https://www.newscientist.com/article/2360024-spine-of-early-crawling-fish-was-becoming-...

"A CT scan of a fossil of Tiktaalik, one of the first fish to crawl on land, has revealed more features of its body that are intermediate between fish and land-dwelling animals. In particular, they show that its fins were becoming connected to its spine, a feature of limbs in land vertebrates, but not of fins in fish.

***

"In land vertebrates, the hind legs are connected to the spine via the pelvis. In fish, the equivalent of the pelvis is positioned away from the spine with no direct connection to it. In Tiktaalik, the shape of the vertebrae and ribs suggest that the pelvis was closer to the spine and that there was a soft tissue connection between the pelvis and spine, says Stuart.

"Other features, such as the shape of Tiktaalik’s ribs, are also intermediate, says Stuart.

“'It is a very nice looking piece of research,” says Martin Brazeau at Imperial College London, who wasn’t part of the team. “A connection between the vertebral column and the pelvis is one of those things that’s neither explicitly expected or excluded based on where Tiktaalik sits in the evolutionary tree.'”

Comment: a valuable transitional form. we should expect to find more examples.

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/michael-dentons-new-book-nature-is-fine-...

From the publisher:

"For years, leading scientists and science popularizers have insisted humans are nothing special in the cosmic scheme of things. In this important and provocative new book, renowned biologist Michael Denton argues otherwise. According to Denton, the cosmos is stunningly fit not just for cellular life, not just for carbon-based animal life, and not even just for air-breathing animals, but especially for bipedal, land-roving, technology-pursuing creatures of our general physiological design. In short, the cosmos is specifically fit for creatures like us. Drawing on discoveries from a myriad of scientific fields, Denton masterfully documents how contemporary science has revived humanity’s special place in nature. “The human person as revealed by modern science is no contingent assemblage of elements, an irrelevant afterthought of cosmic evolution,” Denton writes. “Rather, our destiny was inscribed in the light of stars and the properties of atoms since the beginning. Now we know that all nature sings the song of man. Our seeming exile from nature is over. We now know what the medieval scholars only believed, that the underlying rationality of nature is indeed ‘manifest in human flesh.’ And with this revelation the… delusion of humankind’s irrelevance on the cosmic stage has been revoked.'”

Quotes from Denton:

ID comment: "a vast suite of chemical and physical parameters were precisely set. These parameters are “uniquely fit” for creatures like ourselves, as Denton shows:

"[O]ur existence as energy-demanding active air-breathing terrestrial organisms critically depends on a wildly improbable ensemble of natural environmental fitness comprising various chemical and physical laws as well as the properties of specific molecules such as oxygen and CO2 and specific elements such as the transition metals, properties that must be almost exactly as they are."

"The exquisitely fine-tuned ensembles of environmental fitness described here, each enabling a vital aspect of our physiological design, amount to nothing less than a primal blueprint for our being, written into the fabric of reality since the moment of creation, providing compelling evidence that we do indeed, after all, occupy a central place in the great cosmic drama of being.

"This is the miracle of man. We are not positioned in the spatial center of the universe as was believed before Copernicus, but what we have found over the past two centuries confirms the deep intuition of the medieval Christian scholars who believed that “in the cognition of nature in all her depths, man finds himself.”

Comment: Denton is a Ph.D. & M.D. Like Adler and Schroeder he is one of the authorities who shapes my views

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/karsten-pultz-review-of-dentons-the-mira...

"Denton shows that an intelligent designer already had living things in mind when creating the universe with all its differing elements. Because I had always viewed matter as some random cosmic product, which the designer eventually used for building living things, this came as a revelation to me.

"Denton made me realize that life is not put together from elements that came into existence via cosmic randomness, but that the elements of the periodic table were carefully produced with life as end goal in the mind of the designer.

"I came to think of this analogy: Building an object from random Lego bricks compared to building an object for which a specific set of Legos were produced.

"My children, when they were young, had a huge bag of Legos from which they could build all sorts of things, using pieces that were not actually produced to serve as roof on a house, wheels on a truck, hatches on a tank, furniture in the garden etc.

"On the other hand sometimes they got, as a birthday gift, a set of Legos specifically meant to be assembled into a ship, a motorcycle, a castle, or a caterpillar. In this case, unlike building Lego structures from randomly available pieces, they had individual pieces that were made to serve specific purposes in the overall construction. Denton makes this latter analogy in his book, arguing that hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, iron, copper, zinc etc, were most likely created specifically to serve as building materials for life.

"Denton reveals the extreme specificity of the elements, how the properties—the configuration of electrons—of every single element is clearly tuned to fit the properties of the other elements such that no substitutions seem possible. The chemical characteristics of each element play together in a symphony of awesome fine tuning.

