning your claim that “speciation is separate from environment”, and that you “don’t look at animals’ structural changes and environmental shifts as occurring in any special order”. Today God apparently designs speciation before the change of environment. Just clarifying.
DAVID: Since I believe that God created species my theories all fit together.
dhw: And yet you do not know why your God made the pre-whale enter the water, why he designed it in eight stages, or why he wanted to design it in the first place although his one and only purpose was to design human beings. And it’s not just species: you keep insisting that he also designed all the lifestyles and natural wonders, although his one and only purpose...etc. I’d better just repeat that we all know life requires energy, but as you have agreed many times, that is irrelevant to the main focus of your theory, which is that your God’s one and only purpose…etc., and everything else was related to that. And THAT is the theory that has you changing your mind day by day.
DAVID: In looking at the bush of life, I've consistently given you the answer you fully know: energy for life to continue until humans are evolved.
I anticipated this non-explanation for God’s personal design of every lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct for the sake of humans, and have restored it in bold.
dhw: God is/is not in total control; experimentation is/is not “off the reservation”; speciation is/is not connected with environmental change…If only you would modify your dogma to accommodate the POSSIBILITY that your God did NOT design everything, and/or did NOT gear the WHOLE of evolution to the SOLE purpose of creating humans, you wouldn’t get into this mess!
DAVID: Your mess, not mine. Accept God and it all makes sense. God is in control, either with dabbles or not, with experimentation or not. We cannot know those details.
It is not a matter of accepting God but of accepting your insistence that all species, lifestyles and natural wonders were specially designed by God, and he designed them for the sake of humans. That, once again, is the theory that has you changing your mind from one day to the next.
DAVID: My guess is most speciation is a drive to complexity, not environmental change. Recognize that statement from years ago? My basic thoughts at all consistent.
And for years your drive to complexity has been my drive to improvement. This is not a substitute for environmental change – they go together, the suggestion being that environmental change offers new challenges (to survive) and/or new opportunities (to improve, or to complexify). It is a possible explanation of what triggered the Cambrian. I don't know why the whale, which you hold up as a shining example of your God's work, would have moved from land to water if it hadn't involved some kind of improvement, but in any case it provides a shining example of the interconnection between speciation and the environment.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Saturday, May 20, 2017, 15:30 (2743 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Today God apparently designs speciation before the change of environment. Just clarifying.
All I am proposing is that speciation can obviously occur without relationship to environment. Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose, but oxygen itself didn't require the species to appear. Species therefore most likely appear without reference to environmental drive.
DAVID: In looking at the bush of life, I've consistently given you the answer you fully know: energy for life to continue until humans are evolved.
dhw: I anticipated this non-explanation for God’s personal design of every lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct for the sake of humans, and have restored it in bold.
We will never solve our difference here. You won't accept that God's purpose was humans.
dhw: It is not a matter of accepting God but of accepting your insistence that all species, lifestyles and natural wonders were specially designed by God, and he designed them for the sake of humans. That, once again, is the theory that has you changing your mind from one day to the next.DAVID: My guess is most speciation is a drive to complexity, not environmental change. Recognize that statement from years ago? My basic thoughts at all consistent.
dhw: And for years your drive to complexity has been my drive to improvement. This is not a substitute for environmental change – they go together, the suggestion being that environmental change offers new challenges (to survive) and/or new opportunities (to improve, or to complexify). It is a possible explanation of what triggered the Cambrian. I don't know why the whale, which you hold up as a shining example of your God's work, would have moved from land to water if it hadn't involved some kind of improvement, but in any case it provides a shining example of the interconnection between speciation and the environment.
An animal cannot suddenly enter the water as a lifestyle without prior change. Speciation first to adapt to the new lifestyle environment cbrings.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: Today God apparently designs speciation before the change of environment. Just clarifying.
DAVID: All I am proposing is that speciation can obviously occur without relationship to environment. Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose, but oxygen itself didn't require the species to appear. Species therefore most likely appear without reference to environmental drive.
“Relationship”? No matter how it comes into being, it must “relate” positively to the environment or it won’t survive, so it can hardly be “separate from environment”, but thank you for agreeing that a change in the environment can trigger speciation. It was I who drew your attention to the Cambrian as an example. “Environmental drive”? The drive is for survival and/or improvement, which you call complexity. Both must interconnect with the environment, and if environmental change INITIATES new species (which I think is “most likely”), it is a contradiction in terms to say that speciation appears BEFORE the environmental change.
DAVID: In looking at the bush of life, I've consistently given you the answer you fully know: energy for life to continue until humans are evolved.
dhw: I anticipated this non-explanation for God’s personal design of every lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct for the sake of humans, and have restored it in bold.
DAVID: We will never solve our difference here. You won't accept that God's purpose was humans.
I won’t accept that if God’s one and only purpose was to produce humans, he specially designed the weaverbird’s nest in order to fulfil that one and only purpose. When I point out the obvious illogicality of this scenario, you either revert to “balance of nature”, which merely means life continues, or you switch to “main purpose”, as under “Genome complexity”. But when challenged to tell us other possible purposes, your reply is:
DAVID: Main purpose is still main purpose. The phrase is to allow for other possible minor purposes, but each time I think about it, I don't find any.
Because you don’t want to find any. So you are stuck with your original precept that God’s only purpose was humans and everything else was related to that. God designed the weaverbird’s nest because he wanted to design humans. But apparently it all “fits together”.
dhw: I don't know why the whale, which you hold up as a shining example of your God's work, would have moved from land to water if it hadn't involved some kind of improvement, but in any case it provides a shining example of the interconnection between speciation and the environment.
DAVID: An animal cannot suddenly enter the water as a lifestyle without prior change. Speciation first to adapt to the new lifestyle environment brings.
The answer to that is that it doesn’t enter the water as a lifestyle. It enters the water to see if it can improve its lifestyle. And when it finds that its lifestyle improves, step by step it improves its adaptations – precisely as the video illustrates. No need for “prior change”.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Sunday, May 21, 2017, 18:54 (2741 days ago) @ dhw
David: Species therefore most likely appear without reference to environmental drive.[/i]
dhw: “Relationship”? No matter how it comes into being, it must “relate” positively to the environment or it won’t survive, so it can hardly be “separate from environment”, but thank you for agreeing that a change in the environment can trigger speciation. It was I who drew your attention to the Cambrian as an example. “Environmental drive”? The drive is for survival and/or improvement, which you call complexity. Both must interconnect with the environment, and if environmental change INITIATES new species (which I think is “most likely”), it is a contradiction in terms to say that speciation appears BEFORE the environmental change.
You totally miss the point. A change in environment offers an opportunity for speciation changes but does not require it.
dhw: I don't know why the whale, which you hold up as a shining example of your God's work, would have moved from land to water if it hadn't involved some kind of improvement, but in any case it provides a shining example of the interconnection between speciation and the environment.
DAVID: An animal cannot suddenly enter the water as a lifestyle without prior change. Speciation first to adapt to the new lifestyle environment brings.dhw: The answer to that is that it doesn’t enter the water as a lifestyle. It enters the water to see if it can improve its lifestyle. And when it finds that its lifestyle improves, step by step it improves its adaptations – precisely as the video illustrates. No need for “prior change”.
Wrong. There is no step by step if you study the whole series, one at a time. You sound like Darwin again. Each of the gaps in fossil form is enormous. Just consider that sex underwater requires pudendal changes in both. Giving birth underwater requires the newborn get to the surface very quickly when he is barely alert. Suckling underwater requires other alterations. To be successful each of these major adaptations must be present all at once, or there would be no whales. And I'm just discussing the reproductive process at the eight or ninth endpoint. Please look at each phenotypic change for each step. They are not small. No little steps have been found. There is no getting around speciation first.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
Dhw: …The drive is for survival and/or improvement, which you call complexity. Both must interconnect with the environment, and if environmental change INITIATES new species (which I think is “most likely”), it is a contradiction in terms to say that speciation appears BEFORE the environmental change.
DAVID: You totally miss the point. A change in environment offers an opportunity for speciation changes but does not require it.
You are now telling me what I keep telling you! Sat. 20 May: “environment change offers new challenges (to survive) and/or new opportunities (to improve, or to complexify).” As above, it is the drive for improvement (your “complexity”) that causes organisms to exploit the new opportunities, i.e. opportunity first, followed by exploitation of opportunity for the sake of improvement (your “complexity”). And if, in your words, environmental change “initiates” speciation, speciation doesn’t precede environmental change.
DAVID: An animal cannot suddenly enter the water as a lifestyle without prior change. Speciation first to adapt to the new lifestyle environment brings.
dhw: The answer to that is that it doesn’t enter the water as a lifestyle. It enters the water to see if it can improve its lifestyle. And when it finds that its lifestyle improves, step by step it improves its adaptations – precisely as the video illustrates. No need for “prior change”.
DAVID: Wrong. There is no step by step if you study the whole series, one at a time. […] Just consider that sex underwater requires pudendal changes in both. Giving birth underwater requires the newborn get to the surface very quickly when he is barely alert. Suckling underwater requires other alterations. To be successful each of these major adaptations must be present all at once, or there would be no whales. […] No little steps have been found. There is no getting around speciation first.
You asked us to watch the video, which illustrates how legs, tail, snout and body gradually (in tiny steps) became more and more streamlined for life in the water. However, it doesn’t show the jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling, so why bother with the video in the first place? What you are now telling us is that major changes not shown in the video must be saltations. We would need a whale expert to explain the theory, but I have always agreed that saltations must occur in evolution. That doesn’t mean they must precede environmental change. (Before you reply, please see “bacterial intelligence” re planning and hypotheses.) Your hypothesis offers us a 3.8-billion-year programme for each pre-whale saltation, or the male and female lying on the beach with their land-animal legs, tail, snout and genitalia as God dabbles, and…then what? He sends them off into the water - for no reason you can think of - brings them back or does the next dabble while they’re still in the water….one separate dabble after another for the next few million years…can’t do it all in one go…must do it, though, in order to keep life going until he can produce humans?
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Monday, May 22, 2017, 19:38 (2740 days ago) @ dhw
You are now telling me what I keep telling you! Sat. 20 May: “environment change offers new challenges (to survive) and/or new opportunities (to improve, or to complexify).” As above, it is the drive for improvement (your “complexity”) that causes organisms to exploit the new opportunities, i.e. opportunity first, followed by exploitation of opportunity for the sake of improvement (your “complexity”). And if, in your words, environmental change “initiates” speciation, speciation doesn’t precede environmental change.
I don't remember where I said environmental change 'initiates' speciation. My position is specifically environmental change offers an invitation for change but in no way requires it. Chicxulub is a great example. Dinosaurs were destroyed, but the little mammals survived and eventually evolved into the current forms. Before the Cambrian the rise in oxygen allowed for better energy use, but did not require the appearance of new complex species with no precursors.
dhw: You asked us to watch the video, which illustrates how legs, tail, snout and body gradually (in tiny steps) became more and more streamlined for life in the water. However, it doesn’t show the jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling, so why bother with the video in the first place?
I find your statement intellectually dishonest. The video was a very shortened animation of the process, just to illustrate how much bodily change was required. There was the opportunity to see the full process over a 45 minute period. I suggested not doing that since the animation showed the magnitude of the required changes. Tiny steps are an animation, not what happened, and I think you understand that.
dhw: What you are now telling us is that major changes not shown in the video must be saltations. We would need a whale expert to explain the theory, but I have always agreed that saltations must occur in evolution.
The gaps require an acceptance of saltations,, since there are no forms in tiny steps in the fossil record. Definition from Wiki: "abrupt evolutionary change; sudden large-scale mutation". For me only God can do this because of the need for prior design.
dhw: That doesn’t mean they must precede environmental change.
Entering a watery environment is environmental change. Polar bears, seals, etc., do it without changing so far. If you are a swimmer ( I am) and can swim underwater, it is easy to understand the requirements for a mammal who lives a good portion of the time under water. It requires more than seal blubber or bear fur.
dhw:(Before you reply, please see “bacterial intelligence” re planning and hypotheses.) Your hypothesis offers us a 3.8-billion-year programme for each pre-whale saltation, or the male and female lying on the beach with their land-animal legs, tail, snout and genitalia as God dabbles, and…then what? He sends them off into the water - for no reason you can think of - brings them back or does the next dabble while they’re still in the water….one separate dabble after another for the next few million years…can’t do it all in one go…must do it, though, in order to keep life going until he can produce humans?
I love your imagination! I simply take the fossil record for what it is and what it suggests. I accept God in charge. I don't know why He created aquatic mammals which require so many phenotypic changes. Maybe He wanted to explore the challenge of creating them? So we really don't know 'how' He did it but the 'why' He did it is aquatic balance of nature.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 00:21 (2740 days ago) @ David Turell
I made a mis-statement. I remembered the '45' but that was the 45 second animation. The long one was 10 minutes
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: I don't remember where I said environmental change 'initiates' speciation.
Saturday 20 May: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose, but oxygen itself didn’t require the species to appear.” A point which you keep repeating, and to which I keep replying that the drive for improvement (which you call complexity) exploits the new opportunities and leads to speciation. Environmental change (rise in oxygen) = new opportunity; drive for improvement (or complexity) takes over to exploit new opportunity. That is how, in your own words, environment change "initiates" new species.
dhw: You asked us to watch the video, which illustrates how legs, tail, snout and body gradually (in tiny steps) became more and more streamlined for life in the water. However, it doesn’t show the jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling, so why bother with the video in the first place?
DAVID: I find your statement intellectually dishonest. The video was a very shortened animation of the process, just to illustrate how much bodily change was required. There was the opportunity to see the full process over a 45 minute period. I suggested not doing that since the animation showed the magnitude of the required changes. Tiny steps are an animation, not what happened, and I think you understand that.
DAVID: I made a mis-statement. I remembered the '45' but that was the 45 second animation. The long one was 10 minutes.
The 10-minute version only takes longer to show exactly the same changes, and I stand by my statement above. You must have dreamed a version showing the “full process” of jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling. I wouldn’t wish to accuse you of intellectual dishonesty.
dhw: What you are now telling us is that major changes not shown in the video must be saltations. We would need a whale expert to explain the theory, but I have always agreed that saltations must occur in evolution.
DAVID: The gaps require an acceptance of saltations…
I have just told you that I accept saltations.
DAVID: …since there are no forms in tiny steps in the fossil record. Definition from Wiki: "abrupt evolutionary change; sudden large-scale mutation". For me only God can do this because of the need for prior design.
I know the meaning of saltation. It is not synonymous with prior design or an action that can only be performed by God.
dhw: That doesn’t mean they must precede environmental change.
DAVID: Entering a watery environment is environmental change.
I’m glad you now recognize that fact. Originally you informed us that speciation was separate from environment.
DAVID: Polar bears, seals, etc., do it without changing so far. If you are a swimmer ( I am) and can swim underwater, it is easy to understand the requirements for a mammal who lives a good portion of the time under water. It requires more than seal blubber or bear fur.
Yes, that’s why all the changes took place, as the pre-whale opted for an aquatic lifestyle.
How does that prove that the changes were made before the pre-whale entered the water, not forgetting the fact that the changes took place in separate stages over millions of years - as mentioned below?
dhw: Your hypothesis offers us a 3.8-billion-year programme for each pre-whale saltation, or the male and female lying on the beach with their land-animal legs, tail, snout and genitalia as God dabbles, and…then what? He sends them off into the water - for no reason you can think of - brings them back or does the next dabble while they’re still in the water….one separate dabble after another for the next few million years…can’t do it all in one go…must do it, though, in order to keep life going until he can produce humans?
DAVID: I love your imagination! I simply take the fossil record for what it is and what it suggests. I accept God in charge. I don't know why He created aquatic mammals which require so many phenotypic changes. Maybe He wanted to explore the challenge of creating them? So we really don't know 'how' He did it but the 'why' He did it is aquatic balance of nature.
You don’t “accept” God in charge, you hypothesize God in charge, and you have told us there are only two ways in which God can be in charge: either by preprogramming or by dabbling every innovation, lifestyle etc. The above scenario simply links the facts to your hypothesis: the pre-whale turned into the whale by stages over several million years, it didn’t happen “in one go”, and you think God did it, though his one and only purpose was to produce humans. (For the umpteenth time: the balance of nature is merely another way of saying that all organisms contribute to the continuation of life.) How else can you link the facts to your hypothesis? The illogicality of it all is due to the hypothesis itself, not to my imagination.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 17:27 (2739 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I don't remember where I said environmental change 'initiates' speciation.
dhw: Saturday 20 May: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose, but oxygen itself didn’t require the species to appear.” A point which you keep repeating, and to which I keep replying that the drive for improvement (which you call complexity) exploits the new opportunities and leads to speciation. Environmental change (rise in oxygen) = new opportunity; drive for improvement (or complexity) takes over to exploit new opportunity. That is how, in your own words, environment change "initiates" new species.
Your interpretation of my statement is a stretch. Once again, more oxygen allows for more energy consumption in more complex animals, but in no way guarantees that such animals should evolve. That requires, as you note, another input into the process. Innate drive from '?' or God.
dhw: You asked us to watch the video, which illustrates how legs, tail, snout and body gradually (in tiny steps) became more and more streamlined for life in the water. However, it doesn’t show the jumps required for reproduction, giving birth and suckling, so why bother with the video in the first place?
I apologize for yesterday's statements, but your 'in tiny steps' irritated me. The animation was to re-introduce the magnitude of the eight/nine steps of change from air to water. The fossils indicate nothing gradual. The phenotypic gaps are huge. The whale series is very important to my reasoning about God and evolution. Putting mammals in water makes no sense on the face of it. But neither does the strange retina in humans until it is carefully studied. In that eco-niche they are not top predators, other than Orcas. Sharks are. So on one hand I don't know why, but I suspect there is a reason that research might find. On the other hand the series clearly demonstrate the need for advanced planning and design, since the aquatic mammals need to breathe air.
DAVID: …since there are no forms in tiny steps in the fossil record. Definition from Wiki: "abrupt evolutionary change; sudden large-scale mutation". For me only God can do this because of the need for prior design.dhw: I know the meaning of saltation. It is not synonymous with prior design or an action that can only be performed by God.
The implication of saltation for me implies prior design and God.
DAVID: Entering a watery environment is environmental change.
I’m glad you now recognize that fact. Originally you informed us that speciation was separate from environment.
DAVID: it is easy to understand the requirements for a mammal who lives a good portion of the time under water.
>
dhw: Yes, that’s why all the changes took place, as the pre-whale opted for an aquatic lifestyle.
How does that prove that the changes were made before the pre-whale entered the water, not forgetting the fact that the changes took place in separate stages over millions of years
To me it is logical that the changes preceded full use of aquatic life, since the requirements are so complex.
David I simply take the fossil record for what it is and what it suggests. I accept God in charge. I don't know why He created aquatic mammals which require so many phenotypic changes. Maybe He wanted to explore the challenge of creating them? So we really don't know 'how' He did it but the 'why' He did it is aquatic balance of nature.[/i]
dhw: You don’t “accept” God in charge, you hypothesize God in charge, and you have told us there are only two ways in which God can be in charge: either by preprogramming or by dabbling every innovation, lifestyle etc. The above scenario simply links the facts to your hypothesis: the pre-whale turned into the whale by stages over several million years, it didn’t happen “in one go”, and you think God did it, though his one and only purpose was to produce humans.
No, I accept God is charge as a result of all the studying I have done. Whales did not happen by chance. They were designed, as were porpoises, manatees, etc.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: Your interpretation of my statement is a stretch. Once again, more oxygen allows for more energy consumption in more complex animals, but in no way guarantees that such animals should evolve. That requires, as you note, another input into the process. Innate drive from '?' or God.
The issue is whether, as you have been claiming, speciation precedes environmental change or is initiated by it. If you think your God created all the Cambrian species first and then raised oxygen levels to accommodate them, you are welcome to your beliefs, but then you can’t say environmental change, which must have come last in your version of the process, played a role in initiating speciation! Whether the innate drive to improve (or complexify) stems from God or not has no bearing on the link between speciation and environment.
DAVID: I apologize for yesterday's statements, but your 'in tiny steps' irritated me. The animation was to re-introduce the magnitude of the eight/nine steps of change from air to water.
Apology accepted, though I hope it is for your accusation of intellectual dishonesty rather than the errors of fact concerning the animation.
DAVID: The fossils indicate nothing gradual. The phenotypic gaps are huge. The whale series is very important to my reasoning about God and evolution. Putting mammals in water makes no sense on the face of it. But neither does the strange retina in humans until it is carefully studied. In that eco-niche they are not top predators, other than Orcas. Sharks are. So on one hand I don't know why, but I suspect there is a reason that research might find.
So far so good. You can find no way of fitting whale evolution into your personal theory, but just like Dawkins you hope research will prove you right.
DAVID: On the other hand the series clearly demonstrate the need for advanced planning and design, since the aquatic mammals need to breathe air.
No it doesn’t. Clearly aquatic mammals need to breathe air, but that does not mean the changes preceded the need!
DAVID: The implication of saltation for me implies prior design and God.
That doesn’t make it true.
DAVID: To me it is logical that the changes preceded full use of aquatic life, since the requirements are so complex.
“Full”, presumably to cover the oddity of your God doing it all in different stages over millions of years. Yes, complexity is a powerful argument for design, but no argument whatsoever for speciation preceding environmental change.
DAVID: I accept God is in charge as a result of all the studying I have done. Whales did not happen by chance. They were designed, as were porpoises, manatees, etc.
And you have come up with a theory that is riddled with contradictions and illogicalities, such as speciation being separate from environment and preceding environmental change although environmental change initiates speciation. And you don't know why your God – who is in total control and whose one and only purpose was to produce humans - designed the whale, let alone why he designed it in 8/9 different stages.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 18:24 (2738 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your interpretation of my statement is a stretch. Once again, more oxygen allows for more energy consumption in more complex animals, but in no way guarantees that such animals should evolve. That requires, as you note, another input into the process. Innate drive from '?' or God.
dhw: The issue is whether, as you have been claiming, speciation precedes environmental change or is initiated by it. If you think your God created all the Cambrian species first and then raised oxygen levels to accommodate them, you are welcome to your beliefs, but then you can’t say environmental change, which must have come last in your version of the process, played a role in initiating speciation!
I did not say Cambrian animals first, then oxygen rose. Oxygen was about 10% at the start of the Cambrian, much more than previously, and certainly enough to allow the Cambrian to appear, but NOT REQUIRE it.
dhw: Whether the innate drive to improve (or complexify) stems from God or not has no bearing on the link between speciation and environment.
I agree. I was just pointing out the need to propose a cause of the 'drive' for complexity.
DAVID: I apologize for yesterday's statements, but your 'in tiny steps' irritated me. The animation was to re-introduce the magnitude of the eight/nine steps of change from air to water.
dhw: Apology accepted, though I hope it is for your accusation of intellectual dishonesty rather than the errors of fact concerning the animation.
It is.
DAVID: On the other hand the series clearly demonstrate the need for advanced planning and design, since the aquatic mammals need to breathe air.dhw: No it doesn’t. Clearly aquatic mammals need to breathe air, but that does not mean the changes preceded the need!
They didn't just jump in and reproduce. It is obvious changes had to come first. Again the gaps in form and physiology are huge.
DAVID: The implication of saltation for me implies prior design and God.
dhw: That doesn’t make it true.
Complex saltation doesn't come out of this air. It requires design.
DAVID: To me it is logical that the changes preceded full use of aquatic life, since the requirements are so complex.dhw: “Full”, presumably to cover the oddity of your God doing it all in different stages over millions of years. Yes, complexity is a powerful argument for design, but no argument whatsoever for speciation preceding environmental change.
Yes, it is my argument. The environment change in this discussion is mammals going from land to water to live. They can't simply jump into salt water, orally scoop up plankton and survive. It requires kidney change in handling the excess salt, as one tiny example. Do I need to point our every physiologic problem presented? I've mentioned reproductive and birthing issues.
DAVID: I accept God is in charge as a result of all the studying I have done. Whales did not happen by chance. They were designed, as were porpoises, manatees, etc.dhw: And you have come up with a theory that is riddled with contradictions and illogicalities, such as speciation being separate from environment and preceding environmental change although environmental change initiates speciation.
Wrong use of the word 'initiate'. Environmental change in O2 allowed for changes in the Cambrian to appear, but did not cause (initiate) them. As for whales I've made a case above as to why design of speciation had to come first.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: I did not say Cambrian animals first, then oxygen rose. Oxygen was about 10% at the start of the Cambrian, much more than previously, and certainly enough to allow the Cambrian to appear, but NOT REQUIRE it.
If one thing precedes another, it comes first. If speciation preceded environmental change, then animals must have come before the increase in oxygen. It is not REQUIRED, which is why there has to be a drive for improvement, which you call complexity. There are three phases: oxygen first; this activates the drive for improvement which you call complexity, and then comes speciation: opportunity created, opportunity taken, outcome speciation. If oxygen comes first, it initiates the process. To deal with a point you raise later, initiate means to begin, take the first step, set something in motion. You wrote: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” So which comes first: environment change or speciation?
dhw: Apology accepted, though I hope it is for your accusation of intellectual dishonesty rather than the errors of fact concerning the animation.
DAVID: It is.
Thank you.
DAVID: On the other hand the series clearly demonstrate the need for advanced planning and design, since the aquatic mammals need to breathe air.
dhw: No it doesn’t. Clearly aquatic mammals need to breathe air, but that does not mean the changes preceded the need!
DAVID: They didn't just jump in and reproduce. It is obvious changes had to come first. Again the gaps in form and physiology are huge.
I note you have switched from breathing air to reproducing. It is obvious that some of the changes, as shown in the video, could have been gradual adaptations, but you are quite right to focus on the major changes. This raises the general problem of saltation in speciation, which I have never disputed. You are understandably sceptical about my (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence hypothesis because there is no evidence that this ability stretches beyond minor adaptations. Fair enough. I am sceptical about your divine preprogramming/dabbling, anthropocentric hypothesis, not only because it leads to contradictions and illogicalities, but also because there is no more evidence for it than there is for my cellular intelligence hypothesis. Fair enough?
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Thursday, May 25, 2017, 15:38 (2738 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I did not say Cambrian animals first, then oxygen rose. Oxygen was about 10% at the start of the Cambrian, much more than previously, and certainly enough to allow the Cambrian to appear, but NOT REQUIRE it.
dhw: If one thing precedes another, it comes first. If speciation preceded environmental change, then animals must have come before the increase in oxygen. It is not REQUIRED, which is why there has to be a drive for improvement, which you call complexity. There are three phases: oxygen first; this activates the drive for improvement which you call complexity, and then comes speciation: opportunity created, opportunity taken, outcome speciation. If oxygen comes first, it initiates the process.
You have made a huge jump in logic. The presence of oxygen doesn't initiate anything. It presents an opportunity, but nothing is required to happen. You are assuming your drive for improvement (dfi) is triggered by the appearance of more oxygen. We do not have any evidence this is the case. Which brings us back to whales. Environment did not change to trigger any dfi. They had to choose a new environment to force a dfi, which logically had to precede it.
dhw: To deal with a point you raise later, initiate means to begin, take the first step, set something in motion. You wrote: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” So which comes first: environment change or speciation?
I am using the more active form of 'initiate' as to cause. As for environment/ speciation, I see strong evidence for speciation preceding environmental change (whales), but I also see that environmental change (Chicxulub) can change the course of speciation. As for the human form, they changed, apes didn't in the same environment, therefore speciation first.
DAVID: On the other hand the series clearly demonstrate the need for advanced planning and design, since the aquatic mammals need to breathe air.
dhw: No it doesn’t. Clearly aquatic mammals need to breathe air, but that does not mean the changes preceded the need!
DAVID: They didn't just jump in and reproduce. It is obvious changes had to come first. Again the gaps in form and physiology are huge.dhw: I note you have switched from breathing air to reproducing. It is obvious that some of the changes, as shown in the video, could have been gradual adaptations, but you are quite right to focus on the major changes.
You keep hoping for gradual adaptations, but the whale series only shows giant steps. That is why I see speciation first here.
dhw: This raises the general problem of saltation in speciation, which I have never disputed. You are understandably sceptical about my (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence hypothesis because there is no evidence that this ability stretches beyond minor adaptations. Fair enough. I am sceptical about your divine preprogramming/dabbling, anthropocentric hypothesis, not only because it leads to contradictions and illogicalities, but also because there is no more evidence for it than there is for my cellular intelligence hypothesis. Fair enough?
Agreed. We both lack direct evidence.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: If one thing precedes another, it comes first. If speciation preceded environmental change, then animals must have come before the increase in oxygen. It is not REQUIRED, which is why there has to be a drive for improvement, which you call complexity. There are three phases: oxygen first; this activates the drive for improvement which you call complexity, and then comes speciation: opportunity created, opportunity taken, outcome speciation. If oxygen comes first, it initiates the process.
DAVID: You have made a huge jump in logic. The presence of oxygen doesn't initiate anything. It presents an opportunity, but nothing is required to happen.
I defined “initiate” as begin, take the first step, set something in motion, but only later do you say: “I am using the more active form of 'initiate' as to cause”. The nearest to your definition that I can find is “cause to begin”. You have quoted me saying it is not REQUIRED, but the drive for improvement leads to exploiting the opportunity, so why do you keep repeating the point I have already explained umpteen times?
DAVID: You are assuming your drive for improvement (dfi) is triggered by the appearance of more oxygen. We do not have any evidence this is the case.
It is a theory which you quoted: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” You used the word “initiate” (so you meant “cause” instead of set in motion, did you?) but in any case, if it allowed the Cambrian to appear, it is logical to call it the first step that set the process in motion. There is no way that it can mean speciation took place before the change in the environment.
DAVID: Which brings us back to whales. Environment did not change to trigger any dfi. They had to choose a new environment to force a dfi, which logically had to precede it.
A neat wriggle away from your Cambrian contradictions! We do not know why whales chose a new environment, but it is not unreasonable to suggest it was for improvement (maybe more food in the water), and once they found the environment was favourable, the changes took place to help them exploit this new opportunity to the full. I find this more convincing than the hypothesis that God only wanted to produce humans, and therefore he redesigned the pre-whale in eight different stages over millions of years before sending it into the water for no particular reason.
DAVID: As for environment/speciation, I see strong evidence for speciation preceding environmental change (whales), but I also see that environmental change (Chicxulub) can change the course of speciation.
I'll stick with the Cambrian, since you agree that environmental change is an initiator (you go even further and say it's a cause!) of speciation.
DAVID: As for the human form, they changed, apes didn't in the same environment, therefore speciation first.
Maybe in one particular location (or more than one, leading to convergent evolution of hominins) millions of years ago, the environment changed, leading a particular group of anthropoids to restructure themselves? You always talk as if environmental change and speciation had to be global.
dhw: It is obvious that some of the changes, as shown in the video, could have been gradual adaptations, but you are quite right to focus on the major changes. This raises the general problem of saltation in speciation, which I have never disputed.
DAVID: You keep hoping for gradual adaptations, but the whale series only shows giant steps. That is why I see speciation first here.
You edited my text to distort it. I have restored the sentence about saltations (giant steps) to its rightful place. The video of the whale series shows gradual adaptations, but I am not disputing that there must also have been saltations.
dhw: You are understandably sceptical about my (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence hypothesis because there is no evidence that this ability stretches beyond minor adaptations. Fair enough. I am sceptical about your divine preprogramming/dabbling, anthropocentric hypothesis, not only because it leads to contradictions and illogicalities, but also because there is no more evidence for it than there is for my cellular intelligence hypothesis. Fair enough?
DAVID: Agreed. We both lack direct evidence.
Thank you.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Friday, May 26, 2017, 21:29 (2736 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You are assuming your drive for improvement (dfi) is triggered by the appearance of more oxygen. We do not have any evidence this is the case.
dhw: It is a theory which you quoted: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” You used the word “initiate” (so you meant “cause” instead of set in motion, did you?) but in any case, if it allowed the Cambrian to appear, it is logical to call it the first step that set the process in motion.
Oxygenation is not a first step that set anything in motion. Its appearance simply allowed an opportune level of energy usage. There must be a separate process existent to act on that opportunity. That next step of improvement or complexity is not required to happen. That is why I break the whole process into discontinuous parts.
DAVID: Which brings us back to whales. Environment did not change to trigger any dfi. They had to choose a new environment to force a dfi, which logically had to precede it.
dhw: A neat wriggle away from your Cambrian contradictions! We do not know why whales chose a new environment, but it is not unreasonable to suggest it was for improvement (maybe more food in the water), and once they found the environment was favourable, the changes took place to help them exploit this new opportunity to the full. I find this more convincing than the hypothesis that God only wanted to produce humans, and therefore he redesigned the pre-whale in eight different stages over millions of years before sending it into the water for no particular reason.
Once again you have skipped over the complex issues of planning for the major physiologic and phenotypic changes that must occur to accommodate the shift in environment. "Changes took place" glosses over the magnitude of the accomplishments. We are not discussing the production of humans, an issue you keep dragging in to muddy and confuse the issue. Please address whale planning.
DAVID: As for environment/speciation, I see strong evidence for speciation preceding environmental change (whales), but I also see that environmental change (Chicxulub) can change the course of speciation.dhw: I'll stick with the Cambrian, since you agree that environmental change is an initiator (you go even further and say it's a cause!) of speciation.
I said the 'course of speciation', nothing more.
DAVID: As for the human form, they changed, apes didn't in the same environment, therefore speciation first.dhw: Maybe in one particular location (or more than one, leading to convergent evolution of hominins) millions of years ago, the environment changed, leading a particular group of anthropoids to restructure themselves? You always talk as if environmental change and speciation had to be global.
Have you forgotten that early humans were in the Rift Valley, a small part of Kenya in Africa, not global! I am discussing local.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: You are assuming your drive for improvement (dfi) is triggered by the appearance of more oxygen. We do not have any evidence this is the case.
dhw: It is a theory which you quoted: “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” You used the word “initiate” (so you meant “cause” instead of set in motion, did you?) but in any case, if it allowed the Cambrian to appear, it is logical to call it the first step that set the process in motion.
DAVID: Oxygenation is not a first step that set anything in motion. Its appearance simply allowed an opportune level of energy usage.
