Evolution: mutational clocks don't fit Darwin theory (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, April 28, 2022, 12:24 (730 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Gunter Bechly returns:
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/04/species-pairs-a-new-challenge-to-darwinists/

QUOTE"... the fossil record demonstrates that the history of life was not a series of gradual transformations by an accumulation of small changes over long periods of time. Instead, the fossil record consistently documents a series of saltational transitions with abrupt appearances of new body plans within very short windows of time. […]" Some examples of abrupt body plan transitions are the origin of photosynthesis; the origin of eukaryotes; the origin of the Ediacaran biota (Avalon Explosion) and Cambrian animal phyla (Cambrian Explosion) such as the origin of trilobites from worm-like ancestors in less than 13 million years […]

I’m sorry, but I find this downplaying of time totally absurd. 13 million years may be peanuts in relation to the 3.8 thousand million years of life, but it is one helluva long time, and it contains too many generations of life forms for me to calculate. Nobody knows how long it takes one species to turn into another, and although I agree totally with those who find it difficult to believe that random mutations could result in all the complexities that have evolved between bacteria and humans, I cannot understand why the theory of cellular intelligence (possibly God’s invention), which could make rapid changes in response to changing conditions, has not even occurred to them. Nor can I understand the belief that there ought to be a step-by-step collection of fossils to cover each stage of every species that ever lived for the last 3.X thousand million years. You yourself believe in a mixture of common descent and direct speciation without precursors. Have you now decided that although you believe - despite the absence of fossils - in a continuous line from bacteria to humans (your God’s purpose from the very start of life), there is no continuous line from bacteria to humans (because of the absence of fossils)?

DAVID: after many species comparisons Bechly notes: "Finally, what about great apes and humans. Chimp (Pan paniscus) and gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) diverged according to TimeTree 9.06 million years ago and humans (Homo sapiens) from chimps 6.7 million years, which agrees with the hominin fossil record. There are two possibilities: Either you follow those scientists who consider the biological difference between humans and chimps as marginal. Then this example would just confirm the pattern described above. Or, you consider humans as very different from chimps, based on their different bipedal locomotion and especially their mental capacity and cultural achievements. In the latter case humans would represent the only exception to the pattern that I could find, which would be a remarkable confirmation of Judeo-Christian human exceptionalism." (David's bold)

I would not question the exceptional nature of our mental capacity. And I have no trouble at all believing that 6.7 million years is ample time for our anatomy to have diverged from that of chimps to its current form. No “exception” to the pattern of common descent, and that includes the evolution of the brain.
***
DAVID:: […] it answers dhw worries about the Cambrian gap indicating God can directly create when He wishes. That is exactly what God does, hop, skip, and jump through His form of evolution.

I don’t worry about it, but I’m surprised that you can’t see how it shows up the inconsistency of your own theories. If God “can directly create when He wishes”, and his only wish was to create sapiens plus food, why did he not create us directly? Your explanation is that you can’t explain it, and “God makes sense only to Himself.”