DAVID: Yet to be found. Fossil search is very active, but according to Bechly most important finds have occurred.

dhw: You have kindly updated us on all the new important fossil finds month after month, but in any case, how can anyone possibly know what fossils have not been found???

I’ve repeated this important point because you have simply dropped the subject.

What is found now fills gaps in the current record as Bechly pointed out.

dhw: […] If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

DAVID: There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

dhw: Your usual statement of your beliefs as if they were facts. Once more:

SHAPIRO: Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully […] They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision making capabilities. […] Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics etc.

dhw: There are plenty of experts in the field who agree with him.

DAVID: Show me.

dhw: Quite apart from predecessors like Margulis, McLintock and Bühler, you recently drew our attention to a book or article with contributions from scientists from different fields, all of whom supported the theory of cellular intelligence. Unfortunately, I didn’t note down the details, but even a very quick trawl of the Internet brings up books on the subject written by Michael Levin, Michael Denton, Patrick McMillen, Thomas R. Verny, William B. Miller. It’s still only a theory, but so is your belief that there is an omnipotent but inefficient God who takes all the decisions.

DAVID: I've read Denton without finding any mention of Shapiro.

dhw: Sorry, my comment above was badly phrased. I only meant that there are plenty of scientists who agree that cells are autonomously intelligent. I find it quite shocking that your ID-ers as well as some current champions of CI seem to ignore Shapiro. But I’ve no idea whether the authors I’ve listed give Shapiro due credit for getting there before them.

You seize on Shapiro since he offers some support for your beloved cell intelligence theory. Shapiro never moved on to test non-bacterial living cells for 'intelligence'. Why? Ran out of time? He did not leave an ongoing research group.

dhw: It proves MY point. Each discovery is a miracle in itself, and the whale series is EXCEPTIONALLY miraculous. It clearly demonstrates how species can pass through different developmental stages over millions of years, and so it’s not unreasonable to assume that there are countless species, variations and intermediate stages of which there are no miraculous fossils to be found.

DAVID: Yet to be found. Fossil search is very active, but according to Bechly most important finds have occurred.

dhw: You have kindly updated us on all the new important fossil finds month after month, but in any case, how can anyone possibly know what fossils have not been found???

I’ve repeated this important point because you have simply dropped the subject.

DAVID: The intricacies of biochemical life require a designing mind as its source.
dhw: Or designing minds in the form of intelligent cell communities responding to the demands or opportunities arising from changing conditions. […]

DAVID: We understand your mind is cemented into agnosticism.

Agnosticism is open-minded: we don’t profess to know the truth. Your mind is cemented into theories which don’t even make sense to you. Why don’t you consider the arguments instead of telling me that I am an agnostic?

dhw: […] If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

DAVID: There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

dhw: Your usual statement of your beliefs as if they were facts. Once more:

SHAPIRO: Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully […] They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision making capabilities. […] Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics etc.

dhw: There are plenty of experts in the field who agree with him.

DAVID: Show me.

dhw: Quite apart from predecessors like Margulis, McLintock and Bühler, you recently drew our attention to a book or article with contributions from scientists from different fields, all of whom supported the theory of cellular intelligence. Unfortunately, I didn’t note down the details, but even a very quick trawl of the Internet brings up books on the subject written by Michael Levin, Michael Denton, Patrick McMillen, Thomas R. Verny, William B. Miller. It’s still only a theory, but so is your belief that there is an omnipotent but inefficient God who takes all the decisions.

DAVID: I've read Denton without finding any mention of Shapiro.

Sorry, my comment above was badly phrased. I only meant that there are plenty of scientists who agree that cells are autonomously intelligent. I find it quite shocking that your ID-ers as well as some current champions of CI seem to ignore Shapiro. But I’ve no idea whether the authors I’ve listed give Shapiro due credit for getting there before them.

dhw: There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.
If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

DAVID: There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

dhw: Your usual statement of your beliefs as if they were facts. Once more:

SHAPIRO: Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully […] They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision making capabilities. […] Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics etc.

dhw:There are plenty of experts in the field who agree with him.

DAVID: Show me.

dhw: Quite apart from predecessors like Margulis, McLintock and Bühler, you recently drew our attention to a book or article with contributions from scientists from different fields, all of whom supported the theory of cellular intelligence. Unfortunately, I didn’t note down the details, but even a very quick trawl of the Internet brings up books on the subject written by Michael Levin, Michael Denton, Patrick McMillen, Thomas R. Verny, William B. Miller. It’s still only a theory, but so is your belief that there is an omnipotent but inefficient God who takes all the decisions.

