https://www.sciencealert.com/ovary-appendage-dismissed-as-functionless-may-act-like-the...

"While diligently recorded in early versions of the famous surgical reference book, Gray's Anatomy, the rete ovarii's existence has largely fallen into obscurity, left out of modern texts and dismissed as a "functionless vestige".

"This is despite the fact the structure is highly conserved across mammal species, from camels to guinea pigs, suggesting the small ovarian structure has an important enough role.

"What's more, an equivalent (if simpler) structure in males – the rete testis – has a known function involved in maintaining the fluid in the testicles and helps with sperm transport.

***

"A dense tangle of blood vessels surrounds the structure, which is also directly connected to a system of neurons that join to muscle cells for contraction like they do in the uterus or to the outer cell layer like they do in our gut.

"Together these anatomical features suggest the tiny structure may contribute to hormone signaling, which could control how many follicles on an ovary produce eggs each cycle. The rete ovarii may be a sensory appendage and act like the ovary's 'tongue'.

"In flies and worms, ovaries respond to changing conditions in their immediate environment, including those induced by changes in diet. Anbarci and team suspect this may be the rete ovarii's role, to sense changes in the immediate environments of mammalian ovaries' and send signals for their reproductive organs to respond accordingly.

***

"'The direct proximity of the rete ovarii to the ovary and its integration with the extraovarian landscape suggest that it plays an important role in ovary development and homeostasis," the researchers write in their paper.

"There's still much to confirm but the researchers next intend to challenge this structure's response to physiological signals including hormones and diet changes.

"'We suggest that the RO be added to this list and investigated as an additional component of female reproductive function," the researchers conclude."

Comment: everything in an organism is there for a purpose. Nothing is vestigial. It is a human error in theory.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2417878-useless-appendage-of-the-ovaries-may-play-...

"A key component of the female reproductive system may have been overlooked. Research into the rete ovarii, an appendage of the ovaries that has previously been dismissed as useless, suggests it has an important role after all.

“'We think it is regulating the timing or rate of ovulation,” says Blanche Capel at Duke University in North Carolina. “It may control how many [ovarian] follicles are activated in one’s cycle or when they are activated.”

"Her team plans to do further studies to try to confirm this. “We haven’t proved all of this, but there are several smoking guns here,” she says.

***

"Part of the problem is that even in large animals, the rete ovarii is extremely difficult to see with the naked eye, says Anbarci. It is only because the team was creating 3D images with PAX8 that it could be seen in mice, she says. “It was just the luck of using the right antibody.”

"While continuing to study the development, structure and function of the rete ovarii, mostly in mice, the researchers found nerves connecting to the appendage. Anbarci is now trying to establish whether these are sending information or receiving it.

***

“'So it can actively transport fluid into the ovary,” says Capel. “That suggests that it really does function. It’s also surrounded by macrophages, which are really interesting cells that communicate a lot around the body.”

***

"It is assumed that the ovaries respond directly to chemical signals in the blood, but it could be the rete ovarii that is relaying signals, says Capel. “It may be a sensory mechanism for the ovary to keep tabs on what’s going on in the rest of the body,” she says. “Kind of like an antenna.'”

Comment: everything in the body is there for a reason. We just need to find all the reasons.

https://www.sciencealert.com/useless-organ-that-doctors-often-remove-could-actually-fig...

"A recent retrospective study, however, suggests the thymus gland is not nearly as expendable as experts once thought.

"US researchers found that those who get their thymus removed face an increased risk of death from any cause later in life.

"They also face an increased risk of developing cancer.

"The study is purely observational, which means it cannot show that removing the thymus directly causes cancer or other fatal illnesses.

***

"In childhood, the thymus is known to play a critical role in developing the immune system. When the gland is removed at a young age, patients show long-term reductions in T-cells, which are a type of white blood cell that combats germs and disease.

"Kids without a thymus also tend to have an impaired immune response to vaccines.

"By the time a person hits puberty, however, the thymus shrivels up and produces far fewer T-cells for the body. It can seemingly be removed without immediate harm, and because it sits in front of the heart, it is often taken out during cardiothoracic surgery.

***

"Using patient data from a state healthcare system, researchers in Boston compared the outcomes of patients who had undergone cardiothoracic surgery: more than 6,000 people (controls) who did not have their thymus removed and 1,146 people who did have their thymus removed.

