…], given that our bodies work as a whole, there are no ‘parts’ that could survive on their own nor be compatible with other random parts etc and as Anthony Flew in his book “There is a God” mentioned something regarding first getting to the point in evolution where ‘reproduction’ is even possible.
“It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of the first reproducing organism” - Anthony Flew
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” - Charles Dawrin
I also read from John Lennox regarding the ‘Flagellum’ in the cell which could not possibly have come together with slight modifications over a period of time, as the removal or addition or modification of one single part of it would mean complete loss of function.
I see…
The very start is problematic as we have no actual evidence of how it happened. We can only look into rocks and see that rocks older than X years are just mineral formations, at best, displaying crystal-like structures.
Then, on some rocks younger than X years, you get formations which can’t be accounted by crystal-like structures, but can be accounted by organic microscopic life.
The way I understand the notion is that some chemistry must have been at work to produce a self-replicating carbohydrate molecule, or a bunch of them… not necessarily DNA, not even RNA… perhaps something less complex.
These then just kept on going, as long as they were in a place where the conditions were right for their continued self-replication.
How? no one knows, as far as I’m aware… many people are studying the thing… we await a breakthrough.
Even when it comes, we’ll have a model of how it may have happened… not necessarily confirmation that this is how it happened for sure.
As for particulars, like the flagellum, I don’t know. I’m not a biologist. I find it’s good enough that I know what a flagellum is.
This I believe is the kind of presentation of Darwinian Evolution that I believe is flawed. As I believe the human organism evolving from ? is not at all akin to a change in color such a red to blue, given that our bodies work as a whole and not in self sustaining parts such as 10% of something plus 90% of something else transitioning into 50% of something and 50% of something else etc
Anyway, this is the best I can explain my thoughts on it at this stage.
It’s one mechanism for evolution from, say, a mouse-like mammal to a primate-like one - sort of what fossils suggest happened after the dinosaurs went extinct.
Most of the functionality is already present, but it does get tweaked with features that work better in certain conditions.
How did new functionality evolve? Like how did amphibians become mammals?
Here’s how the
wiki goes over that:
The first fully terrestrial vertebrates were amniotes — their eggs had internal membranes that allowed the developing embryo to breathe but kept water in. This allowed amniotes to lay eggs on dry land, while amphibians generally need to lay their eggs in water (a few amphibians, such as the Surinam toad, have evolved other ways of getting around this limitation). The first amniotes apparently arose in the middle Carboniferous from the ancestral reptiliomorphs.[9]
Within a few million years, two important amniote lineages became distinct: mammals’ synapsid ancestors and the sauropsids, from which lizards, snakes, crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds are descended.[4] The earliest known fossils of synapsids and sauropsids (such as Archaeothyris and Hylonomus, respectively) date from about 320 to 315 million years ago. It is difficult to be sure about when each of them evolved, since vertebrate fossils from the late Carboniferous are very rare, and therefore the actual first occurrences of each of these types of animal might have been considerably earlier.[10]
Not a lot to go on, uh?
Here’s some more…
The cynodonts, a theriodont group that also arose in the late Permian, include the ancestors of all mammals.
Late Permian means around 260 million years ago.
Recent analysis of Teinolophos, which lived somewhere between 121 and 112.5 million years ago, suggests that it was a “crown group” (advanced and relatively specialised) monotreme.
But the timescales involved should give us pause… first distinction between the animals that would become mammals and lizards appear in the fossil record about 320 million years ago.
Then, some form of proto-mammal is around at 260 million years ago.
And the first “crown group” - actual mammals - crop up 120 million years ago.
That means it took some 200 million years to develop what we now call mammalian features.
200 million years.
The dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago.
200 million years is a long long time, with many many many generations and many habitats which to adapt and develop the disparate features we see in mammals, when compared to lizards.
Since soft tissue doesn’t fossilize, we can’t know exactly how eggs became internalized, but we can tell that they did. And we can tell that it was a long process… with many intermediate stages. Some of those stages, while successful adaptations to their environments, would probably be disastrous nowadays and that may be one of the contributing factors that impair people’s ability to “imagine” how things may have happened.
I don’t know.
I hope this has helped (sorry for taking so long to get back to you)
“I don’t know” - how all knowledge begins!
) I meant 10 seconds.
I’m very happy about that. May God Bless You.