I've read Denton without finding any mention of Shapiro.

dhw: It proves MY point. Each discovery is a miracle in itself, and the whale series is EXCEPTIONALLY miraculous. It clearly demonstrates how species can pass through different developmental stages over millions of years, and so it’s not unreasonable to assume that there are countless species, variations and intermediate stages of which there are no miraculous fossils to be found.

DAVID: Yet to be found. Fossil search is very active, but according to Bechly most important finds have occurred.

You have kindly updated us on all the new important fossil finds month after month, but in any case, how can anyone possibly know what fossils have yet to be found???

DAVID: The intricacies of biochemical life require a designing mind as its source.

dhw: Or designing minds in the form of intelligent cell communities responding to the demands or opportunities arising from changing conditions. And it would be fair enough for the theist to argue that such designing minds must themselves have been designed. And it would be equally fair for atheists to claim that if designing minds must have been designed, who designed the designing mind you call God? Your answer is “first cause”, which proves absolutely nothing, since “first cause” consciousness is no more and no less incredible than first cause matter and energy producing consciousness.

DAVID: We understand your mind is cemented into agnosticism.

Agnosticism is open-minded: we don’t profess to know the truth, and so our vision is less clouded by prejudgements or, in your case, by what you WISH to believe. Your mind is cemented into theories which don’t even make sense to you. Why don’t you consider the arguments instead of telling me that I am an agnostic?

dhw: There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.
If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

DAVID: There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

dhw: Your usual statement of your beliefs as if they were facts. Once more:

SHAPIRO: Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully […] They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision making capabilities. […] Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics etc.

dhw:There are plenty of experts in the field who agree with him.

DAVID: Show me.

Quite apart from predecessors like Margulis, McLintock and Bühler, you recently drew our attention to a book or article with contributions from scientists from different fields, all of whom supported the theory of cellular intelligence. Unfortunately, I didn’t note down the details, but even a very quick trawl of the Internet brings up books on the subject written by Michael Levin, Michael Denton, Patrick McMillen, Thomas R. Verny, William B. Miller. It’s still only a theory, but so is your belief that there is an omnipotent but inefficient God who takes all the decisions.

DAVID: The whale series proves my point: a rather full story; but none for bats.

dhw: It proves MY point. Each discovery is a miracle in itself, and the whale series is EXCEPTIONALLY miraculous. It clearly demonstrates how species can pass through different developmental stages over millions of years, and so it’s not unreasonable to assume that there are countless species, variations and intermediate stages of which there are no miraculous fossils to be found.

Yet to be found. Fossil search is very active, but according to Bechly most important finds have occurred.

DAVID: The intricacies of biochemical life require a designing mind as its source.

dhw: Or designing minds in the form of intelligent cell communities responding to the demands or opportunities arising from changing conditions. And it would be fair enough for the theist to argue that such designing minds must themselves have been designed. And it would be equally fair for atheists to claim that if designing minds must have been designed, who designed the designing mind you call God? Your answer is “first cause”, which proves absolutely nothing, since “first cause” could also be infinite, eternal matter and energy eventually producing the first life. No more and no less incredible than infinite, eternal, sourceless consciousness producing the first matter and energy.

We understand your mind is cemented into agnosticism.

dhw: There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.
If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

DAVID: There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

dhw: Your usual statement of your beliefs as if they were facts. Once more:
SHAPIRO: Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully […] They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision making capabilities. […] Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics etc.

There are plenty of experts in the field who agree with him.

Show me.

dhw: The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle.

DAVID: That we have so many fossils is the real miracle.
And
DAVID: The whale series proves my point: a rather full story; but none for bats.

It proves MY point. Each discovery is a miracle in itself, and the whale series is EXCEPTIONALLY miraculous. It clearly demonstrates how species can pass through different developmental stages over millions of years, and so it’s not unreasonable to assume that there are countless species, variations and intermediate stages of which there are no miraculous fossils to be found.

DAVID: Flying squirrels fit your story, but they never grew wings for their jumps. The Darwin approach always involves a good imagination.

dhw: Yes, bats are unique. And yes, it is difficult to imagine ANY explanation for all the complexities of life and evolution. This includes the imagining of an eternal, sourceless, omnipotent but inefficient form of consciousness that designed every creature that ever lived – including 99.9 out of 100 which it didn’t actually want to design and therefore had to get rid of.

