https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/learning-to-fly-from-dinosaurs?utm_source=Cosm...

"Pterosaurs, the largest animals ever to fly, soared the skies for 160 million years – much longer than any species of modern bird. That ought to be enough to think about how they did it, and what we can learn from them.

"But despite their aeronautic excellence, these ancient flyers have largely been overlooked in the pursuit of bio-inspired flight technologies.

Now, in a review just published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, researchers outline why and how the physiology of fossil flyers could provide ancient solutions to modern flight problems, such as aerial stability and the ability of drones to self-launch.

***

"Martin-Silverstone says there are a select few pterosaur fossils that provide extraordinarily deep insight into the anatomy of their wings, which is essential for understanding their flight capabilities.

“'There are two or three absolutely amazingly preserved pterosaur fossils that let you see the different layers within the wing membrane, giving us insight into its fibrous components,” she says.

***

“'Also, some fossils are preserved enough to show the wing attachments beneath the hip. While you don’t know exactly the shape of the wing, by knowing the membrane attachments you can model the effectiveness of different wing shapes and determine which would have performed best in natural conditions.”

***

"Launching into the air through a leap or jump, also known as ballistic launch, is standard throughout the animal kingdom. However, larger birds require a running start to gain enough momentum for lift-off.

Incredibly, pterosaurs may have developed a method to launch from a stationary position, despite some specimens weighing nearly 300 kilograms.

One hypothesis, proposed by co-author Mike Habib, of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, US, suggests that the wing membrane and the robust muscle attachments in the wings allowed pterosaurs to generate a high-powered leap off their elbows and wrists, giving them enough height to become airborne.

***

Martin-Silverstone suggests that if we combine our knowledge from flyers both living and extinct, we’ll have a much better chance of overcoming the hurdles still hindering man-made flight. She wants biologists and engineers to reach out to palaeontologists when they’re looking to solve flight problems.

“'If we limit ourselves to looking at the modern animals, then we’re missing out on a lot of diversity that might be useful.'”

Comment: God, as av designer is a much better engineer than we are. But then again, His brain cannot be compared to ours.

dhw: Agreed. Clear evidence of common descent. That’s all.

DAVID: All adaptations are variations on the same theme. Simplifies the job of evolution. Still doesn't explain speciation, but your theoretical organisms easily know how to modify?

dhw: All agreed, except that I don’t understand why you insert “easily”. My hypothesis is that the cell communities know how to modify, and it may be that your God gave them that knowledge and the means to implement it (“cellular intelligence”). Personally, I would see that as simpler than your God preprogramming every change to be passed on through 3.8 billion years or having to make personal interventions, e.g. when the dear old weaverbird fails to tie his knots (or was his nest also preprogrammed?)

DAVID: I view epigenetic adaptations as 'easy' modifications of existing patterns, and I assume that following a pervious pattern makes speciation easier to accomplish.

That’s fine with me, then. Less inventiveness required from the intelligent cell communities as they build on patterns created by their predecessors. Fits in perfectly with my hypothesis.

DAVID: My point is pattern planning to make the process of evolution simpler. Your point is correct after the patterns are set up.

dhw: I know you think your God planned everything in advance. My point is that organisms would have worked out their own patterns and passed them on. I don’t know why that should be seen as less simple than your God working all the patterns out 3.8 billion years ago and getting the first cells to pass them on and on and on until the new environments and organisms appeared.

DAVID: And my point is all organisms with skeletons have the same pattern to start with.

Agreed. Clear evidence of common descent. That’s all.

DAVID: All adaptations are variations on the same theme. Simplifies the job of evolution. Still doesn't explain speciation, but your theoretical organisms easily know how to modify?

dhw: All agreed, except that I don’t understand why you insert “easily”. My hypothesis is that the cell communities know how to modify, and it may be that your God gave them that knowledge and the means to implement it (“cellular intelligence”). Personally, I would see that as simpler than your God preprogramming every change to be passed on through 3.8 billion years or having to make personal interventions, e.g. when the dear old weaverbird fails to tie his knots (or was his nest also preprogrammed?)