"If the elements were not designed specifically to accommodate life, we should be able to detect spots where improvement could be done or where one element could be substituted for another. According to Denton, this seems not to be the case.

"Although modern cosmology portrays events that led to the creation of matter as undirected, The Miracle of the Cell (2020) makes it clear that this is not what evidence suggests. The designer of life was also the designer of the variety of elements constituting what we call matter. The chemical workings of the cell reveal that matter is a Lego set with designated pieces predestined to be assembled to what we call life."

Comment: The alternative view is The Anthropic Principal which says if things weren't this way we wouldn't be here. The fine-tuning argument is taken to its extreme by the book. I'll stay with fine-tuning versus chance. After all, how to explain our unexpected arrival? Nothing from Darwin anticipates us.

From the Article(Bold Mine):

To reveal the first flower's anatomy, the researchers used probabilistic models that would calculate the likelihood of the emergence of certain floral characteristics throughout time. This method allowed them "not only to find out what ancestral flowers were like, but also to measure uncertainty" around the results, Sauquet said.

Tony: Who determined what was the probability of the emergence of any characteristic that did not previously exist? Essentially, this experiment could confirm darn near anything.

You feel about computer simulations just as I do.

To reveal the first flower's anatomy, the researchers used probabilistic models that would calculate the likelihood of the emergence of certain floral characteristics throughout time. This method allowed them "not only to find out what ancestral flowers were like, but also to measure uncertainty" around the results, Sauquet said.

Who determined what was the probability of the emergence of any characteristic that did not previously exist? Essentially, this experiment could confirm darn near anything.

"The sudden appearance of the angiosperms, I observed in Evolution, is a persistent anomaly which has resisted all attempts at explanation since Darwin's time.How true. No real flowers are found in any group of plants save those extant today, and no putative ancestral group has been identified in the fossil record, or by molecular phylogenetics. There is no universally accepted set of transitional forms leading up to earliest angiosperms."

Now a virtual computer simulation has produced a possible flower reproduction:

https://www.livescience.com/60000-first-flower-on-earth.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&a...

"There are many mysteries in plant evolution, and Sauquet and his colleagues were determined to solve one of the biggest ones: what the original angiosperm looked like.  

"We know a lot about the evolutionary history of this group, in particular how plant families are related to one another, but we still know very little about how their emblematic structure — the flower — has evolved and diversified since their origin," Sauquet told Live Science in an email. "That's why I decided to join forces with other experts and create the international eFLOWER initiative to tackle these questions."

"Because there are no known fossils of the world's oldest angiosperm— the oldest uncontroversial fossil flower dates to about 130 million years ago, a good 10 million years before the likely birth of the earliest flower — Sauquet and his colleagues used a method known as ancestral state reconstruction, he said.

***

"The results showed that when flowers first popped up on Earth, they went through a series of simplifications in which structures were reduced or merged until the flowers settled on an optimal and stable architecture, he said.

"Once flowers achieved this stable architecture, they likely started to diversify and develop other features, such as symmetry, he noted.

"However, there is still much to learn about early angiosperms and their environments. For instance, it's unclear which animals might have eaten or pollinated these flowers, although "some authors have speculated that flies might have been among the earliest pollinators of flowers," Sauquet said.

"Moreover, studies on fossilized animal poop, known as coprolites, show that certain paleo-beasts munched on angiosperms. For example, an unknown dinosaur — but apparently a large one, judging from the size of its droppings — ate angiosperms about 75 million years ago, according to research presented at the 2015 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference in Dallas."

Comment: As noted in the previous entry and in this one, no one knows how angiosperms really evolved and presents as much a gap in the evolutionary story as the Cambrian Explosion, which is why it is known as the plant bloom. Darwin was puzzled by both. See the pictures in the article.

DAVID: Natural selection is affected by thinking animals like us, and to a less extent by lesser animals. Not in plants.
> 
> dhw:According to you there are no thinking animals “like us”, and we arrived billions of years after natural selection began. Nobody knows the extent to which “lesser” organisms think, but it is not unreasonable to assume that “lesser” organisms are able to recognize relationships that are beneficial to them.-Of course they do.
> 
> dhw: Why should cells in communities be able to think for themselves and communicate with one another, but single cells can't?
> 
> DAVID: Because single cells have automatic functions, while multicellulars have specialized networks of cells that allow thought.
> 
> dhw: Multicellulars consist of single cells working together! All organisms, unicellular and multicellular, have automatic functions, but nobody knows to what extent single cells can think (which does not mean think "like us").-We are at the same point we keep circling back to. Nobody 'knows' because they cannot know. Automaticity in a single cell can simply be intelligently planned.