DAVID: The intricacies of biochemical life require a designing mind as its source.

Or designing minds in the form of intelligent cell communities responding to the demands or opportunities arising from changing conditions. And it would be fair enough for the theist to argue that such designing minds must themselves have been designed. And it would be equally fair for atheists to claim that if designing minds must have been designed, who designed the designing mind you call God? Your answer is “first cause”, which proves absolutely nothing, since “first cause” could also be infinite, eternal matter and energy eventually producing the first life. No more and no less incredible than infinite, eternal, sourceless consciousness producing the first matter and energy.

dhw: There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.
If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

DAVID: There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

Your usual statement of your beliefs as if they were facts. Once more:
SHAPIRO: Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully […] They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision making capabilities. […] Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics etc.

There are plenty of experts in the field who agree with him.

DAVID: Your just-so explanation has a problem in the fossil record where there are none.

You have ignored my comments on this:
dhw: The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle.

That we have so many fossils is the real miracle.

And:
dhw: We are lucky enough to have sufficient fossil evidence to trace the history of whales. Apparently it took them approximately 50 million years to adapt fully to life in the water. 50 million years would cover…how many…five million generations? The oldest bat fossils also go back about 50 million years, and so any pre-bat fossils would need to have survived well over 50 million years.

The whale series proves my point: a rather full story; but none for bats

DAVID: Flying squirrels fit your story, but they never grew wings for their jumps. The Darwin approach always involves a good imagination.

dhw: Yes, bats are unique. And yes, it is difficult to imagine ANY explanation for all the complexities of life and evolution. This includes the imagining of an eternal, sourceless, omnipotent but inefficient form of consciousness that designed every creature that ever lived – including 99.9 out of 100 which he didn’t actually want to design and therefore had to get rid of.

The intricacies of biochemical life require a designing mind as its source.

dhw: There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.

If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

There is no autonomy in organismal cells. They follow directions.

DAVID: Your just-so explanation has a problem in the fossil record where there are none.

You have ignored my comments on this:
dhw: The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle.
And:
dhw: We are lucky enough to have sufficient fossil evidence to trace the history of whales. Apparently it took them approximately 50 million years to adapt fully to life in the water. 50 million years would cover…how many…five million generations? The oldest bat fossils also go back about 50 million years, and so any pre-bat fossils would need to have survived well over 50 million years.

DAVID: Flying squirrels fit your story, but they never grew wings for their jumps. The Darwin approach always involves a good imagination.

Yes, bats are unique. And yes, it is difficult to imagine ANY explanation for all the complexities of life and evolution. This includes the imagining of an eternal, sourceless, omnipotent but inefficient form of consciousness that designed every creature that ever lived – including 99.9 out of 100 which he didn’t actually want to design and therefore had to get rid of.

dhw: There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.

If you can imagine a small degree of autonomy, I still find it hard to understand why you can’t accept the POSSIBILITY of a large degree.

QUOTE: "At Evolution News, Behe said that bat wing evolution was unexplained by neo-Darwinian processes alone. He wrote, “The killer question is, what could build cool new features, such as bats flying or whales living in the ocean? What could drive the construction of animals that had never before been seen on earth?” Evolution, unlike intelligent design, can’t explain those things, and Behe was right.”

dhw: It always astonishes me that these people never mention Shapiro’s theory of evolution, which blends Darwin’s theory of common descent with the concept of cellular intelligence. Animals and organs that had never before been seen on earth would have evolved through intelligent cell communities cooperating in response to new conditions, either by adaptation or by innovation. Bat wings are variations on the forelimbs of other animals, as are whales’ flippers. The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle.

DAVID: Let's take bat wings. They must be designed for easy flight in the future. dhw wants a bodies' cells to imagine the future flights and make the legs into wings. Yes, cells act intelligently in their functional activities guided by instructions in their DNA. It does not make them designers for future function.

