Pointy eggs and whales (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, August 31, 2018, 13:37 (2057 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW [re pointy eggs]:...please tell us your own theory: Did your God preprogramme them to do it, do a dabble, or install a mechanism enabling organisms to adapt autonomously to their environment?

TONY: I hypothesize that they were originally programmed with the possibility of round to pointy, with specific triggers(input parameters) that would invoke the changes necessary to go from one type, to another.

DHW: Does this mean that when your God created the root type, he put in a kind of computer programme for round AND pointy eggs (plus every other possible variation within that original root type), and when the murre settled on a slope, the computer programme automatically switched to pointy, thereby reshaping the cloaca? Just making sure I’ve understood, so please correct any misunderstandings.

TONY: Yes, this is precisely the idea behind my hypothesis.

Thank you. It’s a similar idea to David’s, except that he believes in common descent, and so his billions of computer programmes were installed in the very first cells, whereas presumably yours were “only” installed in the new root types, as and when he created them. Have scientists actually discovered these computer programmes, which in David’s theory produced the root types as well as all their variations, and have they observed these programmes at work?

DHW: We observe gaps, not root types appearing out of nowhere! Punctuated equilibrium means long periods of stasis, broken by sudden bursts of creative activity. Nothing to do with out-of-nowhere. I can’t solve the Cambrian mystery any more than you can, but here is a website with answers you will reject and evolutionists will accept, both of you because of “confirmation bias”. Nobody knows the truth.

Does the Cambrian Explosion pose a challenge to evolution?
https://biologos.org/.../scientific-evidence/cambrian-explosion

QUOTE: “Scientists are now gaining a better understanding of what existed before the Cambrian Explosion as a result of new fossil discoveries. […] Some of the new fossil discoveries, in fact, appear to be more primitive precursors of the later Cambrian body plans. The discovery of such precursors shows that the Cambrian organisms did not appear from thin air.”

TONY: But do they have precursors or are the new forms that did not exist prior to the Cambrian?

The quote says they did have “more primitive precursors”.

DHW: I don’t care what part of the genome they compare or if it's 90% or 80%. I'm asking why it is illogical to propose that the same genes may indicate they had a common ancestor.

TONY: Because if they are 80% the same, then they are 20% different. Where would the 20% NEW information come from?

Nobody knows how innovation (= the difference) took place, which is why we have so many theories, including the theory that a mysterious power called God engineered it (which may be true). This does not mean that 80% similarity or sameness makes common descent illogical. The more similarities there are, the more logical common descent becomes.

TONY: Behavior is not as telling as choice. Can the organisms CHOOSE to do other than the prescribed chemical reactions? Do they show evidence of planning?

DHW: Most of the “cognitive” tests offer choice of some kind. Why are bacteria killed by antibiotics until they find modes of resistance? Are the “prescribed chemical reactions” that Billy will go glug and die, while Bobby finds a solution? There has to be choice. My view of evolution is that changes are not planned in advance but are triggered by environmental needs and/or opportunities.

TONY: I've been curious about this, but honestly do not have enough information to answer. Are they developing new resistances, or is there some underlying existing something that causes Billy to be vulnerable while Bobby is not. For example, we know that some people are genetically predisposed to diabetes because their genetics make their cells insulin resistant. Could what we be seeing be a small preexisting variation in organisms that make them already resistant, and by killing off all the Billy's all that is left is Bobby's, or are they adding new information? Or is there some function in their genes that changes its output based on some input that results in their resistance? I don't know.

DAVID: I commented on this in the past. There is a variation in resistance so some will survive, there is horizontal gene transfer, and there is also gene modification. All have been shown.

I find it difficult to believe that your God preprogrammed the first bacteria with resistance to every single problem that would challenge them throughout the history of life on Earth past, present and future, although some of them would not inherit the right programme for resisting some of the challenges and would either die or would require a horizontal gene transfer. Tony’s list of possibilities is pretty comprehensive, and of course we don’t know. I myself find “developing new resistances” more convincing than preprogramming. Maybe that’s as far as we can go.