First you say it played a role in initiating new species, and then you say it didn’t. An “opportune usage” is what I called an “opportunity” as you do below:
DAVID: There must be a separate process existent to act on that opportunity. That next step of improvement or complexity is not required to happen. That is why I break the whole process into discontinuous parts.
The separate “process” is what we have called the drive for improvement/complexity. We came to the conclusion that this drive must exist because NO speciation was REQUIRED. The drive for improvement is what leads to the next step, which is the actual improvement/complexity. Why do you want to break the process into discontinuous parts? Shouldn't all parts of a theory cohere?
DAVID: Which brings us back to whales. Environment did not change to trigger any dfi. They had to choose a new environment to force a dfi, which logically had to precede it.
dhw: ... We do not know why whales chose a new environment, but it is not unreasonable to suggest it was for improvement (maybe more food in the water), and once they found the environment was favourable, the changes took place to help them exploit this new opportunity to the full. I find this more convincing than the hypothesis that God only wanted to produce humans, and therefore he redesigned the pre-whale in eight different stages over millions of years before sending it into the water for no particular reason.
DAVID: Once again you have skipped over the complex issues of planning for the major physiologic and phenotypic changes that must occur to accommodate the shift in environment. "Changes took place" glosses over the magnitude of the accomplishments. We are not discussing the production of humans, an issue you keep dragging in to muddy and confuse the issue. Please address whale planning.
I have now addressed it at least a dozen times. In my hypothesis, the major changes (= saltations) are NOT planned in advance but are the cell communities’ RESPONSES to the changed environment. On Thursday we then had the following exchange about saltations:
dhw: This raises the general problem of saltation in speciation, which I have never disputed. You are understandably sceptical about my (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence hypothesis because there is no evidence that this ability stretches beyond minor adaptations. Fair enough. I am sceptical about your divine preprogramming/dabbling, anthropocentric hypothesis, not only because it leads to contradictions and illogicalities, but also because there is no more evidence for it than there is for my cellular intelligence hypothesis. Fair enough?
DAVID: Agreed. We both lack direct evidence.
How many more times do you want me to repeat this? As for the reference to humans, it is the central plank of your whole hypothesis, and is the root cause of all the illogicalities and contradictions I keep pointing out.
dhw: I'll stick with the Cambrian, since you agree that environmental change is an initiator (you go even further and say it's a cause!) of speciation.
DAVID: I said the 'course of speciation', nothing more.
Once again: you wrote, “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” And then you wrote: ““I am using the more active form of 'initiate' as to cause”, not realizing that you were yet again contradicting yourself.
DAVID: As for the human form, they changed, apes didn't in the same environment, therefore speciation first.
dhw: Maybe in one particular location (or more than one, leading to convergent evolution of hominins) millions of years ago, the environment changed, leading a particular group of anthropoids to restructure themselves? You always talk as if environmental change and speciation had to be global.
DAVID: Have you forgotten that early humans were in the Rift Valley, a small part of Kenya in Africa, not global! I am discussing local.
I am not going to pretend I know how humans originated, but here is one suggestion, which supports my own:
BBC News - 'First human' discovered in Ethiopia
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31718336
QUOTE: A separate study in Science hints that a change in climate might have been a factor. An analysis of the fossilised plant and animal life in the area suggests that what had once been lush forest had become dry grassland.
As the trees made way for vast plains, ancient human-like primates found a way of exploiting the new environmental niche, developing bigger brains and becoming less reliant on having big jaws and teeth by using tools.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Sunday, May 28, 2017, 00:08 (2735 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: There must be a separate process existent to act on that opportunity. That next step of improvement or complexity is not required to happen. That is why I break the whole process into discontinuous parts.dhw: The separate “process” is what we have called the drive for improvement/complexity. We came to the conclusion that this drive must exist because NO speciation was REQUIRED. The drive for improvement is what leads to the next step, which is the actual improvement/complexity. Why do you want to break the process into discontinuous parts? Shouldn't all parts of a theory cohere?
Of course they cohere. their separation is recognized.
dhw:How many more times do you want me to repeat this? As for the reference to humans, it is the central plank of your whole hypothesis, and is the root cause of all the illogicalities and contradictions I keep pointing out.
I have no way of explaining exactly how God did His work. It is obvious to me evolutionary processes were used by Him for the universe, the Earth and for life. It is obvious to me there are only chance or design with no third alternative. Chance is totally rejected. Design requires a designing mind. Nothing illogical here. Humans arrived against all odds, and for no demonstrable driving stress. This is the basis of my belief. Not guessed, but I do guess at God's motives and methods and I am convinced his goal was humans. Nothing illogical or contradictory here.
dhw: I'll stick with the Cambrian, since you agree that environmental change is an initiator (you go even further and say it's a cause!) of speciation.
DAVID: I said the 'course of speciation', nothing more.dhw: Once again: you wrote, “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” And then you wrote: ““I am using the more active form of 'initiate' as to cause”, not realizing that you were yet again contradicting yourself.
You misunderstand. No contradiction. I view 'initiate' to be approached as a word in its causative sense and also in its allowing opportunity sense. In the Cambrian the new oxygen level allowed a speciation process to create new ones, but did not demand it. I've never changed, Speciation was not required to happen.
DAVID: Have you forgotten that early humans were in the Rift Valley, a small part of Kenya in Africa, not global! I am discussing local.I am not going to pretend I know how humans originated, but here is one suggestion, which supports my own:
BBC News - 'First human' discovered in Ethiopia
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31718336QUOTE: A separate study in Science hints that a change in climate might have been a factor. An analysis of the fossilised plant and animal life in the area suggests that what had once been lush forest had become dry grassland.
As the trees made way for vast plains, ancient human-like primates found a way of exploiting the new environmental niche, developing bigger brains and becoming less reliant on having big jaws and teeth by using tools.
I've seen this item before: didn't you noticed it supports my view. Note the hominins are there before the climate changes, and they take advantage of it! Stone tools for butchering, and much later conquered fire for cooking, resulting in better nutrition which helped the big brain do better work as they learned to use it.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: There must be a separate process existent to act on that opportunity. That next step of improvement or complexity is not required to happen. That is why I break the whole process into discontinuous parts.
dhw: The separate “process” is what we have called the drive for improvement/complexity. We came to the conclusion that this drive must exist because NO speciation was REQUIRED. The drive for improvement is what leads to the next step, which is the actual improvement/complexity. Why do you want to break the process into discontinuous parts? Shouldn't all parts of a theory cohere?
DAVID: Of course they cohere. their separation is recognized.
If they cohere, there is a linked process of cause and effect, e.g. drive for improvement/complexity, triggered by environment change, leads to production of improvement/complexity. What’s the problem?
dhw:As for the reference to humans, it is the central plank of your whole hypothesis, and is the root cause of all the illogicalities and contradictions I keep pointing out.
DAVID: I have no way of explaining exactly how God did His work. It is obvious to me evolutionary processes were used by Him for the universe, the Earth and for life. It is obvious to me there are only chance or design with no third alternative. Chance is totally rejected. Design requires a designing mind. Nothing illogical here. Humans arrived against all odds, and for no demonstrable driving stress. This is the basis of my belief. Not guessed, but I do guess at God's motives and methods and I am convinced his goal was humans. Nothing illogical or contradictory here.
The illogicalities and contradictions arise from your guesses at his motives and methods, not from your belief in evolution or from the choice between chance and design!
dhw: I'll stick with the Cambrian, since you agree that environmental change is an initiator (you go even further and say it's a cause!) of speciation.
DAVID: I said the 'course of speciation', nothing more.
dhw: Once again: you wrote, “Does environment play a role in initiating new species? Yes, it allowed the Cambrian to appear as oxygen levels rose.” And then you wrote: ““I am using the more active form of 'initiate' as to cause”, not realizing that you were yet again contradicting yourself.
DAVID: You misunderstand. No contradiction. I view 'initiate' to be approached as a word in its causative sense and also in its allowing opportunity sense. In the Cambrian the new oxygen level allowed a speciation process to create new ones, but did not demand it. I've never changed, Speciation was not required to happen.
So now your original “yes” apparently meant that environment both caused AND allowed speciation! And for the hundredth time, we know speciation was not REQUIRED to happen, and that is why we have said there must be a drive for improvement/complexity.
DAVID: Have you forgotten that early humans were in the Rift Valley, a small part of Kenya in Africa, not global! I am discussing local.
I am not going to pretend I know how humans originated, but here is one suggestion, which supports my own:
BBC News - 'First human' discovered in Ethiopia
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31718336
QUOTE: A separate study in Science hints that a change in climate might have been a factor. An analysis of the fossilised plant and animal life in the area suggests that what had once been lush forest had become dry grassland.
As the trees made way for vast plains, ancient human-like primates found a way of exploiting the new environmental niche, developing bigger brains and becoming less reliant on having big jaws and teeth by using tools.
DAVID: I've seen this item before: didn't you noticed it supports my view. Note the hominins are there before the climate changes, and they take advantage of it! Stone tools for butchering, and much later conquered fire for cooking, resulting in better nutrition which helped the big brain do better work as they learned to use it.
I thought it said “ancient human-like primates” which then developed bigger brains. Of course the primates would have been there before the climate change, or there would have been no primate ancestor to change into a hominin.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Sunday, May 28, 2017, 18:33 (2734 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Of course they cohere. their separation is recognized.
dhw: If they cohere, there is a linked process of cause and effect, e.g. drive for improvement/complexity, triggered by environment change, leads to production of improvement/complexity. What’s the problem?
My further thought from yesterday: Sunday, May 28, 2017, 02:47 I don't think 'improvement' and 'complexity' carry the same theoretical implications.
dhw: The illogicalities and contradictions arise from your guesses at his motives and methods, not from your belief in evolution or from the choice between chance and design!
They are just guesses. My principal thoughts abut God's goals are firm.
DAVID: You misunderstand. No contradiction. I view 'initiate' to be approached as a word in its causative sense and also in its allowing opportunity sense. In the Cambrian the new oxygen level allowed a speciation process to create new ones, but did not demand it. I've never changed, Speciation was not required to happen.
dhw: So now your original “yes” apparently meant that environment both caused AND allowed speciation! And for the hundredth time, we know speciation was not REQUIRED to happen, and that is why we have said there must be a drive for improvement/complexity.
No. my Cambrian example is the correct interpretation. Environmental change offers an opportunity nothing more, and in that sense is an initiator.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: Of course they cohere. their separation is recognized.
dhw: If they cohere, there is a linked process of cause and effect, e.g. drive for improvement/complexity, triggered by environment change, leads to production of improvement/complexity. What’s the problem?
DAVID: My further thought from yesterday: Sunday, May 28, 2017, 02:47 I don't think 'improvement' and 'complexity' carry the same theoretical implications.
I have listed the three stages in order to stop you once and for all harping on about speciation not being required. We have agreed that it is the drive for improvement/complexity that leads organisms to take advantage of new opportunities. Whether it is one or the other makes no difference to that particular argument. However, it does make a difference to our concept of your God’s approach to evolution. You also harp on about your God’s purposefulness, and if he exists I too would expect there to be a purpose behind his actions. Complexity just for the sake of complexity does not seem as purposeful to me as complexity for the sake of improvement. But so long as we agree that there is a drive which explains why speciation took place though it was not required by environmental change, I’m not that bothered.
dhw: The illogicalities and contradictions arise from your guesses at his motives and methods, not from your belief in evolution or from the choice between chance and design!
DAVID: They are just guesses. My principal thoughts about God's goals are firm.
I know they are firm, but they are still just guesses, and it is those firm guesses that lead to all the illogicalities and contradictions.
DAVID: You misunderstand. No contradiction. I view 'initiate' to be approached as a word in its causative sense and also in its allowing opportunity sense. In the Cambrian the new oxygen level allowed a speciation process to create new ones, but did not demand it. I've never changed, Speciation was not required to happen.
dhw: So now your original “yes” apparently meant that environment both caused AND allowed speciation! And for the hundredth time, we know speciation was not REQUIRED to happen, and that is why we have said there must be a drive for improvement/complexity.
DAVID: No. my Cambrian example is the correct interpretation. Environmental change offers an opportunity nothing more, and in that sense is an initiator.
Precisely the meaning that I proposed from the very start of this discussion. It was you who first denied the link between speciation and environment, then said speciation preceded environmental change, and then mistakenly offered the meaning of “cause” (as opposed to “cause to begin”), which you have again accidentally repeated in the first quote above! Just in case you have forgotten, your final version and mine now reads: the drive for improvement/complexity is set in motion by environmental change (the initiator), and then uses the new opportunity. Let’s leave it at that before you get into even more of a tangle.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Monday, May 29, 2017, 14:44 (2734 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My further thought from yesterday: Sunday, May 28, 2017, 02:47 I don't think 'improvement' and 'complexity' carry the same theoretical implications.
dhw: I have listed the three stages in order to stop you once and for all harping on about speciation not being required. We have agreed that it is the drive for improvement/complexity that leads organisms to take advantage of new opportunities. Whether it is one or the other makes no difference to that particular argument.
You have completely skipped over my examples (recently minor spine changes within a species) without demonstrable 'improvement'. I gave a long discussion that improvement/complexity are not equal concepts. The whale series is certainly explained more easily as an odd branch pursuing complexity for complexity's sake. So I don't accept your I/C equivalence. They are not.
dhw: Complexity just for the sake of complexity does not seem as purposeful to me as complexity for the sake of improvement.
Complexity will generally lead to improvements but not will the same sense of purposefulness as in your thoughts.
dhw: But so long as we agree that there is a drive which explains why speciation took place though it was not required by environmental change, I’m not that bothered.
Nor I, and it allows for speciation first without environmental change.
DAVID: No. my Cambrian example is the correct interpretation. Environmental change offers an opportunity nothing more, and in that sense is an initiator.
dhw: Just in case you have forgotten, your final version and mine now reads: the drive for improvement/complexity is set in motion by environmental change (the initiator), and then uses the new opportunity.
We are not together. Speciation an precede environmental change. We just had a discussion about already existing hominins taking advance of climate change in Africa as it happened (less trees, more grasses).
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
dhw: I have listed the three stages in order to stop you once and for all harping on about speciation not being required. We have agreed that it is the drive for improvement/complexity that leads organisms to take advantage of new opportunities. Whether it is one or the other makes no difference to that particular argument.
DAVID: You have completely skipped over my examples (recently minor spine changes within a species) without demonstrable 'improvement'.
We discussed the spinal change in detail under “bacterial intelligence”, and I asked what you meant by no “real” improvement, which strangely you explained as meaning no “real speciation”. You have now changed “real improvement” to “demonstrable improvement”, which means even if there was an improvement, we can’t demonstrate it. Nothing proven either way.
DAVID: I gave a long discussion that improvement/complexity are not equal concepts. The whale series is certainly explained more easily as an odd branch pursuing complexity for complexity's sake. So I don't accept your I/C equivalence. They are not.
No, they are not the same. And I responded in detail to your long discussion:
dhw: Complexity just for the sake of complexity does not seem as purposeful to me as complexity for the sake of improvement.
DAVID: Complexity will generally lead to improvements but not with the same sense of purposefulness as in your thoughts.
You keep telling us how purposeful your God is, and yet you think he designs complexity only for the sake of complexity. The whale is your prime example, and you refuse to countenance the possibility that it entered and adapted to the water in order to survive or to improve its access to food. Of course there is not the same sense of purposefulness if you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that there may have been a purpose.
dhw: Just in case you have forgotten, your final version and mine now reads: the drive for improvement/complexity is set in motion by environmental change (the initiator), and then uses the new opportunity.
DAVID: We are not together. Speciation can precede environmental change. We just had a discussion about already existing hominins taking advance of climate change in Africa as it happened (less trees, more grasses).
The discussion was based on the following article:
QUOTE: The dating of the jawbone might help answer one of the key questions in human evolution. What caused some primitive ancestors to climb down from the trees and make their homes on the ground.
A separate study in Science hints that a change in climate might have been a factor. An analysis of the fossilised plant and animal life in the area suggests that what had once been lush forest had become dry grassland.
As the trees made way for vast plains, ancient human-like primates found a way of exploiting the new environmental niche, developing bigger brains and becoming less reliant on having big jaws and teeth by using tools.
Although I agree that the phrasing is slightly elliptical, I take this to mean that tree-living primates left the trees when the trees began to disappear, and as they exploited the new environment, they developed bigger brains and became more human-like. I don’t think it means that God made them more human-like and gave them bigger brains while they were still sitting in the trees, and then he took the trees away.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 30, 2017, 20:19 (2732 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You have completely skipped over my examples (recently minor spine changes within a species) without demonstrable 'improvement'.
dhw" We discussed the spinal change in detail under “bacterial intelligence”, and I asked what you meant by no “real” improvement, which strangely you explained as meaning no “real speciation”. You have now changed “real improvement” to “demonstrable improvement”, which means even if there was an improvement, we can’t demonstrate it. Nothing proven either way.
I have trouble finding the right descriptive terms. There was a small spinal change which did not change the species in any major way, but is interpreted as a preparatory alteration for later bipedalism. Better?
dhw: You keep telling us how purposeful your God is, and yet you think he designs complexity only for the sake of complexity. The whale is your prime example, and you refuse to countenance the possibility that it entered and adapted to the water in order to survive or to improve its access to food. Of course there is not the same sense of purposefulness if you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that there may have been a purpose.
Yes, my approach considers the possibility of complexity without purpose. Does each environmental change have purpose or improvement? The history tells us not necessarily.
dhw: Just in case you have forgotten, your final version and mine now reads: the drive for improvement/complexity is set in motion by environmental change (the initiator), and then uses the new opportunity.
DAVID: We are not together. Speciation can precede environmental change. We just had a discussion about already existing hominins taking advance of climate change in Africa as it happened (less trees, more grasses).dhw: The discussion was based on the following article:
QUOTE: The dating of the jawbone might help answer one of the key questions in human evolution. What caused some primitive ancestors to climb down from the trees and make their homes on the ground.
A separate study in Science hints that a change in climate might have been a factor. An analysis of the fossilised plant and animal life in the area suggests that what had once been lush forest had become dry grassland.
As the trees made way for vast plains, ancient human-like primates found a way of exploiting the new environmental niche, developing bigger brains and becoming less reliant on having big jaws and teeth by using tools.Although I agree that the phrasing is slightly elliptical, I take this to mean that tree-living primates left the trees when the trees began to disappear, and as they exploited the new environment, they developed bigger brains and became more human-like. I don’t think it means that God made them more human-like and gave them bigger brains while they were still sitting in the trees, and then he took the trees away.
Of course, if you accepted my theory, you would be forced to accept God.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: You have completely skipped over my examples (recently minor spine changes within a species) without demonstrable 'improvement'.
dhw: We discussed the spinal change in detail under “bacterial intelligence”, and I asked what you meant by no “real” improvement, which strangely you explained as meaning no “real speciation”. You have now changed “real improvement” to “demonstrable improvement”, which means even if there was an improvement, we can’t demonstrate it. Nothing proven either way.
DAVID: I have trouble finding the right descriptive terms. There was a small spinal change which did not change the species in any major way, but is interpreted as a preparatory alteration for later bipedalism. Better?
Much better, thank you. What remains open is whether the change may have resulted in a minor improvement, and if it didn’t, why on earth your God would make a totally useless change when according to you he was obviously perfectly capable of dabbling useful changes, as he proved over the next few million years.
dhw: You keep telling us how purposeful your God is, and yet you think he designs complexity only for the sake of complexity. The whale is your prime example, and you refuse to countenance the possibility that it entered and adapted to the water in order to survive or to improve its access to food. Of course there is not the same sense of purposefulness if you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that there may have been a purpose.
DAVID: Yes, my approach considers the possibility of complexity without purpose. Does each environmental change have purpose or improvement? The history tells us not necessarily.
Absolutely not. My personal view is that green forests turning into deserts are anything but an improvement, but we are talking about living organisms having purpose (survival and/or improvement or complexification) and changing their structure accordingly. I do not believe the environment has a drive for improvement. I would suggest that pre-whales did.
dhw: Although I agree that the phrasing is slightly elliptical, I take this to mean that tree-living primates left the trees when the trees began to disappear, and as they exploited the new environment, they developed bigger brains and became more human-like. I don’t think it means that God made them more human-like and gave them bigger brains while they were still sitting in the trees, and then he took the trees away.
DAVID: Of course, if you accepted my theory, you would be forced to accept God.
If I accepted any of your theories that God did this or God did that, I would be forced to accept God. The above example offers no support to your theory that your God made our ancestor primates into hominins while they were still enjoying life up in the trees. My own hypothesis allows full acceptance of God, but proposes a considerably more logical sequence of cause and effect.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 31, 2017, 15:14 (2732 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I have trouble finding the right descriptive terms. There was a small spinal change which did not change the species in any major way, but is interpreted as a preparatory alteration for later bipedalism. Better?
dhw: Much better, thank you. What remains open is whether the change may have resulted in a minor improvement, and if it didn’t, why on earth your God would make a totally useless change when according to you he was obviously perfectly capable of dabbling useful changes, as he proved over the next few million years.
You miss the point. Planning is involved. The small change is in preparation for larger changes to come. Much of my discussion about Darwin is he expected fossil finds which would fill the gaps. They never appeared, but this spinal change may be evidence that some itty-bity steps were taken, not related to immediate improvement.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: I have trouble finding the right descriptive terms. There was a small spinal change which did not change the species in any major way, but is interpreted as a preparatory alteration for later bipedalism. Better?
dhw: Much better, thank you. What remains open is whether the change may have resulted in a minor improvement, and if it didn’t, why on earth your God would make a totally useless change when according to you he was obviously perfectly capable of dabbling useful changes, as he proved over the next few million years.
DAVID: You miss the point. Planning is involved. The small change is in preparation for larger changes to come. Much of my discussion about Darwin is he expected fossil finds which would fill the gaps. They never appeared, but this spinal change may be evidence that some itty-bity steps were taken, not related to immediate improvement.
I’m afraid I can’t follow your thinking at all. One moment you’re attacking Darwin for proposing itty-bitty steps not shown by the fossil record, and the next moment you’re telling us that the fossil record shows itty-bitty steps. One moment you’re telling us how purposeful God is, and the next moment he dabbles something that has no purpose. If there are no itty-bitty fossils, we have saltations which only your God could design, and if there are fossils with itty-bitty steps, apparently God had to design these as well. No matter what we find, it’s all part of your God’s plan, whether it’s totally useless or useful, itty-bitty or saltatory.
DAVID’s comment: What this further study shows is that our earliest ancestors coming out of trees had advanced bipedal changes before permanently climbing down. Their upper body was apelike and last to change. It seems like evolution follows the pattern of change first and use second, as the big brain, size first use second.
I think this clearly shows a step-by-step process of adaptation to a new environment. Your use of “permanently” reinforces this idea. They didn’t suddenly leap down from the trees as fully formed hominins, but different changes occurred as they became more and more accustomed to life on the ground – just like the pre-whales adapting in different stages to life in the water.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Thursday, June 01, 2017, 21:56 (2730 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You miss the point. Planning is involved. The small change is in preparation for larger changes to come. Much of my discussion about Darwin is he expected fossil finds which would fill the gaps. They never appeared, but this spinal change may be evidence that some itty-bity steps were taken, not related to immediate improvement.dhw: I’m afraid I can’t follow your thinking at all. One moment you’re attacking Darwin for proposing itty-bitty steps not shown by the fossil record, and the next moment you’re telling us that the fossil record shows itty-bitty steps.
Quit nitpicking. I've simply said 'some' itty-bitty steps might appear in preparation for major change. You know full well Darwin wanted a series of tiny steps to cover all gaps, and they don't. What we are discussing is one obvious minor alteration which fills no gap.
>
DAVID’s comment: What this further study shows is that our earliest ancestors coming out of trees had advanced bipedal changes before permanently climbing down. Their upper body was apelike and last to change. It seems like evolution follows the pattern of change first and use second, as the big brain, size first use second.
dhw:I think this clearly shows a step-by-step process of adaptation to a new environment. Your use of “permanently” reinforces this idea. They didn’t suddenly leap down from the trees as fully formed hominins, but different changes occurred as they became more and more accustomed to life on the ground – just like the pre-whales adapting in different stages to life in the water.
Of course evolution occurs step by step. Only they are giant steps.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID’s comment: What this further study shows is that our earliest ancestors coming out of trees had advanced bipedal changes before permanently climbing down. Their upper body was apelike and last to change. It seems like evolution follows the pattern of change first and use second, as the big brain, size first use second.(
dhw:I think this clearly shows a step-by-step process of adaptation to a new environment. Your use of “permanently” reinforces this idea. They didn’t suddenly leap down from the trees as fully formed hominins, but different changes occurred as they became more and more accustomed to life on the ground – just like the pre-whales adapting in different stages to life in the water.
DAVID: Of course evolution occurs step by step. Only they are giant steps.
I was replying to your theory that change preceded use, i.e. that it was fully formed hominins that jumped down from the trees, or fully formed whales that entered the water. I find it more logical to hypothesize that the giant steps were initiated by the change of environment, driven by the desire for survival and/or improvement (though you prefer complexity), and implemented improvement by improvement.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Friday, June 02, 2017, 23:48 (2729 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: What this further study shows is that our earliest ancestors coming out of trees had advanced bipedal changes before permanently climbing down. Their upper body was apelike and last to change. It seems like evolution follows the pattern of change first and use second, as the big brain, size first use second.(
dhw:I think this clearly shows a step-by-step process of adaptation to a new environment. Your use of “permanently” reinforces this idea. They didn’t suddenly leap down from the trees as fully formed hominins, but different changes occurred as they became more and more accustomed to life on the ground – just like the pre-whales adapting in different stages to life in the water.
DAVID: Of course evolution occurs step by step. Only they are giant steps.
c dhw: I was replying to your theory that change preceded use, i.e. that it was fully formed hominins that jumped down from the trees, or fully formed whales that entered the water. I find it more logical to hypothesize that the giant steps were initiated by the change of environment, driven by the desire for survival and/or improvement (though you prefer complexity), and implemented improvement by improvement.
'
Your same response to look for an internal organismal drive, instead of an external force
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: Of course evolution occurs step by step. Only they are giant steps.
dhw: I was replying to your theory that change preceded use, i.e. that it was fully formed hominins that jumped down from the trees, or fully formed whales that entered the water. I find it more logical to hypothesize that the giant steps were initiated by the change of environment, driven by the desire for survival and/or improvement (though you prefer complexity), and implemented improvement by improvement.
DAVID: Your same response to look for an internal organismal drive, instead of an external force.
Your same response to look for an external force instead of an internal organismal drive possibly implanted by your God. When you talk of a drive to complexity, you offer us two possibilities: 1) a 3.8-billion-year programme, and 2) dabbling. The programme would be an internal organismal drive implanted by your God. Only dabbling would be external. So are you now saying that your God personally dabbled every single complexification in the history of life?
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Saturday, June 03, 2017, 14:27 (2729 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Of course evolution occurs step by step. Only they are giant steps.
dhw: I was replying to your theory that change preceded use, i.e. that it was fully formed hominins that jumped down from the trees, or fully formed whales that entered the water. I find it more logical to hypothesize that the giant steps were initiated by the change of environment, driven by the desire for survival and/or improvement (though you prefer complexity), and implemented improvement by improvement.
DAVID: Your same response to look for an internal organismal drive, instead of an external force.
dhw: Your same response to look for an external force instead of an internal organismal drive possibly implanted by your God. When you talk of a drive to complexity, you offer us two possibilities: 1) a 3.8-billion-year programme, and 2) dabbling. The programme would be an internal organismal drive implanted by your God. Only dabbling would be external. So are you now saying that your God personally dabbled every single complexification in the history of life?
We are at the end of the line on this issue. From the beginning I've said God controls evolution by either or both mechanisms. Your suppositions about internal drives to cover the gaps in the fossils never explain how the mental planning is done. I firmly state God is the cause. You suggest he might be.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
DAVID: Your same response to look for an internal organismal drive, instead of an external force.
dhw: Your same response to look for an external force instead of an internal organismal drive possibly implanted by your God. When you talk of a drive to complexity, you offer us two possibilities: 1) a 3.8-billion-year programme, and 2) dabbling. The programme would be an internal organismal drive implanted by your God. Only dabbling would be external. So are you now saying that your God personally dabbled every single complexification in the history of life?
DAVID: We are at the end of the line on this issue. From the beginning I've said God controls evolution by either or both mechanisms. Your suppositions about internal drives to cover the gaps in the fossils never explain how the mental planning is done. I firmly state God is the cause. You suggest he might be.
You keep trying to pooh-pooh the idea of an internal drive, so just to clarify: your divine 3.8-billion-year programme for all innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders would be an internal drive, with God having done all the mental planning. My hypothesis is that the internal drive is a possibly God-given intelligence to implement the possibly God-given internal drive for survival and/or improvement or complexity. That is the source of the mental processes necessary (but these take place in response to threats and opportunities, and not in anticipation of them). Only dabbling would be an external drive. I know we disagree, but at least we can agree on what we disagree about!
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Sunday, June 04, 2017, 18:51 (2727 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your same response to look for an internal organismal drive, instead of an external force.
dhw: Your same response to look for an external force instead of an internal organismal drive possibly implanted by your God. When you talk of a drive to complexity, you offer us two possibilities: 1) a 3.8-billion-year programme, and 2) dabbling. The programme would be an internal organismal drive implanted by your God. Only dabbling would be external. So are you now saying that your God personally dabbled every single complexification in the history of life?
DAVID: We are at the end of the line on this issue. From the beginning I've said God controls evolution by either or both mechanisms. Your suppositions about internal drives to cover the gaps in the fossils never explain how the mental planning is done. I firmly state God is the cause. You suggest he might be.
dhw: You keep trying to pooh-pooh the idea of an internal drive, so just to clarify: your divine 3.8-billion-year programme for all innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders would be an internal drive, with God having done all the mental planning. My hypothesis is that the internal drive is a possibly God-given intelligence to implement the possibly God-given internal drive for survival and/or improvement or complexity. That is the source of the mental processes necessary (but these take place in response to threats and opportunities, and not in anticipation of them). Only dabbling would be an external drive. I know we disagree, but at least we can agree on what we disagree about!
A God-implanted internal drive is initially from an external source. discussion over.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 07, 2017, 18:49 (2724 days ago) @ David Turell
About 30 million years ago some whale forms changed from teeth to baleen feeding. They are like large vertical venetian blinds hanging in whale mouths to filter tiny aquatic prey:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170606121559.htm
In a recent paper published in PLOS One,... detail for the first time how baleen whales use crossflow filtration to separate prey from water without ever coming into contact with the baleen. Baleen are comb-like keratin plates that have replaced the teeth of the whale's ancestors about 30 million years ago and play the role of a filtration surface in their mouths. The researchers looked at how this type of feeding affects a whale's drag as it moves through the water and how this form of filtration is enhanced by a large body size.
***
We study the physics of the various feeding mechanisms used by whales such as the humpback, blue and right whales. One practical aspect of this research is to know how much food they need. For the largest species, the food is krill and copepods.
***
"Blue whales, for example, feed on millions of krill that gather in big patches, in many cases patches that are larger than the whales themselves. This allows whales to grow to enormous sizes. These whales are the largest animals to have ever lived on Earth -- they are larger than most dinosaurs. They engulf water and prey, and then filter what they don't need out through the baleen plates.
"There's still a lot we don't understand about filtration by baleen, especially with regards to the detailed physics involved. Blue whales lunge toward the prey patch and open their mouth to enormous gapes to catch as many prey as possible. In the process they engulf an enormous amount of water which needs to be filtered out instants after mouth closure. Blue whales engulf the equivalent of their own mass, which for a 90 foot-long whale translates into a hundred tons of water. This is a lot of water to purge out of the mouth. It's done after prey capture, with the whale's belly muscle tightening to force the water through the baleen, past the lips and out of the mouth. This is a complicated process, most of which is out of view. This leaves scientists with very few clues on the workings of the filtration process that takes place within."
In their current paper, Potvin and Werth studied another type of baleen whale, the right whale, which offer a simpler version of filtration by baleen. Right whales have a baleen system that is similar to that of blue whales, although with longer baleen plates. But unlike their distant cousins the blue whales, right whales do not lunge and catch their prey like a raptor. Instead, they skim the water with their mouths open to collect their food at a much slower pace, effectively eating like a grazer. This process also is more visible since it is performed with the mouth partially opened. And, because of this skimming motion, the flow of water moving though the baleen system is simpler to simulate mathematically than the flows taking place inside a blue whale's closed mouth.
Right whales feed on small prey called copepods which are about the size of a grain of rice.
"Copepods also hang out in big patches," Potvin said. "Whales open their mouths while swimming through the patch, effectively skimming through it in a manner similar to a collector's net capturing butterflies. Again the baleen act like a filtration surface but the copepods are smaller than the space between baleens and so the filtration process must be different from, for example, draining pasta using a strainer.
"Instead, crossflow filtration is used, with most of the water passing through the baleen and exiting out of the mouth, but with the prey heading straight to the back side of the mouth where it is swallowed, all the while without ever coming into contact with the baleen.The copepods are mostly a slurry of food by the time they get to the whale's esophagus.
Comment: this article is presented to show another of the complexities the evolution of whales faced in becoming aquatic. And remember whales have to handle the metabolism of salt water, too much of which will kill a mammal. My question is still why did God bother?
Innovation and Speciation:early whale hearing
by David Turell , Friday, June 09, 2017, 20:20 (2722 days ago) @ David Turell
The early whale-like forms had a hearing organ much like land animals:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/whale-ancestors-had-hearing-much-like-land-ani...
"Any high school student can explain the most obvious difference between toothed and baleen whales: the first are hunting carnivores, the latter are filter feeders.
"Most, however, aren’t quite so aware of the other great difference between the two. Baleen whales have hearing in the infrasonic – ultra-low – range, while toothed species hear right at the other end of the scale, at very high, or ultrasonic, frequencies.
***
"Orliac and colleague Mickaël Mourlam studied the fossilised ear canals of an extinct group of very early whales – perhaps “proto-whales” is a more accurate description – called protocetes to determine their hearing range.
"They found that they had a hearing range that did not encompass the extremes of those of modern whales. Indeed, protocetes probably heard in much the way as hippos and pigs – to which they are distantly related.