dhw: I’m not surprised that you prefer the bat example. We are lucky enough to have sufficient fossil evidence to trace the history of whales. Apparently it took them approximately 50 million years to adapt fully to life in the water. 50 million years would cover…how many…five million generations? The oldest bat fossils also go back about 50 million years, and so any pre-bat fossils would need to have survived well over 50 million years. Their basic skeletal structure is the same as that of other mammals. I don’t think anyone would imagine that 50 million years and one day ago, a mammal suddenly made all the necessary adjustments to turn its limbs into functioning wings – but a possibly leaping animal might gradually transform its leaping anatomy into one that keeps it suspended in the air. There is no planning for the future, any more than the first pre-whales to enter the water would have planned millions of years ahead for the gradual perfection of their anatomies for life in the water. My guess would be that pre-bats gained an advantage from developing their leaping ability, and this eventually followed the same course as whales’ adaptations, with the relevant parts of the anatomy gradually perfecting themselves for flight. You seem to think that only immediate perfection can survive. Of course it’s only speculation on my part, but so is the concept of an unknown sourceless mind specially designing animals de novo (not to mention the rest of your theory of evolution).NOBODY knows the truth, but whatever it may be is mind-boggling!

There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.

Your just-so explanation has a problem in the fossil record where there are none. Flying squirrels fit your story, but they never grew wings for their jumps. The Darwin approach always involves a good imagination.

dhw: It always astonishes me that these people never mention Shapiro’s theory of evolution, which blends Darwin’s theory of common descent with the concept of cellular intelligence. Animals and organs that had never before been seen on earth would have evolved through intelligent cell communities cooperating in response to new conditions, either by adaptation or by innovation. Bat wings are variations on the forelimbs of other animals, as are whales’ flippers. The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle.

DAVID: Let's take bat wings. They must be designed for easy flight in the future. dhw wants a bodies' cells to imagine the future flights and make the legs into wings. Yes, cells act intelligently in their functional activities guided by instructions in their DNA. It does not make them designers for future function.

I’m not surprised that you prefer the bat example. We are lucky enough to have sufficient fossil evidence to trace the history of whales. Apparently it took them approximately 50 million years to adapt fully to life in the water. 50 million years would cover…how many…five million generations? The oldest bat fossils also go back about 50 million years, and so any pre-bat fossils would need to have survived well over 50 million years. Their basic skeletal structure is the same as that of other mammals. I don’t think anyone would imagine that 50 million years and one day ago, a mammal suddenly made all the necessary adjustments to turn its limbs into functioning wings – but a possibly leaping animal might gradually transform its leaping anatomy into one that keeps it suspended in the air. There is no planning for the future, any more than the first pre-whales to enter the water would have planned millions of years ahead for the gradual perfection of their anatomies for life in the water. My guess would be that pre-bats gained an advantage from developing their leaping ability, and this eventually followed the same course as whales’ adaptations, with the relevant parts of the anatomy gradually perfecting themselves for flight. You seem to think that only immediate perfection can survive. Of course it’s only speculation on my part, but so is the concept of an unknown sourceless mind specially designing animals de novo (not to mention the rest of your theory of evolution).NOBODY knows the truth, but whatever it may be is mind-boggling!

There are now over 1400 bat species worldwide. I presume you do not believe your God designed each one individually, and indeed on occasions you have accepted the possibility that he gave cells sufficient autonomous intelligence to make what would have been minor changes in response to different conditions. But still you refuse to consider the POSSIBILITY that their intelligence might extend to a gradual improvement leap by leap that would lead to the finished product we know today.

DAVID: No evolution in fossils:
https://evolutionnews.org/2025/05/professor-stern-cardinale-stumbles-on-bat-wing-evolut...
The membranes, wing bone pattern with elongated digits are mostly novel.
They have unique embryonic pathways.
Uses structural proteins already present.
No evolutionary explanation.
Comment: pure evidence for design.

dhw: Out of pure interest, I logged onto the website, which ended as follows:

"At Evolution News, Behe said that bat wing evolution was unexplained by neo-Darwinian processes alone. He wrote, “The killer question is, what could build cool new features, such as bats flying or whales living in the ocean? What could drive the construction of animals that had never before been seen on earth?” Evolution, unlike intelligent design, can’t explain those things, and Behe was right.”

It always astonishes me that these people never mention Shapiro’s theory of evolution, which blends Darwin’s theory of common descent with the concept of cellular intelligence. Animals and organs that had never before been seen on earth would have evolved through intelligent cell communities cooperating in response to new conditions, either by adaptation or by innovation. Bat wings are variations on the forelimbs of other animals, as are whales’ flippers. The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle. The argument is simply that Intelligent Design can be achieved by intelligent beings, and Shapiro calls cells cognitive (sentient) entities. He is far from being alone in this view of cells, as advocated earlier by Margulis and McLintock and currently championed by scientists in different fields, as we have learned from several articles David has published. This does not preclude the existence of God, but it changes the “killer question” to what designed the intelligent cell. The significance of the theory is that it explains the ever changing history of life on Earth, as organisms have come and gone according to changes in conditions. Raup attributes survival to sheer luck, whereas David attributes it to his God’s sheer incompetence in his pursuit of a single goal (humans plus food).