"Those who underwent a thymectomy were almost twice as likely as controls to die within 5 years, even after accounting for sex, age, race, and those with cancer of the thymus, myasthenia gravis, or postoperative infections.

"Patients who had their thymus removed were also twice as likely to develop cancer within 5 years of surgery.

"What's more, this cancer was generally more aggressive and often recurred after treatment compared to the control group.

"Why these associations exist is unknown, but researchers suspect a lack of thymus is somehow messing with the healthy function of the adult immune system.

"A subset of patients in the study who had undergone a thymectomy showed fewer diverse T-cell receptors in their bloodwork, which could possibly contribute to the development of cancer or autoimmune diseases after surgery.

"'Together, these findings support a role for the thymus contributing to new T-cell production in adulthood and to the maintenance of adult human health," the authors of the study conclude.

"Their results, they say, strongly suggest that the thymus plays a functionally important role in our continued health, right up to the bitter end."

Comment: I view humans as purposely designed by God with every part of us playing a necessary role for al of our lives. My cousin who had her thymus removed in childhood died of cancer in her fifties.

https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/human-vestigial-organs-some-contradictions-in-darwini...

"The definition of vestigial (in the original evolutionary sense) is: “Of a body part or organ: remaining in a form that is small or imperfectly developed and not able to function.” Or according to Darwin and Haeckel, a vestigial organ is a rudimentary structure that, “although morphologically present, nevertheless does not exist physiologically, in that it does not carry out any corresponding functions” (Haeckel 1866, p. 268, similarly Darwin 1872, p. 131).

"Among these organs, the pronephros was, at least until recently, taken as an outstanding illustration for the assertion that man is “a veritable walking museum of antiquities” (Horatio Hackett Newman 1925). Contemporary Darwinians such as Donald R. Prothero (2020) heartily agree.

"What is the pronephros?

"Mammalian kidneys develop in three successive stages, generating three distinct excretory structures known as the pronephros, the mesonephros, and the metanephros (Fig. 1.2). The pronephros and mesonephros are vestigial structures in mammals and degenerate before birth; the metanephros is the definitive mammalian kidney. (Scott et al. 2019) [Emphasis added.]

"However, directly after these sentences, we read that the early stages of kidney development are required for further developmental processes (pp. 3-4):

The early stages of kidney development are required for the development of the adrenal glands and gonads that also form within the urogenital ridge. Furthermore, many of the signaling pathways and genes that play important roles in the metanephric kidney appear to play parallel roles during the development of the pronephros and mesonephros.

***

"Despite this transient appearance in mammals, the pronephros is essential for the development of the adult kidneys. The duct of the mesonephros forms the Wolffian duct and ureter of the adult kidney. The embryonic kidney and its derivatives also produce the inductive signals that trigger formation of the adult kidney.

***

"Larsen’s Human Embryology (6th Edition 2021, p. 369) states:

"During embryonic development, three sets of nephric systems develop in craniocaudal succession from the intermediate mesoderm. These are called pronephros, mesonephros, and metanephros (or definitive kidneys). Formation of the pronephric kidney (i.e., pronephros) lays the foundation for induction of the metanephros. Hence, formation of a pronephros is really the start of a developmental cascade leading to the formation of the definitive kidney.

"Thus, by having vital roles as inducers, the pronephros and mesonephros are crucial to the developmental cascade that leads to the formation of the permanent kidneys. They are definitely not “useless rudiments of once-functional systems.” It seems they are unquestionably not vestigial or atavistic formations, comparable to ruins in mammalian ontogeny.

"There is this “breaking news” on kidney development: The pronephros does not even exist in mammals: “A recent detailed analysis of human embryos concluded there is in fact no pronephric kidney even present in humans, or any mammal, and they are present and functional only in animals that have an aquatic life phase” (Peter D. Vize 2023, p. 23).

"The evolutionary molecular biologist and Nobel laureate François Jacob emphasized that:

"In the genetic program … is written the result of all past reproductions, the collection of successes, since all traces of failures have disappeared. The genetic message, the program of the present-day organism, therefore resembles a text without an author, that a proof-reader has been correcting for more than two billion years, continually improving, refining and completing it, gradually eliminating all imperfections.

"Now, can Darwinians really have both — omnipotent natural selection eliminating all imperfections and, at the same time, human beings full of superfluous rudimentary organs constituting “a veritable walking museum of antiquities'”?