"The protocetes – named after the first fossil of their type, discovered in 1904 – were around during the middle Eocene, about 45 million years ago. They represent a transitional from between even-toed land dwelling ungulates and today’s whales.
"A protocete had a long, toothed jaw with nostrils set far back. Its front and back legs ended in webbed toes, the rear ones well on the way to becoming vestigial. It is likely the species still spent some time on land, if only intertidal zones.
"To reach their conclusions, Orliac and Mourlam studied fossil examples encased in marine deposits in Togo, West Africa.
'Using micro computed tomography (micro-CT) they were able to peer inside the fossilised skulls and model the internal layout of the petrosal bone, which harbours organs for hearing and balance.
***
"This process was long and difficult because this cavity was filled with sediments and partly recrystallized and because the petrosal bone in cetaceans is particularly thick and dense, which lowers the quality of the images and sometimes impedes analyzing them,” says Orliac.
"Nevertheless, once complete, the interior layout of the bone cavity allowed an accurate deduction of the shape and dimensions of the cochlea – and thus the range of frequencies it was capable of detecting.
“'We found that the cochlea of protocetes was distinct from that of extant whales and dolphins and that they had hearing capacities close to those of their terrestrial relatives,” explains Orliac.
"The findings suggest that the specialised ultrasonic and infrasonic hearing abilities of modern whales only developed after their ancestors had adapted to a complete marine life cycle."
Comment: Not surprising that hearing changed as they became fully aquatic.
Innovation and Speciation:early whale hearing
QUOTES: "The protocetes – named after the first fossil of their type, discovered in 1904 – were around during the middle Eocene, about 45 million years ago. They represent a transitional form between even-toed land dwelling ungulates and today’s whales. (dhw’s bold)
"A protocete had a long, toothed jaw with nostrils set far back. Its front and back legs ended in webbed toes, the rear ones well on the way to becoming vestigial. It is likely the species still spent some time on land, if only intertidal zones. (dhw’s bold)
"The findings suggest that the specialised ultrasonic and infrasonic hearing abilities of modern whales only developed after their ancestors had adapted to a complete marine life cycle." (dhw’s bold)
DAVID’s comment: Not surprising that hearing changed as they became fully aquatic.
But what is surprising is your insistence that your God prepared the pre-whale for marine life before it entered the water. So how much of all this do you think was divinely dabbled, and how much was caused by a perhaps God-given internal drive for improvement, as the cell communities adapted to a “complete marine life cycle”?
Innovation and Speciation:early whale hearing
by David Turell , Saturday, June 10, 2017, 18:59 (2721 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTES: "The protocetes – named after the first fossil of their type, discovered in 1904 – were around during the middle Eocene, about 45 million years ago. They represent a transitional form between even-toed land dwelling ungulates and today’s whales. (dhw’s bold)
"A protocete had a long, toothed jaw with nostrils set far back. Its front and back legs ended in webbed toes, the rear ones well on the way to becoming vestigial. It is likely the species still spent some time on land, if only intertidal zones. (dhw’s bold)
"The findings suggest that the specialised ultrasonic and infrasonic hearing abilities of modern whales only developed after their ancestors had adapted to a complete marine life cycle." (dhw’s bold)
DAVID’s comment: Not surprising that hearing changed as they became fully aquatic.
dhw: But what is surprising is your insistence that your God prepared the pre-whale for marine life before it entered the water. So how much of all this do you think was divinely dabbled, and how much was caused by a perhaps God-given internal drive for improvement, as the cell communities adapted to a “complete marine life cycle”?
My answer is still 'why bother' since it involved so many complex adaptations. Why take the hard path when there are easier ones? I don't see any of this as a drive for improvement but as an unyielding drive for complexity.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Thursday, June 15, 2017, 20:33 (2716 days ago) @ David Turell
More on the development of baleen whales from a new predecessor fossil:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/new-fossil-fills-in-missing-moment-in-bale...
"Whales are evolutionary superstars. Over the past four decades, discoveries from all over the world have documented how their hoofed mammal ancestors proliferated at the water’s edge and slipped into the seas, turning whales from enigmas to one of the greatest examples of transcendent anatomical change. (my bold)
***
"A new fossil whale described by paleontologist Olivier Lambert and colleagues is the latest piece of whales’ prehistoric puzzle. They’ve named it Mystacodon selenensis, and this 36.4 million year old mammal adds some new context to the origin of the great, filter-feeding baleen whales.
"The remains of Mystacodon, excavated from Peru’s Pisco Basin, consist of a partial skeleton that includes the skull, teeth, vertebrae from various places in the spine, partial forelimbs, and a hip bone. The overall look of the whale was similar to Basilosaurus, the elongated predator that, until recently, was the classic image of what the most ancient whales were like. Yet, Lambert and coauthors write, specific features of the skull identify Mystacodon as the earliest known baleen whale. This cetacean is an anatomical bridge between more archaic forms like Basilosaurus and the profusion of baleen whales that followed.
"It may seem strange to think of baleen whales with teeth, but this isn’t a new concept for paleontologists. The very earliest whales – grouped together as archaeocetes – had teeth. From that broad group, the ancestors of today’s toothed whales (odontocetes) and baleen whales (split off). Baleen is a relatively recent specialization, in other words, and some fossils even seem to document how ancient baleen whales used teeth and baleen in combination before switching to baleen only.
"Of course, today’s baleen whales include some of the largest animals of all time. The blue whale can get to be over 100 feet long and weigh in excess of 200 tons. Mystacodon was quite a bit smaller, estimated to be about 13 feet long. But even though Mystacodon was quite different from today’s minkes and humpbacks, we can look back and see some features that seemed to open up a pathway for the way modern baleen whales feed.
"Whales like Basilosaurus were active predators, gripping and shearing their prey with mouths fitted with differentiated teeth. But the front of the snout useful for gripping in shortened in Mystacodon, Lambert and colleagues observe, and the anatomy of the jaws seem more consistent with suction feeding. The wear patterns on the whale’s teeth seem to support this. What may have spurred the earliest mysticetes to split off from their ancestors, then, might have been the shift to suction feeding and sifting tasty morsels out of the bottom sediment. A different way of eating opened up the possibility of oceanic giants."
Comment: Note the bolded first paragraph. Evolutionary superstars, indeed!
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: More on the development of baleen whales from a new predecessor fossil:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/new-fossil-fills-in-missing-moment-in-bale...
QUOTE: "Whales are evolutionary superstars. Over the past four decades, discoveries from all over the world have documented how their hoofed mammal ancestors proliferated at the water’s edge and slipped into the seas, turning whales from enigmas to one of the greatest examples of transcendent anatomical change. (David's bold)
DAVID's comment: Note the bolded first paragraph. Evolutionary superstars, indeed!
Stage after stage and variation after variation: a shining example of evolution at work, as organisms adapt and innovate in their use of a new environment. I wonder which of the pre-whales and the variations you think your God preprogrammed or dabbled with before they entered the water as part of his quest to keep life going until he could fulfil his one and only goal of producing humans. As always, thank you not only for providing us with yet another fascinating example of life’s complexities, but also for your integrity in reinforcing the case against your own anthropocentrism.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Friday, June 16, 2017, 21:06 (2715 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: More on the development of baleen whales from a new predecessor fossil:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/new-fossil-fills-in-missing-moment-in-bale...
QUOTE: "Whales are evolutionary superstars. Over the past four decades, discoveries from all over the world have documented how their hoofed mammal ancestors proliferated at the water’s edge and slipped into the seas, turning whales from enigmas to one of the greatest examples of transcendent anatomical change. (David's bold)
DAVID's comment: Note the bolded first paragraph. Evolutionary superstars, indeed!
dhw: Stage after stage and variation after variation: a shining example of evolution at work, as organisms adapt and innovate in their use of a new environment. I wonder which of the pre-whales and the variations you think your God preprogrammed or dabbled with before they entered the water as part of his quest to keep life going until he could fulfil his one and only goal of producing humans. As always, thank you not only for providing us with yet another fascinating example of life’s complexities, but also for your integrity in reinforcing the case against your own anthropocentrism.
I don't know how much integrity. I view it as an unexplained wonder of complexification drive under the control of God.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
dhw: Stage after stage and variation after variation: a shining example of evolution at work, as organisms adapt and innovate in their use of a new environment. I wonder which of the pre-whales and the variations you think your God preprogrammed or dabbled with before they entered the water as part of his quest to keep life going until he could fulfil his one and only goal of producing humans. As always, thank you not only for providing us with yet another fascinating example of life’s complexities, but also for your integrity in reinforcing the case against your own anthropocentrism.
DAVID: I don't know how much integrity. I view it as an unexplained wonder of complexification drive under the control of God.
“Unexplained” is the operative word. Whenever you offer us these wonders, they do explain why your own anthropocentric reading of God’s mind does not make sense to you. They therefore throw wide open the door to other possible interpretations of God’s motives and methods which you automatically reject even though you admit that they fit in with the history of life as we know it. Perhaps one day you will accept the possibility that what you call your “guess” – which has in fact established itself as a dogmatic belief – might even be less likely than other guesses.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Saturday, June 17, 2017, 19:46 (2714 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Stage after stage and variation after variation: a shining example of evolution at work, as organisms adapt and innovate in their use of a new environment. I wonder which of the pre-whales and the variations you think your God preprogrammed or dabbled with before they entered the water as part of his quest to keep life going until he could fulfil his one and only goal of producing humans. As always, thank you not only for providing us with yet another fascinating example of life’s complexities, but also for your integrity in reinforcing the case against your own anthropocentrism.
DAVID: I don't know how much integrity. I view it as an unexplained wonder of complexification drive under the control of God.
dhw: “Unexplained” is the operative word. Whenever you offer us these wonders, they do explain why your own anthropocentric reading of God’s mind does not make sense to you. They therefore throw wide open the door to other possible interpretations of God’s motives and methods which you automatically reject even though you admit that they fit in with the history of life as we know it. Perhaps one day you will accept the possibility that what you call your “guess” – which has in fact established itself as a dogmatic belief – might even be less likely than other guesses.
I explain it by saying God did it. Humans as a goal makes perfect sense to me as explained in an other entry today. God and we have consciousness. And I explain the weird braches of the bush of life as balance of nature for food supply. That all makes sense to me. I have my way of explain what exists and you look for other ways as you try to understand God's reasoning in a more human way than I do.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: I view it as an unexplained wonder of complexification drive under the control of God.
dhw: “Unexplained” is the operative word. Whenever you offer us these wonders, they do explain why your own anthropocentric reading of God’s mind does not make sense to you. They therefore throw wide open the door to other possible interpretations of God’s motives and methods which you automatically reject even though you admit that they fit in with the history of life as we know it. Perhaps one day you will accept the possibility that what you call your “guess” – which has in fact established itself as a dogmatic belief – might even be less likely than other guesses.
DAVID: I explain it by saying God did it. Humans as a goal makes perfect sense to me as explained in an other entry today. God and we have consciousness. And I explain the weird braches of the bush of life as balance of nature for food supply. That all makes sense to me. I have my way of explain what exists and you look for other ways as you try to understand God's reasoning in a more human way than I do.
When you say you can’t explain why God restructured the pre-whale in all its different stages, I find it difficult to accept “God did it” as an explanation. All the alternative hypotheses I have offered you allow for “God did it”. Two of them even allow for humans as “a” goal. But you insist that humans were “the goal”, and when you slip in “a” goal, I ask you what other goals he might have had, and you tell me you can’t think of any. Balance of nature simply means life goes on as long as life goes on and by your own admission has nothing to do with humans as God’s one and only purpose. Yes, I do look for alternative explanations which will cover the enormous gaps in your own. And you keep admitting that my alternatives fit in with the history of life as we know it, but you prefer to cling to an explanation which doesn’t make sense to you.
DAVID: (under “bacterial intelligence”): You want internal drives for evolutionary change. I prefer God as an external drive.
I covered this in yesterday’s post under “big brain”:
The external drive would be your dabbling. What happened to preprogramming, which is an internal “drive” implanted by your God? Unless you think he personally reaches down and presses each individual switch in each individual organism for each individual change. An internal inventive intelligence (possibly designed by your God) is my equivalent of the internal preprogramming drive, but it is autonomous and not automated. It responds adaptively or creatively to current conditions, but does not look into a crystal ball.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Sunday, June 18, 2017, 22:50 (2713 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Yes, I do look for alternative explanations which will cover the enormous gaps in your own. And you keep admitting that my alternatives fit in with the history of life as we know it, but you prefer to cling to an explanation which doesn’t make sense to you.
Just because I question the motive for whales doesn't prevent me from believing God is in change and knows what He is doing, even if I can't follow all of His reasons. You obviously do not understand faith in a believing person.
DAVID: (under “bacterial intelligence”): You want internal drives for evolutionary change. I prefer God as an external drive.dhw: I covered this in yesterday’s post under “big brain”:
The external drive would be your dabbling. What happened to preprogramming, which is an internal “drive” implanted by your God? Unless you think he personally reaches down and presses each individual switch in each individual organism for each individual change. An internal inventive intelligence (possibly designed by your God) is my equivalent of the internal preprogramming drive, but it is autonomous and not automated. It responds adaptively or creatively to current conditions, but does not look into a crystal ball.
You can't have complex saltations without a crystal ball or a planning mind. The gaps Are too large for chance to accomplish. You have to use my God in your discussion above or fall back on panpsychism which is a wooly hypothesis at best. The point is you have no answers at all as to how evolution works. My God runs the show.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
Several posts deal with the same subject, so I am combining them:
DAVID (under “big brain”): You have again skipped over the part of advanced planning for the large (Gould noted) gaps in the fossil record. God must have given a full planning outline to your style of an IM.
dhw: In my hypothesis, as I keep repeating, there is no advance planning. Innovation takes place as a RESPONSE to opportunities offered by the environment. The gaps in the fossil record are because of saltations. I don’t know what you mean by a “full planning outline”. You can’t even make up your mind to what extent your God controls environmental change, so there is a huge question mark over your own theory that he had everything fully planned in advance.
DAVID: Again you are skipping the import of the giant gaps. The whale changes are so large they require advanced planning to coordinate all the new physiologic changes. You are again using the word 'saltations' as something magical. A saltation is a giant change requiring coordination of new parts and processes. It requires design by a planning mind.
And:
You can't have complex saltations without a crystal ball or a planning mind. The gaps Are too large for chance to accomplish.
I do not question that saltations are too large for chance to accomplish and therefore require design. That is the whole point of my cellular intelligence hypothesis – namely, that the cell communities deliberately cooperate in designing their own restructuring, as opposed to your God reaching down and fiddling around with them, or alternatively fitting them out with a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for each cooperative enterprise. (The cooperation is essential, whichever hypothesis you believe.) I also question the need for planning, if by that you mean in advance of the conditions that trigger the changes. Their intelligent (perhaps God-given) inventive intelligence would only come into play as a RESPONSE to the new opportunities. No crystal ball.
DAVID (under “big brain”): As for environmental changes I've said that God guides evolution. I'm sure the cyanobacteria which have no precursor are one of God's steps. Note my entry. Chicxulub is probably His giant snowball. I keep saying He is in charge. You invent deficiencies in my thinking, because I cannot be sure as to every detail of God's actions.
And under “whale”:
Just because I question the motive for whales doesn't prevent me from believing God is in charge and knows what He is doing, even if I can't follow all of His reasons. You obviously do not understand faith in a believing person.
And:
You have to use my God in your discussion above or fall back on panpsychism which is a wooly hypothesis at best. The point is you have no answers at all as to how evolution works. My God runs the show.
If God exists, I have no doubt that he is in charge, but you have offered us one specific hypothesis about HOW he runs the show, and I have offered you three theistic alternative "answers to how evolution works", which you appear to have forgotten (see below, just to remind you). The dispute here is not over your faith in the existence of God, or over God being in charge, but over your dogmatic faith in one particular explanation of his motives and methods which does not make sense even to you.
4 theistic hypotheses:
1 Yours: God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing and has the one and only purpose of producing humans, to which the whole bush of life extinct and extant is inexplicably related.
2 (anthropocentric): God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing: he is experimenting to work out how to produce a being similar to himself. This explains the ever changing bush of life extinct and extant.
3 (anthropocentric): God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing: he is creating an ever changing spectacle of living things, and eventually he has a great idea: a being similar to himself, so he does a dabble. This explains the ever changing bush of life extinct and extant.
4 God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing. He has created an autonomous inventive mechanism which enables organisms to pursue their own paths to survival and/or improvement. This explains the ever changing bush of life extinct and extant. (He reserves the right to dabble, and may have done so with humans.)
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Monday, June 19, 2017, 21:35 (2712 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And:
You can't have complex saltations without a crystal ball or a planning mind. The gaps Are too large for chance to accomplish.I do not question that saltations are too large for chance to accomplish and therefore require design. That is the whole point of my cellular intelligence hypothesis – namely, that the cell communities deliberately cooperate in designing their own restructuring, as opposed to your God reaching down and fiddling around with them, or alternatively fitting them out with a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for each cooperative enterprise. (The cooperation is essential, whichever hypothesis you believe.) I also question the need for planning, if by that you mean in advance of the conditions that trigger the changes. Their intelligent (perhaps God-given) inventive intelligence would only come into play as a RESPONSE to the new opportunities. No crystal ball.
None of your illusions to cell intelligence dissuade me from the point. You cannot avoid the need for design to plan for the large changes in each new species form.
dhw: If God exists, I have no doubt that he is in charge, but you have offered us one specific hypothesis about HOW he runs the show, and I have offered you three theistic alternative "answers to how evolution works", which you appear to have forgotten (see below, just to remind you). The dispute here is not over your faith in the existence of God, or over God being in charge, but over your dogmatic faith in one particular explanation of his motives and methods which does not make sense even to you.4 theistic hypotheses:
1 Yours: God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing and has the one and only purpose of producing humans, to which the whole bush of life extinct and extant is inexplicably related.
2 (anthropocentric): God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing: he is experimenting to work out how to produce a being similar to himself. This explains the ever changing bush of life extinct and extant.
3 (anthropocentric): God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing: he is creating an ever changing spectacle of living things, and eventually he has a great idea: a being similar to himself, so he does a dabble. This explains the ever changing bush of life extinct and extant.
4 God is in charge and knows exactly what he is doing. He has created an autonomous inventive mechanism which enables organisms to pursue their own paths to survival and/or improvement. This explains the ever changing bush of life extinct and extant. (He reserves the right to dabble, and may have done so with humans.)
You have presented all of this before. It is a good summary. My reply as always is the last three are humanized inventions of what God might be, not what He is.
Innovation and Speciation:punctuated eqilibrium
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 00:20 (2712 days ago) @ David Turell
This article supports the theory that the gaps in evolution are real:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/new-modelling-backs-controversial-evolution-hypothesis
"Gould and Eldredge sought to explain so-called gaps in the palaeontological record – missing fossils assumed to represent transitional phases between ancient species and the modern ones into which they evolved – by suggesting they were an illusion.
"Evolution, they proposed, wasn’t a gradual process, marked by the slow accumulation of new characteristics. Rather, they said, “the history of evolution is not one of stately unfolding, but a story of homeostatic equilibria, disturbed only ‘rarely’ … by rapid and episodic events of speciation.”
"Two important principles underpinned their explanation, which they dubbed the theory of punctuated equilibria.
"The first was that once a species evolved, it tended to stay pretty much the same from thereon in until extinction ended its run. The second was that when part of a species became isolated from the rest and thus fell under new selection pressure, if it was going to evolve into something new it would do so very quickly (at least, on a geological scale).
***
"However, Landis and Schraiber, publishing on the preprint site bioRxiv, push the argument back in favour of speciation as a comparatively rapid, rather than gradual, process.
The title of their paper serves also as its bold conclusion: Punctuated evolution shaped modern vertebrate diversity.
"The pair constructed a mathematical model based on random probability distribution and fed in datasets derived from the morphological characteristics of about 50 clades (genetically-related groups of animals) covering mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians.
"The results fitted best within a framework of punctuated development, with long periods of stasis – averaging around 10 million years – between “jump processes” of “pulsed evolution” lasting as little as 100 generations.
"All of the data used concerned modern species. Landis and Schraiber suggest that future work integrating their work with the paleontological evolutionary research kick-started by Gould and Eldredge will throw up more detailed evidence about how rapid spurts of evolution and speciation are related."
Abstract of paper:
"The relative importance of different modes of evolution in shaping phenotypic diversity remains a hotly debated question. Fossil data suggest that stasis may be a common mode of evolution, while modern data suggest very fast rates of evolution. One way to reconcile these observations is to imagine that evolution is punctuated, rather than gradual, on geological time scales. To test this hypothesis, we developed a novel maximum likelihood framework for fitting L´evy processes to comparative morphological data. This class of stochastic processes includes both a gradual and punctuated component. We found that a plurality of modern vertebrate clades examined are best fit by punctuated processes over models of gradual change, gradual stasis, and adaptive radiation. When we compare our results to theoretical expectations of the rate and speed of regime shifts for models that detail fitness landscape dynamics, we find that our quantitative results are broadly compatible with both microevolutionary models and with observations from the fossil record."
http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/06/18/151175.full.pdf
Comment: The gaps are not entirely proven but supported. The gaps mean your fanciful cell communities must do advanced planning to coordinate all the anatomic and physiologic changes required. The whale series is the best example of the necessity for advanced anatomic planning to make the changes needed. Multiple exact mutations must occur all at once. They must all work with each other.
Innovation and Speciation: fire and brain size
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 00:36 (2712 days ago) @ David Turell
The studies are still trying to find when humans first used fire which greatly increased the caloric consumption needed for the biggest brain of all in H. sapiens, which needs 20% of daily calories if used very actively:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quest-for-clues-to-humanitys-first-fires/?WT...
"Her question is a basic one about a crucial early technology: When did humankind first put fire to work for them, using it regularly for heat and cooking? Hlubik and other archaeologists who sift through the long-cold ashes of fires past cannot say for sure. It probably wasn’t as early as 2 million years ago—but it almost certainly occurred by 300,000 years ago. That leaves a big gap, with plenty to investigate.
***
"The question gets at the very root of what it means to be human: Fire is one of the things that pushed human evolution along. Roasting foodstuffs meant a calorie-rich diet, which may have fueled our big brains into existence. Fire provides protection from predators and a warmth that may have allowed humankind to extend its geographical reach. Plus, tending a blaze and gathering around it could have helped shape us into the social animals we are now. Understanding when people mastered fire could help archaeologists figure out if and how it contributed to these major events in the evolution of the human body and mind. For example, did it really coincide with a jump in brain size, which would indicate it may have helped make us deep thinkers? (my bold)
***
"But pinning down “regular use” is a hard task. One of the earliest sites with evidence of persistent fire use is Qesem Cave in Israel, which hominins started using about 400,000 years ago. “The cave is full of wood ash,” says Ran Barkai, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “We have tons of burned bones and burned flint items.” He believes the inhabitants were capable of lighting fires, though he does not yet have direct archaeological evidence of that. But even at Qesem, it’s hard to be sure if the cave users gathered around fires often, or only harvested a rare one once a century, notes Sandgathe; dating methods simply aren’t precise enough to tell.
***
"Regardless of when exactly humankind managed to make fire a regular presence in their lives, scientists agree it was a turning point in human evolution. Eventually, humankind hit a point of no return when fire became essential. Modern humans can’t do without it, whether to burn gasoline in our engines, warm our nearly hairless bodies, or cook porridge or steak.
***
"Earlier hominins, of course, reproduced just fine in the cold. Wrangham suggests that the situation began to change with Homo erectus, who probably arrived on the scene about 1.9 million years ago. Its ancestors had big teeth to crush tough foodstuffs, large bellies to ferment those meals, and relatively small craniums. With Homo erectus, scientists see a shift to a taller and brainier hominin who spread across Africa, into Asia, and throughout parts of Europe. “What was it that made Homo erectus possible?” asks Hlubik. “There had to be something that happened.”
"That something, she and Wrangham think, could have been fire control. The early fire dates creeping up on 2 million years ago could support that hypothesis, but other archaeologists say the evidence on the ground is thin.
***
"While calorie-rich meals might have been a main driver for the adoption of fire, there are other benefits, from warmth to protection from predators. Tending a hearth also could have made a big difference in the evolution of social skills: People would have had to cooperate to manage and feed fires, and they perhaps socialized around the flames. “When you bring fire into a habitation, I think something pretty profound happens,” says Chazan. “It’s mesmerizing.'”
Comment: Note that fire appears to be related to larger brains: how to control it and also, at the same time, how to feed a bigger brain. There is no getting around the fact that with larger brains hominins found better ways to support. With each size better ways. Size first use second, always.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: None of your illusions to cell intelligence dissuade me from the point. You cannot avoid the need for design to plan for the large changes in each new species form.
I have not avoided the need for design. That is the whole point of the cellular intelligence hypothesis: that the cell communities that comprise all organisms do their own designing. I dispute the need for advance planning, since I see innovation as a response to opportunity, not an anticipation of it. Environmental change first, speciation second, as you have acknowledged is the case with the Cambrian explosion.
DAVID’S comment (under “punctuated equilibrium”): The gaps are not entirely proven but supported. The gaps mean your fanciful cell communities must do advanced planning to coordinate all the anatomic and physiologic changes required. The whale series is the best example of the necessity for advanced anatomic planning to make the changes needed. Multiple exact mutations must occur all at once. They must all work with each other.
Same point ad nauseam. The whale series is the best example of how organisms respond to environmental change by restructuring themselves. Of course the cell communities must cooperate to ensure that the “mutations” work at once – otherwise the organism would die. What is your theory? That for reasons you do not know, God personally fiddled with the anatomy of a succession of pre-whales (before they entered the water, except that the later ones had already entered the water) until he did a final whale fiddle? Or he equipped the first cells with a programme for all these sequences of “multiple exact mutations” to switch itself on when, after a few thousand million years, a land-dwelling mammal would enter the water, which he knew would happen, though he may or may not have engineered the environmental change?
dhw: If God exists, I have no doubt that he is in charge, but you have offered us one specific hypothesis about HOW he runs the show, and I have offered you three theistic alternative "answers to how evolution works", which you appear to have forgotten […]. The dispute here is not over your faith in the existence of God, or over God being in charge, but over your dogmatic faith in one particular explanation of his motives and methods which does not make sense even to you.
DAVID: You have presented all of this before. It is a good summary. My reply as always is the last three are humanized inventions of what God might be, not what He is.
All our concepts of God are humanized inventions of what he might be. None of us know what he is (if he “is” at all). By dismissing the last three theistic explanations of the evolutionary process, you appear to be claiming that only you know the truth, and your explanation is therefore the only valid one, even though it makes no sense to you. But then in the next breath, you will acknowledge that your version too is just a guess. So you simply know that all my alternative guesses are wrong and yours is right.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 16:51 (2711 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: None of your illusions to cell intelligence dissuade me from the point. You cannot avoid the need for design to plan for the large changes in each new species form.
dhw: I have not avoided the need for design. That is the whole point of the cellular intelligence hypothesis: that the cell communities that comprise all organisms do their own designing. I dispute the need for advance planning, since I see innovation as a response to opportunity, not an anticipation of it. Environmental change first, speciation second, as you have acknowledged is the case with the Cambrian explosion.
Advanced planning as in the whale series is ALWAYS required. The changes are too complex for any other method. In the Cambrian new complex species appeared. God planned them also.
dhw: That for reasons you do not know, God personally fiddled with the anatomy of a succession of pre-whales (before they entered the water, except that the later ones had already entered the water) until he did a final whale fiddle? Or he equipped the first cells with a programme for all these sequences of “multiple exact mutations” to switch itself on when, after a few thousand million years, a land-dwelling mammal would enter the water, which he knew would happen, though he may or may not have engineered the environmental change?
God is in control, no matter what method we think might be used.
DAVID: You have presented all of this before. It is a good summary. My reply as always is the last three are humanized inventions of what God might be, not what He is.
dhw: All our concepts of God are humanized inventions of what he might be. None of us know what he is (if he “is” at all). By dismissing the last three theistic explanations of the evolutionary process, you appear to be claiming that only you know the truth, and your explanation is therefore the only valid one, even though it makes no sense to you. But then in the next breath, you will acknowledge that your version too is just a guess. So you simply know that all my alternative guesses are wrong and yours is right.
I'll stick to my decision to have faith in God.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: None of your illusions to cell intelligence dissuade me from the point. You cannot avoid the need for design to plan for the large changes in each new species form.
dhw: I have not avoided the need for design. That is the whole point of the cellular intelligence hypothesis: that the cell communities that comprise all organisms do their own designing. I dispute the need for advance planning, since I see innovation as a response to opportunity, not an anticipation of it. Environmental change first, speciation second, as you have acknowledged is the case with the Cambrian explosion.
DAVID: Advanced planning as in the whale series is ALWAYS required. The changes are too complex for any other method. In the Cambrian new complex species appeared. God planned them also.
I presume that by “advanced” you mean very complex, which I accept, but why “planning”, which means working out in advance? This must obviously be the case with your God’s amazing 3.8 billion-year-old computer programme for all non-dabbled innovations (not to mention lifestyles and natural wonders), but why do you think it is impossible for his dabbles to take place in response to a change in the environment, as opposed to his planning them in advance? You seem to have accepted that Cambrian speciation took place AFTER the increase in oxygen, so why does he have to plan hominins and whales (and you also insist that he actually implements his plans) BEFORE the forests have given way to plains, or water replaces dry land? Can’t he do his dabbles when the changes occur, without looking into his crystal ball and planning them beforehand?
DAVID: God is in control, no matter what method we think might be used.
If God exists, of course he will be in control if he wants to be. But according to you, he gives us free will, which means he deliberately cedes control. He could just as easily have ceded control of evolution to organisms by giving them the intelligence to do their own designing – though always with the option of doing a dabble.
DAVID: I'll stick to my decision to have faith in God.
This discussion is not about your faith in God, but about your faith in your personal interpretation of God’s motives and methods.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Thursday, June 22, 2017, 01:03 (2710 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Advanced planning as in the whale series is ALWAYS required. The changes are too complex for any other method. In the Cambrian new complex species appeared. God planned them also.
dhw: I presume that by “advanced” you mean very complex, which I accept, but why “planning”, which means working out in advance? This must obviously be the case with your God’s amazing 3.8 billion-year-old computer programme for all non-dabbled innovations (not to mention lifestyles and natural wonders), but why do you think it is impossible for his dabbles to take place in response to a change in the environment, as opposed to his planning them in advance? You seem to have accepted that Cambrian speciation took place AFTER the increase in oxygen, so why does he have to plan hominins and whales (and you also insist that he actually implements his plans) BEFORE the forests have given way to plains, or water replaces dry land? Can’t he do his dabbles when the changes occur, without looking into his crystal ball and planning them beforehand?
Because of the gap size in the changes as evolution advances. Eight/nine whale stages are each gigantically different in form and function. You never looks at the size of the gaps in our discussion. Putting your nostrils on top of your head as one blowhole is a giant step. By dabbling I mean small changes, but more than epigenetic adaptations. As for hominins, they have large skeletal changes for bipedalism and a giant jump in brain size with each gap. Requires advanced architectural planning to allow for the phenotypical gaps in form and function.
DAVID: God is in control, no matter what method we think might be used.dhw: If God exists, of course he will be in control if he wants to be. But according to you, he gives us free will, which means he deliberately cedes control. He could just as easily have ceded control of evolution to organisms by giving them the intelligence to do their own designing – though always with the option of doing a dabble.
Free will is at the mental level, a side issue.. Why drag it in? It doesn't fit. We are discussing God at the evolutionary level of form and function.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: Advanced planning as in the whale series is ALWAYS required. The changes are too complex for any other method. In the Cambrian new complex species appeared. God planned them also.
dhw: I presume that by “advanced” you mean very complex, which I accept, but why “planning”, which means working out in advance? This must obviously be the case with your God’s amazing 3.8 billion-year-old computer programme for all non-dabbled innovations (not to mention lifestyles and natural wonders), but why do you think it is impossible for his dabbles to take place in response to a change in the environment, as opposed to his planning them in advance? […]
DAVID: Because of the gap size in the changes as evolution advances. Eight/nine whale stages are each gigantically different in form and function. You never looks at the size of the gaps in our discussion. Putting your nostrils on top of your head as one blowhole is a giant step. By dabbling I mean small changes, but more than epigenetic adaptations. As for hominins, they have large skeletal changes for bipedalism and a giant jump in brain size with each gap. Requires advanced architectural planning to allow for the phenotypical gaps in form and function.
This is a big surprise. Last Saturday I asked "Are you saying that at regular intervals, your God dabbled with the brain, increasing its volume by 200 cc (average)...." and you answered yes. In the past you have told us your only dilemma has been whether evolutionary innovations were preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or dabbled. Now you are telling us that all the major innovations and the brain jumps were preprogrammed. For reasons you simply do not know, 3.8 billion years ago your God, whose only purpose was to produce homo sapiens, specially designed eight/nine stages of pre-whale to whale, plus presumably every new species (broad sense) extant and extinct (they all require big changes, don’t they?) plus all the homo brain jumps. And this sudden new definition of dabbling, hatched between Saturday and Thursday, has come about because the idea of your God RESPONDING to environmental change (as opposed to anticipating it) would bring us perilously close to my hypothesis that speciation may not be the result of advance planning!
DAVID: God is in control, no matter what method we think might be used.
dhw: If God exists, of course he will be in control if he wants to be. But according to you, he gives us free will, which means he deliberately cedes control. He could just as easily have ceded control of evolution to organisms by giving them the intelligence to do their own designing – though always with the option of doing a dabble.
DAVID: Free will is at the mental level, a side issue.. Why drag it in? It doesn't fit. We are discussing God at the evolutionary level of form and function.
We are discussing God’s motives and methods, and free will is an example of God’s willingness to cede control. If he is willing to cede control in one area of life, why not in another – namely, by allowing organisms to work out their own ways of survival and improvement?