I view epigenetic adaptations as 'easy' modifications of existing patterns, and I assume that following a pervious pattern makes speciation easier to accomplish.

dhw: I know you think your God planned everything in advance. My point is that organisms would have worked out their own patterns and passed them on. I don’t know why that should be seen as less simple than your God working all the patterns out 3.8 billion years ago and getting the first cells to pass them on and on and on until the new environments and organisms appeared.

DAVID: And my point is all organisms with skeletons have the same pattern to start with.

Agreed. Clear evidence of common descent. That’s all.

DAVID: All adaptations are variations on the same theme. Simplifies the job of evolution. Still doesn't explain speciation, but your theoretical organisms easily know how to modify?

All agreed, except that I don’t understand why you insert “easily”. My hypothesis is that the cell communities know how to modify, and it may be that your God gave them that knowledge and the means to implement it (“cellular intelligence”). Personally, I would see that as simpler than your God preprogramming every change to be passed on through 3.8 billion years or having to make personal interventions, e.g. when the dear old weaverbird fails to tie his knots (or was his nest also preprogrammed?)

DAVID’s comment: Long ago I noted that basic designs were set up at the start of multicellular life. Our skeletons compare easily to lizards. All lizards are similar and adapt to different environments. Viewed this way evolution doesn't look quite so bushy. God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning.

dhw: Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that particular organisms are suited to particular environments. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t survive. I do find it surprising that the billions of organisms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct finding their own niches should somehow be regarded as providing evidence that “God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning”. It looks to me as though organisms found their own paths as and when they emerged from earlier forms of life into ever changing environments, thereby creating an ever changing bush.

DAVID: My point is pattern planning to make the process of evolution simpler. Your point is correct after the patterns are set up.

dhw: I know you think your God planned everything in advance. My point is that organisms would have worked out their own patterns and passed them on. I don’t know why that should be seen as less simple than your God working all the patterns out 3.8 billion years ago and getting the first cells to pass them on and on and on until the new environments and organisms appeared.

And my point is all organisms with skeletons have the same pattern to start with. All adaptations are variations on the same theme. Simplifies the job of evolution. Still doesn't explain speciation, but your theoretical organisms easily know how to modify?

dhw: Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that particular organisms are suited to particular environments. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t survive. I do find it surprising that the billions of organisms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct finding their own niches should somehow be regarded as providing evidence that “God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning”. It looks to me as though organisms found their own paths as and when they emerged from earlier forms of life into ever changing environments, thereby creating an ever changing bush.

DAVID: My point is pattern planning to make the process of evolution simpler. Your point is correct after the patterns are set up.

I know you think your God planned everything in advance. My point is that organisms would have worked out their own patterns and passed them on. I don’t know why that should be seen as less simple than your God working all the patterns out 3.8 billion years ago and getting the first cells to pass them on and on and on until the new environments and organisms appeared.

DAVID’s comment: Long ago I noted that basic designs were set up at the start of multicellular life. Our skeletons compare easily to lizards. All lizards are similar and adapt to different environments. Viewed this way evolution doesn't look quite so bushy. God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning.

dhw: Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that particular organisms are suited to particular environments. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t survive. I do find it surprising that the billions of organisms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct finding their own niches should somehow be regarded as providing evidence that “God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning”. It looks to me as though organisms found their own paths as and when they emerged from earlier forms of life into ever changing environments, thereby creating an ever changing bush.

My point is pattern planning to make the process of evolution simpler. Your point is correct after the patterns are set up..

Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that particular organisms are suited to particular environments. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t survive. I do find it surprising that the billions of organisms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct finding their own niches should somehow be regarded as providing evidence that “God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning”. It looks to me as though organisms found their own paths as and when they emerged from earlier forms of life into ever changing environments, thereby creating an ever changing bush.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2149843-evolutions-rules-mean-life-on-earth-isnt-t...

"Many seemingly different species actually live very similar lives. This convergence suggests that it may someday be possible to predict how many species live in a particular habitat, and even to identify the holes left by missing species.

"For more than half a century, ecologists have tended to describe ecological roles, or “niches”, as though they were properties of individual species. For example, chameleons are camouflaged, tree-dwelling lizards that ambush insects, while horned lizards are ground-dwelling desert creatures that eat ants and bear protective spines. The diversity can seem overwhelming.