Comment: remember the famous 'vestigial' appendix is now known to be a vital immune center for the gut. This article defines my point that the designer uses previous mechanisms in creating new advances. Nothing, not yet fully developed in embryos, is vestigial. Darwinists strain credulity to protect the beloved theory. It takes time and research to remove human impressions that the body has non-functional parts.

DAVID’s comment: The whole article reviews the history of the efforts to get epigenetics recognized. Neo-Darwinists fight tooth and nail against a change in approach to evolution. They want to study only external influences, not internal changes originated by organisms themselves.

dhw: Your comment is as significant as the article. Whether your God devised the whole system or not, it is becoming increasingly clear that evolution is a process in which organisms themselves originate change, and they do so at least partly (I would say mainly) through intelligent organismal responses to the challenges or opportunities presented by external influences. The external influences may well be governed by chance, but the responses are not.

DAVID: The key is recognizing the importance of internal responses. Darwin only noted the external and competition, only a small part of the story.

The key is recognizing the importance of all the factors involved. The aim is not to denigrate Darwin but to try and get as near as we can to a convincing explanation of how evolution happened. Your recognition that internal changes are “originated by organisms themselves” offers very gratifying support to the proposal I have summarized above. Thank you.

DAVID:A new paper by a Darwin scientist appears in Nature and is commented upon by the author in this entry. It estimates the new genes required for a Cambrian jump:
https://theconversation.com/we-reconstructed-the-genome-of-the-first-animal-95900

DAVID’s comment: this fits our discussion. The genes appeared within the animals to create the Cambrian gap. The Darwin scientist is puzzled because this is a jump without chance and without action by natural selection. Direction by God fits. Be sure to look at the ladder diagram to fully appreciate this.

dhw: Is anyone really surprised that new species contain new genes? We all know that the Cambrian is a puzzle – Darwin also recognized it – but I see no reason why it should not fit the scenario outlined above, in which organisms themselves respond to environmental change by originating their own changes. Your God may have invented the mechanisms that enabled them to do so. He may even have directed the environmental changes that offered these new opportunities. Who knows?

Agreed.

dhw: Your comment is as significant as the article. Whether your God devised the whole system or not, it is becoming increasingly clear that evolution is a process in which organisms themselves originate change, and they do so at least partly (I would say mainly) through intelligent organismal responses to the challenges or opportunities presented by external influences. The external influences may well be governed by chance, but the responses are not.

DAVID: The key is recognizing the importance of internal responses. Darwin only noted the external and competition, only a small part of the story.

The key is recognizing the importance of all the factors involved. The aim is not to denigrate Darwin but to try and get as near as we can to a convincing explanation of how evolution happened. Your recognition that internal changes are “originated by organisms themselves” offers very gratifying support to the proposal I have summarized above. Thank you.

DAVID:A new paper by a Darwin scientist appears in Nature and is commented upon by the author in this entry. It estimates the new genes required for a Cambrian jump:
https://theconversation.com/we-reconstructed-the-genome-of-the-first-animal-95900

DAVID’s comment: this fits our discussion. The genes appeared within the animals to create the Cambrian gap. The Darwin scientist is puzzled because this is a jump without chance and without action by natural selection. Direction by God fits. Be sure to look at the ladder diagram to fully appreciate this.

Is anyone really surprised that new species contain new genes? We all know that the Cambrian is a puzzle – Darwin also recognized it – but I see no reason why it should not fit the scenario outlined above, in which organisms themselves respond to environmental change by originating their own changes. Your God may have invented the mechanisms that enabled them to do so. He may even have directed the environmental changes that offered these new opportunities. Who knows?

https://evolutionnews.org/2018/06/on-hominid-fossils-and-universal-common-ancestry-deni...

"The focus is on the fact that the fossils that we do have don’t form an evolutionary sequence from apelike precursors to humanlike fossils.

***

"We have ample fossils of australopithecines, and Homo erectus, and Neanderthals, and now we have numerous bones of Homo naledi, and there are many others.

***

"From its first appearance, Homo erectus was very human-like, and differed markedly from prior hominins which were not human-like. Yet Homo erectus appears abruptly, without apparent evolutionary precursors. An article in Nature explains:

“'The origins of the widespread, polymorphic, Early Pleistocene H. erectus lineage remain elusive. The marked contrasts between any potential ancestor (Homo habilis or other) and the earliest known H. erectus might signal an abrupt evolutionary emergence some time before its first known appearance in Africa at -1.78 Myr [million years ago]. Uncertainties surrounding the taxon’s appearance in Eurasia and southeast Asia make it impossible to establish accurately the time or place of origin for H. erectus . … Whatever its time and place of origin, and direction of spread, this species dispersed widely, and possibly abruptly, before 1.5 Myr.”

