More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, August 06, 2015, 19:53 (3188 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: The only problem with this being used for your inventive mechanism is when faced with "chicken and egg" problems. Did nectar bearing plants develop ultraviolate patterns because they 'knew' the right species that needed to feed on them, or did those species develop the ability to see and identify those patterns and plants adapt to match?
DHW: I'm surprised to hear that this is the only problem! “Chicken and egg” applies to all hypotheses. What is the Creationist solution?-TONY: Perhaps "only" was a bit hasty. Either way, for the creationist, this is not a problem. If the same designer designed the bees and the flowers, they would know the capabilities of each and could design them to work together from the very beginning, with all the relevant instructions in place.-This is where your Creationism takes on similar dimensions to David's hypothesis - which you criticized so penetratingly (see below) - of a computer programme for all innovations, and complex lifestyles and residences. Now you have God not only creating each prototype separately, but also designing every individual animal, plant, insect and bird that has a symbiotic relationship. Where does this programming end?
 
DAVID: This is why I present natures wonders with cooperating organisms such as flowers and butterflies (monarchs and milkweed) and symbiotic relationships. They appear 'made for each other' which may well be the case. Your approach asks the cell community in milkweed to invent a flower that will attract Monarch's.-And, to quote Tony, your approach asks the first living cells to contain and pass on through billions of years and organisms a computer programme for “every possible variation of every possible variant into every single organism,” including the weaverbird's nest, the plover's migration, and the symbiosis between milkweed and Monarch. Symbiosis and cooperation were key factors in evolution according to Lynn Margulis, and by a strange coincidence, she also championed the cause of bacterial intelligence! Just a step away from the intelligent, inventive mechanism that might do away with the need for this extraordinary programme of yours.
 
TONY: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/100501_xwoman-Dhw: The update on this website informs us that the bone belonged to a Denisovan, and Denisovans were humans (who apparently interbred with Neanderthals and other ancient humans). No-one is questioning their classification as human. The problem of classification arises with much earlier hominids/hominins (e.g. the australopithecines). These fossils exist. Are you prepared to say they were definitely human, or definitely ape? [...] -TONY: I'm prepared to say that taking the genetic material from one organism, mitochondria, does not tell us anything about the host organism. Ironically, mtDNA doesn't mutate much (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA). And the origins of it are presumed, not known. So we are using an element that we have very little knowledge of its origin to determine what is, and is not, a modern human. We do this because nuclear DNA tends not to survive. It is the god of gaps.-I understand your unwillingness to be drawn on this issue, but DNA is not the only factor involved. Enough is known of the australopithecines to tell us that they were bipedal - a crucial difference between apes and humans - whereas their brains and craniums were closer to those of the apes than to ours. They are clearly not modern humans, but they are not apes either, and even evolutionist palaeontologists can't agree amongst themselves which “species” might have been man's ancestor. But if I've understood you correctly, you regard them all as variations on an earlier form of human. My apologies if I've got this wrong, but if I haven't, my question remains: do you think God created them and modern humans separately, or modern humans evolved as “variants” from these so-called pre-humans?