"But Eric Pianka, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Texas in Austin, has long wondered whether there might only be a certain, limited set of niches.

***

"Over and over, they saw pairs of unrelated lizards converge on similar niches. Out of the 134 species, 100 belonged to a convergent pair, far more than could have happened by chance.
For example, African chameleons have ecological equivalents in the Americas called bush anoles, and Australia’s thorny devil fills almost precisely the same niche as North America’s horned lizards.

"If lizards could evolve into an unlimited number of niches, this convergence would be unlikely. Instead, their result suggests that lizards are constrained to live particular lifestyles. For instance, there are no marine lizards or lizards that behave like elephants. “There’s only a certain number of ways to be a lizard,” says Pianka.

“'This is beautiful,” says evolutionary biologist George McGhee at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “It’s astonishing the number of species that have converged into ecological roles.”
Ecologists could apply the same approach to other groups, like birds or rodents. However, each group is likely to have its own unique set of niche features – for example, many birds make long migrations, and some rodents hibernate – which would complicate the analysis, says Pianka.

"The limited number of niches implies that ecologists may someday be able to construct a “table of niches”, somewhat analogous to chemistry’s periodic table of elements. “If we constructed this table, and we thought it was fairly complete, then we could go into places and look at the structure of the habitat, the temperatures and so on, and say ‘this place ought to be able to support 10 species of lizards’,” says Vitt. Ecologists could then predict far more about the natural world than they can today.

"Moreover, such a table would highlight “empty” niches where species ought to occur but do not. These gaps could point to niches that were once filled by a species that has died out, but so recently that evolution has not yet refilled the niche, says Vitt.

"However, the findings do not necessarily mean that extinct species can be easily replaced by their ecological equivalents, says Vitt. Such “plug and play” replacements have been attempted on Indian Ocean islands, where giant tortoises wiped out by human activity have been substituted by tortoises from other islands. The problem is, even if the new species fills the same niche, it may respond differently to competitors, predators and prey – leading to unpredictable changes in the ecosystem."

Comment: Long ago I noted that basic designs were set up at the start of multicellular life. Our skeletons compare easily to lizards. All lizards are similar and adapt to different environments. Viewed this way evolution doesn't look quite so bushy. God set up a simple path to follow in the beginning.

In trying to fit in what we see in evolution we need to recognize the size of the gaps between the various stages of, for example, the series of changes from dinosaur to bird:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150602-dinosaurs-to-birds/

"It is worth studying. Recognizing the degree of complexity leads to recognizing the need for a sophisticated mind to plan the changes. The development of the feather alone is enough for me to reach that conclusion. It has be invented before flight develops. What use are feathers for the non-flying dinosaur, before he ability to fly develops? Not much if anything. The development of the feather is also highly complex when studied. Bones had to become lighter, metabolism revved up. The whole series of changes strongly suggests planning and teleology.

" Another dinosaur to bird essay is presented. Not worth quoting much but it shows neat pictures of the Chinese fossils that have been recently found. It turns out many dinosaurs were feathered, even non-fliers or gliders:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/jurassic-flight-school

" 'we now know of about 50 species of dinosaur for which there is direct evidence of feathers. Some have halos of fluff or beautiful fans of flight feathers delicately traced into their remarkable fossils; others have a distinctive pygostyle tailbone that would have been an attachment point for feathers; still others have bumps along their forearms – “quill knobs”, where feathers attach to ligaments in the wings of modern birds.

***

"Sinosauropteryx’s downy fuzz was probably used for insulation. In later models of dinosaurs, feathers also began to be used for display. The massive Gigantoraptor, an 8-metre-long, parrot-beaked omnivore found in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, for example, likely used great fans of tail feathers for mating displays. Only much later in the evolutionary process did feathers begin to be used for flight, such as in the four-winged, pigeon-sized dinosaur, Microraptor, found in 2000.

***

"It’s not clear what kind of flight mechanism these “bat” dinosaurs employed, but they may have used a mixture of gliding and flapping. Xu’s team attempted, without much luck, to make structural models based on the fossil, to test them aerodynamically. Now they are creating three-dimensional computer models instead. The experts also reappraised the handful of other scansoriopterygid fossils in light of what they know about Yi, but haven’t yet found direct evidence of the styliform element or membranous wings.