"That article was written in 2002, but the problem remains. A 2016 paper admits, “Although the transition from Australopithecus to Homo is usually thought of as a momentous transformation, the fossil record bearing on the origin and earliest evolution of Homo is virtually undocumented.” While that paper argues that the evolutionary distance between Australopithecus and Homo is small, it nonetheless concedes that ”By almost all accounts, the earliest populations of the Homo lineage emerged from a still unknown ancestral species in Africa at some point between approximately 3 and approximately 2 million years ago.”

***

"The problem is that most hominin fossils can’t be organized in a manner that leads to an evolutionary lineage, especially one that bridges the gap between the apelike australopithecines and the humanlike members of Homo."

Comment: This, in a way, is as a dramatic gap as the Cambrian explosion. Lucy is quite ape like with long arms and a tiny head with 400+ cc of brain. Erectus approaches modern brain size at just under 1,000 cc, and a much larger body with shorter arms.

https://theconversation.com/we-reconstructed-the-genome-of-the-first-animal-95900

"The first animals emerged on Earth at least 541m years ago, according to the fossil record. What they looked like is the subject of an ongoing debate, but they’re traditionally thought to have been similar to sponges.

***

" Was the emergence of animals a small step in evolution, or did it represent a big leap in the DNA that carries the instructions for life?

"To answer these questions and more, my colleague and I have reconstructed the set of genetic instructions (a minimal genome) present in the last common ancestor of all animals. By comparing this ancestral animal genome to those of other ancient lifeforms, we’ve shown that the emergence of animals involved a lot of very novel changes in DNA. What’s more, some of these changes were so essential to the biology of animals that they are still found in most modern animals after more than 500m years of independent evolution. In fact, most of our own genes are descended from this “first animal”.

***

"Our results suggest the genomes of the first animals were surprisingly similar to those of modern ones, containing the same proportions of biological functions. Around 55% of modern human genes descend from genes found in the last common ancestor of all animals, meaning the other 45% evolved later.

"By applying the same techniques to the genomes of modern relatives of animals, we also reconstructed the genome of even older ancestral organisms. We found that the first animal genome was in many ways very similar to the genomes of these unicellular ancestors.

"But then we looked at the novel genes in the first animal genome that weren’t found in older lifeforms. We discovered the first animal had an exceptional number of novel genes, four times more than other ancestors. This means the evolution of animals was driven by a burst of new genes not seen in the evolution of their unicellular ancestors.

"Finally, we looked at those novel genes from the first animal that are still found in most of the modern animals we studied. Natural selection should mean that animals keep genes with essential biological functions as the species evolve. We found 25 groups of such genes that had been kept in this way, five times more genes than in other, older, ancestors. Most of them have never been associated with the origin of animals before.

"These novel genes that are still widely found today control essential functions that are specifically related to lifeforms with multiple cells. Three groups of these genes are involved in transmitting different nervous system signals. But our analyses show that these genes are also found in animals that do not have a nervous system, such as sponges. That means the genetic basis of the nervous system may have evolved before the nervous system itself did.

"Our research shows that both new genes and the recycling of old genes were important in the evolution of animals. But these results raise even more questions. Were novel genes also important in the rise of other types of large multicellular lifeforms such as plants or fungi? What was behind the explosion of novel genes that drove the evolution of animals? Did it happen faster than in other groups or did animal ancestors take a long time to accumulate all the new genes? Answering those questions will require more and better genome data (or improved time-travelling capabilities)."

Comment: this fits our discussion. The genes appeared within the animals to create the Cambrian gap. The Darwin scientist is puzzled because this is a jump without chance and without action by natural selection. Direction by God fits. Be sure to look at the ladder diagram to fully appreciate this.

DAVID’s comment: The whole article reviews the history of the efforts to get epigenetics recognized. Neo-Darwinists fight tooth and nail against a change in approach to evolution. They want to study only external influences, not internal changes originated by organisms themselves.

dhw: Your comment is as significant as the article. Whether your God devised the whole system or not, it is becoming increasingly clear that evolution is a process in which organisms themselves originate change, and they do so at least partly (I would say mainly) through intelligent organismal responses to the challenges or opportunities presented by external influences. The external influences may well be governed by chance, but the responses are not.