The questions posed in my last post on “New Miscellany” revolve around the latter concept. From my agnostic position on the fence, the free-for-all concept, based on cellular intelligence, can fit in with any theist or atheist starting point, as it leaves wide open the question of how life originated. As you have not answered them, I am proposing answers for you! See the new post.

Let's take bat wings. They must be designed for easy flight in the future. dhw wants a bodies' cells to imagine the future flights and make the legs into wings. Yes, cells act intelligently in their functional activities guided by instructions in their DNA. It does n kot make them designers for future function.

Out of pure interest, I logged onto the website, which ended as follows:

"At Evolution News, Behe said that bat wing evolution was unexplained by neo-Darwinian processes alone. He wrote, “The killer question is, what could build cool new features, such as bats flying or whales living in the ocean? What could drive the construction of animals that had never before been seen on earth?” Evolution, unlike intelligent design, can’t explain those things, and Behe was right.”

It always astonishes me that these people never mention Shapiro’s theory of evolution, which blends Darwin’s theory of common descent with the concept of cellular intelligence. Animals and organs that had never before been seen on earth would have evolved through intelligent cell communities cooperating in response to new conditions, either by adaptation or by innovation. Bat wings are variations on the forelimbs of other animals, as are whales’ flippers. The lack of transitional fossils is hardly surprising, given the fact that tens if not hundreds of millions of years have passed, and each new fossil is regarded as a kind of miracle. The argument is simply that Intelligent Design can be achieved by intelligent beings, and Shapiro calls cells cognitive (sentient) entities. He is far from being alone in this view of cells, as advocated earlier by Margulis and McLintock and currently championed by scientists in different fields, as we have learned from several articles David has published. This does not preclude the existence of God, but it changes the “killer question” to what designed the intelligent cell. The significance of the theory is that it explains the ever changing history of life on Earth, as organisms have come and gone according to changes in conditions. Raup attributes survival to sheer luck, whereas David attributes it to his God’s sheer incompetence in his pursuit of a single goal (humans plus food).

The questions posed in my last post on “New Miscellany” revolve around the latter concept. From my agnostic position on the fence, the free-for-all concept, based on cellular intelligence, can fit in with any theist or atheist starting point, as it leaves wide open the question of how life originated. As you have not answered them, I am proposing answers for you! See the new post.

https://evolutionnews.org/2025/05/professor-stern-cardinale-stumbles-on-bat-wing-evolut...

The membranes, wing bone pattern with elongated digits are mostly novel.

They have unique embryonic pathways.

Uses structural proteins already present.

No evolutionary explanation.

Comment: pure evidence for design.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/where-did-butterflies-come-from-scientist...

"This past May, working with nearly 90 co-authors from six continents, he published the results of a massive global study of butterfly evolution, based on DNA samples from 2,300 butterfly species. Not only does it fill in the gaps on the phylogeny chart he saw as a child, but it also presents a completely new origin story for these charismatic insects. Most scientists thought they evolved in Australasia, but it seems most likely that the first butterflies appeared in North and Central America. The ancestor of butterflies was a nocturnal moth that became day-flying here, 101.4 million years ago. (my bold)

***

"Moths were the focus of Kawahara’s early career. He remains fascinated by them and likes to point out that butterflies are basically just moths that fly by day. Approximately half of moths have hearing abilities, and he’s particularly interested in a group that can hear bat sonar and make acoustic signals to “jam” the sonar and escape predation.

***

"The result is a beautiful, elaborate diagram that looks more like a wheel than a tree. Besides the breakthrough discoveries into where and when butterflies originated, it demonstrates that 36 tribes of butterflies need to be reclassified—and supports Kawahara’s 2019 hypothesis on how and why moths started flying in the day. Since the oldest intact fossilized butterfly was 55 million years old, and bats evolved in the same era, many scientists had thought that a group of moths became day-flying to escape bat predation. Now we know, thanks in large part to Kawahara’s revelatory work, that butterflies originated over 100 million years ago—some 35 million years before bats. Kawahara thinks that it was bees, not bats, that caused the advent of day-flying moths.