***

"The really big question is why this group evolved a second method of dinosaur flight when many closely related theropod lineages had species with very large flight feathers.

“'Why evolve a completely different flight mechanism and body plan?’ asks Xu. “This is really bizarre and, so far, I don’t have a good answer.” He believes that whenever big evolutionary transitions take place – such as that from terrestrial dinosaurs to flying birds –strange experiments take place to fill the new niche.

"Some of those experiments may well be recorded in the rocks of Hebei and Liaoning. “Yi qi was totally unexpected. We couldn’t believe it. If you know dinosaurs very well and the transition well, then you’d never expect there would be a dinosaur with bat-like or pterosaur-like wings instead of feathered wings. Discoveries like this will continue to emerge and demonstrate how complex the transition to birds was’, Xu says. “I would not be surprised if we find even more bizarre species in the future.'”

Comment: Evolution seems to try more than one way to advance a process.

Tony: As we find less randomness and more specificity in our dna, it becomes increasingly unlikely that macro-evolution occurred at all, regardless of how much time you allow for.

DAVID: You are just making my point in a different way. Speciation may simply be God in action.

dhw: God in action will apply to every single theistic interpretation of how speciation took place. Tony is not making your point in a different way, because Tony does not believe that macro-evolution ever took place at all.

My difference with Tony is small. I have concluded that God is the only source of speciation. I think evolution is stepwise creation.

DAVID: You are just making my point in a different way. Speciation may simply be God in action.

God in action will apply to every single theistic interpretation of how speciation took place. Tony is not making your point in a different way, because Tony does not believe that macro-evolution ever took place at all.

Tony: As we find less randomness and more specificity in our dna, it becomes increasingly unlikely that macro-evolution occurred at all, regardless of how much time you allow for.

You are just making my point in a different way. Speciation may simply be God in action.

You are firm in your belief that God created everything for the purpose of producing humans, even though when you look at the history of evolution, it doesn’t make sense to you. This you have admitted, just as in the past you have admitted that your God may have created an autonomous inventive mechanism, but subsequently you backtrack because such arguments undermine your key belief. That basic anthropocentric premise is what leads you into all the convolutions and contradictions we are trying and failing to make sense of.

DAVID (on the meaning of autonomy): Of course I know: I'm looking at your proposal as a two-step process: an autonomous change by organisms and a corrective dabble follow up as necessary, which does make it semiautonomous.
dhw:A correction is only necessary if something goes wrong. So are you now suggesting that the carnivorous plants, the frogs, the monarch butterfly, the cuttlefish, the parasitic wasps all autonomously worked out their own means of survival but got it wrong and then God stepped in to correct them? If that is not what you mean, please tell us what you think these organisms came up with autonomously.
DAVID: I didn't say that at all. I can't comment on each tiny step in evolution as you wish. All I can give you is God guided evolution. We do not know how much organisms can change other than the minor alterations we see in epigenetics.

But you do comment on all these tiny steps. With each example, you have insisted that God did it. If so, according to you, it can only be that the plants, frogs, butterflies, cuttlefish and wasps did it in the first “step”, but they got it wrong so God had to drop by with a “corrective dabble”. If God didn’t step in with a “corrective dabble”, then the organisms must have got it right straight away. And that means autonomy.

dhw: Maybe he gave organisms the means to go their own way, and maybe humans were the result of a dabble or the result of the evolving intelligence that your God had set in motion. Maybe. Even to you that makes sense in the light of evolutionary history, but still you insist that your non-sensical hypothesis must be true because that is what you believe.

DAVID: All you have described above is chance when you leave God's dabbles behind. Recognize that fluffiness in thought.

dhw: Intelligent exploitation of the environment is not chance, and if the intelligence was designed by God for that very purpose, again there is no chance. The “fluff” comes when you dither over the degree to which your God does or does not control the environment.

I have to 'dither'. I have few firm beliefs . You know what I am firm about.

DAVID: Of course I know: I'm looking at your proposal as a two-step process: an autonomous change by organisms and a corrective dabble follow up as necessary, which does make it semiautonomous.

dhw:A correction is only necessary if something goes wrong. So are you now suggesting that the carnivorous plants, the frogs, the monarch butterfly, the cuttlefish, the parasitic wasps all autonomously worked out their own means of survival but got it wrong and then God stepped in to correct them? If that is not what you mean, please tell us what you think these organisms came up with autonomously.

