Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 13, 2021, 19:31 (1081 days ago) @ dhw

BATS
DAVID: Switched subjects because you have no Cambrian answer. You are asking me to validate God's method of evolution by knowing His reasons for His choice. Since I can't, and you know it, you request is a useless diversion. I am content with observing God's created reality.

dhw: You raised the subject of whales, and my answer is the same for the Cambrian. It began approx. 550 million years ago and lasted approx. 56 million years. Every fossil is a miracle in itself, and if you substitute cellular intelligence for random mutations, who can possibly say that this vast period of time was not enough for new organisms to evolve in response to new conditions?

Where did your "cellular intelligence" naturally come from?

New forms require new genes

dhw: This article provides a logical explanation of the Cambrian transitions which, over 56 million years, could have led to all the new species that appeared in response to the new conditions that would have arisen during that long period of time.

But in the beginning of the Cambrian many new forms appeared de novo and lasted 56 million years, not your supposition.

The obstetric dilemma

dhw: I propose that problems arise before solutions are found. In this case, the enlarged brain was the problem which the pelvis had to solve.

DAVID: And I'm sure solved only by God's new designs

dhw: Or possibly by God’s old design, giving all organisms the wherewithal to adapt to new conditions and to solve new problems.

Instant solutions don't happen. Each new species follows a gap in time with no intermediates. remember Gould's comments about all the gaps.

Transposons
QUOTES: “These are not junk — they’re living little creatures in your genome that are under very active selection over long periods of time, and what that means is that they evolve new functions to stay in your genome,” he said.

"[…] the vast majority of new genetic material is thought to form through genetic duplication, in which genes are accidentally copied and the extras diverge through mutation.”

“'Evolution is the ultimate tinkerer and ultimate opportunist,” said David Schatz, a molecular geneticist at Yale University who was not involved with the study. “If you give evolution a tool, it may not use it right away, but sooner or later it will take advantage of it.'” (David's bold)

DAVID: The last paragraph treats evolution as if if is a personage. Why not simply God in action?

dhw: It also treats transposons as “living little creatures”, not automatons. The second quote lays stress on accidental mutation, which we both disagree with. You say God does the tinkering. I say the cell communities that form living organisms may have a tool (intelligence) which they use “opportunistically” (= innovation) or out of necessity (adaptation) – though it’s frequently hard to distinguish between the two. We have no idea how this tool may have originated, but your God is one possibility. “You” certainly didn’t give it to “evolution” – the phrasing is an obvious dodge, for which I don’t really blame the speaker, who is only concerned with the mechanism itself and not the origin.

I see God as the only possible source for the apparent presence of cell intelligence.