***

"By assigning a geographic area to every species in the study, and then using the DNA tree and supercomputers to calculate the probability that their ancestors were there in the past, researchers were able to form a hypothesis about the spread of butterflies around the world. First they fluttered east across North America and down into South America. Then they dispersed in waves to Australia, Asia, India, Africa and finally, around 30 million years ago, to Europe. Today there are an estimated 19,500 species, distributed all over the world except Antarctica, even on remote and isolated islands.

"By assigning a geographic area to every species in the study, and then using the DNA tree and supercomputers to calculate the probability that their ancestors were there in the past, researchers were able to form a hypothesis about the spread of butterflies around the world. First they fluttered east across North America and down into South America. Then they dispersed in waves to Australia, Asia, India, Africa and finally, around 30 million years ago, to Europe. Today there are an estimated 19,500 species, distributed all over the world except Antarctica, even on remote and isolated islands.

***

"Asked why some butterflies became so beautifully colored, Kawahara offers three generally agreed-upon reasons. “They’re displaying their chemical defense to predators, so birds and lizards, when they see a bright red butterfly, they think, ‘No, I’m not going to eat this thing because it’s toxic.’ Then there’s mimicry. Many butterflies look like the brightly colored toxic ones, but they’re not chemically defended. And lastly for mating. They use their colors to flash and display to the opposite sex.'”

Comment: so, butterflies came from moths that knew the dinosaurs. They pollinate which mean their arrival helped flowering plants which had recently arrived. Their fabulous coloration may be explained as above.

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/mother-nature-symmetry-simplicity-10690.html

"Biological structures frequently exhibit modularity and symmetry, but the origin of such trends is not well understood. It can be tempting to assume — by analogy to engineering design — that symmetry and modularity arise from natural selection. However, evolution, unlike engineers, cannot plan ahead, and so these traits must also afford some immediate selective advantage which is hard to reconcile with the breadth of systems where symmetry is observed. In a new paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists introduce an alternative hypothesis based on an algorithmic picture of evolution; it suggests that symmetric structures preferentially arise not just due to natural selection but also because they require less specific information to encode and are therefore much more likely to appear as genetic variation through random mutations. (my bold)

"From snowflakes to sunflowers, starfish to sharks, symmetry is everywhere in nature.

"Not just in the body plans which govern shape and form, but right down to the microscopic molecular machines keeping cells alive.

Although there is a larger collection of asymmetrical forms in the natural world, symmetrical patterns seem to occur more often than you would expect if due to sheer random chance.

***

"At this stage, it is useful to remind ourselves that there are two stages in evolutionary development.

"The first is the genetic mutation that causes a variation in a particular physical characteristic (a phenotype) and the second is the natural selection that leads to some traits dominating over others.

“'Most evolutionary theory concentrates on the second ‘survival of the fittest’ step,” said University of Oxford’s Professor Ard Louis.

“'But what if the first ‘arrival of variation’ step is highly biased towards phenotypes high in symmetry or modularity. Could that lead to the bias towards these traits that we observe in nature.”

***

"The study authors looked to computer science for the secret behind nature’s sleight of hand as they continued their investigation into the bias.

"In algorithmic information theory (AIT), the complexity of an object is measured by the length of its shortest description. (my bold)

"For example, a sequence of the letters AB a million times could be described as either a million repetitions of AB or the full sequence of ABABAB in its entirety.

"The shorter description is less complex and considerably more efficient — 28 characters, rather than a million characters. A random sequence with no possible ‘shorthand’ to describe it would be truly complex.

“'It’s much more efficient to follow an instruction that says, ‘do this, and then repeat it x times,’ than to follow all the detailed instructions required for a more complex asymmetrical shape,” Professor Louis said.

"The idea that nature often follows a less complex set of instructions, which are simpler to follow, is behind the paper’s key message — the notion of a distinct developmental bias. (my bold)

"The scientists suggest that the idea of a deck stacked with shapes as prescribed by shorter, simpler ‘instructions’ at the point of phenotype variation offers a much better explanation for the statistical improbability of so many symmetrical shapes in nature.

“'The question of whether or not bias in the arrival of variation has an impact on evolutionary outcomes has been highly contested for many decades,” Professor Louis said.

“'Our examples are simple enough to allow us to address this question head-on, with clear results pointing towards the critical importance of such bias.