I didn't say that at all. I can't comment on each tiny step in evolution as you wish. All I can give you is God guided evolution. We do not know how much organisms can change other than the minor alterations we see in epigenetics.

To avoid repetition, see my response under “asteroids”.

dhw: Maybe he gave organisms the means to go their own way, and maybe humans were the result of a dabble or the result of the evolving intelligence that your God had set in motion. Maybe. Even to you that makes sense in the light of evolutionary history, but still you insist that your non-sensical hypothesis must be true because that is what you believe.
DAVID: All you have described above is chance when you leave God's dabbles behind. Recognize that fluffiness in thought.

Intelligent exploitation of the environment is not chance, and if the intelligence was designed by God for that very purpose, again there is no chance. The “fluff” comes when you dither over the degree to which your God does or does not control the environment.

dhw: You wrote: “Autonomous IM's with follow up dabbles, as you've agreed, are fine.” A follow up dabble would only be necessary if something went wrong or if your God wanted to try something new. The hypothesis of an autonomous intelligent inventive mechanism (designed by your God), which you keep agreeing to and then not agreeing to, cannot be autonomous if it can ONLY work with God’s dabbling. You know the meaning of the word “autonomous” as well as I do.
DAVID: Of course I know: I'm looking at your proposal as a two-step process: an autonomous change by organisms and a corrective dabble follow up as necessary, which does make it semiautonomous.

A correction is only necessary if something goes wrong. So are you now suggesting that the carnivorous plants, the frogs, the monarch butterfly, the cuttlefish, the parasitic wasps all autonomously worked out their own means of survival but got it wrong and then God stepped in to correct them? If that is not what you mean, please tell us what you think these organisms came up with autonomously.

DAVID: I'm delighted you can go back and find our discussions. The problem between us is that I have general precepts which I have repeated over and over: God wanted humans. God uses evolution of the universe, Earth, and of life. He is in control except those things He either can't control or won't control, i.e., asteroids.

dhw: The problem between us is that you have a very precise precept: God, who is always in tight control (except when he isn't), wanted humans and personally designed every life form, lifestyle and natural wonder because they were all necessary (until they became unnecessary, apart from those that are still necessary) in order to keep life going until he was able to dabble with pre-humans or until they could switch on his 3.8-billion-year programme for brain enlargement which had been passed on to them by the very first living cells. Since that very precise precept doesn’t make sense to you, I repeat over and over that maybe it’s wrong.

It is your version stated above hat makes no sense. My version of what happened makes perfect sense to me. What seems to puzzle you is that I can 't precisely define the limits of God's powers, if any. We cannot know exactly what He can do and what may be limits. We are not starting from a position that God is all-powerful as religion does. That brings 'if' into play.

dhw: Maybe he gave organisms the means to go their own way, and maybe humans were the result of a dabble or the result of the evolving intelligence that your God had set in motion. Maybe. Even to you that makes sense in the light of evolutionary history, but still you insist that your non-sensical hypothesis must be true because that is what you believe.

All you have described above is chance when you leave God's dabbles behind. Recognize that fluffiness in thought.

DAVID: He either pre-planned or dabbled, probably both. He may have given organisms some freedom to try out adaptations (yes!) or phenotypic changes toward new species (an IM with His adjustment dabbles working together....possible). This is the area of your questioning, asking for some degree of exactitude, where I wander around, because I see no evidence in science to guide me. We just don't know about speciation, and Darwin is completely wrong.

dhw: Nobody knows about speciation. You wrote: “Autonomous IM's with follow up dabbles, as you've agreed, are fine.” A follow up dabble would only be necessary if something went wrong or if your God wanted to try something new. The hypothesis of an autonomous intelligent inventive mechanism (designed by your God), which you keep agreeing to and then not agreeing to, cannot be autonomous if it can ONLY work with God’s dabbling. You know the meaning of the word “autonomous” as well as I do.

Of course I know: I'm looking at your proposal as a two-step process: an autonomous change by organisms and a corrective dabble follow up as necessary, which does make it semiautonomous.

