Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, May 15, 2021, 18:58 (1078 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Answered today in "balance of nature" and "biological complexity" entries.

dhw: You had already demolished your answer by telling us that past ecosystems were for the past, and that extinct life has no role in current time.

All truisms if you accept the continuity of advancing evolution from simple to complex forms over time. You want to slice and dice into separate periods.

BATS
DAVID: Like Darwin, your hero, you won't combine the two, because it creates impossible questions if you accept the continuity, which obviously exists. Two always follows one and is fully dependent upon it. Your favorite theory magically appears after the beginning. How convenient.

dhw: Of course the continuity exists, but both chapters deal with the unknown and so we can only theorize about both! Not knowing the cause is no reason to doubt the effect. The effect (Chapter Two) here is evolution – an ever changing bush of life.

I use continuity: God created life and controlled evolution. Theorizing separately can avoid God, your preferred approach.

dhw: I offer a THEISTIC alternative theory: your God (if he exists) may have caused evolution by specially designing the mechanism whereby every branch was the result of intelligent organisms restructuring themselves in accordance with changing conditions. The "continuity" is covered, so why did you ask where my “cellular intelligence” came from? I guess it's another of your attempts to dodge the illogicality of your Chapter Two theory.

My God would control events by careful design, which from the demonstrated complexity of biochemistry is required. Inventing an inventive mechanism to do the designing is second-hand, cumbersome and very unlikely as a solution, used by a logical form of God.

New forms require new genes

DAVID: The gap still calls for a designer.

The gap still calls for a complete record of every stage of every life form that ever lived. The designer (if he exists) could have designed the intelligence that enabled all life forms to design themselves, and you haven’t explained why he would have specially designed all the Cambrian forms that went extinct after the “Explosion” as “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans”, although they had no connection with humans.

The Cambrian forms, as the first complex animals are our ancestors. 99% extinction is a reasonable part of the process, but you continue an illogical, unreasonable complaint

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

dhw: Our heading is the “obstetric dilemma”, and according to you, instant solutions do happen! I thought this was the nub of your theory – that your God specially designed the pelvis in anticipation of the problem, and it was an instant success. I am the one proposing solutions over time, with many Lucy-mothers dying in childbirth before the expanded pelvis became the norm. Please stick to the subject.

DAVID: That is my subject. 'Over time' is your waffle.

dhw: You said instant solutions don’t happen, but you believe your God provided an instant solution by redesigning the pelvis before the big brained foetuses even existed. “Over time” is used in contrast to “instant”. Please explain what appears to be a complete contradiction in your argument.

God speciates. The change to the pelvic outlet and the bigger brain could be simultaneous in appearance of a new species under His design. You are the only one assuming 'over time' for adaptations to correct problems.