Comment: that nasty word 'information' is back to the fore. Information in the DNA code makes everything. The authors are Darwinists relying on random mutations and natural selection, but I view it as God simplifying things for Himself. Why use complex information if simple will do, as the article notes.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/scientists-waited-two-and-a-half-yea...

"It’s long been assumed that life is somehow involved (on Earth, there is very little in which life is not involved), and scientists have demonstrated that it is theoretically possible. But no one had ever actually observed this in common types of iron-silicate continental rocks, likely due to the distressingly large gap in weathering’s reaction velocity relative to scientists’ career velocity.

***

"One way was to find rock that weathers fast. The Rio Blanco Quartz Diorite bedrock beneath the Rio Icacos watershed in Puerto Rico weathers exceptionally fast, making it a tempting target for an experiment conducted on a publishable timescale. The scientists took samples of pure bedrock from a roadcut as well as long tubes of soil and rock drilled into the formation from above. Included in these cores was the transition zone where fractured bedrock alternates with veins of newborn soil, a region is somewhat oddly called the “rindlet” zone (which sadly does not yield anything crunchy and delicious sold in 99-cent bags).

***

"All living beings juggle electrons, usually by stripping them from sugars and other reduced organic compounds (stuff we call “food”) and using those electrons to power their cells through cellular respiration. But some microbes can use simple inorganic compounds or atoms as electron sources. The ones that can use stone as a source of electrons are called lithotrophs. They eat rocks.

"Minerals rich in reduced iron like pyrite (fool’s gold), biotite, and hornblende are potential bacteria chow. The physical changes to these minerals wrought by electron stripping should initiate the process of their chemical dissolution — that is, weathering. This should be visible under the microscope as some sort of physical alteration.

"So the scientists took their highly weather-able rock and microbe-laced soil back home and accelerated the proceedings further by grinding the rock, increasing its surface area. They mixed crushed rock with microbes.

***

"After 30 months, they put their samples under the microscope. The minerals incubated with microbes appeared ragged or pitted — as if they had been dipped in acid, not bacteria — after their 864-day incubation. The sterile control minerals, by contrast, retained sharp, smooth edges.

***

"The lithotrophic bacteria they did find have a special power: the ability to harvest electrons from iron atoms outside their bodies. That is, they can eat without swallowing their food. The bacteria “ingest” the electrons in a technique called external electron transfer. This is vital because the iron atoms are part of the mineral and the bacteria have no crow bars or other means with which to pry them loose. But there is another advantage to doing it this way: if the iron atoms were ingested before oxidation, the microbes would fill with rust, a potentially lethal and definitely embarrassing situation.

"So, bacteria indeed appear able to initiate and accelerate the dirt-making process. On land, dirt supports plants, which support most everything else. In this way among many others, life feeds back, yielding the planet we see today in which no surface remains uncolonized, and the height and depth at which life vanishes remain unknown."

Comment: I've described the Earth as being evolved by God's creations in life. Starting with bacteria as God's workhorses, our Earth beautifully supports all sorts of life in a vast necessary bush of life. Analyzed this way God's methods for His purposes are easy to understand.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317332700_Intelligent_Design_Maybe_True_Maybe_...

"I do not wish to argue that intelligent design is true. I don't know if it's true. I also
do not wish to argue that it is a scientific position. I believe that it is not, but is instead an empirically undecidable, metaphysical one. I wish only to argue, contrary to the current intellectual zeitgeist, that it is neither stupid nor ridiculous either to believe in it or to entertain it as a possibility. I am referring here, not to a version of intelligent design that claims that the world was created 6000 years ago just as we find it today, but to one stating simply that there is now, or may have been at some time in the past, an ordering
intelligence behind the structure of the universe and its contents. I also want to argue that the position most commonly posed in opposition to it at the cosmic level (which is where
I will focus), which I shall refer to as "accidentalism," is not, as many would have it,
itself a scientifically open and shut case.

***

"Albert Einstein, a secular Jew who repeatedly affirmed his disbelief in a personal god, stated that, "The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." Other great scientifically informed minds from the past (e.g., Galileo, Kepler, and Maxwell) as well as the present time (e.g., Francis Collins, Fred Hoyle, and Alan Sandage) have expressed essentially the same belief. My admittedly ad hominem point here is simply this: Whether intelligent design is true or not, if people with relevantly informed minds of this caliber -- some of them the greatest minds in scientific history -- believe in it, it seems unreasonable simply to dismiss it as a ridiculous position with no merit whatsoever.