The key is recognizing the importance of internal responses. Darwin only noted the external and competition, only a small part of the story

Your comment is as significant as the article. Whether your God devised the whole system or not, it is becoming increasingly clear that evolution is a process in which organisms themselves originate change, and they do so at least partly (I would say mainly) through intelligent organismal responses to the challenges or opportunities presented by external influences. The external influences may well be governed by chance, but the responses are not.

https://us-mg205.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.partner=sbc&.rand=a2ucpnsujh5ul#mail

"Neo-Darwinists claim that the whole of evolution, and far more besides, can
be adequately explained by the natural selection of random variations. So sure
are they of their theory they nd it dicult even to imagine that there could possi-
bly be an alternative within science.

***

"There have been a few serious attempts to define neo-Darwinism, notably by
Maynard Smith. He wrote that it explains evolution in terms of three prop-
erties: multiplication, heredity, and variation, and it also holds that the origin of
variations is genetic mutations. He then added: «So far I have been describing a set
of properties of organisms or, more precisely, a set of properties which neo-Dar-
winism assumes all organisms to have. This is not by itself a theory of evolution.
The theory of neo-Darwinism states that these properties are necessary and su-
cient to account for the evolution of life on this planet to date».

"Note here another characteristic of a paradigm. A theory aims to explain phe-
nomena; a paradigm also specifies the sort of explanation that we are to look for.

"The common idea is that an understanding of the most important
features of an organism, of human behaviour, of the economy, even of the uni-
verse, is to be sought not in the structure of the object itself but in terms of the ex-
ternal forces that act upon it. The alternative approach is focused on the object,
which in the case of biology is the organism.

***

"When Waddington coined the term epigenetics, he meant it to include everything
between the genes and the phenotype. Over the past twenty or so years, the mean-
ing has changed and it now refers only to things that happen within the genome.
The precise denition varies, but a common one is that it is the study of heritable
changes that do not involve changes in DNA.

"The recent interest in epigenetics (in the restricted sense of the word) will
certainly yield valuable information about organisms and especially the early stages
of their development. It also moves us further away from the one gene/one char-
acter assumption that no evolutionist will admit to believing but most use implicit-
ly in their work.

***

"Over the last ten years or so, some scientists have been arguing that neo-Darwinism
in its present form is inadequate as an explanation of evolution. They propose
instead what they call the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). This, they tell us,
will take on board the relevant phenomena that the modern synthesis largely ignores.

***

"When challenged, neo-Darwinists have always insisted that
they include all sorts of things in their theory. The question is whether these addi-
tional factors actually play a signicant role in their research, and here we can hope
that the EES group will do better.

***

"Cracks are appearing in the neo-Darwinist paradigm. What’s more, the time it
will take for a fundamental change may well turn out to be unusually short. This is
because all that is really needed is a recognition that the study of evolution is not
solely a matter of population biology and genetics. Scientists from many other dis-ciplines have important roles to play.

"It is bound to be difficult to get someone to accept that the work they have de-
voted their career to is nowhere near as important as they had been led to believe.

"It’s a lot easier to convince scientists that what they have been doing is even more
important than they thought. Where the study of evolution goes after that will of
course be up to them."

Comment: The whole article reviews the history of the efforts to get epigenetics recognized. Neo-Darwinists fight tooth and nail against a change in approach to evolution. They want to study only external influences, not internal changes originated by organisms themelves


> This is precisely why I find your scenario so unconvincing. Reason and experience tell me that anything planned from the start should not branch off in all directions, and should not rely on luck. (I repeat, if extinction is a matter of bad luck, then survival is a matter of good luck.) Any Texan cowboy will tell you that a scattergun is not the weapon best guaranteed to hit the target.-A shotgun hits the dove easier than a rifle. All cowboys know that.

Of the two, I find the second far more convincing, as it covers the various gaps I listed at the end of my post of 18 November at 13.18. Your scenario leaves unexplained the need for all the extinct species,> > 
> 
> As I have said several times in other posts, if humans were the final goal, then answer to that question is so blindingly obvious that it is most often overlooked. It was done that way because it had to be done that way in order for humanity to survive. The basic sustenance of our bodies is dependent on all other life, which is dependent upon the earth, which is dependent on the solar system and all its many planets, which is dependent on the galaxy and all its many solar systems, which is dependent on the universe and all its many galaxies. Early life was an absolute necessity for preparing an inhospitable lump of rock, lava, and water into a livable planet. There had to be soil for plants, which would have required millions upon millions of years of microbial preparation for even the most tenacious of plants to have survived. There would have had to be vast quantities of plant life to sustain the first land creatures, which were every bit as vital for preparing the earth as their microbial predecessors. And most importantly, it had to become a system that could survive without constant micromanagement of every little detail.-Excellent point. It takes millions of years to break down lava and rock using wind, weather, and lichens. Plants had to come and raise the oxygen level. More water had to arrive by comet snowballs, etc., etc., etc. Human evolution had to dovetail in with cosmologic and planetary evolution, all at once.

