An Alternative to Evolution: pt 2 (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 13, 2018, 18:55 (2114 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If only you would define "information", your argument might become clearer.

DAVID: I can only tell you that information is the instructions for life to be formed and continue.

dhw: Why can’t information also mean instructions for new organs to be invented? You even believe that your God instructed the weaverbird in the art of knot tying. Why does this not count as new “information”, since the nest is unique? And a never-before-existing brain would surely require a million times more new information, or “instructions for new organs to be formed and continue”.

New organs can be formed be rearranging DNA and deleting DNA, noting added to the information hidden there waiting to come out.

DAVID: I know Tony has a different view of evolution, but I agree with him that DNA is a designed code. I think Tony prefers dabbling as a definite event. I only consider it as possible.

dhw: Of course you agree with “design”. Your only alternative to dabbling is that your God provided the first cells with programmes for every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder.

Dabbling can be DNA rearrangement as above.

. dhw:Tony has not spelt out his alternative theory, but it would seem to be God’s separate creation of the species. (He’ll correct me if I’m wrong.) Do you accept this as a reasonable alternative to common descent?

Yes. I believe in theistic evolution

TONY: Actually, David and I both agree, I think, that an organism cannot pass on information it doesn't already contain.

dhw: Of course you can’t pass on something you don’t have. That is why David insists that all the information must have been present from the very beginning – a premise you thought was “premature” and which struck you as “intuitively wrong”. But you are not willing to contemplate the possibility that an organism can ACQUIRE new information and then pass it on. David is and isn’t, because apart from preprogramming he also allows for dabbling, and yet apparently he rejects the idea that a divine dabble might require the introduction of new information. (See above)

Yes explained above.

TONY: Why would ANY designer reinvent the code every time they needed to do something similar?

dhw: A very good argument for common descent. Why would your God need to create each species separately (or do you have a different hypothesis?) if he has already devised a code that would lead to speciation?

It is simpler to have all the information present from the beginning

DAVID: Their discovery actively disproves evolution by common descent, and instead of accepting that they invent more fairy tales to explain why the evidence does not fit their theory.

This is a quote from Tony I believe

dhw: How do jumping genes disprove common descent? The genes move from existing organs to existing organs!

Ask Tony. See my entry on LGT today.

DAVID: to Tony: You don't seem to believe in common descent, but based on your discussion of rearranging parts, doesn't that imply each stage came from the past stage?

dhw: Precisely. David and I agree for once!

I don't agree with what you believe. What is rearranged is DNA, not a primary change in parts. That is always secondary.