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Friday, June 23, 2017, 01:28 (2709 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Because of the gap size in the changes as evolution advances. Eight/nine whale stages are each gigantically different in form and function. You never looks at the size of the gaps in our discussion. Putting your nostrils on top of your head as one blowhole is a giant step. By dabbling I mean small changes, but more than epigenetic adaptations. As for hominins, they have large skeletal changes for bipedalism and a giant jump in brain size with each gap. Requires advanced architectural planning to allow for the phenotypical gaps in form and function.
dhw: This is a big surprise. Last Saturday I asked "Are you saying that at regular intervals, your God dabbled with the brain, increasing its volume by 200 cc (average)...." and you answered yes. In the past you have told us your only dilemma has been whether evolutionary innovations were preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or dabbled. Now you are telling us that all the major innovations and the brain jumps were preprogrammed. For reasons you simply do not know, 3.8 billion years ago your God, whose only purpose was to produce homo sapiens, specially designed eight/nine stages of pre-whale to whale, plus presumably every new species (broad sense) extant and extinct (they all require big changes, don’t they?) plus all the homo brain jumps. And this sudden new definition of dabbling, hatched between Saturday and Thursday, has come about because the idea of your God RESPONDING to environmental change (as opposed to anticipating it) would bring us perilously close to my hypothesis that speciation may not be the result of advance planning!
No big surprise. My analysis is always continuing and I've told you in the past that your goading questions make me rethink my theories. The big gaps in body plan and processes require meticulous advanced planning when there There is no other way they can work, because of the coordination involved in the mutations, etc. It is conceivable that it was all pre-programmed 3.8 billion years ago. But you response raises the issue of the level of dabbling. The whales require major planning if the change is done contemporaneously by God at the time stage one whale turned into stage two. A minor change in monkey or hominin lumbar spine as a preparation for bipedalism is what I think dabbling would be. We are just discussing labelling what God does, nothing very important. As for your idea that speciation can occur without planning, what it implies is that it occurs by simple itty-bitty hunt and peck steps, which does not fit the gap evidence in all the fossil record. I view it as wishful thinking, trying to get rid of God as a driving external force.
DAVID: Free will is at the mental level, a side issue.. Why drag it in? It doesn't fit. We are discussing God at the evolutionary level of form and function.dhw: We are discussing God’s motives and methods, and free will is an example of God’s willingness to cede control. If he is willing to cede control in one area of life, why not in another – namely, by allowing organisms to work out their own ways of survival and improvement?
Mental states are not physical states. Our free will is a one time mental concession to allow us free use of the gift of our giant brain. God maintains physical control of evolutionary processes for all physical changes. It is the only example where He has allowed freedom, and doesn't fit as a glaring exception.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: […] By dabbling I mean small changes,
dhw: This is a big surprise. […] In the past you have told us your only dilemma has been whether evolutionary innovations were preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or dabbled. Now you are telling us that all the major innovations and the brain jumps were preprogrammed.
DAVID: No big surprise. My analysis is always continuing and I've told you in the past that your goading questions make me rethink my theories. The big gaps in body plan and processes require meticulous advanced planning […] It is conceivable that it was all pre-programmed 3.8 billion years ago. But your response raises the issue of the level of dabbling. […] We are just discussing labelling what God does, nothing very important.
I’m glad our discussions are as helpful to you as they are to me in our quest to explain the inexplicable. One of the problems I have with your theories is that they fail to connect all the things we are trying to explain. For instance, if speciation was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, your God must already have known about the environmental changes: increased oxygen; land to water; forests to plains. How “conceivable” is it that the very first cells contained programmes for every species extant and extinct, plus every environmental change relevant to the process of speciation? (It would be an odd plan that did not include the conditions necessary for the plan to work.) Plus all the different lifestyles and natural wonders which you also consider to be beyond the powers of the respective organisms. Or were these dabbled? And we mustn’t forget that God’s one and only purpose was to create homo sapiens, which leaves you floundering to explain why he preprogrammed eight or so stages of whale.
As for dabbling, I don’t agree that it is not important. The implication of what you have written above is that your God is not capable of reaching into existing organisms and restructuring them in order to take advantage of new conditions. Now apparently all the big changes had to be planned in advance. Why are you suddenly limiting his powers (again)?
DAVID: As for your idea that speciation can occur without planning, what it implies is that it occurs by simple itty-bitty hunt and peck steps, which does not fit the gap evidence in all the fossil record. I view it as wishful thinking, trying to get rid of God as a driving external force.
Your 3.8-billion-year of computer programme is an INTERNAL driving force, implanted by your God. The autonomous inventive intelligence of cell communities is also an INTERNAL driving force which may have been implanted by your God. It does not imply itty-bitty hunt and peck. Adaptation in the face of existential threats has to be rapid, and my hypothesis suggests an extension (on a far greater scale) of that same mechanism. Of course, this is a “guess”, just like your computer programme, and there is no evidence for either guess. But I do not regard yours as more “conceivable” than mine, especially since mine fills so many of the gaps that yours leaves.
dhw: We are discussing God’s motives and methods, and free will is an example of God’s willingness to cede control.
DAVID: Mental states are not physical states. Our free will is a one time mental concession to allow us free use of the gift of our giant brain. God maintains physical control of evolutionary processes for all physical changes. It is the only example where He has allowed freedom, and doesn't fit as a glaring exception.
Your authorative declaration that “God maintains physical control” is the premise I am questioning! Free will may not be an “exception”. It may be an extension of a pattern in which God creates a system that allows organisms themselves to devise the vast variety of forms, lifestyles and wonders we see throughout the ever changing history of life. What evidence do you have for your dogmatic statement? You cannot even make up your mind from one day to the next about the extent to which your God controls the environment. “Physical control” of evolution is another guess, and it has no more authority than mine.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Friday, June 23, 2017, 15:12 (2709 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I’m glad our discussions are as helpful to you as they are to me in our quest to explain the inexplicable. One of the problems I have with your theories is that they fail to connect all the things we are trying to explain.... And we mustn’t forget that God’s one and only purpose was to create homo sapiens, which leaves you floundering to explain why he preprogrammed eight or so stages of whale.
I've explained the whale as part of the balance of nature in the oceans, a theory you totally reject, therefore you've forgotten my point of view. God could just as well have started with aquatic animals to make whales. He created sharks there. Maybe to prove His prowess to us He took on the tough task of putting modified mammals in the water. This fanciful theory, just as fanciful as most of yours, is really quite logical. Proof of his powers on exhibit!
dhw: As for dabbling, I don’t agree that it is not important. The implication of what you have written above is that your God is not capable of reaching into existing organisms and restructuring them in order to take advantage of new conditions. Now apparently all the big changes had to be planned in advance. Why are you suddenly limiting his powers (again)?
I'm not limiting Him. The 3.8 billion years of programming from the beginning might be the correct interpretation and that is not a limit.
DAVID: Mental states are not physical states. Our free will is a one time mental concession to allow us free use of the gift of our giant brain. God maintains physical control of evolutionary processes for all physical changes. It is the only example where He has allowed freedom, and doesn't fit as a glaring exception.
dhw; Your authorative declaration that “God maintains physical control” is the premise I am questioning! Free will may not be an “exception”. It may be an extension of a pattern in which God creates a system that allows organisms themselves to devise the vast variety of forms, lifestyles and wonders we see throughout the ever changing history of life. What evidence do you have for your dogmatic statement? You cannot even make up your mind from one day to the next about the extent to which your God controls the environment. “Physical control” of evolution is another guess, and it has no more authority than mine.
We remain totally apart. Equating free will as a gift to humans cannot be stretched into allowing a free wheeling evolution run by the organisms being evolved. Conscious organisms willing themselves into consciousness. They cannot even imagine that consciousness exists!
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
dhw: One of the problems I have with your theories is that they fail to connect all the things we are trying to explain.... And we mustn’t forget that God’s one and only purpose was to create homo sapiens, which leaves you floundering to explain why he preprogrammed eight or so stages of whale.
DAVID: I've explained the whale as part of the balance of nature in the oceans, a theory you totally reject, therefore you've forgotten my point of view.
The balance of nature means nothing more than life continuing, no matter what organisms exist at the time. In respect of the eight or so stages, you wrote (13 June) “If it’s God's method it does not have to make sense. The whales present evidence that the simplest path is not always used, for reasons not clear to me, or you.” That’s the point of view I remember.
dhw: As for dabbling, I don’t agree that it is not important. The implication of what you have written above is that your God is not capable of reaching into existing organisms and restructuring them in order to take advantage of new conditions. Now apparently all the big changes had to be planned in advance. Why are you suddenly limiting his powers (again)?
DAVID: I'm not limiting Him. The 3.8 billion years of programming from the beginning might be the correct interpretation and that is not a limit.
You have suddenly dismissed your own dabbling alternative to preprogramming because you say major changes require advanced planning. If you are not limiting God’s powers, what stops him from intervening and making major changes IN RESPONSE to environmental changes? Might not responsive divine dabbling be the correct interpretation, with no need for advanced planning?
DAVID: Mental states are not physical states. Our free will is a one time mental concession to allow us free use of the gift of our giant brain. God maintains physical control of evolutionary processes for all physical changes. It is the only example where He has allowed freedom, and doesn't fit as a glaring exception.
And
DAVID: We remain totally apart. Equating free will as a gift to humans cannot be stretched into allowing a free wheeling evolution run by the organisms being evolved.
Human free will is an example of your belief that God ceded control. Your dogmatic statement that he maintains control over evolution has no more authority than the proposal that he set the whole process in motion and then sat back to watch what organisms would do with the autonomy he gave them.
DAVID: Conscious organisms willing themselves into consciousness. They cannot even imagine that consciousness exists!
As usual, you are now trying to equate consciousness with human self-awareness in order to ridicule the idea. And the concept of cellular intelligence does not mean that cells/cell communities will themselves into consciousness. We do not know the source of ANY level of consciousness, but God is one possibility.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Saturday, June 24, 2017, 18:58 (2707 days ago) @ dhw
The balance of nature means nothing more than life continuing, no matter what organisms exist at the time. In respect of the eight or so stages, you wrote (13 June) “If it’s God's method it does not have to make sense. The whales present evidence that the simplest path is not always used, for reasons not clear to me, or you.” That’s the point of view I remember.
But without the balance supplying energy, life cannot continue. And yes whales are evidence a rough path is sometimes used.
i]
DAVID: I'm not limiting Him. The 3.8 billion years of programming from the beginning might be the correct interpretation and that is not a limit.
dhw: You have suddenly dismissed your own dabbling alternative to preprogramming because you say major changes require advanced planning. If you are not limiting God’s powers, what stops him from intervening and making major changes IN RESPONSE to environmental changes? Might not responsive divine dabbling be the correct interpretation, with no need for advanced planning?
Yes responsive dabbling is a possible approach.
dhw: Human free will is an example of your belief that God ceded control. Your dogmatic statement that he maintains control over evolution has no more authority than the proposal that he set the whole process in motion and then sat back to watch what organisms would do with the autonomy he gave them.
Free will is the only direct evidence of God ceding control and only inin the mental area of human life, not the physical. My faith can be dogmatic about the need for a planning mind, and not under your suppositions.
DAVID: Conscious organisms willing themselves into consciousness. They cannot even imagine that consciousness exists!dhw: As usual, you are now trying to equate consciousness with human self-awareness in order to ridicule the idea. And the concept of cellular intelligence does not mean that cells/cell communities will themselves into consciousness. We do not know the source of ANY level of consciousness, but God is one possibility.
Can you mention other sources of consciousness? Nagel says unless we start considering teleology, our understandings will not advance.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
dhw: You have suddenly dismissed your own dabbling alternative to preprogramming because you say major changes require advanced planning. If you are not limiting God’s powers, what stops him from intervening and making major changes IN RESPONSE to environmental changes? Might not responsive divine dabbling be the correct interpretation, with no need for advanced planning?
DAVID: Yes responsive dabbling is a possible approach.
Thank you. This means it is possible that the major changes which result in speciation can occur in response to environmental change and do not require “advanced planning”. The issue then is not the need for “advanced planning” but the degree of intelligence needed for the responsive engineering. I accept your scepticism towards my hypothesis – there is no evidence that organisms are capable of the innovations needed for speciation, just as there is no evidence for your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme or for your divine dabbling or for the innovative powers of random mutations. But since nobody knows how speciation (broad sense) occurred, I suggest that it is a hypothesis that should be taken seriously and cannot be rejected on the grounds that speciation required “advanced planning”.
dhw: Human free will is an example of your belief that God ceded control. Your dogmatic statement that he maintains control over evolution has no more authority than the proposal that he set the whole process in motion and then sat back to watch what organisms would do with the autonomy he gave them.
DAVID: Free will is the only direct evidence of God ceding control and only inin the mental area of human life, not the physical. My faith can be dogmatic about the need for a planning mind, and not under your suppositions.
There is no “direct evidence” that your God controlled every physical development in the history of evolution. Yes, your faith can be dogmatic about anything it likes, but that does not give it greater validity than other theories about God’s motives and methods.
DAVID: Conscious organisms willing themselves into consciousness. They cannot even imagine that consciousness exists!
dhw: As usual, you are now trying to equate consciousness with human self-awareness in order to ridicule the idea. And the concept of cellular intelligence does not mean that cells/cell communities will themselves into consciousness. We do not know the source of ANY level of consciousness, but God is one possibility.
DAVID: Can you mention other sources of consciousness? Nagel says unless we start considering teleology, our understandings will not advance.
Your question is another diversion from the issue of cellular intelligence, which you have unfairly ridiculed by distorting the concept. But it is a vitally important question in its own right, and I can only answer it by repeating that we not know the source of ANY level of consciousness. To claim that the source of consciousness is consciousness itself in the form of a universal consciousness is no more of an answer than to say the source of consciousness is lots of different consciousnesses (my twist on panpsychism) or a great big stroke of luck.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Sunday, June 25, 2017, 18:40 (2706 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Sunday, June 25, 2017, 18:45
dhw: Might not responsive divine dabbling be the correct interpretation, with no need for advanced planning?[/i]
DAVID: Yes responsive dabbling is a possible approach.Thank you. This means it is possible that the major changes which result in speciation can occur in response to environmental change and do not require “advanced planning”.
Total misinterpretation. Dabbling requires almost as much planning as a totally new species.
dhw: But since nobody knows how speciation (broad sense) occurred, I suggest that it is a hypothesis that should be taken seriously and cannot be rejected on the grounds that speciation required “advanced planning”.
Advanced planning is always required to integrate new changes, as shown in the whale series. The issue you have raised is how advanced (?), 3.8 billion years ago or more recently as a dabble, since I don't know and offered those two possibilities. This book review covers the patterns of animals and plants in nature suggesting 3.8 billion years is correct:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-nature-scales-up-1498239216
The regularity is shown most commonly by drawing a special kind of graph, in which every increment on the x- and y-axis is 10 times bigger than the previous increment—instead of running from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on, the increments run from 1 to 10 to 100 and so on. [logarithmic scale] When organisms’ metabolic rates are plotted on the vertical axis and their mass on the horizontal one, the result is a dead- straight line—a relationship that holds true for animals as tiny as a mouse (typical weight, .02 kilograms) and as enormous as an African elephant (typical weight, 6,500 kilograms).
This is a scaling law: a relationship between two quantities that holds true at many orders of magnitude. In this case, every species’ metabolic rate “scales” with increasing size. After Kleiber, researchers found that his rule holds true for fish, amphibians, insects and plants—indeed, for every creature from the smallest microorganisms to the biggest whale. “Overall,” Mr. West says, this relationship “encompasses an astonishing twenty-seven orders of magnitude, perhaps the most persistent and systematic scaling law in the universe.” And the correspondence is no isolated phenomenon. “Similar systematic scaling laws hold for almost any physiological trait or life-history event across the entire range of life,” Mr. West writes, including quantities as disparate as “genome lengths, lengths of aortas, tree heights, the amount of cerebral gray matter in the brain, evolutionary rates, and life spans.”
***
our bodies, like those of every other living creature, are bags of cells. These cells are in some ways surprisingly similar; all must be nourished and directed, and most of them are about the same size, no matter what species they belong to (a few exceptions exist, like brain and fat cells). Thus living things must contain networks—blood vessels, plant veins and so on—that distribute energy, materials and information to cells. Because the cellular endpoints of every network are all about the same size, the “terminal units” of the distributive system must also be about the same size. That is to say, the capillaries (the smallest blood vessels) of all mammals are roughly the same size, as are those of every fish and insect, as are the endpoint veins of leaves and a host of other things.
Big species need more nutrients and energy than small ones, so the network centers—the heart, for mammalian blood systems; the big xylem at the roots, for vascular plants—vary in dimension. Because the endpoints are always the same small size, the network needs to consist of what Mr. West calls a “hierarchical branching network structure,” with big branches unraveling tree-like into smaller ones.
Unsurprisingly, evolution keeps nudging organisms toward those properties, which again are similar for every species, because they depend on physical laws that are independent of biology. (my bold)
***
Mr. West showed how fractals (structures like snowflakes, in which similar patterns repeat at progressively smaller scales) and network dynamics govern birth, growth and development, again in species of every sort.
Comment: Note the bold and the fractal patterns, all given by God to guide the process of evolution. And in bold God knows logarithms!
***
DAVID: Can you mention other sources of consciousness? Nagel says unless we start considering teleology, our understandings will not advance.
dhw: Your question is another diversion from the issue of cellular intelligence, which you have unfairly ridiculed by distorting the concept. But it is a vitally important question in its own right, and I can only answer it by repeating that we not know the source of ANY level of consciousness.
That is why I choose God as the ultimate consciousness. Logical faith again.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
dhw: Might not responsive divine dabbling be the correct interpretation, with no need for advanced planning?
DAVID: Yes responsive dabbling is a possible approach.
dhw: Thank you. This means it is possible that the major changes which result in speciation can occur in response to environmental change and do not require “advanced planning”.
DAVID: Total misinterpretation. Dabbling requires almost as much planning as a totally new species.
First you agree that there's no need for advanced planning, and RESPONSIVE DABBLING is possible, and next day you disagree! Dabbling is your alternative to preprogramming as your God’s means of producing new species! It would mean personally fiddling with each targeted individual’s insides at one particular moment, as opposed to your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme, which magically switches itself on at the right time in each targeted individual. With your astonishing knowledge of God’s apparently now limited mental powers, you are saying he is incapable of producing saltations in response to environmental changes, and needs to work them all out in advance.
dhw: But since nobody knows how speciation (broad sense) occurred, I suggest that it is a hypothesis that should be taken seriously and cannot be rejected on the grounds that speciation required “advanced planning”.
DAVID: Advanced planning is always required to integrate new changes, as shown in the whale series. The issue you have raised is how advanced (?), 3.8 billion years ago or more recently as a dabble, since I don't know and offered those two possibilities.
The issue I have raised is whether advanced planning is necessary at all. If by “dabble” you do not mean direct intervention to personally create the innovation at one particular time (e.g. when the environment changes), then please explain what you do mean.
DAVID: This book review covers the patterns of animals and plants in nature suggesting 3.8 billion years is correct:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-nature-scales-up-1498239216
QUOTE: Unsurprisingly, evolution keeps nudging organisms toward those properties, which again are similar for every species, because they depend on physical laws that are independent of biology. (DAVID's bold)
DAVID’s comment: Note the bold and the fractal patterns, all given by God to guide the process of evolution. And in bold God knows logarithms!
Seems to me like confirmation of common descent. Can’t see any mention of God.
xxx
DAVID: Can you mention other sources of consciousness? Nagel says unless we start considering teleology, our understandings will not advance.
dhw: Your question is another diversion from the issue of cellular intelligence, which you have unfairly ridiculed by distorting the concept. But it is a vitally important question in its own right, and I can only answer it by repeating that we not know the source of ANY level of consciousness.
DAVID: That is why I choose God as the ultimate consciousness. Logical faith again.
You have left out my comment that I do not see any logic in claiming that the source of consciousness is consciousness.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Monday, June 26, 2017, 13:53 (2706 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Total misinterpretation. Dabbling requires almost as much planning as a totally new species.
dhw: First you agree that there's no need for advanced planning, and RESPONSIVE DABBLING is possible, and next day you disagree! Dabbling is your alternative to preprogramming as your God’s means of producing new species!
It is either pre-programming, dabbling or both. Pre-programming is massive, dabbling less intense since it is an adjustment.
dhw: The issue I have raised is whether advanced planning is necessary at all. If by “dabble” you do not mean direct intervention to personally create the innovation at one particular time (e.g. when the environment changes), then please explain what you do mean.
As above, an adjustment or modification.
DAVID: This book review covers the patterns of animals and plants in nature suggesting 3.8 billion years is correct:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-nature-scales-up-1498239216
QUOTE: Unsurprisingly, evolution keeps nudging organisms toward those properties, which again are similar for every species, because they depend on physical laws that are independent of biology. (DAVID's bold)
DAVID’s comment: Note the bold and the fractal patterns, all given by God to guide the process of evolution. And in bold God knows logarithms!dhw: Seems to me like confirmation of common descent. Can’t see any mention of God.
The patterns reflect the pre-planning that God employed. I didn't say God was mentioned.
xxx
DAVID: That is why I choose God as the ultimate consciousness. Logical faith again.
dhw: You have left out my comment that I do not see any logic in claiming that the source of consciousness is consciousness.
I don't think life invented consciousness. I feel it had to pre-exist life in God.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: Total misinterpretation. Dabbling requires almost as much planning as a totally new species.
dhw: First you agree that there's no need for advanced planning, and RESPONSIVE DABBLING is possible, and next day you disagree! Dabbling is your alternative to preprogramming as your God’s means of producing new species!
DAVID: It is either pre-programming, dabbling or both. Pre-programming is massive, dabbling less intense since it is an adjustment.
Why? You have always presented the two as alternative modes of speciation, and choosing between them was your “dilemma”. Adjustments or modifications are the terms you have previously used for adaptation. In any case, you agreed to responsive dabbling as a possibility, and a response does not take place before the conditions it responds to. Out goes “advanced planning”. If you think your God is incapable of making innovative changes in response to changed conditions, then by all means say so, but then you are limiting his powers.
DAVID: This book review covers the patterns of animals and plants in nature suggesting 3.8 billion years is correct:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-nature-scales-up-1498239216
QUOTE: Unsurprisingly, evolution keeps nudging organisms toward those properties, which again are similar for every species, because they depend on physical laws that are independent of biology. (DAVID's bold)
DAVID’s comment: Note the bold and the fractal patterns, all given by God to guide the process of evolution. And in bold God knows logarithms!
dhw: Seems to me like confirmation of common descent. Can’t see any mention of God.
DAVID: The patterns reflect the pre-planning that God employed. I didn't say God was mentioned.
Then the comments you make are gratuitous. How would you respond if, after every discovery relating to evolution, someone commented: “The patterns reflect the manner in which godless Nature has produced a sequence of organisms arising from a common ancestor.”
xxx
DAVID: That is why I choose God as the ultimate consciousness. Logical faith again.
dhw: You have left out my comment that I do not see any logic in claiming that the source of consciousness is consciousness.
DAVID: I don't think life invented consciousness. I feel it had to pre-exist life in God.
I know you do. I am simply pointing out that one can’t explain consciousness by saying it was the product of consciousness. Or one doesn’t solve a mystery by proposing another mystery.
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 19:57 (2704 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It is either pre-programming, dabbling or both. Pre-programming is massive, dabbling less intense since it is an adjustment.
dhw: Why? You have always presented the two as alternative modes of speciation, and choosing between them was your “dilemma”. Adjustments or modifications are the terms you have previously used for adaptation. In any case, you agreed to responsive dabbling as a possibility, and a response does not take place before the conditions it responds to. Out goes “advanced planning”. If you think your God is incapable of making innovative changes in response to changed conditions, then by all means say so, but then you are limiting his powers.
I started by thinking pre-planning at 3.8 billion years is one way, and stepping in for speciation by dabbling fits the history. But I see another kind of change that is obviously a minor change/preparation as in the change in a monkey skull position showed 37 million years ago. That certainly is a dabble in the true sense of the word. I start with God in charge, whatever the terminology.
DAVID’s comment: Note the bold and the fractal patterns, all given by God to guide the process of evolution. And in bold God knows logarithms!
dhw: Seems to me like confirmation of common descent. Can’t see any mention of God.
DAVID: The patterns reflect the pre-planning that God employed. I didn't say God was mentioned.dhw: Then the comments you make are gratuitous. How would you respond if, after every discovery relating to evolution, someone commented: “The patterns reflect the manner in which godless Nature has produced a sequence of organisms arising from a common ancestor.”
Not gratuitous. It shows God set up patterns in advance to make the process of evolution easier to manage. I had to answer 'godless nature' which is just as gratuitous by your reasoning
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
DAVID: It is either pre-programming, dabbling or both. Pre-programming is massive, dabbling less intense since it is an adjustment.
dhw: Why? You have always presented the two as alternative modes of speciation, and choosing between them was your “dilemma”. Adjustments or modifications are the terms you have previously used for adaptation. In any case, you agreed to responsive dabbling as a possibility, and a response does not take place before the conditions it responds to. Out goes “advanced planning”. If you think your God is incapable of making innovative changes in response to changed conditions, then by all means say so, but then you are limiting his powers.
DAVID: I started by thinking pre-planning at 3.8 billion years is one way, and stepping in for speciation by dabbling fits the history. But I see another kind of change that is obviously a minor change/preparation as in the change in a monkey skull position showed 37 million years ago. That certainly is a dabble in the true sense of the word. I start with God in charge, whatever the terminology.
Starting with God in charge doesn’t alter the fact that your “dabbling” means direct intervention, as opposed to preprogramming (your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme). I shall have to repeat the question I asked under “gaps are very real”: are you now saying your God is incapable of intervening without pre-planning in order to make major saltatory changes to organisms in response to environmental change?
DAVID’s comment: Note the bold and the fractal patterns, all given by God to guide the process of evolution. And in bold God knows logarithms!
dhw: Seems to me like confirmation of common descent. Can’t see any mention of God.
DAVID: The patterns reflect the pre-planning that God employed. I didn't say God was mentioned.
dhw: Then the comments you make are gratuitous. How would you respond if, after every discovery relating to evolution, someone commented: “The patterns reflect the manner in which godless Nature has produced a sequence of organisms arising from a common ancestor.”
DAVID: Not gratuitous. It shows God set up patterns in advance to make the process of evolution easier to manage. I had to answer 'godless nature' which is just as gratuitous by your reasoning.
Of course “godless nature” is gratuitous. That was my point. When a scientist tells us neutrally about patterns, there is no more reason for you to say “God did it” than there is for an atheist to say “Godless nature did it.”
Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 28, 2017, 15:22 (2704 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I started by thinking pre-planning at 3.8 billion years is one way, and stepping in for speciation by dabbling fits the history. But I see another kind of change that is obviously a minor change/preparation as in the change in a monkey skull position showed 37 million years ago. That certainly is a dabble in the true sense of the word. I start with God in charge, whatever the terminology.
dhw: Starting with God in charge doesn’t alter the fact that your “dabbling” means direct intervention, as opposed to preprogramming (your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme). I shall have to repeat the question I asked under “gaps are very real”: are you now saying your God is incapable of intervening without pre-planning in order to make major saltatory changes to organisms in response to environmental change?
God can intervene at any time to produce a saltation, and it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to environmental change. Saltations are planned design.
dhw: Of course “godless nature” is gratuitous. That was my point. When a scientist tells us neutrally about patterns, there is no more reason for you to say “God did it” than there is for an atheist to say “Godless nature did it.”
Fair enough
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 23:41 (2402 days ago) @ David Turell
The 'bends' is a diving problem for any diving animal; it is a trapping of nitrogen bubbles in tissue. The aquatic mammals have a solution:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180425093810.htm
"Deep-diving whales and other marine mammals can get the bends -- the same painful and potentially life-threatening decompression sickness that strikes scuba divers who surface too quickly. A new study offers a hypothesis of how marine mammals generally avoid getting the bends and how they can succumb under stressful conditions.
"The key is the unusual lung architecture of whales, dolphins and porpoises (and possibly other breath-holding diving vertebrates), which creates two different pulmonary regions under deep-sea pressure, say researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Fundacion Oceanografic in Spain.
***
"When air-breathing mammals dive to high-pressure depths, their lungs compress. That collapses their alveoli -- the tiny sacs at the end of the airways where gas exchange occurs. Nitrogen bubbles build up in the animals' bloodstream and tissue. If they ascend slowly, the nitrogen can return to the lungs and be exhaled. But if they ascend too fast, the nitrogen bubbles don't have time to diffuse back into the lungs. Under less pressure at shallower depths, the nitrogen bubbles expand in the bloodstream and tissue, causing pain and damage.
***
"In their study, the researchers took CT images of a deceased dolphin, seal, and a domestic pig pressurized in a hyperbaric chamber. The team was able to see how the marine mammals' lung architecture creates two pulmonary regions: one air-filled and the other collapsed. The researchers believe that blood flows mainly through the collapsed region of the lungs. That causes what is called a ventilation-perfusion mismatch, which allows some oxygen and carbon dioxide to be absorbed by the animal's bloodstream, while minimizing or preventing the exchange of nitrogen. This is possible because each gas has a different solubility in the blood. The terrestrial pig did not show that structural adaptation.
"This mechanism would protect cetaceans from taking up excessive amounts of nitrogen and thus minimize risk of the bends, says lead author Daniel García-Parraga of the Fundacion Oceanografic."
Comment: This is another example of the physiological stresses that had to be overcome to arrange for the evolution of aquatic mammals. It doesn't make sense that evolution would not have taken the easiest course, but it didn't. Chance evolution would have made easy changes. This makes the case for God intervening for whatever reason He had.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Saturday, November 28, 2020, 20:35 (1454 days ago) @ David Turell
Dolphins can control heart rate b fore a deep dive:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201125091446.htm
"New evidence indicates that dolphins are able to consciously slow down their heart rates when preparing to dive, and can even adjust their heart rates according to the length of their intended dive. This allows them to conserve oxygen and adjust their body to the changing pressure as they dive, therefore avoiding issues such as ''the bends''.
***
"The authors worked with three male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), specially trained to hold their breath for different lengths of time upon instruction. "We trained the dolphins for a long breath-hold, a short one, and one where they could do whatever they want," explains Dr Andreas Fahlman of Fundación Oceanogràfic, Valencia, Spain. "When asked to hold their breath, their heart rates lowered before or immediately as they began the breath-hold. We also observed that the dolphins reduced their heart rates faster and further when preparing for the long breath-hold, compared to the other holds."
"'The results reveal that dolphins, and possibly other marine mammals, may consciously alter their heart rate to suit the length of their planned dive. "Dolphins have the capacity to vary their reduction in heart rate as much as you and I are able to reduce how fast we breathe," suggests Fahlman. "This allows them to conserve oxygen during their dives, and may also be key to avoiding diving-related problems such as decompression sickness, known as "the bends." '"
Comment: Another physiological adjustment land-to-water mammals must learn or be given by design. It doesn't seem to be possible to learn by diving. The bends can kill if there are too many nitrogen bubbles that are retained..
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Thank you for a variety of articles. I still marvel at your capacity for following all these developments, and for editing the articles to make it easier for us to get the drift. This is an ongoing education, which alone makes it worth continuing with the website.
Brief comments:
Innovation and speciation
QUOTE: “The results reveal that dolphins, and possibly other marine mammals, may consciously alter their heart rate to suit the length of their planned dive. "Dolphins have the capacity to vary their reduction in heart rate as much as you and I are able to reduce how fast we breathe," suggests Fahlman. "This allows them to conserve oxygen during their dives, and may also be key to avoiding diving-related problems such as decompression sickness, known as "the bends." '"
I would take this as evidence that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed adapt to new requirements. I doubt if all the dolphins consciously tell themselves to reduce their heart rate.
Denton
QUOTE: “The chemical workings of the cell reveal that matter is a Lego set with designated pieces predestined to be assembled to what we call life."
DAVID: The alternative view is The Anthropic Principal which says if things weren't this way we wouldn't be here. The fine-tuning argument is taken to its extreme by the book. I'll stay with fine-tuning versus chance. After all, how to explain our unexpected arrival? Nothing from Darwin anticipates us.
As always, I regard the complexities of the cell as the most powerful argument for design against chance, but I have no idea why you are so fixated on “us”. Why was the brontosaurus expected and we weren’t? And expected by whom? Darwin is concerned not with “anticipation” of species but with their origin. Yes, we are extraordinary and unique with our levels of consciousness, and there is a case to be made that if God exists, he wanted to create a being with thought patterns and emotions and other attributes similar to his own. But please don’t pretend that only humans are “unexpected” descendants from bacteria!
Fish to land
QUOTE: "'Moreover we see similarities between the fish and land animals, suggesting that some muscle-brain-skull arrangements were already primed for living on land." (David’s bold)
DAVID: Note the bold. Who did the priming? Certainly not Darwin mechanisms. This is just like the 20+ million year old monkey noted in my bool The Atheist Delusion which had lumbar bone changes suggesting upright posture was coming! God anticipates change in evolution, based on these findings.
Of course there are similarities, which would result from common descent. It is assumed that life began in the water. From then on, as life developed over millions and millions and millions of years, organisms moved from water to land to water to land to water to land. Some even lived/live in both environments. It’s hardly surprising that “some muscle-brain-skull arrangements” were handed down. Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve.
Under “Genome complexity”:
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"
A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Sunday, November 29, 2020, 19:38 (1453 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Thank you for a variety of articles. I still marvel at your capacity for following all these developments, and for editing the articles to make it easier for us to get the drift. This is an ongoing education, which alone makes it worth continuing with the website.
We should continue.
dhw: Brief comments:
Innovation and speciation
QUOTE: “The results reveal that dolphins, and possibly other marine mammals, may consciously alter their heart rate to suit the length of their planned dive. "Dolphins have the capacity to vary their reduction in heart rate as much as you and I are able to reduce how fast we breathe," suggests Fahlman. "This allows them to conserve oxygen during their dives, and may also be key to avoiding diving-related problems such as decompression sickness, known as "the bends." '"I would take this as evidence that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed adapt to new requirements. I doubt if all the dolphins consciously tell themselves to reduce their heart rate.
But the dolphin's brain makes the dive depth decision. How did this evolve? How do the cells know? We're left with repeated purposeful practice or design. Of course I'll pick design since it is hard to explain how the dolphins decided to leave land for water, just like whales..
DentonQUOTE: “The chemical workings of the cell reveal that matter is a Lego set with designated pieces predestined to be assembled to what we call life."