The problem between us is that you have a very precise precept: God, who is always in tight control (except when he isn't), wanted humans and personally designed every life form, lifestyle and natural wonder because they were all necessary (until they became unnecessary, apart from those that are still necessary) in order to keep life going until he was able to dabble with pre-humans or until they could switch on his 3.8-billion-year programme for brain enlargement which had been passed on to them by the very first living cells. Since that very precise precept doesn’t make sense to you, I repeat over and over that maybe it’s wrong. Maybe he gave organisms the means to go their own way, and maybe humans were the result of a dabble or the result of the evolving intelligence that your God had set in motion. Maybe. Even to you that makes sense in the light of evolutionary history, but still you insist that your non-sensical hypothesis must be true because that is what you believe. (On the subject of asteroids, see the asteroid thread.)

DAVID: He either pre-planned or dabbled, probably both. He may have given organisms some freedom to try out adaptations (yes!) or phenotypic changes toward new species (an IM with His adjustment dabbles working together....possible). This is the area of your questioning, asking for some degree of exactitude, where I wander around, because I see no evidence in science to guide me. We just don't know about speciation, and Darwin is completely wrong.

Nobody knows about speciation. You wrote: “Autonomous IM's with follow up dabbles, as you've agreed, are fine.” A follow up dabble would only be necessary if something went wrong or if your God wanted to try something new. The hypothesis of an autonomous intelligent inventive mechanism (designed by your God), which you keep agreeing to and then not agreeing to, cannot be autonomous if it can ONLY work with God’s dabbling. You know the meaning of the word “autonomous” as well as I do.

dhw: Since your own evolutionary theory, “tilted” by your conclusion, makes no sense to you...
DAVID: My theories about evolution make perfect sense to me. I don't know why you keep repeating the 'no sense' mantra like a campaign slogan. God controlled evolution as his chosen method of producing humans. What I don't know is how much pre-programming or dabbling occurred.

dhw: One of our problems is that I follow up your various statements (e.g God not having a smidgen of evil in him, or not caring what happens to individuals) and a few days later you forget that you made them. Now it is the ‘no sense’ mantra. This has nothing to do with the choice between preprogramming and dabbling.

I'm delighted you can go back and find our discussions. The problem between us is that I have general precepts which I have repeated over and over: God wanted humans. God uses evolution of the universe, Earth, and of life. He is in control except those things He either can't control or won't control, i.e., asteroids.

He either pre-planned or dabbled, probably both. He may have given organisms some freedom to try out adaptations (yes!) or phenotypic changes toward new species (an IM with His adjustment dabbles working together....possible). This is the area of your questioning, asking for some degree of exactitude, where I wander around, because I see no evidence in science to guide me. We just don't know about speciation, and Darwin is completely wrong.

dhw: The “it” that doesn’t make sense is the hypothesis I have summarized (plus the pre-programming option). Ten days later it makes sense after all. (Your defence of the non-sense is that that is how God did it.)

Exactly. God does 'it' somehow!

DAVID: Your suppositions fit the history, but doesn't mean they are correct. I think evolution is guided and yours favors chance progression.

dhw: “Chance” is misleading. If organisms deliberately design innovations, chance is only involved through changes in the environmental conditions that enable them to do so. As regards the emergence of humans, my theistic version allows for your God to dabble, or even to experiment. What it does not allow for is the hypothesis summarized above.

My God thesis has God definitely dabbling. We are still the same. chance vs. control.

DAVID: We see epigenetic adaptations, many described on this site. All are relatively minor compared to speciation.

Nobody “knows” of any, because nobody “knows” how speciation came about. That is why we can only theorize.

dhw: I am suggesting that he has given the same mechanism – though far more limited in scope – to other organisms.

DAVID: More limited scope as in epigenetic adaptations to environmental stresses. Fine.

DAVID: Autonomous IM's with follow up dabbles, as you've agreed, are fine.

dhw: One day the possibility of an autonomous inventive mechanism is fine (I agreed that your God could dabble if he wanted to, but autonomy does not require dabbles!) and a month later you can’t see any instance in which an autonomous inventive mechanism might be possible.

Same result: IMs are possible with God controlling outcomes. I've not changed. This area of theorizing has left us in the same positions.