[/i]
> DAVID: Since when is natural selection a recognition of 'mutual benefit'? Bacteria don't think.
> 
> dhw: As usual, you state your opinion as if it were a fact. Natural selection does not preclude thought!-Natural selection is affected by thinking animals like us, and to a less extent by lesser animals. Not in plants.-> dhw: Why should cells in communities be able to think for themselves and communicate with one another, but single cells can't?-Because single cells have automatic functions, while multicellulars have specialized networks of cells that allow thought. -
> dhw;The whole point is that multicellularity allowed for an almost infinitely expandable range of life forms - a big improvement over the limitations of the single cell. Hence the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution.-No question.


> dhw: It is you who keep quoting authors who flog the dead horse of gradualism. I agree with you entirely on the subject of “magical” saltations, but how often do we have to repeat that nobody can explain them?-Belief in God does. Remember I'm on his side.
> 
> dhw: Of course it's saltation, but in this particular instance, Margulis's theory did not involve plotting. She suggests that the symbiosis originally took place by chance. The intelligence comes in with the recognition of mutual benefit, which then leads to further exploration of the potential benefits of symbiosis and cooperation. -Since when is natural selection a recognition of 'mutual benefit'? Bacteria don't think. The Margolis theory cannot tell us whether it was chance engulfment, or God's saltation. That the newly combined organism had a better reproductive and survival fitness is all that was needed to establish a new form.

"If there are emergent laws of form, as Denton argues, then gradualism is no longer a requirement in evolution. He consistently argues that the evidence from the fossil record, taxonomy and much genetics is that the important changes were relatively, at least, saltational.”
> 
> Dhw: How many more times do we have to agree that Darwin's gradualism is out? 
> 
> “Such discontinuities have no known, and in most cases no conceivable, adaptive origin. They arose de novo - and perhaps they even arose more than once in different lineages, as some examples of “convergent evolution” suggest. In such cases (a majority, in fact, of taxon-defining features), not only do we have no clear knowledge of the ancestors in which they occurred, but it doesn't appear to matter much anyway. “ (David's bold)
> 
> dhw: I don't know why you have put this in bold. How many more times do we have to agree that Darwin's gradualism is out? - Because you do not think of saltation the way I do. I made much of this in my first book. Gradualism is NEVER the point. We are discussing giant leaps in form and functionality. Saltation looks and smells like magical advances. Nothing explains them, but there they are! Perhaps God, a supernatural force?
> 
> dhw: Saltation of innovations, engineered by the autonomous intelligence of cells - yep, fits my hypothesis exactly. - Yep, pipe dreams of superior planning intelligence hidden in bacteria who plotted to become multicellular, a process which is not understood, but looks like saltation.


> dhw: Dark energy is indeed a theory, and since nobody has a clue what it is, how do you know the theoretical dark energy is not interdependent with the theoretical dark matter that it theoretically drives? Why not just stick to the fact that pure energy - like multiverses, 11 dimensions, invisible orbiting teapots, the chance origin of life, a 3.8 billion-year programme for all evolutionary innovations, an autonomous cellular intelligence, and God himself - is theoretically possible? - Agreed, but not tea pots. Silly straw man


> dhw: I like the different breed of cat! It is you who persist in emphasizing Adler's “difference in kind” during all our discussions on evolution, and I shall be delighted to put an end to this particular form of tail-chasing.-Cats don't chase tails, only dogs who are not as couth. Different. End.

DAVID: You cannot avoid the fact they only use the word 'energy'.
> 
> dhw: Are you telling us that whenever people use the word ‘energy' on its own they actually mean “pure” energy, though its very existence is controversial? Matt Strassler does talk of “pure” energy: he tells us that “the term “pure energy” is a mix of poetry, shorthand and garbage.” -Matt Strassler was discussing the energy/matter we know. He is right It is hard to spot the exact point where pure energy becomes the beginnings of matter. BUT, we are discussing dark energy, a force field of energy that drives the expansion of the universe. Matter is not involved in the theoretical proposal, only energy.-> 
> DAVID: Life did spark. No good theory as yet. General relativity and quantum mechanics won't join. But thinking human keep trying with open minds. That is all I am doing. But I like reaching concrete landing spots, and will change if the evidence changes. Where are your intellectual feet?
> 
> dhw: No good theory yet: agreed. Keep trying with open minds: agreed. Concrete landing spots: a bit of a problem. If there is no good theory yet, how do you justify a concrete landing spot? My intellectual feet are dangling down, one on each side of the intellectual fence. I will reach a concrete landing spot if and when the evidence provides a good theory.-Which may be never!