DAVID: The alternative view is The Anthropic Principal which says if things weren't this way we wouldn't be here. The fine-tuning argument is taken to its extreme by the book. I'll stay with fine-tuning versus chance. After all, how to explain our unexpected arrival? Nothing from Darwin anticipates us.
dhw: As always, I regard the complexities of the cell as the most powerful argument for design against chance, but I have no idea why you are so fixated on “us”. Why was the brontosaurus expected and we weren’t? And expected by whom? Darwin is concerned not with “anticipation” of species but with their origin. Yes, we are extraordinary and unique with our levels of consciousness, and there is a case to be made that if God exists, he wanted to create a being with thought patterns and emotions and other attributes similar to his own. But please don’t pretend that only humans are “unexpected” descendants from bacteria!
That is a basic tenet of my thoughts, along with Adler. Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our apecouins prove the point.
Fish to land
QUOTE: "'Moreover we see similarities between the fish and land animals, suggesting that some muscle-brain-skull arrangements were already primed for living on land." (David’s bold)DAVID: Note the bold. Who did the priming? Certainly not Darwin mechanisms. This is just like the 20+ million year old monkey noted in my book The Atheist Delusion which had lumbar bone changes suggesting upright posture was coming! God anticipates change in evolution, based on these findings.
dhw: Of course there are similarities, which would result from common descent. It is assumed that life began in the water. From then on, as life developed over millions and millions and millions of years, organisms moved from water to land to water to land to water to land. Some even lived/live in both environments. It’s hardly surprising that “some muscle-brain-skull arrangements” were handed down. Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve.
I can't solve the mystery of God's choices of mechanisms of creation. He created but He is not explaining.
Under “Genome complexity”:
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"dhw: A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
All it shows in common descent, which we both accept, and I think designed by God.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Dolphins
dhw:I would take this as evidence that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed adapt to new requirements. I doubt if all the dolphins consciously tell themselves to reduce their heart rate.
DAVID: But the dolphin's brain makes the dive depth decision. How did this evolve? How do the cells know? We're left with repeated purposeful practice or design. Of course I'll pick design since it is hard to explain how the dolphins decided to leave land for water, just like whales...
This decision is easy to explain: because local conditions meant marine life gave a better chance of survival. Fins for legs and reduced heart rate did the same. Cell communities adapt to requirements – regardless of whether your God pops in to operate on them, or they do it through the intelligence he gave them.
Denton
dhw: ...please don’t pretend that only humans are “unexpected” descendants from bacteria!
DAVID: That is a basic tenet of my thoughts, along with Adler. Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our ape cousins prove the point.
Since bacteria have survived, NO multicellular organism was “necessary”. But multicellular organisms may have improved their chances of survival when and where conditions were proving difficult. This applies to all species, including humans. (In other locations, apes may have had no problem. Or there were too many apes, or one group was more adventurous than another. Plenty of possibilities.)
Fish to land
dhw: Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve.
DAVID: I can't solve the mystery of God's choices of mechanisms of creation. He created but He is not explaining.
You can’t explain YOUR choice of God’s mechanisms and purposes. And you prefer to turn a blind eye to alternative choices and explanations, even if they are logical.
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"
dhw: A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
DAVID: All it shows is common descent, which we both accept, and I think designed by God.
It proposes that cells use mechanisms and learn tricks. Just pointing out yet more support for Shapiro's/my theory.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Monday, November 30, 2020, 14:37 (1453 days ago) @ dhw
Dolphins
dhw:I would take this as evidence that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed adapt to new requirements. I doubt if all the dolphins consciously tell themselves to reduce their heart rate.
DAVID: But the dolphin's brain makes the dive depth decision. How did this evolve? How do the cells know? We're left with repeated purposeful practice or design. Of course I'll pick design since it is hard to explain how the dolphins decided to leave land for water, just like whales...
dhw: This decision is easy to explain: because local conditions meant marine life gave a better chance of survival. Fins for legs and reduced heart rate did the same. Cell communities adapt to requirements – regardless of whether your God pops in to operate on them, or they do it through the intelligence he gave them.
Enormous changes from cell intelligence, with no mind is pie in the sky.
Denton
dhw: ...please don’t pretend that only humans are “unexpected” descendants from bacteria!DAVID: That is a basic tenet of my thoughts, along with Adler. Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our ape cousins prove the point.
dhw: Since bacteria have survived, NO multicellular organism was “necessary”. But multicellular organisms may have improved their chances of survival when and where conditions were proving difficult. This applies to all species, including humans. (In other locations, apes may have had no problem. Or there were too many apes, or one group was more adventurous than another. Plenty of possibilities.)
But to relying on survivability ,which is an unproven theory.
Fish to land
dhw: Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve.DAVID: I can't solve the mystery of God's choices of mechanisms of creation. He created but He is not explaining.
dhw: You can’t explain YOUR choice of God’s mechanisms and purposes. And you prefer to turn a blind eye to alternative choices and explanations, even if they are logical.
I'm not blind, just very logical.
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"dhw: A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
DAVID: All it shows is common descent, which we both accept, and I think designed by God.
dhw: It proposes that cells use mechanisms and learn tricks. Just pointing out yet more support for Shapiro's/my theory.
Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Dolphins
dhw:I would take this as evidence that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed adapt to new requirements. I doubt if all the dolphins consciously tell themselves to reduce their heart rate.
DAVID: But the dolphin's brain makes the dive depth decision. How did this evolve? How do the cells know? We're left with repeated purposeful practice or design. Of course I'll pick design since it is hard to explain how the dolphins decided to leave land for water, just like whales...
dhw: This decision is easy to explain: because local conditions meant marine life gave a better chance of survival. Fins for legs and reduced heart rate did the same. Cell communities adapt to requirements – regardless of whether your God pops in to operate on them, or they do it through the intelligence he gave them.
DAVID: Enormous changes from cell intelligence, with no mind is pie in the sky.
Cellular intelligence would come from a mind different to ours. I suspect there are many scientists who would say that an unknown, sourceless “mind” stepping in to operate on the legs of pre-whales and pre-dolphins before they enter the water is “pie in the sky”.
Denton
dhw: ...please don’t pretend that only humans are “unexpected” descendants from bacteria!
DAVID: That is a basic tenet of my thoughts, along with Adler. Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our ape cousins prove the point.
dhw: Since bacteria have survived, NO multicellular organism was “necessary”. But multicellular organisms may have improved their chances of survival when and where conditions were proving difficult. This applies to all species, including humans. (In other locations, apes may have had no problem. Or there were too many apes, or one group was more adventurous than another. Plenty of possibilities.)
DAVID: But to relying on survivability ,which is an unproven theory.
There are NO proven theories! Why do you find my explanation unreasonable?
Fish to land
dhw: Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve.
DAVID: I can't solve the mystery of God's choices of mechanisms of creation. He created but He is not explaining.
dhw: You can’t explain YOUR choice of God’s mechanisms [preprogramming or dabbling every life form, natural wonder etc.] and purposes. And you prefer to turn a blind eye to alternative choices and explanations, even if they are logical.
DAVID: I'm not blind, just very logical.
Turning a blind eye means not wanting to see – it does not mean unable to see. I find it difficult to accept as logical a theory for which you can find no logical explanation!
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"
dhw: A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
DAVID: All it shows is common descent, which we both accept, and I think designed by God.
dhw: It proposes that cells use mechanisms and learn tricks. Just pointing out yet more support for Shapiro's/my theory.
DAVID: Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic.
I’m referring to those that are complex and require intelligence.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 01, 2020, 19:53 (1451 days ago) @ dhw
Dolphins
dhw: This decision is easy to explain: because local conditions meant marine life gave a better chance of survival. Fins for legs and reduced heart rate did the same. Cell communities adapt to requirements – regardless of whether your God pops in to operate on them, or they do it through the intelligence he gave them.DAVID: Enormous changes from cell intelligence, with no mind is pie in the sky.
dhw: Cellular intelligence would come from a mind different to ours. I suspect there are many scientists who would say that an unknown, sourceless “mind” stepping in to operate on the legs of pre-whales and pre-dolphins before they enter the water is “pie in the sky”.
Now you refer to atheists as an answer.
Denton
dhw: ...please don’t pretend that only humans are “unexpected” descendants from bacteria!DAVID: That is a basic tenet of my thoughts, along with Adler. Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our ape cousins prove the point.
dhw: Since bacteria have survived, NO multicellular organism was “necessary”. But multicellular organisms may have improved their chances of survival when and where conditions were proving difficult. This applies to all species, including humans. (In other locations, apes may have had no problem. Or there were too many apes, or one group was more adventurous than another. Plenty of possibilities.)
DAVID: But to relying on survivability ,which is an unproven theory.
dhw: There are NO proven theories! Why do you find my explanation unreasonable?
Mammals to water is a complication, requiring an enormous change in physiological mechanisms. This does not seem to tell us survival was a issue. You've skipped around the issue that humans were never required, and their appearance is a powerful argument for God as Adler shows.
Fish to land
dhw: Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve.DAVID: I can't solve the mystery of God's choices of mechanisms of creation. He created but He is not explaining.
dhw: You can’t explain YOUR choice of God’s mechanisms [preprogramming or dabbling every life form, natural wonder etc.] and purposes. And you prefer to turn a blind eye to alternative choices and explanations, even if they are logical.
DAVID: I'm not blind, just very logical.
dhw: Turning a blind eye means not wanting to see – it does not mean unable to see. I find it difficult to accept as logical a theory for which you can find no logical explanation!
I accept what God chose to do. I don't need to know His reasons. Your logical explanations are following a basic establishment of a very human god.
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"dhw: A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
DAVID: All it shows is common descent, which we both accept, and I think designed by God.
dhw: It proposes that cells use mechanisms and learn tricks. Just pointing out yet more support for Shapiro's/my theory.
DAVID: Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic.
dhw: I’m referring to those that are complex and require intelligence.
Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Dolphins
DAVID: Enormous changes from cell intelligence, with no mind is pie in the sky.
dhw: Cellular intelligence would come from a mind different to ours. I suspect there are many scientists who would say that an unknown, sourceless “mind” stepping in to operate on the legs of pre-whales and pre-dolphins before they enter the water is “pie in the sky”.
DAVID: Now you refer to atheists as an answer.
I am pointing out that “pie in the sky” is a silly non-argument, whether used by theists or by atheists, and you should not stoop to such levels. Would you tell your much admired Shapiro that his theory is "pie in the sky"? (See below)
Denton
DAVID: Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our ape cousins prove the point.
dhw: Since bacteria have survived, NO multicellular organism was “necessary”. But multicellular organisms may have improved their chances of survival when and where conditions were proving difficult. This applies to all species, including humans. (In other locations, apes may have had no problem. Or there were too many apes, or one group was more adventurous than another. Plenty of possibilities.)
DAVID: But to relying on survivability ,which is an unproven theory.
dhw: There are NO proven theories! Why do you find my explanation unreasonable?
DAVID: Mammals to water is a complication, requiring an enormous change in physiological mechanisms. This does not seem to tell us survival was a issue. You've skipped around the issue that humans were never required, and their appearance is a powerful argument for God as Adler shows.
It is perfectly logical that mammals entering the water may have been necessitated by a threat to survival. I have answered your second point in my now bolded reply above, except that I have used your word “necessary” instead of your word “required”.
Fish to land
dhw: Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve. […]
DAVID: I accept what God chose to do. I don't need to know His reasons. Your logical explanations are following a basic establishment of a very human god.
You accept your own theory that your God chose to directly design every innovation, strategy and natural wonder in life’s history, and they were all part of his goal to design humans, although 99% of them had nothing to do with humans. Please stop pretending that your theory is the only possible truth. Your silly “humanizing” objection has been demolished over and over again.
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"
dhw: A nice way of summing up the way evolution works: cells use the mechanisms in order to devise and hand on new tricks.
DAVID: All it shows is common descent, which we both accept, and I think designed by God.
dhw: It proposes that cells use mechanisms and learn tricks. Just pointing out yet more support for Shapiro's/my theory.
DAVID: Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic.
dhw: I’m referring to those that are complex and require intelligence.
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
How many more times? Shapiro DOES go that far. The fact that his research is on bacteria does not stop him from using the research of his fellow scientists! Here are his conclusions:
SHAPIRO: Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly through well-described natural genetic engineering and epigenetic processes as well as by cell mergers. […} Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self modification functions and cell fusions.
All quoted by you, p. 142, The Atheist Delusion.
Bird beak
QUOTE: "A “sixth sense” feature might have helped carnivorous theropods such as Neovenator find prey by probing their snouts into mud or murky water."
DAVID: If the prey is remote, how does the animal know what it is looking for? Seems it had to be designed for use.
I would suggest that it doesn’t know what it is looking for but, like the therapods, is “sniffing out” what is available. Only the bird’s beak has the same “sniffability” as the therapods’ snouts.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 02, 2020, 20:10 (1450 days ago) @ dhw
Denton
DAVID: Darwin's theory has never been able to explain our appearance from the point of view of necessary survivability. Our ape cousins prove the point.dhw: Since bacteria have survived, NO multicellular organism was “necessary”. But multicellular organisms may have improved their chances of survival when and where conditions were proving difficult. This applies to all species, including humans. (In other locations, apes may have had no problem. Or there were too many apes, or one group was more adventurous than another. Plenty of possibilities.)
DAVID: But to relying on survivability, which is an unproven theory.
dhw: There are NO proven theories! Why do you find my explanation unreasonable?
DAVID: Mammals to water is a complication, requiring an enormous change in physiological mechanisms. This does not seem to tell us survival was a issue. You've skipped around the issue that humans were never required, and their appearance is a powerful argument for God as Adler shows.
dhw: It is perfectly logical that mammals entering the water may have been necessitated by a threat to survival. I have answered your second point in my now bolded reply above, except that I have used your word “necessary” instead of your word “required”.
Survival is a theory that has no direct answer, except the huge improbability of of physiological and phenotypical design requirements. Unfortunately for your theory, each fossil in the whale series shows an enormous gap in the requirements. I can't imagine the land mammals jumped into the water at the shoreline and stayed there. Assuming a slow adaptation where are the transitional forms?
Fish to land
dhw: Why your God should have preprogrammed or dabbled every individual muscle-brain-skull arrangement for every individual species when, according to you, all he wanted was us and our food supply, remains a mystery for you to solve. […]DAVID: I accept what God chose to do. I don't need to know His reasons. Your logical explanations are following a basic establishment of a very human god.
dhw: ... Please stop pretending that your theory is the only possible truth. Your silly “humanizing” objection has been demolished over and over again.
Only in your mind. You don't realize how human you make Him.
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"DAVID: Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic.
dhw: I’m referring to those that are complex and require intelligence.
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
dhw: How many more times? Shapiro DOES go that far. The fact that his research is on bacteria does not stop him from using the research of his fellow scientists! Here are his conclusions:
SHAPIRO: Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly through well-described natural genetic engineering and epigenetic processes as well as by cell mergers. […} Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self modification functions and cell fusions.
All quoted by you, p. 142, The Atheist Delusion.
A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA. No further advances from anyone since his book appeared. An important fact established by Shapiro
Bird beak
QUOTE: "A “sixth sense” feature might have helped carnivorous theropods such as Neovenator find prey by probing their snouts into mud or murky water."DAVID: If the prey is remote, how does the animal know what it is looking for? Seems it had to be designed for use.
dhw: I would suggest that it doesn’t know what it is looking for but, like the therapods, is “sniffing out” what is available. Only the bird’s beak has the same “sniffability” as the therapods’ snouts.
How does it develop if it doesn't know at first what is out there and what to sense?
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Denton
dhw: It is perfectly logical that mammals entering the water may have been necessitated by a threat to survival.
DAVID: Survival is a theory that has no direct answer, except the huge improbability of of physiological and phenotypical design requirements. Unfortunately for your theory, each fossil in the whale series shows an enormous gap in the requirements. I can't imagine the land mammals jumped into the water at the shoreline and stayed there. Assuming a slow adaptation where are the transitional forms?
You expect there to be a complete fossil record of every stage of every life form from bacteria to humans, going back 3+ thousand million years. You know for yourself that every ancient fossil find is greeted with loud trumpeting because fossils are so rare. But various transitional forms have been found in the whale record. In any case, you should bear in mind your own theory that your God used existing species to form new species (common descent). Each change has to work, and each “transitional” form is a fully-fledged organism in its own right. We agree that Darwin was wrong when he said that Nature doesn’t make jumps. But what I propose (theistic version) is that instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling the jumps, he gave cell communities the intelligence to work them out for themselves. None of this in any way disproves the proposal that speciation (including that of humans) may be the result of organisms improving their chances of survival when faced with new conditions. These may be local as well as global.
Cichlids
dhw: The gaps in speciation are caused by the gaps between changes to the environment or the gradual exhaustion of existing niches, which would require exploitation of different niches.
DAVID: Gould's gaps were huge changes in phenotype and physiological processes. These are tiny variations in a family of fish.
Explained above.
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"
DAVID: Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic.
dhw: I’m referring to those that are complex and require intelligence.
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
dhw: How many more times? Shapiro DOES go that far. The fact that his research is on bacteria does not stop him from using the research of his fellow scientists! Here are his conclusions:
SHAPIRO: Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly through well-described natural genetic engineering and epigenetic processes as well as by cell mergers. […} Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self modification functions and cell fusions.
All quoted by you, p. 142, The Atheist Delusion.
DAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.
Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?
DAVID: No further advances from anyone since his book appeared.
What advances do you expect? He has formulated his theory. Maybe one day, scientists will see cells producing innovations. Maybe one day, according to you, scientists will discover God’s book of instructions for all life forms, econiches, strategies and natural wonders in the history of life.
Bird beak
QUOTE: "A “sixth sense” feature might have helped carnivorous theropods such as Neovenator find prey by probing their snouts into mud or murky water."
DAVID: If the prey is remote, how does the animal know what it is looking for? Seems it had to be designed for use.
dhw: I would suggest that it doesn’t know what it is looking for but, like the therapods, is “sniffing out” what is available. Only the bird’s beak has the same “sniffability” as the therapods’ snouts.
DAVID: How does it develop if it doesn't know at first what is out there and what to sense?
Now you’re asking how an organism knows what to eat and how to go and get it. Maybe Mummy and Daddy gave it a few lessons. And maybe great-great-great grandma and grandpa learned from experience.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Thursday, December 03, 2020, 19:58 (1449 days ago) @ dhw
Denton
DAVID: Survival is a theory that has no direct answer, except the huge improbability of of physiological and phenotypical design requirements. Unfortunately for your theory, each fossil in the whale series shows an enormous gap in the requirements. I can't imagine the land mammals jumped into the water at the shoreline and stayed there. Assuming a slow adaptation where are the transitional forms?
dhw: You expect there to be a complete fossil record of every stage of every life form from bacteria to humans, going back 3+ thousand million years. You know for yourself that every ancient fossil find is greeted with loud trumpeting because fossils are so rare. But various transitional forms have been found in the whale record. In any case, you should bear in mind your own theory that your God used existing species to form new species (common descent). Each change has to work, and each “transitional” form is a fully-fledged organism in its own right. We agree that Darwin was wrong when he said that Nature doesn’t make jumps. But what I propose (theistic version) is that instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling the jumps, he gave cell communities the intelligence to work them out for themselves. None of this in any way disproves the proposal that speciation (including that of humans) may be the result of organisms improving their chances of survival when faced with new conditions. These may be local as well as global.
All of this are reasonable suppositions, but not an explanation of the complexity of the designs produced by cell committees
Genome complexity
Quote: "In general, cells use similar working mechanisms from a common ancestor. They all learned the same tricks as long as these tricks were useful.'"DAVID: Cells tricks are quite simple and automatic.
dhw: I’m referring to those that are complex and require intelligence.
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
dhw: How many more times? Shapiro DOES go that far. The fact that his research is on bacteria does not stop him from using the research of his fellow scientists! Here are his conclusions:
SHAPIRO: Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly through well-described natural genetic engineering and epigenetic processes as well as by cell mergers. […} Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self modification functions and cell fusions.
All quoted by you, p. 142, The Atheist Delusion.DAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.
dhw: Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?
All of his theory is in the context of Darwinian evolution, which struggles to remain consistent with itself.
DAVID: No further advances from anyone since his book appeared.dhw: What advances do you expect? He has formulated his theory. Maybe one day, scientists will see cells producing innovations. Maybe one day, according to you, scientists will discover God’s book of instructions for all life forms, econiches, strategies and natural wonders in the history of life.
Exactly.
Bird beak
QUOTE: "A “sixth sense” feature might have helped carnivorous theropods such as Neovenator find prey by probing their snouts into mud or murky water."DAVID: If the prey is remote, how does the animal know what it is looking for? Seems it had to be designed for use.
dhw: I would suggest that it doesn’t know what it is looking for but, like the therapods, is “sniffing out” what is available. Only the bird’s beak has the same “sniffability” as the therapods’ snouts.
DAVID: How does it develop if it doesn't know at first what is out there and what to sense?
dhw: Now you’re asking how an organism knows what to eat and how to go and get it. Maybe Mummy and Daddy gave it a few lessons. And maybe great-great-great grandma and grandpa learned from experience.
And I think the sniffing organ was designed
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Denton
dhw: We agree that Darwin was wrong when he said that Nature doesn’t make jumps. But what I propose (theistic version) is that instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling the jumps, he gave cell communities the intelligence to work them out for themselves. None of this in any way disproves the proposal that speciation (including that of humans) may be the result of organisms improving their chances of survival when faced with new conditions. These may be local as well as global.
DAVID: All of this are reasonable suppositions, but not an explanation of the complexity of the designs produced by cell committees.
What do you mean? There are three theistic explanations on offer: God preprogrammed or dabbled them all, and your God designed an autonomous mechanism that designed them all. Thank you for accepting the feasibility of the survival theory.
Genome complexity
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
dhw: How many more times? Shapiro DOES go that far. The fact that his research is on bacteria does not stop him from using the research of his fellow scientists! Here are his conclusions:
SHAPIRO: Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly through well-described natural genetic engineering and epigenetic processes as well as by cell mergers. […} Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self modification functions and cell fusions.
All quoted by you, p. 142, The Atheist Delusion.
DAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.
dhw: Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?
DAVID: All of his theory is in the context of Darwinian evolution, which struggles to remain consistent with itself.
Now that you’ve dropped your absurd idea that Shapiro only deals with bacteria, would you please tell me what is “inconsistent” about his theory as quoted by you.
DAVID: No further advances from anyone since his book appeared.
dhw: What advances do you expect? He has formulated his theory. Maybe one day, scientists will see cells producing innovations. Maybe one day, according to you, scientists will discover God’s book of instructions for all life forms, econiches, strategies and natural wonders in the history of life.
DAVID: Exactly.
So why do you try to discredit his theory when your own theory is open to the same objection?
Bird beak
QUOTE: "A “sixth sense” feature might have helped carnivorous theropods such as Neovenator find prey by probing their snouts into mud or murky water."
DAVID: If the prey is remote, how does the animal know what it is looking for? Seems it had to be designed for use.
dhw: I would suggest that it doesn’t know what it is looking for but, like the therapods, is “sniffing out” what is available. Only the bird’s beak has the same “sniffability” as the therapods’ snouts.
DAVID: How does it develop if it doesn't know at first what is out there and what to sense?
dhw: Now you’re asking how an organism knows what to eat and how to go and get it. Maybe Mummy and Daddy gave it a few lessons. And maybe great-great-great grandma and grandpa learned from experience.
DAVID: And I think the sniffing organ was designed.
You asked how the bird knew what to look for, and I gave you an answer. If you think your God preprogrammed the sniffing beak 3.8 billion years ago, or stepped in to perform an operation on each beak "as part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans", so be it.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: These are intense physiological and phenotypical alterations. It always raises the observation, why if survival as a mammal is so complex why did mammals enter an aquatic life? Unless there is great stress for survival it is a very difficult path to follow. Migration to a better spot is more sensible and practical.
Maybe they reckoned it was worth exploring the known waters rather than wandering off to who knows what? Anyway, why didn’t your God tell the mammals to migrate, instead of stepping in to operate on their legs before they entered the water? Much simpler. Or do you think he HAD TO send them into the water because otherwise he couldn’t have designed humans and their food supplies a few million years later?
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Friday, December 04, 2020, 18:59 (1448 days ago) @ dhw
Denton
DAVID: All of this are reasonable suppositions, but not an explanation of the complexity of the designs produced by cell committees.
dhw: What do you mean? There are three theistic explanations on offer: God preprogrammed or dabbled them all, and your God designed an autonomous mechanism that designed them all. Thank you for accepting the feasibility of the survival theory.
Just because I didn't discuss it doesn't mean I accept a drive for survival as driving evolution. Most new species require too many complicated designs to be practical for survival shown in whales and other aquatic mammals.
Genome complexity
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.DAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.
dhw: Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?
DAVID: All of his theory is in the context of Darwinian evolution, which struggles to remain consistent with itself.
dhw: Now that you’ve dropped your absurd idea that Shapiro only deals with bacteria, would you please tell me what is “inconsistent” about his theory as quoted by you.
It is a theory based on his research, and is therefor consistent with his research. Proves nothing about true speciation.
dhw: So why do you try to discredit his theory when your own theory is open to the same objection?
All theories are just theories. I prefer mine.
Aquatic mammals> DAVID: These are intense physiological and phenotypical alterations. It always raises the observation, why if survival as a mammal is so complex why did mammals enter an aquatic life? Unless there is great stress for survival it is a very difficult path to follow. Migration to a better spot is more sensible and practical.dhw: Maybe they reckoned it was worth exploring the known waters rather than wandering off to who knows what? Anyway, why didn’t your God tell the mammals to migrate, instead of stepping in to operate on their legs before they entered the water? Much simpler. Or do you think he HAD TO send them into the water because otherwise he couldn’t have designed humans and their food supplies a few million years later?
Remember, God does what He wants. He obviously wanted them to live in the water and engineered the necessary changes. Perfectly consistent with choosing to evolve humans. All consistent with theistic reasoning.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Denton
dhw: We agree that Darwin was wrong when he said that Nature doesn’t make jumps. But what I propose (theistic version) is that instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling the jumps, he gave cell communities the intelligence to work them out for themselves. None of this in any way disproves the proposal that speciation (including that of humans) may be the result of organisms improving their chances of survival when faced with new conditions. These may be local as well as global.
DAVID: All of this are reasonable suppositions.
dhw: Thank you for accepting the feasibility of the survival theory.
DAVID: Just because I didn't discuss it doesn't mean I accept a drive for survival as driving evolution.
I thanked you for accepting the feasibility of the theory. I thought “reasonable” would imply “feasible”.
DAVID: Most new species require too many complicated designs to be practical for survival shown in whales and other aquatic mammals.
The exact contrary: the complicated designs ARE practical for survival, and that is the reason why the cell communities or your God designed them. Perhaps you mean they are too complicated for cells to design. That of course is the issue. Shapiro would disagree with you.
Genome complexity
DAVID: Even Shapiro doesn't go that far. All He has found is bacteria can edit DNA, and stay the same species.
I reproduced the quotes from your own book to prove that he does go that far.
DAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.
dhw: Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?
DAVID: All of his theory is in the context of Darwinian evolution, which struggles to remain consistent with itself.
dhw: Now that you’ve dropped your absurd idea that Shapiro only deals with bacteria, would you please tell me what is “inconsistent” about his theory as quoted by you.
DAVID: It is a theory based on his research, and is therefor consistent with his research. Proves nothing about true speciation.
The theory is based on his research and on the research of his fellow scientists. But like your own theory about God’s existence, and about the divine goal and method of speciation, it has not been proven. That does not mean his theory is not feasible. I’ll pass over the feasiblity of your own theory, dealt with on various other threads.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: These are intense physiological and phenotypical alterations. It always raises the observation, why if survival as a mammal is so complex why did mammals enter an aquatic life? Unless there is great stress for survival it is a very difficult path to follow. Migration to a better spot is more sensible and practical.
dhw: Maybe they reckoned it was worth exploring the known waters rather than wandering off to who knows what? Anyway, why didn’t your God tell the mammals to migrate, instead of stepping in to operate on their legs before they entered the water? Much simpler. Or do you think he HAD TO send them into the water because otherwise he couldn’t have designed humans and their food supplies a few million years later?
DAVID: Remember, God does what He wants. He obviously wanted them to live in the water and engineered the necessary changes. Perfectly consistent with choosing to evolve humans. All consistent with theistic reasoning.
Presumably you have now dropped your theory that your God’s powers were limited, he was unable to directly design humans, and “had to” design everything else first. i.e. he was unable to do what he wanted in the way that he wanted to do it. If you’ve withdrawn it, please explain why your God, who does what he wants, designed millions of non-human life forms plus food supplies with no connection to humans, although what he wanted was humans.
Primate vision
DAVID:A perfect system with no changes and the surprise of a researcher noted in bold. No changing mutations implies controlled design.
It certainly does, and congratulations to the designer. But if God exists and he did this directly, one can’t help wondering why he didn’t get every system “perfect” in the first place. Maybe he just kept on experimenting, or getting new ideas, or had invented an autonomous mechanism which hit the jackpot straight away this time, but otherwise simply went on adjusting its inventions as the need or opportunity arose.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Saturday, December 05, 2020, 18:43 (1447 days ago) @ dhw
Denton
DAVID: Just because I didn't discuss it doesn't mean I accept a drive for survival as driving evolution.
dhw: I thanked you for accepting the feasibility of the theory. I thought “reasonable” would imply “feasible”.
DAVID: Most new species require too many complicated designs to be practical for survival shown in whales and other aquatic mammals.
dhw: The exact contrary: the complicated designs ARE practical for survival, and that is the reason why the cell communities or your God designed them. Perhaps you mean they are too complicated for cells to design. That of course is the issue. Shapiro would disagree with you.
Onboard species design is way to complex for cell intelligence. You are still extrapolating Shapiro well beyond what he presents.
Genome complexityDAVID: A theoretical proposal based on bacterial editing DNA.
dhw: Do you really think he didn’t incorporate the research of his fellow scientists?
DAVID: All of his theory is in the context of Darwinian evolution, which struggles to remain consistent with itself.
dhw: Now that you’ve dropped your absurd idea that Shapiro only deals with bacteria, would you please tell me what is “inconsistent” about his theory as quoted by you.
DAVID: It is a theory based on his research, and is therefor consistent with his research. Proves nothing about true speciation.
dhw: The theory is based on his research and on the research of his fellow scientists. But like your own theory about God’s existence, and about the divine goal and method of speciation, it has not been proven. That does not mean his theory is not feasible. I’ll pass over the feasibility of your own theory, dealt with on various other threads.
OK, we agree it is all theorizing. I'll stick with mine.
Aquatic mammalsdhw: Maybe they reckoned it was worth exploring the known waters rather than wandering off to who knows what? Anyway, why didn’t your God tell the mammals to migrate, instead of stepping in to operate on their legs before they entered the water? Much simpler. Or do you think he HAD TO send them into the water because otherwise he couldn’t have designed humans and their food supplies a few million years later?
DAVID: Remember, God does what He wants. He obviously wanted them to live in the water and engineered the necessary changes. Perfectly consistent with choosing to evolve humans. All consistent with theistic reasoning.
dhw: Presumably you have now dropped your theory that your God’s powers were limited, he was unable to directly design humans, and “had to” design everything else first. i.e. he was unable to do what he wanted in the way that he wanted to do it. If you’ve withdrawn it, please explain why your God, who does what he wants, designed millions of non-human life forms plus food supplies with no connection to humans, although what he wanted was humans.
Same old illogical view of a powerful God. I suggested God's ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation OR as I've constantly suggested He had to set up a NECESSARY FOOD SUPPLY before our population exploded, something He LOGICALLY would expect. God's personal limitations must always be considered for completeness, but I can chose the resulting theory that seems most logical to me, if not to you.
Primate visionDAVID:A perfect system with no changes and the surprise of a researcher noted in bold. No changing mutations implies controlled design.
dhw: It certainly does, and congratulations to the designer. But if God exists and he did this directly, one can’t help wondering why he didn’t get every system “perfect” in the first place. Maybe he just kept on experimenting, or getting new ideas, or had invented an autonomous mechanism which hit the jackpot straight away this time, but otherwise simply went on adjusting its inventions as the need or opportunity arose.
Same old humanizing. You would probably propose our universe is the first in a line of failed experiments which didn't get to adequate fine tuning to allow life. The implication is God has to know what life requires as He constructs universes. Your God CANNOT EVER BE my God.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Denton
DAVID: Onboard species design is way to complex for cell intelligence. You are still extrapolating Shapiro well beyond what he presents.
This is getting silly. “Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities…they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly…evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular cell-modification…” Please stop pretending Shapiro hasn’t said what you yourself have quoted. And stop pretending that his theory is confined to bacteria.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: I suggested God's ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation OR as I've constantly suggested He had to set up a NECESSARY FOOD SUPPLY before our population exploded, something He LOGICALLY would expect. God's personal limitations must always be considered for completeness, but I can chose the resulting theory that seems most logical to me, if not to you.
Ah, I thought you’d dropped the idea that your God had personal limitations and was incapable of doing what he wanted to do in the way that he wanted to do it. I really can’t see why this “limited ability” could not mean that he was experimenting. Please explain. The necessary food supply for humans argument has been demolished by yourself (see quotes under “fish to land animals”)..
Primate vision
DAVID:A perfect system with no changes and the surprise of a researcher noted in bold. No changing mutations implies controlled design.
dhw: It certainly does, and congratulations to the designer. But if God exists and he did this directly, one can’t help wondering why he didn’t get every system “perfect” in the first place. Maybe he just kept on experimenting, or getting new ideas, or had invented an autonomous mechanism which hit the jackpot straight away this time, but otherwise simply went on adjusting its inventions as the need or opportunity arose.
DAVID: Same old humanizing. You would probably propose our universe is the first in a line of failed experiments which didn't get to adequate fine tuning to allow life. The implication is God has to know what life requires as He constructs universes. Your God CANNOT EVER BE my God.
Back to the subject: according to you, your God designed the perfect eye system in one go. Please explain, then, why he didn’t design the only species (plus food supply) that he wanted to design in one go. If he has limitations, then again, what is wrong with the experimentation theory? Your other explanation is that in order to design H. sapiens and his food supply, he "had to" keep designing millions of extinct life forms and food supplies, although 99% of them had no connection with humans. And you think this is logical?