DAVID: If one sets into motion an evolutionary process that (in my view) works by fits and starts, punctuated equilibrium, it will take time and it will pass through all sorts of species 'attempts'.
> 
> If a UI experiments and improvises as it goes along, not knowing where things are heading, the process will work by fits and starts, punctuated equilibrium, it will take time, and it will pass through all sorts of species 'attempts'.
> -When you bake bread, sometimes you have to sit around and wait 45 minutes for the yeast to do its work and make the dough rise before you pop it in the oven. Does that mean that you weren't planning on making a loaf of bread right from the start?

Of the two, I find the second far more convincing, as it covers the various gaps I listed at the end of my post of 18 November at 13.18. Your scenario leaves unexplained the need for all the extinct species, for all the long periods of stasis, and indeed for evolution itself, because if man was the goal right from the start, all the intervening stages were clearly superfluous. (What was the point of all those dead dinosaurs?) Since "we can only imagine His reasoning, based on what we see as factual information", what do you imagine was His reason for the delay and the wastefulness covering so many billion years?
> 
> The reason why I'm pushing this argument is that like yourself, I believe evolution happened, but if it was organized by a UI, I cannot for the life of me see why it would deliberately choose such a messy, wasteful, roundabout way of achieving its purpose. The mess seems to me far more consistent with a process that has not been planned beforehand. However, interestingly, your choice of Option 1 fits in far better with the atheist scenario: you and they start with a single mechanism, and the rest follows on of its own accord: an automatic, unbroken, unguided, self-regulating, messy, wasteful and roundabout progression from bacteria to human brain.-As I have said several times in other posts, if humans were the final goal, then answer to that question is so blindingly obvious that it is most often overlooked. It was done that way because it had to be done that way in order for humanity to survive. The basic sustenance of our bodies is dependent on all other life, which is dependent upon the earth, which is dependent on the solar system and all its many planets, which is dependent on the galaxy and all its many solar systems, which is dependent on the universe and all its many galaxies. Early life was an absolute necessity for preparing an inhospitable lump of rock, lava, and water into a livable planet. There had to be soil for plants, which would have required millions upon millions of years of microbial preparation for even the most tenacious of plants to have survived. There would have had to be vast quantities of plant life to sustain the first land creatures, which were every bit as vital for preparing the earth as their microbial predecessors. And most importantly, it had to become a system that could survive without constant micromanagement of every little detail.

David and I are having fun imagining a UI's evolutionary thinking. If I believed in a UI, I would favour the view that either he didn't know where life was heading when he invented it, and experimented as he went along, or he had a plan in mind but didn't know how to achieve it, and so again experimented as he went along. > > 
> > DAVID (November 22 at 20.10): Your method uses chance exclusively, and the time is short. With directed DNA, chance is a side issue. That is the underlying reason I like my theory over yours.
> > 
> > DAVID (November 12 at 18.57): Extinction is due to BAD LUCK.
> > 
> > DAVID (November 16 at 23.26): In my faith he set forward an evolutionary process, but evolving means change and both life and geology were changing at the same time. There would have to be good and bad luck in that scenario.-
Your scenario doesn't fit our knowledge of evolution. It is a branching tree. To go from amoeba to human is not exactly a straight line, but an explosion of branching limbs, with many cut off by bad luck. But the internal directing mechanisms make the process arrive at US in a resonable time by God's reckoning. Notochords arrive out of nowhere at the Cambrian, and then the process is alot more internally directed than beforehand. We only take 550 million years to pop on the scene, after 3 billion years of unicellar guys and sheets of other folks. Luck is of no issue. All life tries to respond to dangers and survive. That is a characteristic of life, as evolution advances forward into more complex forms. God doesn't have to experiment. The whole system is set up to go forward to us. We are pre-ordained from the beginning, Chixulub or not.