More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 21, 2015, 11:15 (3204 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: I was questioning your logic. Clearly if the gaps are becoming more sharply defined, the fossil record is NOT becoming more complete.-Check your logic. What is happening is the gap is sharper. What is before is filled with simplicity, and what is after is many new complex Cambrian specimens with coordinated complex organ systems. that takes planning, not shotgun attemps at improvement. -> 
> dhw:Agreed. The Cambrian illustrates why gradualism doesn't work. Exquisite planning applies to all organs, organisms, and Nature's Wonders. However, your assumption seems to be that only God and humans are capable of exquisite planning. -Pipe dream. Frankly, you don't understand biologic complexity at the basic physiologic levels.-
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> dhw: If they [immune cells] can mutate at will a million times faster than normal for this one specified purpose, perhaps they can do the same for other purposes.-A huge 'perhaps'. You have jumped on one very specialized set of cells and assume every cell can do this. They can't because they are not built that way.
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> dhw: And my point is that this tells us nothing about the innovations that led from bacteria to humans, or about the time needed for that development. Nobody knows how it happened. ....But you are only interested in bacteriologists whose research fits in with your own hypotheses.-Lenski is not on my side. He is looking for the mechanism you desire to find, and not finding them.
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> dhw: What a wonderful piece of intellectual contortionism. Instead of humans being God's purpose, they now “seem to be the pinnacle”. And to whom do they seem to be the pinnacle? Ah, humans, of course.-> DAVID: If evolution is defined as increasing complexity, a course it certainly seems to follow, what is more complex than humans?> -> dhw: Who came up with that definition? I understand evolution as the process by which living organisms have developed from earlier ancestral forms.-Of course the pattern of evolution is to create more complexity. It is a recognized observation. And what is more complex than the human brain?