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I don't have to explain water's weirdness. God purposely designed it this way so life could form. dhw thinks God has to experiment. God knows exactly what He is doing. Everything that has appeared is clearly interlocking by design.
DAVID: Glad these guys aren't around to bother us. It goes to show God made sure life was tough enough to survive here and evolve us under His direction.
If God exists, I’m quite happy to agree that he designed all the factors that made life possible. I hatched the experimentation theory specifically to give some logic to your anthropocentric theory of evolution, but it can be applied just as well to the universe and to our planet, with all the endless comings and goings; and water would have been just one of his inventions on the experimental path to creating life. But if we return to the context of evolution, I don’t think he “has to experiment”. That is only one theory. Another, you may remember, is that he invented the original intelligent cell with its autonomous potential for the vast number of combinations and variations that make up the ever changing history of life.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Sunday, December 06, 2020, 19:37 (1446 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Sunday, December 06, 2020, 19:43
Denton
DAVID: Onboard species design is way to complex for cell intelligence. You are still extrapolating Shapiro well beyond what he presents.dhw: This is getting silly. Please stop pretending Shapiro hasn’t said what you yourself have quoted. And stop pretending that his theory is confined to bacteria.
His theory is an extrapolation from bacteria, nothing more. Other cells only have epigenetics. An unproven extension of theory.
Reread his British Royal Society paper:
http://extendedevolutionarysynthesis.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Shapiro-JA_Inter...
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: I suggested God's ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation OR as I've constantly suggested He had to set up a NECESSARY FOOD SUPPLY before our population exploded, something He LOGICALLY would expect. God's personal limitations must always be considered for completeness, but I can chose the resulting theory that seems most logical to me, if not to you.dhw: Ah, I thought you’d dropped the idea that your God had personal limitations and was incapable of doing what he wanted to do in the way that he wanted to do it. I really can’t see why this “limited ability” could not mean that he was experimenting. Please explain. The necessary food supply for humans argument has been demolished by yourself (see quotes under “fish to land animals”)..
Limited ability does not necessarily imply experimentation, just an alternate route to use
Primate vision
DAVID:A perfect system with no changes and the surprise of a researcher noted in bold. No changing mutations implies controlled design.dhw: It certainly does, and congratulations to the designer. But if God exists and he did this directly, one can’t help wondering why he didn’t get every system “perfect” in the first place. Maybe he just kept on experimenting, or getting new ideas, or had invented an autonomous mechanism which hit the jackpot straight away this time, but otherwise simply went on adjusting its inventions as the need or opportunity arose.
DAVID: Same old humanizing. You would probably propose our universe is the first in a line of failed experiments which didn't get to adequate fine tuning to allow life. The implication is God has to know what life requires as He constructs universes. Your God CANNOT EVER BE my God.
dhw: Back to the subject: according to you, your God designed the perfect eye system in one go. Please explain, then, why he didn’t design the only species (plus food supply) that he wanted to design in one go.
This is one system in organisms, not a whole new organism. He chose to evolve, remember?
dhw: “Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”DAVID: I don't have to explain water's weirdness. God purposely designed it this way so life could form. dhw thinks God has to experiment. God knows exactly what He is doing. Everything that has appeared is clearly interlocking by design.
DAVID: Glad these guys aren't around to bother us. It goes to show God made sure life was tough enough to survive here and evolve us under His direction.
dhw: If God exists, I’m quite happy to agree that he designed all the factors that made life possible. I hatched the experimentation theory specifically to give some logic to your anthropocentric theory of evolution, but it can be applied just as well to the universe and to our planet, with all the endless comings and goings; and water would have been just one of his inventions on the experimental path to creating life. But if we return to the context of evolution, I don’t think he “has to experiment”. That is only one theory. Another, you may remember, is that he invented the original intelligent cell with its autonomous potential for the vast number of combinations and variations that make up the ever changing history of life.
Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers..
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Denton
DAVID: Onboard species design is way to complex for cell intelligence. You are still extrapolating Shapiro well beyond what he presents.
dhw: This is getting silly. Please stop pretending Shapiro hasn’t said what you yourself have quoted. And stop pretending that his theory is confined to bacteria.
DAVID: His theory is an extrapolation from bacteria, nothing more. Other cells only have epigenetics. An unproven extension of theory.
His theory is consistent with the findings of notable scientists such as McLintock and Margulis, who firmly believed in cellular intelligence.
DAVID: Reread his British Royal Society paper:
http://extendedevolutionarysynthesis.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Shapiro-JA_Inter...
For some reason, I can’t get onto it, but we’ve discussed this before. And I remember pointing out that nowhere in that paper does he renounce the theory of “natural genetic engineering”. If I missed something, do please find a quote in which he does.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: I suggested God's ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation OR as I've constantly suggested He had to set up a NECESSARY FOOD SUPPLY before our population exploded, something He LOGICALLY would expect. God's personal limitations must always be considered for completeness, but I can chose the resulting theory that seems most logical to me, if not to you.
dhw: Ah, I thought you’d dropped the idea that your God had personal limitations and was incapable of doing what he wanted to do in the way that he wanted to do it. I really can’t see why this “limited ability” could not mean that he was experimenting. Please explain. The necessary food supply for humans argument has been demolished by yourself (see quotes under “fish to land animals”)..
DAVID: Limited ability does not necessarily imply experimentation, just an alternate route to use.
My point is that it fits in very well with experimentation. If he was incapable of doing something one way, is it not logical that he would have tried another way? That’s experimentation. I don’t know why you think God’s limited abilities make him less human than a God who experiments.
Primate vision
dhw: […] according to you, your God designed the perfect eye system in one go. Please explain, then, why he didn’t design the only species (plus food supply) that he wanted to design in one go.
DAVID: This is one system in organisms, not a whole new organism. He chose to evolve, remember?
He created a perfect eye system in one go, and directly created millions of other, perfectly functioning life forms etc., but apparently he was incapable of directly designing H. sapiens, and that is why he directly created all the others, though 99% of them had no connection with humans. I find this interpretation of God’s powers hard to follow.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
dhw: […] if we return to the context of evolution, I don’t think he “has to experiment”. That is only one theory. Another, you may remember, is that he invented the original intelligent cell with its autonomous potential for the vast number of combinations and variations that make up the ever changing history of life.
DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.
I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Great navigators but they make mistakes. Amazing migration that I think God designed as part of an oceanic ecosystem.
So your God can design a perfect eye system, but he can’t design a perfect navigation system, and I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
New found plant defenses
DAVID: How cow peas signal an attack:
DAVID: I see no way that chance mutation or trial an error can produce this type of specific molecular response signaling. Only design fits.
Thank you for these lovely articles. Yes, one can only admire the manner in which the cell communities of plants as well as animals design their own defences. Of course if they didn’t, they wouldn’t survive.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Monday, December 07, 2020, 19:14 (1445 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: His theory is an extrapolation from bacteria, nothing more. Other cells only have epigenetics. An unproven extension of theory.
dhw: His theory is consistent with the findings of notable scientists such as McLintock and Margulis, who firmly believed in cellular intelligence.
DAVID: Reread his British Royal Society paper:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2016.0115 That address should work
dhw: For some reason, I can’t get onto it
Site given above. He never mentions intelligent cells!!! Only all the DNA changes we know:
"The intersections of cell fusion activities, horizontal DNA transfers and natural genetic engineering of Read–Write genomes provide a rich molecular and biological foundation for understanding how ecological disruptions can stimulate productive, often abrupt, evolutionary transformations."
"Considering potential interactions between dynamic ecological conditions and the biological engines of cell and genome variation raises important questions about control and specificity in evolutionary innovation. The years to come likely hold surprising lessons about how cell fusions, genome doublings, and natural genetic engineering may operate non-randomly to enhance the probabilities of evolutionary success."
dhw: Aquatic mammalsDAVID: Limited ability does not necessarily imply experimentation, just an alternate route to use.
dhw: My point is that it fits in very well with experimentation. If he was incapable of doing something one way, is it not logical that he would have tried another way? That’s experimentation. I don’t know why you think God’s limited abilities make him less human than a God who experiments.
My God knows exactly what He can do and never experiments.
dhw: Primate visionDAVID: This is one system in organisms, not a whole new organism. He chose to evolve, remember?
dhw: He created a perfect eye system in one go, and directly created millions of other, perfectly functioning life forms etc., but apparently he was incapable of directly designing H. sapiens, and that is why he directly created all the others, though 99% of them had no connection with humans. I find this interpretation of God’s powers hard to follow.
I know. He decided to evolved, His usual practice
dhw: “Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.dhw: I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.
Same old humanized God. I don't know if He has any limitations. Proposed only for completeness of considerations
dhw: Sea turtles
DAVID: Great navigators but they make mistakes. Amazing migration that I think God designed as part of an oceanic ecosystem.dhw: So your God can design a perfect eye system, but he can’t design a perfect navigation system, and I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
Part of ecosystems. The turtles do quite well considering hey are not human.
New found plant defenses
DAVID: How cow peas signal an attack:DAVID: I see no way that chance mutation or trial an error can produce this type of specific molecular response signaling. Only design fits.
dhw: Thank you for these lovely articles. Yes, one can only admire the manner in which the cell communities of plants as well as animals design their own defences. Of course if they didn’t, they wouldn’t survive.
I'm delighted God showed them how to do it.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
DAVID: [Shapiro's] theory is an extrapolation from bacteria, nothing more. Other cells only have epigenetics. An unproven extension of theory.
dhw: His theory is consistent with the findings of notable scientists such as McLintock and Margulis, who firmly believed in cellular intelligence.
DAVID: Reread his British Royal Society paper [...] He never mentions intelligent cells!!! Only all the DNA changes we know:
QUOTES: "The intersections of cell fusion activities, horizontal DNA transfers and natural genetic engineering of Read–Write genomes provide a rich molecular and biological foundation for understanding how ecological disruptions can stimulate productive, often abrupt, evolutionary transformations."
"Considering potential interactions between dynamic ecological conditions and the biological engines of cell and genome variation raises important questions about control and specificity in evolutionary innovation. The years to come likely hold surprising lessons about how cell fusions, genome doublings, and natural genetic engineering may operate non-randomly to enhance the probabilities of evolutionary success." (dhw's bold)
Thank you for this, and for your honesty in presenting it. In the quotes I have reproduced earlier from your book, he explains precisely what he means by “natural genetic engineering”: “evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cells and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification”…I needn’t repeat his full definition of cells as "cognitive entities" etc.. There is NOTHING in these quotes that repudiates his theory of natural genetic engineering, which is based fairly and squarely on cellular intelligence. This discussion is pointless. We should discuss the theory itself.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: Limited ability does not necessarily imply experimentation, just an alternate route to use.
dhw: My point is that it fits in very well with experimentation. If he was incapable of doing something one way, is it not logical that he would have tried another way? That’s experimentation. I don’t know why you think God’s limited abilities make him less human than a God who experiments.
DAVID: My God knows exactly what He can do and never experiments.
If his ability is limited and he knows he can’t design humans directly, how does that come to mean that he has to design millions of life forms that have no connection with humans? And how does it EXCLUDE the possibility that he needs to experiment?
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.
dhw: I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.
DAVID: Same old humanized God. I don't know if He has any limitations. Proposed only for completeness of considerations.
That does not explain why your proposal doesn’t “minimize” God, whereas the God I propose, who knows and gets exactly what he wants, is “minimized”.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Great navigators but they make mistakes. Amazing migration that I think God designed as part of an oceanic ecosystem.
dhw: So your God can design a perfect eye system, but he can’t design a perfect navigation system, and I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
DAVID: Part of ecosystems. The turtles do quite well considering hey are not human.
All life forms are parts of ecosystems. And yes, they do well. How does that make them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 08, 2020, 22:29 (1444 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: [Shapiro's] theory is an extrapolation from bacteria, nothing more. Other cells only have epigenetics. An unproven extension of theory.
dhw: His theory is consistent with the findings of notable scientists such as McLintock and Margulis, who firmly believed in cellular intelligence.
DAVID: Reread his British Royal Society paper [...] He never mentions intelligent cells!!! Only all the DNA changes we know:
QUOTES: "The intersections of cell fusion activities, horizontal DNA transfers and natural genetic engineering of Read–Write genomes provide a rich molecular and biological foundation for understanding how ecological disruptions can stimulate productive, often abrupt, evolutionary transformations."
"Considering potential interactions between dynamic ecological conditions and the biological engines of cell and genome variation raises important questions about control and specificity in evolutionary innovation. The years to come likely hold surprising lessons about how cell fusions, genome doublings, and natural genetic engineering may operate non-randomly to enhance the probabilities of evolutionary success." (dhw's bold)
dhw: Thank you for this, and for your honesty in presenting it. In the quotes I have reproduced earlier from your book, he explains precisely what he means by “natural genetic engineering”: “evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cells and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification”…I needn’t repeat his full definition of cells as "cognitive entities" etc.. There is NOTHING in these quotes that repudiates his theory of natural genetic engineering, which is based fairly and squarely on cellular intelligence. This discussion is pointless. We should discuss the theory itself.
No question, an organism that can severely edit its DNA and create a new species is a theory to be considered, and evidence searched for. That is why Shapiro is prominent in my book. Unfortunately nothing so far, but as the genome is unraveled, it is seen to be exceedingly complex
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: Limited ability does not necessarily imply experimentation, just an alternate route to use.dhw: My point is that it fits in very well with experimentation. If he was incapable of doing something one way, is it not logical that he would have tried another way? That’s experimentation. I don’t know why you think God’s limited abilities make him less human than a God who experiments.
DAVID: My God knows exactly what He can do and never experiments.
dhw: If his ability is limited and he knows he can’t design humans directly, how does that come to mean that he has to design millions of life forms that have no connection with humans? And how does it EXCLUDE the possibility that he needs to experiment?
I can accept that He needs to evolve in stages. That doesn't prove experimentation.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.
dhw: I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.
DAVID: Same old humanized God. I don't know if He has any limitations. Proposed only for completeness of considerations.
dhw: That does not explain why your proposal doesn’t “minimize” God, whereas the God I propose, who knows and gets exactly what he wants, is “minimized”.
You want a God with self-interests, entertainment. I will only accept a God who creates just for the sake of creation. We can never know if He has personal desires for Himself.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Great navigators but they make mistakes. Amazing migration that I think God designed as part of an oceanic ecosystem.dhw: So your God can design a perfect eye system, but he can’t design a perfect navigation system, and I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
DAVID: Part of ecosystems. The turtles do quite well considering hey are not human.dhw: All life forms are parts of ecosystems. And yes, they do well. How does that make them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
Surprise! Usual response, massive ecosystems for food supply.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Shapiro’s theory of “natural genetic engineering”
DAVID: No question, an organism that can severely edit its DNA and create a new species is a theory to be considered, and evidence searched for. That is why Shapiro is prominent in my book. Unfortunately nothing so far, but as the genome is unraveled, it is seen to be exceedingly complex.
So please stop pretending that Shapiro does not propose cellular intelligence as the driving force of evolutionary innovation, and that his theory applies only to bacteria.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: My God knows exactly what He can do and never experiments.
dhw: If his ability is limited and he knows he can’t design humans directly, how does that come to mean that he has to design millions of life forms that have no connection with humans? And how does it EXCLUDE the possibility that he needs to experiment?
DAVID: I can accept that He needs to evolve in stages. That doesn't prove experimentation.
There is no proof for any of my theories or of yours, including the existence of God. I asked why your proposal that your God’s abilities were limited EXCLUDED experimentation.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.
dhw: I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.
DAVID: Same old humanized God. I don't know if He has any limitations. Proposed only for completeness of considerations.
dhw: That does not explain why your proposal doesn’t “minimize” God, whereas the God I propose, who knows and gets exactly what he wants, is “minimized”.
DAVID: You want a God with self-interests, entertainment. I will only accept a God who creates just for the sake of creation. We can never know if He has personal desires for Himself.
I don’t like the superficial word “entertainment”, but yes, self-interest is appropriate, and as you are sure that he is interested and finds satisfaction in his creations, I see nothing illogical or in the least “minimizing” about the proposal. He gets what he wants. Your latest version is he knows what he wants, doesn’t have the ability to get it, and so has to design all kinds of things for no particular reason until at last he can design what he wants. I find that far more “minimizing”, but clearly you don’t.
Sea turtles
dhw: I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
DAVID: Part of ecosystems. The turtles do quite well considering hey are not human.
dhw: All life forms are parts of ecosystems. And yes, they do well. How does that make them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
DAVID: Surprise! Usual response, massive ecosystems for food supply.
All organisms are and were part of present and past ecosystems for food supply. How does that make all of them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 09, 2020, 15:34 (1444 days ago) @ dhw
Shapiro’s theory of “natural genetic engineering”
DAVID: No question, an organism that can severely edit its DNA and create a new species is a theory to be considered, and evidence searched for. That is why Shapiro is prominent in my book. Unfortunately nothing so far, but as the genome is unraveled, it is seen to be exceedingly complex.
dhw: So please stop pretending that Shapiro does not propose cellular intelligence as the driving force of evolutionary innovation, and that his theory applies only to bacteria.
'Cellular intelligence' is your distortion of his theory, which I don't accept. My statement above about Shapiro is how I view his contribution.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: My God knows exactly what He can do and never experiments.dhw: If his ability is limited and he knows he can’t design humans directly, how does that come to mean that he has to design millions of life forms that have no connection with humans? And how does it EXCLUDE the possibility that he needs to experiment?
DAVID: I can accept that He needs to evolve in stages. That doesn't prove experimentation.
dhw: There is no proof for any of my theories or of yours, including the existence of God. I asked why your proposal that your God’s abilities were limited EXCLUDED experimentation.
Theoretically your version of a weaker God might need to experiment. Your theories always seem to weaken God's abilities.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: Intelligent designing cells is God going to second-hand control of creation. I can't imagine my purposeful God doing that. Your intelligent cell approach is a way to minimize God and His real powers.dhw: I honestly cannot see how your theory that God has limited powers, and therefore has to design life forms that have no connection with the life form he wants to design, does not minimize him, whereas a God who knows exactly what he wants – a free-for-all – and gets it is somehow diminished.
DAVID: Same old humanized God. I don't know if He has any limitations. Proposed only for completeness of considerations.
dhw: That does not explain why your proposal doesn’t “minimize” God, whereas the God I propose, who knows and gets exactly what he wants, is “minimized”.
DAVID: You want a God with self-interests, entertainment. I will only accept a God who creates just for the sake of creation. We can never know if He has personal desires for Himself.
dhw: I don’t like the superficial word “entertainment”, but yes, self-interest is appropriate, and as you are sure that he is interested and finds satisfaction in his creations, I see nothing illogical or in the least “minimizing” about the proposal. He gets what he wants. Your latest version is he knows what he wants, doesn’t have the ability to get it, and so has to design all kinds of things for no particular reason until at last he can design what he wants. I find that far more “minimizing”, but clearly you don’t.
I see God as purely creating, and reviewing what He did. We cannot know His reaction to it.
Sea turtles
dhw: I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".DAVID: Part of ecosystems. The turtles do quite well considering they are not human.
dhw: All life forms are parts of ecosystems. And yes, they do well. How does that make them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
DAVID: Surprise! Usual response, massive ecosystems for food supply.
dhw: All organisms are and were part of present and past ecosystems for food supply. How does that make all of them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
Surprise!! Food supply.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Shapiro’s theory of “natural genetic engineering”
dhw: … please stop pretending that Shapiro does not propose cellular intelligence as the driving force of evolutionary innovation, and that his theory applies only to bacteria.
DAVID: 'Cellular intelligence' is your distortion of his theory, which I don't accept. My statement above about Shapiro is how I view his contribution.
This is getting sillier and sillier. Yet again, as quoted a few days ago from your book: SHAPIRO: "Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation. They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities." And for good measure: “evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification…”
Aquatic mammals
dhw: There is no proof for any of my theories or of yours, including the existence of God. I asked why your proposal that your God’s abilities were limited EXCLUDED experimentation.
DAVID: Theoretically your version of a weaker God might need to experiment. Your theories always seem to weaken God's abilities.
You can hardly weaken them more than by suggesting that “God’s ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation.” (The second was the silly argument about food supplies being created for humans millions of years before humans arrived.) I really can’t see why the possibility of personal limitation excludes the possibility that in order to get what he wanted, he had to experiment.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I see God as purely creating, and reviewing what He did. We cannot know His reaction to it.
Strange. A couple of days ago you were sure he was interested in his creations, and you were sure “He likes what He creates, and that He is satisfied in His results as the inventor.” And all I’m suggesting is that if he’s interested in his creations, likes them, and finds satisfaction in them, then maybe that’s what he created them for. And all I ask is why you don’t regard this suggestion as feasible.
Sea turtles
dhw: I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
DAVID: Part of ecosystems. […]
dhw: All organisms are and were part of present and past ecosystems for food supply. How does that make all of them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.
A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Thursday, December 10, 2020, 18:15 (1442 days ago) @ dhw
Shapiro’s theory of “natural genetic engineering”
dhw: … please stop pretending that Shapiro does not propose cellular intelligence as the driving force of evolutionary innovation, and that his theory applies only to bacteria.DAVID: 'Cellular intelligence' is your distortion of his theory, which I don't accept. My statement above about Shapiro is how I view his contribution.
dhw: This is getting sillier and sillier. Yet again, as quoted a few days ago from your book: SHAPIRO: "Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation. They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities." And for good measure: “evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification…”
Shapiro's modifications are only adaptations within species. The rest is pure interesting theory about a possible way/method to speciation .
Aquatic mammals
dhw: There is no proof for any of my theories or of yours, including the existence of God. I asked why your proposal that your God’s abilities were limited EXCLUDED experimentation.DAVID: Theoretically your version of a weaker God might need to experiment. Your theories always seem to weaken God's abilities.
dhw: You can hardly weaken them more than by suggesting that “God’s ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation.” (The second was the silly argument about food supplies being created for humans millions of years before humans arrived.) I really can’t see why the possibility of personal limitation excludes the possibility that in order to get what he wanted, he had to experiment.
Experimentation is your way of presenting a weak God. Not my image of God.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I see God as purely creating, and reviewing what He did. We cannot know His reaction to it.dhw: Strange. A couple of days ago you were sure he was interested in his creations, and you were sure “He likes what He creates, and that He is satisfied in His results as the inventor.” And all I’m suggesting is that if he’s interested in his creations, likes them, and finds satisfaction in them, then maybe that’s what he created them for. And all I ask is why you don’t regard this suggestion as feasible.
Because I don't view God as creating for His own self-interest.
Sea turtles
dhw: I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".DAVID: Part of ecosystems. […]
dhw: All organisms are and were part of present and past ecosystems for food supply. How does that make all of them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.
dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.
Accounted for by the process of evolution, which I fell God conducted.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Shapiro’s theory of “natural genetic engineering”
dhw: … please stop pretending that Shapiro does not propose cellular intelligence as the driving force of evolutionary innovation, and that his theory applies only to bacteria.
DAVID: 'Cellular intelligence' is your distortion of his theory, which I don't accept. My statement above about Shapiro is how I view his contribution.
dhw: This is getting sillier and sillier. Yet again, as quoted a few days ago from your book: SHAPIRO: "Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation. They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities." And for good measure: “evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification…”
DAVID: Shapiro's modifications are only adaptations within species. The rest is pure interesting theory about a possible way/method to speciation.
He specifies “evolutionary novelty” You may disagree with him, but at least you can stop pretending that he does not mean what he says.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: Theoretically your version of a weaker God might need to experiment. Your theories always seem to weaken God's abilities.
dhw: You can hardly weaken them more than by suggesting that “God’s ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation.” (The second was the silly argument about food supplies being created for humans millions of years before humans arrived.) I really can’t see why the possibility of personal limitation excludes the possibility that in order to get what he wanted, he had to experiment.
DAVID: Experimentation is your way of presenting a weak God. Not my image of God.
If he is incapable of directly designing what he wants, please give me a reason for his direct creation of all the life forms unconnected with what he wants. Ah, but you “have no idea why he uses that method”. How about experimentation, then? And just try to have a little more respect for inventors who experiment in order to produce what they are looking for.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I see God as purely creating, and reviewing what He did. We cannot know His reaction to it.
dhw: Strange. A couple of days ago you were sure he was interested in his creations, and you were sure “He likes what He creates, and that He is satisfied in His results as the inventor.” And all I’m suggesting is that if he’s interested in his creations, likes them, and finds satisfaction in them, then maybe that’s what he created them for. And all I ask is why you don’t regard this suggestion as feasible.
DAVID: Because I don't view God as creating for His own self-interest.
This is not the most enlightening form of discussion: imagine yourself saying to Dawkins: “Why is my design argument not feasible?” Answer: “Because I have a different view.”
Sea turtles
dhw: I can't help wondering how his design of a turtle navigation system was “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans".
DAVID: Part of ecosystems. […]
dhw: All organisms are and were part of present and past ecosystems for food supply. How does that make all of them “part of the goal of evolving humans”?
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.
dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.
DAVID: Accounted for by the process of evolution, which I fell God conducted.
Yes, all life forms are accounted for by the process of evolution. And you have your God designing every one of them, and…hallelujah! – you have no idea why your God would have chosen your method of designing millions of life forms that had no connection with humans (and their food supply) in order to design humans and their food supply.
Theoretical origin of life:
DAVID: The Shapiro who is my hero is Robert. See my bold. His book, Origins is from 1986 and he could easily see the problems in trying to understand the origin of life, about which we are obviously no closer to a reasonable theory. His book is one of the first I read to divorce myself from Darwin. I've not presented the lengthy descriptions of all the current attempts to make an advance, just the obvious frustrations of the reviewing author. This problem is why I think it is a major proof of the need for a designer God.
I don’t think you need to be a brilliant scientist to “see the problems in trying to understand the origin of life”. Nor do you have to be a brilliant philosopher to see the problems in trying to understand how the mystery of life’s origin can be solved by attributing it to an unknown inventor who never had an origin.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Friday, December 11, 2020, 23:37 (1441 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Shapiro's modifications are only adaptations within species. The rest is pure interesting theory about a possible way/method to speciation.
dhw: He specifies “evolutionary novelty” You may disagree with him, but at least you can stop pretending that he does not mean what he says.
Evolutionary novelty means what? Not variation within species.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: Theoretically your version of a weaker God might need to experiment. YourDAVID: Experimentation is your way of presenting a weak God. Not my image of God.
dhw: If he is incapable of directly designing what he wants, please give me a reason for his direct creation of all the life forms unconnected with what he wants. Ah, but you “have no idea why he uses that method”.
There is one reason to assume God has to experiment. He doesn't know how to create, i.e., a weak god.
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”DAVID: Because I don't view God as creating for His own self-interest.
dhw: This is not the most enlightening form of discussion: imagine yourself saying to Dawkins: “Why is my design argument not feasible?” Answer: “Because I have a different view.”'
Accept that you and I have totally different views of God's personality and capabilities. Neither of us can know if we are right or wrong about our opinions. We allowed to differ.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.
dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.
DAVID: Accounted for by the process of evolution, which I fell God conducted.
dhw: Yes, all life forms are accounted for by the process of evolution. And you have your God designing every one of them, and…hallelujah! – you have no idea why your God would have chosen your method of designing millions of life forms that had no connection with humans (and their food supply) in order to design humans and their food supply.
Your usual distortion of evolution as conducted by God. You don't know His reasons either. Why should I? I'm simply following known history of evolution
Theoretical origin of life:
DAVID: The Shapiro who is my hero is Robert. See my bold. His book, Origins is from 1986 and he could easily see the problems in trying to understand the origin of life, about which we are obviously no closer to a reasonable theory. His book is one of the first I read to divorce myself from Darwin. I've not presented the lengthy descriptions of all the current attempts to make an advance, just the obvious frustrations of the reviewing author. This problem is why I think it is a major proof of the need for a designer God.dhw: I don’t think you need to be a brilliant scientist to “see the problems in trying to understand the origin of life”. Nor do you have to be a brilliant philosopher to see the problems in trying to understand how the mystery of life’s origin can be solved by attributing it to an unknown inventor who never had an origin.
And yet you are always puzzled by the need for a designer. It is a problem you will never get around.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Shapiro’s theory
dhw: He specifies “evolutionary novelty” You may disagree with him, but at least you can stop pretending that he does not mean what he says.
DAVID: Evolutionary novelty means what? Not variation within species.
Correct. It means innovation, which is what is needed for speciation! That is the whole point of his theory.
Aquatic mammals
DAVID: There is one reason to assume God has to experiment. He doesn't know how to create, i.e., a weak god.
Not “how to create”, but how to create what he wants. According to your latest proposal, he knows how to create all the non-human life forms that ever existed, but: “God’s ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation…” Experimentation seems to me to be a feasible way of your God dealing with the weakness YOU have attributed to him, and it would explain all the life forms that have no connection with humans..
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I see God as purely creating, and reviewing what He did. We cannot know His reaction to it.
dhw: Strange. A couple of days ago you were sure he was interested in his creations, and you were sure “He likes what He creates, and that He is satisfied in His results as the inventor.” And all I’m suggesting is that if he’s interested in his creations, likes them, and finds satisfaction in them, then maybe that’s what he created them for. And all I ask is why you don’t regard this suggestion as feasible.
DAVID: Accept that you and I have totally different views of God's personality and capabilities. Neither of us can know if we are right or wrong about our opinions. We allowed to differ.
Of course we are, but each of defends his own theories and looks for faults in the reasoning underlying the other’s theories. I have based the above theory on your own beliefs and simply ask why you think it’s not feasible.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.
dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.[…]
DAVID: Your usual distortion of evolution as conducted by God. You don't know His reasons either. Why should I? I'm simply following known history of evolution.
Nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what his reasons might have been. However, your theory that he taught the turtles to navigate so that they could provide food for the humans who would arrive millions and millions of years later is not part of the known history of evolution.
Theoretical origin of life:
dhw: I don’t think you need to be a brilliant scientist to “see the problems in trying to understand the origin of life”. Nor do you have to be a brilliant philosopher to see the problems in trying to understand how the mystery of life’s origin can be solved by attributing it to an unknown inventor who never had an origin.
DAVID: And yet you are always puzzled by the need for a designer. It is a problem you will never get around.
I think you’re right. And I’m always puzzled by the ability of theists and atheists to ignore the problems raised by their beliefs and disbeliefs. But I am not unhappy on my fence, and I learn from the arguments of both sides.
Egnor’s latest
dhw:…please stop pretending that evolution involves gazing into a crystal ball. The theory I have proposed involves REACTING to conditions, not forecasting them. The problem of fossil gaps would be solved if there were a continuous fossil record of every creature that ever lived.
DAVID: The crystal ball is required for animals to jump into aquatic life. They are my strongest argument for design being required.
dhw: I would suggest this is your weakest argument – complexity being your strongest. If an animal sees that there is more food in the water than there is on the land, and it has a better chance of surviving in the water, then it will enter the water. The necessary adaptations will then follow.
DAVID: The problem unsolved is how does that happen. I'll stick with God designing.
Of course nobody knows how the process of adaptation/innovation works. That is why we have theories. My closing comment on your theory was: “I find it quite absurd to picture an animal happily munching its supper on the seashore, dozing off, and then finding that its legs have turned into fins, and a voice says “Go thou into the water!” What other way do you think he might have designed the process?
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Saturday, December 12, 2020, 22:33 (1440 days ago) @ dhw
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: Accept that you and I have totally different views of God's personality and capabilities. Neither of us can know if we are right or wrong about our opinions. We are allowed to differ.
dhw: Of course we are, but each of defends his own theories and looks for faults in the reasoning underlying the other’s theories. I have based the above theory on your own beliefs and simply ask why you think it’s not feasible.
I simply see we differ in many ways. Why not?
Sea turtles
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.[…]
DAVID: Your usual distortion of evolution as conducted by God. You don't know His reasons either. Why should I? I'm simply following known history of evolution.
dhw: Nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what his reasons might have been. However, your theory that he taught the turtles to navigate so that they could provide food for the humans who would arrive millions and millions of years later is not part of the known history of evolution.
Agreed, but a good way for God to handle things.
Egnor’s latest
dhw:…please stop pretending that evolution involves gazing into a crystal ball. The theory I have proposed involves REACTING to conditions, not forecasting them. The problem of fossil gaps would be solved if there were a continuous fossil record of every creature that ever lived.DAVID: The crystal ball is required for animals to jump into aquatic life. They are my strongest argument for design being required.
dhw: I would suggest this is your weakest argument – complexity being your strongest. If an animal sees that there is more food in the water than there is on the land, and it has a better chance of surviving in the water, then it will enter the water. The necessary adaptations will then follow.
DAVID: The problem unsolved is how does that happen. I'll stick with God designing.
dhw: Of course nobody knows how the process of adaptation/innovation works. That is why we have theories. My closing comment on your theory was: “I find it quite absurd to picture an animal happily munching its supper on the seashore, dozing off, and then finding that its legs have turned into fins, and a voice says “Go thou into the water!” What other way do you think he might have designed the process?
We know the whale series has nine stages, so it wasn't after one long dream, but a series of dramatic changes requiring design. You cannot escape the need for design and you haven't, sitting on your fence.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: Accept that you and I have totally different views of God's personality and capabilities. Neither of us can know if we are right or wrong about our opinions. We are allowed to differ.
dhw: Of course we are, but each of defends his own theories and looks for faults in the reasoning underlying the other’s theories. I have based the above theory on your own beliefs and simply ask why you think it’s not feasible.
DAVID: I simply see we differ in many ways. Why not?
I know we differ. That doesn’t explain why you think the free-for-all theory (unlike the satisfaction theory) is not feasible.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.
dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.[…]
DAVID: Your usual distortion of evolution as conducted by God. You don't know His reasons either. Why should I? I'm simply following known history of evolution.
dhw: Nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what his reasons might have been. However, your theory that he taught the turtles to navigate so that they could provide food for the humans who would arrive millions and millions of years later is not part of the known history of evolution.
DAVID: Agreed, but a good way for God to handle things.
