Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 22, 2021, 12:04 (948 days ago) @ David Turell

Genome complexity: does variation in species drive evolution?

QUOTE: On one hand, despite dramatic mutations in individuals’ genes and diverse environments in which they grow, members of a species develop into strikingly similar creatures.

DAVID: variation in fruit fly's wings is tiny. Darwin theory demands enough variation to allow evolution to advance to more complex forms. If the variations are this tiny, Darwin's theory is constrained. Small species adaptations are changes in degree. A completely new species is a change in kind. That possibility requires new design, not offered by the small variations seen in this study.

dhw: I’m only quoting you in order to agree with you. As the quote states explicitly, such tiny variations clearly DON’T drive evolution. But you won’t agree with my next proposal! What does drive it is the quest for survival, triggered by major changes in conditions which require or allow for major changes in the anatomy: for instance, life on land switching to life in the water, or vice versa.

DAVID: I don't accept it. Survival is necessary as God engineers each next species from the last.

So when your God operated on the legs of pre-whales to change them into flippers, he was only thinking of creating a new species to live in the water, and the need for flippers had nothing to do with helping the new species to survive in the water.

DAVID: You are back to the old abandoned tautology. Are you next going to drag in natural selection?

What “abandoned tautology”? Whether you believe your God did a dabble or the cells organized their own flipper adaptation, you still have anatomical change created in order to aid survival. Natural selection has nothing to do with why the changes are made, since it only explains why some changes survive and some don’t.