***

"The foregoing discussion is not proffered as an argument for intelligent design. It
is, rather, an objection directed at those who, in response to any suggestion that intelligent design beliefs may have some merit, blithely assert that, "We have no need for that hypothesis. We have it all covered scientifically." Aside from the fact that, properly
understood, there is no conflict between science and intelligent design, it is simply not
true that "we have it all covered scientifically." As M.I.T. physicist Alan Lightman reports
in his fascinating article, "The Accidental Universe," there remain very deep and
unresolved questions about the extraordinary improbabilities in our cosmos.

"I do not claim to have a settled answer for myself. I just don't know. Intelligent design may or may not be the case -- I believe we will not, indeed cannot, ever know for sure -- but it is hard for me to dismiss as merely foolish Einstein's conjecture that there may exist "an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." At the end of the day, the existence or non-existence of such an intelligence cannot be established empirically, is not a matter for science, and should not be taught in science courses. It is a matter for belief, and I have tried here only to argue that such belief, at least in certain of its forms, is not unreasonable, ought not to be unreflectively branded "creationism", and should not be viewed with contempt. The possibility of intelligent design falls in the realm covered by Wittgenstein's famous assertion that "even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.'"

Comment: The whole neutral article is a good read. Of course design is required. God comes with the establishment of faith.

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-biology-networks-cheap-robust-efficient.html

"A new study shows how a wide variety of vascular networks can be created by changing only a small number of a network's attributes. Published in Physical Review Letters, the work of two physicists, former Penn postdoc Henrik Ronellenfitsch and professor Eleni Katifori, shows that vascular networks evolve through a tradeoff between how well the network can transport fluid, a network's "cost," or how many cells it takes to build the network, and its robustness, or how well the system works if part of the structure is damaged.

"This research builds off Katifori and Ronellenfitsch's previous work on "adaptation equations," mathematical models of systems that are good at a specific function, such as moving fluid. In this study, they wanted to see if their adaptation equation could get vascular networks to "self-organize" into the most efficient structure possible.

***

"When researchers want to analyze the costs and benefits of different trade-offs, they rely on a concept known as Pareto efficiency. As an example, in renovating a house with new insulation under a limited budget, one can either spend a lot of money and have a house that is well-insulated, or spend less money and do little to improve the insulation. The most efficient set of options, on the spectrum of low to high cost and from few to many renovations in the illustrative example, is known as the Pareto frontier. Using this approach, Ronellenfitsch was able to see which attributes were the most important to create efficient vascular networks. "The networks that we identify are those where you cannot improve any of these requirements without getting worse at one of the others," he says.

"The researchers found that vascular network efficiency was driven by how robust the network was to damage and how "expensive" it was to build. Across a spectrum of changes to these two attributes, researchers could create a wide variety of structures from intricately interwoven networks that were robust against damage to simpler designs that wouldn't stand up to breakage.

"But how does nature know how to balance cost with robustness? By simulating fluctuations, or changes in the average amount of fluid that moved through parts of the network, they found that changes in flow rates impact whether a network should be robust or not. "If you want something that is cheap but not robust, you'd better not have a lot of fluctuations," says Katifori.'

Comment: It takes a good designer to find just the right mix of attributes. It doesn't happen by trial and error, as proposed BY Darwin.

QUOTE: By sequencing the genomes of all 845 butterfly species, Grishin and colleagues were able to work out a genomic family tree that in large part agreed with the existing one based on anatomy. But it also showed more. “People thought butterflies were closely related based on what they look like, but genomically, we saw something else.” Grishin’s group reclassified 40 species and suggested several new genus levels.

dhw: This whole study is based on the narrowest possible view of speciation. All of these butterflies remain butterflies, and the variations may be attributed to interbreeding and adaptation. The mystery of evolution lies in the innovations that have resulted in the broader concept of “species”, i.e. ants as opposed to sharks as opposed to eagles as opposed to lions as opposed to humans.

You are right. Adds nothing to the concept of advancing evolution and speciation, but the key point is genome studies must classify.

This whole study is based on the narrowest possible view of speciation. All of these butterflies remain butterflies, and the variations may be attributed to interbreeding and adaptation. The mystery of evolution lies in the innovations that have resulted in the broader concept of “species”, i.e. ants as opposed to sharks as opposed to eagles as opposed to lions as opposed to humans.