Since you agree, perhaps you will now stop pretending that your God’s direct design of every life form as part of the goal of evolving humans and their food supply “follows known history of evolution”. I don’t know by what criteria millions of long dead life forms and food supplies unconnected with humans are a “good” way to handle the purpose of designing H. sapiens and his food supply.
Egnor’s latest
dhw:...please stop pretending that evolution involves gazing into a crystal ball. The theory I have proposed involves REACTING to conditions, not forecasting them. The problem of fossil gaps would be solved if there were a continuous fossil record of every creature that ever lived.
DAVID: The crystal ball is required for animals to jump into aquatic life. They are my strongest argument for design being required.
dhw: I would suggest this is your weakest argument – complexity being your strongest. If an animal sees that there is more food in the water than there is on the land, and it has a better chance of surviving in the water, then it will enter the water. The necessary adaptations will then follow.
DAVID: The problem unsolved is how does that happen. I'll stick with God designing.
dhw: Of course nobody knows how the process of adaptation/innovation works. That is why we have theories. My closing comment on your theory was: “I find it quite absurd to picture an animal happily munching its supper on the seashore, dozing off, and then finding that its legs have turned into fins, and a voice says “Go thou into the water!” What other way do you think he might have designed the process?
DAVID: We know the whale series has nine stages, so it wasn't after one long dream, but a series of dramatic changes requiring design. You cannot escape the need for design and you haven't, sitting on your fence.
So now you have your God conducting nine lots of operations on pre-whales instead of just the one, and you think this makes your theory more feasible. I suggest that each change was designed by the intelligent cell communities finding new ways of adapting to life in the water and thereby improving the pre-whale’s chances of surviving. Nothing to do with sitting on my agnostic’s fence. Just a process I find considerably more likely than your God stepping in to perform nine different operations before he gets the whale he wanted, although actually he only wanted humans anyway.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Sunday, December 13, 2020, 22:02 (1439 days ago) @ dhw
“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I simply see we differ in many ways. Why not?
dhw: I know we differ. That doesn’t explain why you think the free-for-all theory (unlike the satisfaction theory) is not feasible.
It creates a concept of God I do not accept.
Sea turtlesdhw: Nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what his reasons might have been. However, your theory that he taught the turtles to navigate so that they could provide food for the humans who would arrive millions and millions of years later is not part of the known history of evolution.
DAVID: Agreed, but a good way for God to handle things.
dhw: Since you agree, perhaps you will now stop pretending that your God’s direct design of every life form as part of the goal of evolving humans and their food supply “follows known history of evolution”. I don’t know by what criteria millions of long dead life forms and food supplies unconnected with humans are a “good” way to handle the purpose of designing H. sapiens and his food supply.
Your same old complaint. For me God creates all. History tells us what He did, and I've told you why I think His results have logical reasons.
Egnor’s latest
dhw:...please stop pretending that evolution involves gazing into a crystal ball. The theory I have proposed involves REACTING to conditions, not forecasting them. The problem of fossil gaps would be solved if there were a continuous fossil record of every creature that ever lived.DAVID: The crystal ball is required for animals to jump into aquatic life. They are my strongest argument for design being required.
dhw: I would suggest this is your weakest argument – complexity being your strongest. If an animal sees that there is more food in the water than there is on the land, and it has a better chance of surviving in the water, then it will enter the water. The necessary adaptations will then follow.
DAVID: The problem unsolved is how does that happen. I'll stick with God designing.
dhw: Of course nobody knows how the process of adaptation/innovation works. That is why we have theories. My closing comment on your theory was: “I find it quite absurd to picture an animal happily munching its supper on the seashore, dozing off, and then finding that its legs have turned into fins, and a voice says “Go thou into the water!” What other way do you think he might have designed the process?
DAVID: We know the whale series has nine stages, so it wasn't after one long dream, but a series of dramatic changes requiring design. You cannot escape the need for design and you haven't, sitting on your fence.
dhw: So now you have your God conducting nine lots of operations on pre-whales instead of just the one, and you think this makes your theory more feasible. I suggest that each change was designed by the intelligent cell communities finding new ways of adapting to life in the water and thereby improving the pre-whale’s chances of surviving. Nothing to do with sitting on my agnostic’s fence. Just a process I find considerably more likely than your God stepping in to perform nine different operations before he gets the whale he wanted, although actually he only wanted humans anyway.
Each step required complicated designs. I'll stick with the obvious need for a designer God.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I simply see we differ in many ways. Why not?
dhw: I know we differ. That doesn’t explain why you think the free-for-all theory (unlike the satisfaction theory) is not feasible.
DAVID: It creates a concept of God I do not accept.
Your non-acceptance does not explain why the theory is not feasible.
Sea turtles
dhw: Nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what his reasons might have been. However, your theory that he taught the turtles to navigate so that they could provide food for the humans who would arrive millions and millions of years later is not part of the known history of evolution.
DAVID: Agreed, but a good way for God to handle things.
dhw: Since you agree, perhaps you will now stop pretending that your God’s direct design of every life form as part of the goal of evolving humans and their food supply “follows known history of evolution”. I don’t know by what criteria millions of long dead life forms and food supplies unconnected with humans are a “good” way to handle the purpose of designing H. sapiens and his food supply.
DAVID: Your same old complaint. For me God creates all. History tells us what He did, and I've told you why I think His results have logical reasons.
No you haven’t. When asked why your God would have directly designed all those non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., you replied that you had no idea.
Egnor’s latest
dhw:...please stop pretending that evolution involves gazing into a crystal ball. The theory I have proposed involves REACTING to conditions, not forecasting them.
And:
dhw: My closing comment on your theory was: “I find it quite absurd to picture an animal happily munching its supper on the seashore, dozing off, and then finding that its legs have turned into fins, and a voice says “Go thou into the water!” What other way do you think he might have designed the process?
DAVID: We know the whale series has nine stages, so it wasn't after one long dream, but a series of dramatic changes requiring design. You cannot escape the need for design and you haven't, sitting on your fence.
dhw: So now you have your God conducting nine lots of operations on pre-whales instead of just the one, and you think this makes your theory more feasible. I suggest that each change was designed by the intelligent cell communities finding new ways of adapting to life in the water and thereby improving the pre-whale’s chances of surviving. Nothing to do with sitting on my agnostic’s fence. Just a process I find considerably more likely than your God stepping in to perform nine different operations before he gets the whale he wanted, although actually he only wanted humans anyway.
DAVID: Each step required complicated designs. I'll stick with the obvious need for a designer God.
So your God stepped in nine times to perform operations, even after the animal had entered the water. Sounds like he’s making it up as he goes along. And all this because he wanted to design H. sapiens – another series of operations, with a leggy twiddle here, and a pelvis twiddle there, and brain surgery over and over again. I’m not surprised that you have no idea why an always-in-total-control God would have used such methods.
Venus fly trap
QUOTES: Based on the number of action potentials triggered by the prey animal during its attempts to free itself, the carnivorous plant estimates whether the prey is big enough—whether it is worth setting the elaborate digestion in motion.
"'In the process, we noticed that the fingerprint of the genes active in the hair differs from that of the other cell types in the trap," says Schulz.
DAVID:: A highly complex system that must have been designed. The insect is digested by powerful enzymes. This means when the enzymes were developed a protection for the tissues of the trap must have been designed also. Not by chance.
There is clearly no end to the versatility of the cell. It could have been designed to create the countless number of life forms that have come and gone, or still exist, in a constantly changing free-for-all,
Far out cosmology
QUOTES:"...no matter how big our Universe actually is, that doesn’t mean it’s the only one. Even if the Universe is infinite, there can be others; remember that some infinities are bigger than others.
"If “nothing” is the nothingness of empty space, but empty space started off in an inflationary state, not only will it give rise to a Universe like ours, but an extraordinarily large (and possibly infinite) number of independent Universes will arise as well. Each one will be filled with its own particles, antiparticles, radiation, and whatever forms of energy are allowed."
I’m afraid I’m inclined to switch off when I read such comments. How can infinity have various sizes? How can nothing turn into a universe of different materials? And why “multiverses”? If the universe is infinite, it can contain countless numbers of galaxies and solar systems and empty spaces and whatever you can think of. What does he mean, then, by the word “universe”?
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 00:19 (1438 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I know we differ. That doesn’t explain why you think the free-for-all theory (unlike the satisfaction theory) is not feasible.
DAVID: It creates a concept of God I do not accept.dhw: Your non-acceptance does not explain why the theory is not feasible.
It is feasible with a weak human, as I've told you before.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Your same old complaint. For me God creates all. History tells us what He did, and I've told you why I think His results have logical reasons.
dhw: No you haven’t. When asked why your God would have directly designed all those non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., you replied that you had no idea.
My 'no idea' only applies to God's obvious choice to evolve us, rather than direct creation.
Egnor’s latest
DAVID: We know the whale series has nine stages, so it wasn't after one long dream, but a series of dramatic changes requiring design. You cannot escape the need for design and you haven't, sitting on your fence.
dhw: ...Just a process I find considerably more likely than your God stepping in to perform nine different operations before he gets the whale he wanted, although actually he only wanted humans anyway.[/i]DAVID: Each step required complicated designs. I'll stick with the obvious need for a designer God.
dhw: So your God stepped in nine times to perform operations, even after the animal had entered the water. Sounds like he’s making it up as he goes along. And all this because he wanted to design H. sapiens – another series of operations, with a leggy twiddle here, and a pelvis twiddle there, and brain surgery over and over again. I’m not surprised that you have no idea why an always-in-total-control God would have used such methods.
He didn't tell me.
Venus fly trap
QUOTES: Based on the number of action potentials triggered by the prey animal during its attempts to free itself, the carnivorous plant estimates whether the prey is big enough—whether it is worth setting the elaborate digestion in motion.
"'In the process, we noticed that the fingerprint of the genes active in the hair differs from that of the other cell types in the trap," says Schulz.DAVID:: A highly complex system that must have been designed. The insect is digested by powerful enzymes. This means when the enzymes were developed a protection for the tissues of the trap must have been designed also. Not by chance.
dhw: There is clearly no end to the versatility of the cell. It could have been designed to create the countless number of life forms that have come and gone, or still exist, in a constantly changing free-for-all,
dhw: Under God's designing mind.
Far out cosmology
QUOTES:"...no matter how big our Universe actually is, that doesn’t mean it’s the only one. Even if the Universe is infinite, there can be others; remember that some infinities are bigger than others.
"If “nothing” is the nothingness of empty space, but empty space started off in an inflationary state, not only will it give rise to a Universe like ours, but an extraordinarily large (and possibly infinite) number of independent Universes will arise as well. Each one will be filled with its own particles, antiparticles, radiation, and whatever forms of energy are allowed."I’m afraid I’m inclined to switch off when I read such comments. How can infinity have various sizes? How can nothing turn into a universe of different materials? And why “multiverses”? If the universe is infinite, it can contain countless numbers of galaxies and solar systems and empty spaces and whatever you can think of. What does he mean, then, by the word “universe”?
You are correct to reject this garbage. Lots of stupid commentary out there.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
Fine tuning
dhw: I know we differ. That doesn’t explain why you think the free-for-all theory (unlike the satisfaction theory) is not feasible.
DAVID: It creates a concept of God I do not accept.
dhw: Your non-acceptance does not explain why the theory is not feasible.
DAVID: It is feasible with a weak human, as I've told you before.
Why wanting a free-for-all and creating it should make your God into a weak human I really don’t know. It makes me wonder how you can then go on to champion the idea of free will, if your God is such a control freak.
Sea turtles
DAVID: Your same old complaint. For me God creates all. History tells us what He did, and I've told you why I think His results have logical reasons.
dhw: No you haven’t. When asked why your God would have directly designed all those non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., you replied that you had no idea.
DAVID: My 'no idea' only applies to God's obvious choice to evolve us, rather than direct creation.
See my post of December 10 under “Evolution: fish to land animals transition”, in which I repeated the questions you couldn’t answer concerning your God’s method of designing humans by first designing millions of life forms and food supplies that had no connection with humans. It was this problem which finally elicited from you the response: “You are correct. I have no idea why he uses that method.”
Egnor’s latest
DAVID: We know the whale series has nine stages, so it wasn't after one long dream, but a series of dramatic changes requiring design. You cannot escape the need for design and you haven't, sitting on your fence.
dhw: ...Just a process I find considerably more likely than your God stepping in to perform nine different operations before he gets the whale he wanted, although actually he only wanted humans anyway.
DAVID: Each step required complicated designs. I'll stick with the obvious need for a designer God.
dhw: So your God stepped in nine times to perform operations, even after the animal had entered the water. Sounds like he’s making it up as he goes along. And all this because he wanted to design H. sapiens – another series of operations, with a leggy twiddle here, and a pelvis twiddle there, and brain surgery over and over again. I’m not surprised that you have no idea why an always-in-total-control God would have used such methods.
DAVID: He didn't tell me.
I'm not surprised. Why in heaven's name would he own up to using such a roundabout way of fulfilling his one and only purpose?
Venus fly trap
QUOTES: Based on the number of action potentials triggered by the prey animal during its attempts to free itself, the carnivorous plant estimates whether the prey is big enough—whether it is worth setting the elaborate digestion in motion.
"'In the process, we noticed that the fingerprint of the genes active in the hair differs from that of the other cell types in the trap," says Schulz.
DAVID:: A highly complex system that must have been designed. The insect is digested by powerful enzymes. This means when the enzymes were developed a protection for the tissues of the trap must have been designed also. Not by chance.
dhw: There is clearly no end to the versatility of the cell. It could have been designed to create the countless number of life forms that have come and gone, or still exist, in a constantly changing free-for-all,
dhw: Under God's designing mind.
This is your comment, not mine. But I have always accepted the possibility that your God designed the original cells.
Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 18:38 (1437 days ago) @ dhw
Fine tuning
dhw: Your non-acceptance does not explain why the theory is not feasible.
DAVID: It is feasible with a weak human, as I've told you before.
dhw: Why wanting a free-for-all and creating it should make your God into a weak human I really don’t know. It makes me wonder how you can then go on to champion the idea of free will, if your God is such a control freak.
I see God as a control freak only over evolutionary design creations. He doesn't need control over our personal behavior
Sea turtles
dhw: No you haven’t. When asked why your God would have directly designed all those non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., you replied that you had no idea.
DAVID: My 'no idea' only applies to God's obvious choice to evolve us, rather than direct creation.
dhw: See my post of December 10 under “Evolution: fish to land animals transition”, in which I repeated the questions you couldn’t answer concerning your God’s method of designing humans by first designing millions of life forms and food supplies that had no connection with humans. It was this problem which finally elicited from you the response: “You are correct. I have no idea why he uses that method.”
Smile: Same silliness. God did it for his own reasons and I simply accept it. You are asking why so why don't you answer? I know: free-for-all, a weak concept of God.
Egnor’s latestdhw: ...Just a process I find considerably more likely than your God stepping in to perform nine different operations before he gets the whale he wanted, although actually he only wanted humans anyway.
DAVID: Each step required complicated designs. I'll stick with the obvious need for a designer God.
dhw: So your God stepped in nine times to perform operations, even after the animal had entered the water. Sounds like he’s making it up as he goes along. And all this because he wanted to design H. sapiens – another series of operations, with a leggy twiddle here, and a pelvis twiddle there, and brain surgery over and over again. I’m not surprised that you have no idea why an always-in-total-control God would have used such methods.
DAVID: He didn't tell me.
dhw: I'm not surprised. Why in heaven's name would he own up to using such a roundabout way of fulfilling his one and only purpose?
Ask Him. I don't know, but not knowing bothers you, not me.
Venus fly trap
QUOTES: Based on the number of action potentials triggered by the prey animal during its attempts to free itself, the carnivorous plant estimates whether the prey is big enough—whether it is worth setting the elaborate digestion in motion.
"'In the process, we noticed that the fingerprint of the genes active in the hair differs from that of the other cell types in the trap," says Schulz.DAVID:: A highly complex system that must have been designed. The insect is digested by powerful enzymes. This means when the enzymes were developed a protection for the tissues of the trap must have been designed also. Not by chance.
dhw: There is clearly no end to the versatility of the cell. It could have been designed to create the countless number of life forms that have come and gone, or still exist, in a constantly changing free-for-all,
dhw: Under God's designing mind.[/i][/b]
dhw: [/b] This is your comment, not mine. But I have always accepted the possibility that your God designed the original cells.
Accepted.
Innovation and Speciation: new amphibious whale found
by David Turell , Friday, August 27, 2021, 17:52 (1182 days ago) @ David Turell
In Egypt where a very early group of whale fossils exist, forty million years ago:
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-egyptians-fossil-amphibious-whale.html
"The fossil was found in the Fayum region, a part of Egypt that was once covered by sea and is home to Whale Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
"The newly discovered species, which was more than three metres (10 feet) long and weighed about 600 kilograms (about 1,320 pounds), has been named Phiomicetus anubis.
"Egypt's environment ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the species of whale "was the most ferocious and ancient in Africa".
"'The whale had both the ability to walk on land and swim in the sea," it said, adding that the discovery was evidence of the evolution of whales from land mammals to marine mammals.
"'An anatomical study of the fossil shows that this new species of whale is completely different from other known species," the ministry said.
"It was a "large predator with large, powerful jaws" that allowed it to "control the environment in which it lived'".
Earlier findings:
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-newly-fossil-whale-intermediate-stage.html
"Protocetids are a group of early, semi-aquatic whales known from the middle of the Eocene, a geological epoch that began 56 million years ago and ended 33.9 million years ago. Protocetid remains have been found in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
"While modern whales are fully aquatic and use their tails to propel themselves through the water, most protocetids are thought to have been semi-aquatic and swam mainly with their limbs.
"In their PLOS ONE paper, Gingerich and his colleagues describe a new genus and species, Aegicetus gehennae, the first late-Eocene protocetid. Its body shape is similar to that of other ancient whales of its time, such as the famous Basilosaurus.
"The researchers suggest that an undulatory swimming style might represent a transitional stage between the foot-powered swimming of early whales and the tail-powered swimming of modern whales.
"'Early protocetid whales living 47 to 41 million years ago were foot-powered swimmers. Later, starting about 37 million years ago, whales became tail-powered swimmers," said Gingerich, a professor emeritus in the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and curator emeritus at the U-M Museum of Paleontology.
"'This newly discovered fossil whale, Aegicetus, was intermediate in time and form and was transitional functionally in having the larger and more powerful vertebral column of a tail-powered swimmer," said Gingerich, who is also a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology and of anthropology."
Comment: a transitional form which does not require the later complex physiological changes necessary for full aquatic life.
Innovation and Speciation: new amphibious whale found or not
by David Turell , Sunday, September 05, 2021, 14:55 (1174 days ago) @ David Turell
Previous presentation:
In Egypt where a very early group of whale fossils exist, forty million years ago:
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-egyptians-fossil-amphibious-whale.html
"The fossil was found in the Fayum region, a part of Egypt that was once covered by sea and is home to Whale Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
"The newly discovered species, which was more than three metres (10 feet) long and weighed about 600 kilograms (about 1,320 pounds), has been named Phiomicetus anubis.
The problem is the actual fossil found:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2021.1368
"The new species is based on a partial skeleton, revealing the most basal protocetid whale known from Africa. Moreover, the new specimen further shows that early protocetid whales were more diversified in their anatomy and feeding behaviour than was previously thought."
Comment: Please download the article and see the fossil bones (in red) found and the imagined rest; the head and snout, a sixth vertebrae and a couple ribs!!! The head apparently is similar to other previously found fossils. Note the second illustration which shows its placement in the whale series where amazingly legs disappear in earlier forms and reappear in this fossil. How? Why are legs reimagined?
The ID take:
https://evolutionnews.org/2021/09/evolutionary-imagination-and-belief-drive-false-claim...
"Was It a Whale?
Consistent with all of this, the paper notes in the abstract that what they did find was “a partial skeleton,” later stating, “The new species is based on a partial skeleton.” A complete description of the bones is provided later in the paper as follows:
"an associated partial skeleton of a single individual including the cranium, the right mandible, incomplete left mandible, isolated teeth, the fifth cervical, and the sixth thoracic vertebrae and ribs. The holotype is the only known specimen.
"Perhaps this organism had four legs. Perhaps it had flippers. Perhaps it was closely related to whales. Perhaps it has nothing to do with whales. No one really knows. The simple fact of the matter is that we know hardly anything about this creature because, again, so very little of it was found. Forcing this species into an evolutionary paradigm to fit preconceived ideas about cetacean evolution, and promulgating headlines about a “four-legged whale,” is beyond belief. Actually, I take that back. Belief — belief in an evolutionary paradigm — is the thing that’s driving these headlines.
"Imagination. Belief. That’s putting it politely, which I insist upon doing. We all have imaginations, and we all have beliefs. So in that sense this is understandable. But if I weren’t so polite, a variety of other terms could be used to describe telling the public this fossil represents a “four-legged whale.'”
Comment: And we should trust Darwinist "findings"?
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Thursday, August 06, 2020, 00:36 (1569 days ago) @ David Turell
Whale fossils ere being found out of sync with the so-called series and the changes do not fit population genetics, that is, the changes cannot appear in the time ranges given by dating the fossils:
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/08/whales-time-to-put-evolutions-exhausted-poster-child-...
The video is very difficult to follow, because the articles exhibited cannot be read in person to validate the author's points. But the articles can be individually looked up, a very laborious job, so I prefer to assume the author has not lied.
Video: https://youtu.be/dCM1MjEFvqE
The whale series does not support Darwin. it never has.
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Friday, September 23, 2022, 17:50 (790 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Friday, September 23, 2022, 18:31
Head circulation is modified:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/23_september_2022/4...
"More than 50 million years ago, terrestrial ancestors of dolphins and whales reinvaded the oceans in one of the most revolutionary events in mammalian history. The transition from land to sea required marked remodeling of the terrestrial mammalian form to withstand high hydrostatic pressures at depth, exponential increases in drag forces when moving locomotor appendages through water, and extreme breath-hold durations when diving (exceeding 3 hours in Cuvier’s beaked whales, Ziphius cavirostris). The changes were so radical that evolutionary selection pressures seem insurmountable. Yet, the transitions did occur, resulting in 47 extant cetacean (dolphin and whale) family lineages that radiated throughout the global oceans. How this evolutionary leap was accomplished has been the subject of much speculation. On page 1452 of this issue, Lillie et al continue this multimillennial investigation on aquatic adaptations in cetaceans, detailing how specialized vascular networks provide protection for their brains during submergence." (my bold)
Comment: land mammals dove into various waters fifty million years ago to make whales and dolphins. "Evolutionary insurmountable pressures" is Darwin-speak for the necessary scramble to find enough mutations to do the job. A designer fits the bill. It not just whales and dolphins, all aquatic mammals come from land.
The article summary
Retia mirabilia: Protecting the cetacean brain from locomotion-generated blood pressure pulses
"Cetaceans have massive vascular plexuses (retia mirabilia) whose function is unknown. All cerebral blood flow passes through these retia, and we hypothesize that they protect cetacean brains from locomotion-generated pulsatile blood pressures. We propose that cetaceans have evolved a pulse-transfer mechanism that minimizes pulsatility in cerebral arterial-to-venous pressure differentials without dampening the pressure pulses themselves. We tested this hypothesis using a computational model based on morphology from 11 species and found that the large arterial capacitance in the retia, coupled with the small extravascular capacitance in the cranium and vertebral canal, could protect the cerebral vasculature from 97% of systemic pulsatility. Evolution of the retial complex in cetaceans—likely linked to the development of dorsoventral fluking—offers a distinctive solution to adverse locomotion-generated vascular pulsatility.
"Numerous cardiovascular adaptations allow cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) and pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses) to make extraordinary breath-hold dives, but some of the adaptations are group specific. The blood supply to the cetacean brain and spinal cord differs radically from that in pinnipeds, passing through a series of massive retia mira-bilia, or vascular networks located in the thorax, vertebral canal, and cranial cavity. Such differences indicate that diving cetaceans and pinnipeds face different vascular challenges". (my bold)
Comment: all of those aquatic mammals came from land animals. The article shows the complex morphological circulatory changes that had to occur/evolve for full (whales) or parttime (seals) aquatic activities to happen. The fact this all happened in a short period sure smells of design. A simple explanation of the physiological problem:
https://www.sciencealert.com/an-anatomical-quirk-could-explain-why-whale-brains-arent-p...
Humans have concocted all sorts of equipment to help us overcome the intense water pressures of the ocean's depths.
Yet our fellow mammalians, the cetaceans (dolphins, whales, and porpoises), can somehow go far deeper while completely naked – and stay down for hours without taking a breath.
And these animals are working against more than just external pressure – fluking, the powerful up-and-down movement of a whale's tail, can create internal pressure that builds up on their cardiovascular system. For land-dwelling animals, we'd simply exhale that pressure out. But cetaceans don't have that luxury.
When cetaceans dive holding their breath, each tail kick sends waves of increased pressure coursing through their abdomen and thorax, and into the bloodstream.
If these pressure pulses reached their brains it would pulverize the delicate capillaries that perfuse it. So where does all that extra pressure go?
A new study may have found the answer: a mysterious, massive network of blood vessels collectively called the retia mirabilia may act as a a literal safety net to buffer this pressure.
***
While most mammals have fairly direct blood flow to the brain, cetaceans' blood goes through the retia mirabilia, which is Latin for "wonderful net", a network of blood vessels (both veins and arteries).
While this structure has been studied for decades, its function has remained largely mysterious.
With their modeling the team found the retia mirabilia has the potential to protect cetaceans' brains from a whopping 97 percent of pressure pulses.
Comment: more extreme complexity to be an aquatic mammal.
Innovation and Speciation: whale shark changes in vision
by David Turell , Thursday, March 30, 2023, 19:56 (602 days ago) @ David Turell
For deep ocean sight:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230329091933.htm
"A research group...has investigated both the genetic information and structure of the photoreceptor rhodopsin, responsible for detecting dim light, of whale sharks to investigate how they can see in the dim light at extreme depths. The research group compared the whale sharks to zebra sharks, which are considered their closest relative, and brown-banded bamboo sharks, which are in the same group: the order orectolobiformes -- commonly known as carpet sharks.
***
"The research revealed that the whale sharks' rhodopsin can efficiently detect blue light -- the most common wavelength of light in the deep-sea -- because two amino acid substitutions shifted the light spectra that rhodopsin detects, making it sensitive to blue wavelengths. However, one of the amino acid substitutions defies conventional wisdom, as it corresponds to a mutation at a position known to cause congenital stationary night blindness in humans.
"The researchers found that the amino acid substitutions make the whale shark rhodopsin less thermally stable, it decays rapidly at 37 ºC, compared to human or other of sharks' rhodopsin without the substitution. However, at deep-sea temperatures -- well below 37 ºC -- the functionality of the whale shark rhodopsin can be maintained, suggesting that this unique adaptation evolved for life in the low-temperature low-light deep-sea environment."
Comment: another specific change that had to be designed. Not by chance
Innovation and Speciation: whale changes
by David Turell , Sunday, May 28, 2023, 17:19 (543 days ago) @ David Turell
More specific alterations that are required:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/05/from-bears-to-whales-a-difficult-transition-2/
"So cetaceans have nostrils on the tops of their heads, called “blowholes” because at the surface they blow moisture-laden air out of them. Blowholes are unusual not just because of their anatomical location. They are very unlike the nostrils of other mammals. The blowhole of a cetacean is surrounded by thick muscular “lips” that keep the hole tightly closed except when the animal makes a deliberate effort to open it at the surface. Total submersion thus takes less effort for cetaceans than for animals that must actively exclude water from their air passages.
***
"Bones cannot protect the lungs of an animal at such high pressures, so cetacean lungs collapse during deep dives. To make this possible, their rib cages have many “floating ribs” that are not attached to the breastbone. Cetaceans also have diaphragms that are oriented nearly parallel to the spine rather than perpendicular to it (as in humans). Anesthesiologists...point out that “the large area of contact between lung and diaphragm in cetaceans allows for the diaphragm to smoothly collapse the lung along the lungs’ shortest dimension” (belly to back).
"There’s another reason why cetaceans’ lungs must collapse during deep dives. Air contains nitrogen, which under high pressure can be absorbed from the lungs into the blood. When pressure is reduced the nitrogen can bubble out of the blood, causing potentially fatal decompression sickness (“the bends”). By collapsing their lungs and expelling the air, cetaceans avoid this problem.
"But collapsing a lung introduces a different problem: how to re-inflate it quickly at the surface. To insure that tissues in their collapsed air sacs do not stick to each other, the lungs of deep-diving mammals contain special “surfactants” with anti-adhesive properties.
***
"Flukes are shaped like airplane wings, with a streamlined foil profile, rounded leading edge, and long tapered trailing edge. Biologists who analyzed flukes in 2007 concluded that they are “generally comparable or better for lift generation than engineered foils.
***
"...the testicles are inside the body. In most mammals (even sea lions) the testicles are outside the body, because sperm production normally requires a temperature several degrees below normal body temperature. In cetaceans, the testicles are cooled below body temperature by countercurrent heat exchangers. Veins carry cool blood from the dorsal fin and flukes to the testicles, where it flows through a network of veins that pass between arteries carrying warm blood in the opposite direction. The arterial blood is thereby cooled before it reaches the testicles.
***
"Female cetaceans have specialized nipples for suckling their young underwater. The mother’s nipples are recessed in two slits. According to Slijper, “while suckling their young, cetaceans move very slowly; the calf follows behind and approaches the nipple from the back. The cow then turns a little to the side, so that the calf has easier access to the nipple, which has meanwhile emerged from its slit. Since the calf lacks proper lips, it has to seize the nipple between the tongue and the tip of its palate.
"Then the mother forcefully squirts milk into the calf’s mouth. Even after the calf lets go, milk can often be seen squirting from the nipple. Young calves cannot stay underwater as long as adults; they have to surface frequently to breathe. So the milk is three to four times as concentrated as the milk of cows and goats; it has the consistency of condensed milk or liquid yogurt. The calf thereby receives much more nourishment in a much shorter time.
***
"Even if the transition were perfectly documented with intermediate forms, however, it would not answer the “how” questions. How did the features needed for a fully aquatic lifestyle originate? How would the hind limbs of a sea lion turn into a fluke (which is very different)? How would a male’s testicles become simultaneously internalized and surrounded by countercurrent heat exchange systems? How would a female develop specialized nursing organs to inject milk forcibly into her calf? Indeed, why would any of these changes occur? Sea lions are already well adapted to their amphibious lives."
Comment: Many of these changes are irreducibly complex: note internal testes must be cooled so the internalization must have had simultaneous development of a circulatory cooling system. Not by chance.
Innovation and Speciation: new hooved whale
by David Turell , Thursday, August 10, 2023, 18:18 (469 days ago) @ David Turell
From Peru:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/peru-fossils-four-legged-otter-whale-hooves
"An ancient four-legged whale walked across land on hooved toes and swam in the sea like an otter.
"The newly discovered species turned up in 2011 in a cache of fossilized bones in Playa Media Luna, a dry coastal area of Peru. Jawbones and teeth pegged it as an ancient cetacean, a member of the whale family. And more bones followed.
“'We were definitely surprised to find this type of whale in these layers, but the best surprise was its degree of completeness,” says Olivier Lambert, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.
***
"Big, possibly webbed feet and long toes would have allowed P. pacificus to dog-paddle or swim freestyle. And like modern otters and beavers, this whale’s vertebrae suggest that its tail also functioned as a paddle. With tiny hooves and strong legs and hips, the animal could walk on land. But “it was definitely a better swimmer than walker,” Lambert says.
"Whales got their start on land and gradually adapted to a water-dwelling lifestyle. The first amphibious whales emerged more than 50 million years ago near what’s now India and Pakistan. The new species shares some similar features with Maiacetus and Rodhocetus, two early whales from that area. P. pacificus’ age supports the idea that whales migrated across the South Atlantic and around South America to the Pacific Ocean in their first 10 million years of existence."
Comment: Obviously, as previously discussed, flippers do not just appear de novo but in stages.
Innovation and Speciation: attributes causing
by David Turell , Saturday, August 26, 2023, 20:10 (453 days ago) @ David Turell
Climate and physical separation:
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-crowd-sourced-science-species-space.html
"...some places on Earth have far more species than others. In fact, the distribution of species across the globe follows a curiously consistent pattern: generally, there are more species closer to the equator and fewer as you move towards the poles. This "latitudinal biodiversity gradient" can be observed across many different groups of organisms over time.
"One possible explanation for the presence of more species closer to the equator is that changes in climate from the equator to the poles affects the ability of new species to evolve—a process called speciation.
***
"The fall webworm is a moth found from Mexico to Canada (a range of almost 4,000 km) whose caterpillars have either black or red heads. While this might seem like a subtle difference, caterpillars with these different colors seem to have different behaviors and appear at different times of the year, and genetic studies suggest that they are evolving into different species.
"This moth is also found throughout vastly different climates, which allowed us to explore how latitude and climate might be affecting their ability to turn from one species into two.
***
"The process of speciation occurs when two groups of organisms belonging to the same species are separated by a barrier that prevents them from reproducing. The most well-known way that this can occur is through a physical barrier between the groups, like a mountain range or a highway.
"For the fall webworm, the barrier causing them to become two different species is time. In general, moth species only appear and reproduce during the summer, and when they do, they breed for only a few weeks, at most.
"The red-headed and the black-headed fall webworms tend to emerge and reproduce at different times during the summer, and this time gap creates a barrier that is causing them to become two different species.
"Summers toward the equator tend to be much longer, so the fall webworms go through more life cycles in a year compared to northern populations, which are only able to breed once during short summers. If the red-headed and black-headed fall webworms closer to the equator have more flexibility in when they can breed, they may be able to avoid each other in time better, making speciation more effective.
***
"Using all these observations, we found that in more northerly regions with short summers, the red-headed and black-headed fall webworm caterpillars were forced to breed at the same time and had more similar coloration. This suggests that more breeding was occurring between the groups, and they looked and acted more like a single species.
"However, in their southern range, the black- and red-headed caterpillars were able to separate their generations more and had less similar coloration, meaning they may be further along in the process of becoming two species.
We found that differences in climate from the equator to the poles affect how well species can evolve when time is the barrier, mirroring the latitudinal biodiversity gradient. In short, climate can change how easily species form in the first place.
"There are approximately 2.1 million classified species on Earth, and over one million of these are insects (with many millions more undiscovered), making them the most diverse animals on the planet.
"Species are migrating, either as invasive species coming to new places, or moving poleward to escape warming climates."
Comment: unfortunately, all this tells us is what drives speciation, not how DNA is edited to design the new species.
Innovation and Speciation: cetacean spinal changes
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 10, 2024, 15:54 (73 days ago) @ David Turell
Not the same as terrestrial animals:
https://communities.springernature.com/posts/the-land-to-water-transition-led-to-a-repa...
"Cetaceans, the clade comprising whales, dolphins, and porpoises, represents one of the most emblematic group of living mammals. Besides their status of "ambassadors of the seas", it is quite remarkable that about 53 million years ago their terrestrial ancestors started a major ecological transition back into the aquatic realm, later giving rise to the most diverse group of extant fully aquatic mammals. This land-to-water transition involved a transition from a limb-based mode of locomotion on land to an axial-powered locomotion relying on oscillations of the body and underlying backbone. This was accompanied by deep modifications of their body plan such as the reduction of hindlimbs, the acquisition of pectoral, dorsal, and caudal fins, and migration of the nares on top of their skull, leading to a fish-like body shape. (my bold)
"The land-to-water transition also had drastic impacts on the vertebral column as the cetacean backbone seems more homogenous in shape compared to the vertebral column of terrestrial mammals which is composed of several well-defined regions (cervical, pectoral, anterior and posterior thoracic, lumbar, sacral, caudal), notably due to the loss of a well-defined sacral region. In addition to this apparent “de-regionalization” of the backbone, the vertebral counts of cetaceans vary broadly across species – ranging from 42 to 97 vertebrae – compared to terrestrial species, making the transposition of traditional mammalian vertebral regions to the cetacean backbone challenging. Because of this, the pattern of regionalization (or lack thereof) of the cetacean backbone has been a long-standing issue limiting our ability to compare their vertebral features with those of terrestrial mammals.
***
"Contrary to the common belief – and to our expectations – the cetacean backbone is still highly regionalized as we found between six and nine post-cervical regions. Thanks to the spectral clustering, we could group these regions into six different modules homologous across cetaceans: anterior thoracic, thoraco-lumbar, posterior lumbar (only present in some dolphins and porpoises), caudal, peduncle, and fluke. These modules and regions do not match the regions found in terrestrial mammals, indicating that the cetacean backbone has been repatterned during the land-to-water transition. For instance, we did not find a distinct sacral region but we found numerous regions in the tail, which are most likely associated to their axial-powered aquatic locomotion. Each of the modules can be attributed to either the precaudal segment of the backbone (i.e., all the vertebrae anterior to the tail) or the caudal segment (vertebrae in the tail). We therefore named our regionalization model the “Nested Regions” hypothesis as the backbone can be divided into a precaudal and caudal segment, each of which divided into several modules, which can be further divided into regions.
***
"We found that offshore dolphins and porpoises with numerous vertebrae tend to have more regions and can reach higher swimming speeds than riverine species which have fewer vertebrae. This suggests that increased vertebral counts allows for the differentiation into more numerous regions which could allow to better restrict swimming movements to specific parts of the backbone and improve hydrodynamics in comparison to riverine species which are slower but require increased maneuverability in more shallow and complex environments."
Comment: this shows the amazing number of modifications required for the mammalian spine to support an aquatic lifestyle, all in a 53-million-year period. All of these changes point to purposeful changes in short periods, a strong argument for design.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Sunday, May 26, 2019, 23:14 (2006 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Sunday, May 26, 2019, 23:20
A whale jaw bone found in the Antarctica:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-whale-of-a-problem-for-evolution-ancie...
:Argentine paleontologist Marcelo Reguero, who led a joint Argentine-Swedish team, said the fossilized archaeocete jawbone found in February dates back 49 million years. In evolutionary terms, that’s not far off from the fossils of even older proto-whales from 53 million years ago that have been found in South Asia and other warmer latitudes.
"Those earlier proto-whales were amphibians, able to live on land as well as sea. This jawbone, in contrast, belongs to the Basilosauridae group of fully aquatic whales, said Reguero, who leads research for the Argentine Antarctic Institute.
“'The relevance of this discovery is that it’s the oldest known completely aquatic whale found yet,” said Reguero, who shared the discovery with Argentine paleontologist Claudia Tambussi.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44867222/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/ancient-whale-ja...
Comment by Johnny M. from uncommon descent:
"Such a transition is a fete of genetic rewiring and it is astonishing that it is presumed to have occurred by Darwinian processes in such a short span of time. This problem is accentuated when one considers that the majority of anatomical novelties unique to aquatic cetaceans appeared during just a few million years – probably within 1-3 million years. The equations of population genetics predict that – assuming an effective population size of 100,000 individuals per generation, and a generation turnover time of 5 years (according to Richard Sternberg’s calculations and based on equations of population genetics applied in the Durrett and Schmidt paper), that one may reasonably expect two specific co-ordinated mutations to achieve fixation in the timeframe of around 43.3 million years. When one considers the magnitude of the engineering fete, such a scenario is found to be devoid of credibility. Whales require an intra-abdominal counter current heat exchange system (the testis are inside the body right next to the muscles that generate heat during swimming), they need to possess a ball vertebra because the tail has to move up and down instead of side-to-side, they require a re-organisation of kidney tissue to facilitate the intake of salt water, they require a re-orientation of the fetus for giving birth under water, they require a modification of the mammary glands for the nursing of young under water, the forelimbs have to be transformed into flippers, the hindlimbs need to be substantially reduced, they require a special lung surfactant (the lung has to re-expand very rapidly upon coming up to the surface), etc etc.
"With this new fossil find, however, dating to 49 million years ago (bear in mind that Pakicetus lived around 53 million years ago), this means that the first fully aquatic whales now date to around the time when walking whales (Ambulocetus) first appear. This substantially reduces the window of time in which the Darwinian mechanism has to accomplish truly radical engineering innovations and genetic rewiring to perhaps just five million years — or perhaps even less. It also suggests that this fully aquatic whale existed before its previously-thought-to-be semi-aquatic archaeocetid ancestors."
Comment: Another recitation of the complex changes that were required for land mammals to become fully aquatic. Not by chance.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
QUOTE: “With this new fossil find, however, dating to 49 million years ago (bear in mind that Pakicetus lived around 53 million years ago), this means that the first fully aquatic whales now date to around the time when walking whales (Ambulocetus) first appear. This substantially reduces the window of time in which the Darwinian mechanism has to accomplish truly radical engineering innovations and genetic rewiring to perhaps just five million years — or perhaps even less. It also suggests that this fully aquatic whale existed before its previously-thought-to-be semi-aquatic archaeocetid ancestors."
DAVID: Another recitation of the complex changes that were required for land mammals to become fully aquatic. Not by chance.
As usual, the critics and you fasten onto the chance theme, and totally ignore the possibility that all these complex changes were the result not of chance but of intelligent cooperation between the cellular communities of which all multicellular organisms are composed. Nobody has the slightest idea how long it would take intelligent organisms to work out these complexities, so the whole argument simply falls apart if we accept what even you regard as a 50/50 possibility that cells/cell communities are intelligent.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Monday, May 27, 2019, 16:22 (2006 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: “With this new fossil find, however, dating to 49 million years ago (bear in mind that Pakicetus lived around 53 million years ago), this means that the first fully aquatic whales now date to around the time when walking whales (Ambulocetus) first appear. This substantially reduces the window of time in which the Darwinian mechanism has to accomplish truly radical engineering innovations and genetic rewiring to perhaps just five million years — or perhaps even less. It also suggests that this fully aquatic whale existed before its previously-thought-to-be semi-aquatic archaeocetid ancestors."
DAVID: Another recitation of the complex changes that were required for land mammals to become fully aquatic. Not by chance.
dhw: As usual, the critics and you fasten onto the chance theme, and totally ignore the possibility that all these complex changes were the result not of chance but of intelligent cooperation between the cellular communities of which all multicellular organisms are composed. Nobody has the slightest idea how long it would take intelligent organisms to work out these complexities, so the whole argument simply falls apart if we accept what even you regard as a 50/50 possibility that cells/cell communities are intelligent.
My comment about cell intelligence relates only to the momentary activities of individual cells as they respond to stimuli or manufacture necessary proteins. It does not apply to your fantasy that cells can invent new complex forms of whole animals.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
dhw: As usual, the critics and you fasten onto the chance theme, and totally ignore the possibility that all these complex changes were the result not of chance but of intelligent cooperation between the cellular communities of which all multicellular organisms are composed. Nobody has the slightest idea how long it would take intelligent organisms to work out these complexities, so the whole argument simply falls apart if we accept what even you regard as a 50/50 possibility that cells/cell communities are intelligent.
DAVID: My comment about cell intelligence relates only to the momentary activities of individual cells as they respond to stimuli or manufacture necessary proteins. It does not apply to your fantasy that cells can invent new complex forms of whole animals.
I have never suggested that they can invent new complex forms of whole animals. Whole animal invention is the prerogative of Creationists. I believe in common descent, that is to say each new species is directly descended from preceding species. However, as we have agreed over and over again, NOBODY knows the cause of speciation, which is why the proposal that cellular intelligence may extend as far as innovation remains a hypothesis, just like your proposal that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for every undabbled innovation in the history of life.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 28, 2019, 17:43 (2004 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: As usual, the critics and you fasten onto the chance theme, and totally ignore the possibility that all these complex changes were the result not of chance but of intelligent cooperation between the cellular communities of which all multicellular organisms are composed. Nobody has the slightest idea how long it would take intelligent organisms to work out these complexities, so the whole argument simply falls apart if we accept what even you regard as a 50/50 possibility that cells/cell communities are intelligent.
DAVID: My comment about cell intelligence relates only to the momentary activities of individual cells as they respond to stimuli or manufacture necessary proteins. It does not apply to your fantasy that cells can invent new complex forms of whole animals.
dhw: I have never suggested that they can invent new complex forms of whole animals. Whole animal invention is the prerogative of Creationists. I believe in common descent, that is to say each new species is directly descended from preceding species. However, as we have agreed over and over again, NOBODY knows the cause of speciation, which is why the proposal that cellular intelligence may extend as far as innovation remains a hypothesis, just like your proposal that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for every undabbled innovation in the history of life.
As usual you have skipped over the obvious need for preparatory design, and therefore a designer.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
DAVID: My comment about cell intelligence relates only to the momentary activities of individual cells as they respond to stimuli or manufacture necessary proteins. It does not apply to your fantasy that cells can invent new complex forms of whole animals.
dhw: I have never suggested that they can invent new complex forms of whole animals. Whole animal invention is the prerogative of Creationists. I believe in common descent, that is to say each new species is directly descended from preceding species. However, as we have agreed over and over again, NOBODY knows the cause of speciation, which is why the proposal that cellular intelligence may extend as far as innovation remains a hypothesis, just like your proposal that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for every undabbled innovation in the history of life.
DAVID: As usual you have skipped over the obvious need for preparatory design, and therefore a designer.
As usual you have skipped over the fact that in my hypothesis, evolution does NOT require preparatory design, but proceeds through responses to changing conditions. I do not believe that your God operated on pre-whale legs and turned them into flippers BEFORE they entered the water; I find it more logical that legs turned into flippers as a result of intelligent restructuring in response to new demands. In my theistic version, the designer has designed the autonomous mechanism that makes restructuring possible.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Thursday, May 30, 2019, 01:15 (2003 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My comment about cell intelligence relates only to the momentary activities of individual cells as they respond to stimuli or manufacture necessary proteins. It does not apply to your fantasy that cells can invent new complex forms of whole animals.
dhw: I have never suggested that they can invent new complex forms of whole animals. Whole animal invention is the prerogative of Creationists. I believe in common descent, that is to say each new species is directly descended from preceding species. However, as we have agreed over and over again, NOBODY knows the cause of speciation, which is why the proposal that cellular intelligence may extend as far as innovation remains a hypothesis, just like your proposal that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for every undabbled innovation in the history of life.
DAVID: As usual you have skipped over the obvious need for preparatory design, and therefore a designer.
dhw: As usual you have skipped over the fact that in my hypothesis, evolution does NOT require preparatory design, but proceeds through responses to changing conditions. I do not believe that your God operated on pre-whale legs and turned them into flippers BEFORE they entered the water; I find it more logical that legs turned into flippers as a result of intelligent restructuring in response to new demands. In my theistic version, the designer has designed the autonomous mechanism that makes restructuring possible.
Sure I skipped over your belief design is not required in advance, but that cells invent new forms on the fly. Not possible, so I've discounted it.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
DAVID: As usual you have skipped over the obvious need for preparatory design, and therefore a designer.
dhw: As usual you have skipped over the fact that in my hypothesis, evolution does NOT require preparatory design, but proceeds through responses to changing conditions. I do not believe that your God operated on pre-whale legs and turned them into flippers BEFORE they entered the water; I find it more logical that legs turned into flippers as a result of intelligent restructuring in response to new demands. In my theistic version, the designer has designed the autonomous mechanism that makes restructuring possible.
DAVID: Sure I skipped over your belief design is not required in advance, but that cells invent new forms on the fly. Not possible, so I've discounted it.
I’d be interested to know what Shapiro, with his belief in cellular intelligence and his concept of “natural genetic engineering”, would make of your certainty, and what other scientists – believers and non-believers – would make of your fixed belief that your God specially designed all innovations, lifestyles, natural wonders and econiches in anticipation of changing conditions over some of which (local) he had no control, and that every life form was specially designed for the sole purpose of eating or being eaten until he specially designed H. sapiens.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Thursday, May 30, 2019, 15:19 (2003 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As usual you have skipped over the obvious need for preparatory design, and therefore a designer.
dhw: As usual you have skipped over the fact that in my hypothesis, evolution does NOT require preparatory design, but proceeds through responses to changing conditions. I do not believe that your God operated on pre-whale legs and turned them into flippers BEFORE they entered the water; I find it more logical that legs turned into flippers as a result of intelligent restructuring in response to new demands. In my theistic version, the designer has designed the autonomous mechanism that makes restructuring possible.
DAVID: Sure I skipped over your belief design is not required in advance, but that cells invent new forms on the fly. Not possible, so I've discounted it.
dhw: I’d be interested to know what Shapiro, with his belief in cellular intelligence and his concept of “natural genetic engineering”, would make of your certainty, and what other scientists – believers and non-believers – would make of your fixed belief that your God specially designed all innovations, lifestyles, natural wonders and econiches in anticipation of changing conditions over some of which (local) he had no control, and that every life form was specially designed for the sole purpose of eating or being eaten until he specially designed H. sapiens.
What my faith in God causes me to believe has nothing to do with Shapiro's research which I accept also. What strains my credulity is your extrapolation taking what individual cells do constantly in an intelligent fashion moment by moment to then assigned them the ability to speciate new complexly designed more advanced organisms. It is a feat of great imagination.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
DAVID: Sure I skipped over your belief design is not required in advance, but that cells invent new forms on the fly. Not possible, so I've discounted it.
dhw: I’d be interested to know what Shapiro, with his belief in cellular intelligence and his concept of “natural genetic engineering”, would make of your certainty, and what other scientists – believers and non-believers – would make of your fixed belief that your God specially designed all innovations, lifestyles, natural wonders and econiches in anticipation of changing conditions over some of which (local) he had no control, and that every life form was specially designed for the sole purpose of eating or being eaten until he specially designed H. sapiens.
DAVID: What my faith in God causes me to believe has nothing to do with Shapiro's research which I accept also. What strains my credulity is your extrapolation taking what individual cells do constantly in an intelligent fashion moment by moment to then assigned them the ability to speciate new complexly designed more advanced organisms. It is a feat of great imagination.
Shapiro’s “natural genetic engineering” is based on precisely that idea.
Natural genetic engineering - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_genetic_engineering
"Within the context of the article in particular and Shapiro's work on Natural Genetic Engineering in general, the "guiding intelligence" is to be found within the cell. (For example, in a Huffington Post essay entitled Cell Cognition and Cell Decision-Making[12] Shapiro defines cognitive actions as those that are "knowledge-based and involve decisions appropriate to acquired information," arguing that cells meet this criteria.)"
You constantly ignore my acknowledgement that this is a hypothesis, not a fact, and you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that an undiscovered 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every single undabbled innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder installed in the very first cells by an unknown and sourceless intelligence is also a hypothesis and a “feat of great imagination”. It is not your faith in God that has caused you to believe this but your faith in your highly subjective interpretation of your God’s purposes and methods.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Friday, May 31, 2019, 15:13 (2002 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Sure I skipped over your belief design is not required in advance, but that cells invent new forms on the fly. Not possible, so I've discounted it.
dhw: I’d be interested to know what Shapiro, with his belief in cellular intelligence and his concept of “natural genetic engineering”, would make of your certainty, and what other scientists – believers and non-believers – would make of your fixed belief that your God specially designed all innovations, lifestyles, natural wonders and econiches in anticipation of changing conditions over some of which (local) he had no control, and that every life form was specially designed for the sole purpose of eating or being eaten until he specially designed H. sapiens.
DAVID: What my faith in God causes me to believe has nothing to do with Shapiro's research which I accept also. What strains my credulity is your extrapolation taking what individual cells do constantly in an intelligent fashion moment by moment to then assigned them the ability to speciate new complexly designed more advanced organisms. It is a feat of great imagination.
Shapiro’s “natural genetic engineering” is based on precisely that idea.
Natural genetic engineering - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_genetic_engineering"Within the context of the article in particular and Shapiro's work on Natural Genetic Engineering in general, the "guiding intelligence" is to be found within the cell. (For example, in a Huffington Post essay entitled Cell Cognition and Cell Decision-Making[12] Shapiro defines cognitive actions as those that are "knowledge-based and involve decisions appropriate to acquired information," arguing that cells meet this criteria.)"
dhw: You constantly ignore my acknowledgement that this is a hypothesis, not a fact, and you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that an undiscovered 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every single undabbled innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder installed in the very first cells by an unknown and sourceless intelligence is also a hypothesis and a “feat of great imagination”. It is not your faith in God that has caused you to believe this but your faith in your highly subjective interpretation of your God’s purposes and methods.
It is the only set of interpretations possible given since I accept that God is in charge. I am not sourceless through my beliefs. Your only alternation to my thoughts is that you want to weaken God by having Him give an autonomous mechanism for speciation, when you try on theistic theories. I won't accept that so-called theistic thinking from you.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
DAVID: What my faith in God causes me to believe has nothing to do with Shapiro's research which I accept also. What strains my credulity is your extrapolation taking what individual cells do constantly in an intelligent fashion moment by moment to then assigned them the ability to speciate new complexly designed more advanced organisms. It is a feat of great imagination.
dhw: Shapiro’s “natural genetic engineering” is based on precisely that idea.
Natural genetic engineering - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_genetic_engineering
QUOTE: "Within the context of the article in particular and Shapiro's work on Natural Genetic Engineering in general, the "guiding intelligence" is to be found within the cell. (For example, in a Huffington Post essay entitled Cell Cognition and Cell Decision-Making[12] Shapiro defines cognitive actions as those that are "knowledge-based and involve decisions appropriate to acquired information," arguing that cells meet this criteria.)"
dhw: You constantly ignore my acknowledgement that this is a hypothesis, not a fact, and you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that an undiscovered 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every single undabbled innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder installed in the very first cells by an unknown and sourceless intelligence is also a hypothesis and a “feat of great imagination”. It is not your faith in God that has caused you to believe this but your faith in your highly subjective interpretation of your God’s purposes and methods.
DAVID: It is the only set of interpretations possible given since I accept that God is in charge.
Anyone who believes in God will believe that he is in charge, but being in charge does not mean creating only automatons! You already have him not controlling local environmental changes, and giving humans free will. Being in charge means creating what he wanted to create, and if he wanted to create intelligent cells à la Shapiro, then what grounds have you for saying that only your interpretation of his wishes is correct?
DAVID: I am not sourceless through my beliefs.
It is your God who is sourceless.
DAVID: Your only alternation to my thoughts is that you want to weaken God by having Him give an autonomous mechanism for speciation, when you try on theistic theories. I won't accept that so-called theistic thinking from you.
Why do you insist that the invention of an autonomous mechanism is a sign of weakness? If he WANTED an unpredictable variety of species that would come and go, then clearly he got what he wanted. And I have no objection to the idea that he wanted humans. I simply object to the incongruous combination of ideas that 1) humans were the ONLY thing he wanted, but 2) he specially designed everything else, even though 3) he also specially designed the ONLY thing he wanted to design.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Saturday, June 01, 2019, 14:53 (2001 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You constantly ignore my acknowledgement that this is a hypothesis, not a fact, and you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that an undiscovered 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every single undabbled innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder installed in the very first cells by an unknown and sourceless intelligence is also a hypothesis and a “feat of great imagination”. It is not your faith in God that has caused you to believe this but your faith in your highly subjective interpretation of your God’s purposes and methods.
DAVID: It is the only set of interpretations possible given since I accept that God is in charge.
dhw: Anyone who believes in God will believe that he is in charge, but being in charge does not mean creating only automatons! You already have him not controlling local environmental changes, and giving humans free will. Being in charge means creating what he wanted to create, and if he wanted to create intelligent cells à la Shapiro, then what grounds have you for saying that only your interpretation of his wishes is correct?
The cells run intelligently (a human interpretation of how they react to stimuli and produce proteins) due to the instructive information they contain. Protein molecules transmit their fixed functional ability by being in special shapes. Cells do not think.
DAVID: I am not sourceless through my beliefs.dhw: It is your God who is sourceless.
Agreed
DAVID: Your only alternation to my thoughts is that you want to weaken God by having Him give an autonomous mechanism for speciation, when you try on theistic theories. I won't accept that so-called theistic thinking from you.dhw: Why do you insist that the invention of an autonomous mechanism is a sign of weakness? If he WANTED an unpredictable variety of species that would come and go, then clearly he got what he wanted. And I have no objection to the idea that he wanted humans. I simply object to the incongruous combination of ideas that 1) humans were the ONLY thing he wanted, but 2) he specially designed everything else, even though 3) he also specially designed the ONLY thing he wanted to design.
You just don't like the concept that God evolves everything He wants. But it is the history we know.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
dhw: Anyone who believes in God will believe that he is in charge, but being in charge does not mean creating only automatons! You already have him not controlling local environmental changes, and giving humans free will. Being in charge means creating what he wanted to create, and if he wanted to create intelligent cells à la Shapiro, then what grounds have you for saying that only your interpretation of his wishes is correct?
DAVID: The cells run intelligently (a human interpretation of how they react to stimuli and produce proteins) due to the instructive information they contain. Protein molecules transmit their fixed functional ability by being in special shapes. Cells do not think.
As usual you present your opinion as if it were a fact, thus resolutely ignoring even your own acknowledgement that you have a 50/50 chance of being wrong and are in a scientific minority.
QUOTE (from “Bacterial version of IM”): "Stress-induced mutation mechanisms, first discovered in bacteria, challenge historical assumptions about the constancy and uniformity of mutation. Mutation is still viewed as probabilistic, not deterministic, but we argue that regulated mutagenesis mechanisms greatly increase the probability that the useful mutations will occur at the right time, thus increasing an organism’s ability to evolve and, possibly, in the right places. Assumptions about the constant, gradual, clock-like, and environmentally blind nature of mutation are ready for retirement. " (DAVID’s bold)
No disagreement here. It has become increasingly obvious that mutations are the response of both microorganisms and multicellular organisms to the demands (or possibly also opportunities) created by changing environmental conditions. Many scientists believe that these bacterial mutations stem from the intelligence of bacteria, but I know of one scientist who thinks his God specially dabbled or preprogrammed every single one of them 3.8 billion years ago.
DAVID: Your only alternation to my thoughts is that you want to weaken God by having Him give an autonomous mechanism for speciation, when you try on theistic theories. I won't accept that so-called theistic thinking from you.
dhw: Why do you insist that the invention of an autonomous mechanism is a sign of weakness? If he WANTED an unpredictable variety of species that would come and go, then clearly he got what he wanted. And I have no objection to the idea that he wanted humans. I simply object to the incongruous combination of ideas that 1) humans were the ONLY thing he wanted, but 2) he specially designed everything else, even though 3) he also specially designed the ONLY thing he wanted to design.
DAVID: You just don't like the concept that God evolves everything He wants. But it is the history we know.
If God exists, and since I believe in evolution, then of course he used evolution to get everything he wanted. As on the whale thread, what I don’t like is the 1), 2), 3) listed above and which you have ignored so that your vague generalisation will cover up all the incongruities.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Sunday, June 02, 2019, 17:54 (1999 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Anyone who believes in God will believe that he is in charge, but being in charge does not mean creating only automatons! You already have him not controlling local environmental changes, and giving humans free will. Being in charge means creating what he wanted to create, and if he wanted to create intelligent cells à la Shapiro, then what grounds have you for saying that only your interpretation of his wishes is correct?
DAVID: The cells run intelligently (a human interpretation of how they react to stimuli and produce proteins) due to the instructive information they contain. Protein molecules transmit their fixed functional ability by being in special shapes. Cells do not think.
dhw: As usual you present your opinion as if it were a fact, thus resolutely ignoring even your own acknowledgement that you have a 50/50 chance of being wrong and are in a scientific minority.
QUOTE (from “Bacterial version of IM”): "Stress-induced mutation mechanisms, first discovered in bacteria, challenge historical assumptions about the constancy and uniformity of mutation. Mutation is still viewed as probabilistic, not deterministic, but we argue that regulated mutagenesis mechanisms greatly increase the probability that the useful mutations will occur at the right time, thus increasing an organism’s ability to evolve and, possibly, in the right places. Assumptions about the constant, gradual, clock-like, and environmentally blind nature of mutation are ready for retirement. " (DAVID’s bold)
dhw: No disagreement here. It has become increasingly obvious that mutations are the response of both microorganisms and multicellular organisms to the demands (or possibly also opportunities) created by changing environmental conditions. Many scientists believe that these bacterial mutations stem from the intelligence of bacteria, but I know of one scientist who thinks his God specially dabbled or preprogrammed every single one of them 3.8 billion years ago.
All of the ID folks (scientists) agree with me.
DAVID: Your only alternation to my thoughts is that you want to weaken God by having Him give an autonomous mechanism for speciation, when you try on theistic theories. I won't accept that so-called theistic thinking from you.dhw: Why do you insist that the invention of an autonomous mechanism is a sign of weakness? If he WANTED an unpredictable variety of species that would come and go, then clearly he got what he wanted. And I have no objection to the idea that he wanted humans. I simply object to the incongruous combination of ideas that 1) humans were the ONLY thing he wanted, but 2) he specially designed everything else, even though 3) he also specially designed the ONLY thing he wanted to design.
DAVID: You just don't like the concept that God evolves everything He wants. But it is the history we know.
dhw: If God exists, and since I believe in evolution, then of course he used evolution to get everything he wanted. As on the whale thread, what I don’t like is the 1), 2), 3) listed above and which you have ignored so that your vague generalisation will cover up all the incongruities.
What a distorted view of my thoughts. Of course God knew He had to design all the levels of evolution until He reached the human level! God prefers to evolve His end goals, as I have described about the universe, the Milky Way, the Earth, and finally life. The God you try to describe comes across as empty-headed, bumbling His way forward. Ridiculous!
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
dhw: It has become increasingly obvious that mutations are the response of both microorganisms and multicellular organisms to the demands (or possibly also opportunities) created by changing environmental conditions. Many scientists believe that these bacterial mutations stem from the intelligence of bacteria, but I know of one scientist who thinks his God specially dabbled or preprogrammed every single one of them 3.8 billion years ago.
DAVID: All of the ID folks (scientists) agree with me.
Does Behe, for instance, actually propose a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every undabbled response by bacteria to every new situation throughout the history of life?
Other comments dealt with under “Unanswered questions”.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Monday, June 03, 2019, 14:09 (1999 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: It has become increasingly obvious that mutations are the response of both microorganisms and multicellular organisms to the demands (or possibly also opportunities) created by changing environmental conditions. Many scientists believe that these bacterial mutations stem from the intelligence of bacteria, but I know of one scientist who thinks his God specially dabbled or preprogrammed every single one of them 3.8 billion years ago.
DAVID: All of the ID folks (scientists) agree with me.
dhw: Does Behe, for instance, actually propose a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every undabbled response by bacteria to every new situation throughout the history of life?
Other comments dealt with under “Unanswered questions”.
Behe does not discuss designer controls, but insists everything must have a designer.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
dhw: It has become increasingly obvious that mutations are the response of both microorganisms and multicellular organisms to the demands (or possibly also opportunities) created by changing environmental conditions. Many scientists believe that these bacterial mutations stem from the intelligence of bacteria, but I know of one scientist who thinks his God specially dabbled or preprogrammed every single one of them 3.8 billion years ago.
DAVID: All of the ID folks (scientists) agree with me.
dhw: Does Behe, for instance, actually propose a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every undabbled response by bacteria to every new situation throughout the history of life?
DAVID: Behe does not discuss designer controls, but insists everything must have a designer.
Thank you. It is not the design theory that I am disputing, but your insistence that cells can’t be intelligent, and that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder. Quite clearly “All of the ID folks (scientists)” do not agree with you.
Innovation and Speciation: earliest fully a whale
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 04, 2019, 18:11 (1997 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: It has become increasingly obvious that mutations are the response of both microorganisms and multicellular organisms to the demands (or possibly also opportunities) created by changing environmental conditions. Many scientists believe that these bacterial mutations stem from the intelligence of bacteria, but I know of one scientist who thinks his God specially dabbled or preprogrammed every single one of them 3.8 billion years ago.
DAVID: All of the ID folks (scientists) agree with me.
dhw: Does Behe, for instance, actually propose a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every undabbled response by bacteria to every new situation throughout the history of life?
DAVID: Behe does not discuss designer controls, but insists everything must have a designer.
dhw: Thank you. It is not the design theory that I am disputing, but your insistence that cells can’t be intelligent, and that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder. Quite clearly “All of the ID folks (scientists)” do not agree with you.
I am one with ID folks, and they do not think cells are intelligent. My theories about how God operates are not covered in their presentations. They stop at a designer is required.
Innovation and Speciation
by David Turell , Sunday, May 22, 2011, 23:21 (4932 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Nothing proves speciation is a result of chance, in fact, we have no idea how it occurs. > > But we do have species, and we do have multicellular organisms, and we know that these organisms behave intelligently. There has to be a mechanism that leads to innovation, > > If you follow my suggestion (I dare not call it a theory), bacteria will remain bacteria, but the geniuses who have communicated to form a new combination will go their own way. -Another proposed method to evolve more complicatd forms is the stickyness of proteins' 'dehydron' sections tht make proteins combine in water:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13445951
Innovation and Speciation
I'm responding here, not to the "sticky dehydrons" (a useful addition to the causes of complexity) but to the lecture by James Shapiro, which David alerted us to under "Why bother with God?" but which I think needs to be discussed on this thread:-http://vimeo.com/17592530-I couldn't find the lecture, but read the paper instead. Parts of it were far too technical for me, but the following summarizes the argument very succinctly:-This 21st century view of evolution establishes a reasonable connection between ecological changes, cell and organism responses, widespread genome restructuring, and the rapid emergence of adaptive inventions. It also answers the objections to conventional theory raised by intelligent design advocates, because evolution by natural genetic engineering has the capacity to generate complex novelties. In other words, our best defense against anti-science obscurantism comes from the study of mobile DNA because that is the subject that has most significantly transformed evolution from natural history into a vibrant empirical science.-Firstly, you yourself have stated that Shapiro "inputs much more control over changes by individual cells than most scientists have stated." Could it be that you are now coming round to the idea that intelligent cells are the driving force behind evolution?-The paper seems to telescope adaptation and innovation. We know of species that adapt to new conditions but remain the same species. Do we know of species that change into different species through adaptation? If species can survive without eyes, ears, legs, why invent them? To me, the idea only makes sense if there is some kind of inventive (and not just adaptive) intelligence at work, although of course the novelty must function within the given environment. I can well believe that such an intelligence is at work within the genome, and that it has the capacity to "generate complex novelties" which emerge rapidly rather than gradually. How that intelligence came into being in the first place is another matter, and ID advocates can still argue that it takes intelligence to produce intelligence.
Innovation and Speciation
by David Turell , Monday, May 23, 2011, 22:01 (4931 days ago) @ dhw
Could it be that you are now coming round to the idea that intelligent cells are the driving force behind evolution?- The Shapiro paper certainly suggests that this may well be true. But I would imagine that the intelligence is in the germ cells, not any old skin or liver cell. Shapiro is working with bacteria, where the cell is all-in-one
Innovation and Speciation
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 29, 2011, 02:11 (4895 days ago) @ dhw
My suggestion earlier was that maybe this process might be applied to innovation ... i.e. that cells combine to create new organisms. Innovation is essential to speciation. -> > But we do have species, and we do have multicellular organisms, and we know that these organisms behave intelligently. There has to be a mechanism that leads to innovation....... Just as epigenetics enables a species to remain the same, innovative genetics (as opposed to random mutations) would enable it to change. This would account for the evolutionary bush. In other words, each innovation is the result of individual cells intelligently combining to form a new community, and each new community results in a new species.-Here is an article full of findings in flowers and fish and rife with speculation about how speciation might occur; thoughtful and yet fanciful:-http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/331382/title/Evolution%E2%80%99s_Wedges_
Innovation and Speciation
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, July 02, 2011, 10:40 (4892 days ago) @ David Turell
Hrmm, perhaps it is just my incomplete understanding of the subject, but it seems like this would be as much of a hindrance to speciation as a help. All of the genes listed in the article prevent interbreeding between genetically distinct species. Even if the distinction is slight. In the cases where they are(usually artificially) able to interbreed, the offspring are listed as being sterile. We have known this for centuries regarding the mule, a horse/donkey hybrid which is ALWAYS sterile. -I do not see how stating that genetically distinct species not being able to breed strengthens the evolutionary case. If these genetic barriers can not be crossed successfully, then the chances for the tremendous divergent populations from a common ancestry becomes increasingly remote as suitable genetically compatible partners for a creature with a newly mutated gene would be exceedingly rare, and offspring from such a union, should they occur, carry a high risk of sterility.