How could the universe and life come into existence without God? How could life evolve without God?

[Eric_Hyom]

However once we started industrializing we began throwing soot into the air from coal plants and factories, the soot coated areas around these industrial facilities and suddenly the black winged version became the norm, as they now matched their landscape better and what was a disadvantage is now an advantage.

If there were no soot in the atmosphere; peppered moths would still be mostly white/grey spotted, they blend in well with similarly coloured rocks. This seems a good example of how a species would adapt to a changing environment.

But this is really a superficial change, black moths already existed, the soot just meant that black became the more dominant colour for peppered moths.

Starting from abiogenesis, what were the environmental changes that caused 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons to evolve in incremental steps?
I can understand that chemicals swirling around in the oceans could influence the growth of shells and bones. But what environmental changes influenced their individual shapes, what influenced them to connect together for movement?

 

[Dan123]

But what environmental changes influenced their individual shapes, what influenced them to connect together for movement?

If the shape with the mutation worked better for survival, then it was a better fit for it’s environment.

Starting from abiogenesis, what were the environmental changes that caused 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons to evolve in incremental steps?

If I should be capable of doing this, you should be able to name every single ancestor of yours going back to Adam, yes? I mean that’s a much much smaller task. And if you can’t should we a) apply a naturalistic explanation, that while you do not know the exact chain of ancestors but knowing some of them we can recognize a pattern exists, even if there are missing links, or b) apply a supernatural explanation, that your oldest known ancestor must have been specially put on Earth outside of natural means?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Starting from abiogenesis, what were the environmental changes that caused 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons to evolve in incremental steps?

but knowing some of them we can recognize a pattern exists, even if there are missing links,

What kind of patterns are there in environmental changes that might explain how 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons evolved in incremental steps?

I can understand that chemicals swirling around in the oceans could influence the growth of shells and bones. But what environmental changes influenced their individual shapes, what influenced them to connect together for movement?

If the shape with the mutation worked better for survival, then it was a better fit for it’s environment.

That seems as helpful as saying God did it. Apparently it could have taken around 1800 incremental steps just to form the shape of an eye lens. How many incremental steps would it be to form the shapes of 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons?

 

[Freddy]

Starting from abiogenesis, what were the environmental changes that caused 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons etc…

You still show all the signs of not understanding any of this, Eric.

The changes are random. If a crab grows a thicker shell or an insect gets slightly better sight or some animal develops more hair then these are random changes to each organism.

It’s not that it gets colder and therefore some animal grows more fur. It’s that the one that does grow more fur is better adapted to the environment. It might have become warmer and it still would have grown more fur and then it would be less well adapted.

And my son has more body hair than I do. Why? Well how on earth would I be able to give an accurate explanantion for that? It’s simply random variation. He’s also a reasonably fast runner. And my friend’s son is stronger but slower. So back when it mattered and we didn’t get our food ready packed from the supermarket then if strength was more beneficial than speed, then my friend’s son would have a better chance of surviving and passing on the genes for strength. Or vica versa.

These are natural variations that occur in everyday life and you just need to look around you at neighbours and work colleagues to see this. And if there was a situation when your life depended on someone helping you that nededed to be strong then you’re not going to choose the short weedy looking guy from accounts. You’ll pick the 6’ 3" guy from sales who’s built like a line backer. And if you both survive then his kids won’t be skinny and weak. They’ll generally follow their father. And so it goes.

Nature used to do this for you. And someone called Charles worked out how it happened.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Eric_Hyom:

Starting from abiogenesis, what were the environmental changes that caused 500 muscles, 200 bones, 500 ligaments and 1000 tendons etc…

You still show all the signs of not understanding any of this, Eric.

The changes are random. If a crab grows a thicker shell or an insect gets slightly better sight or some animal develops more hair then these are random changes to each organism.

Freddy, you still show signs of evading the question.

What have shells, hair and eyes got to do with bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles. As I have said, I can understand how chemicals swirling around in the ocean could cause shell to form. I can understand how different thicknesses and shapes might evolve by mutation and selection.

Now can we move onto bones or cartilage, Starting with one bone, how does the second, the tenth and the hundredth bone evolve? It has been suggested that the first bone might have been thin and bendy in the middle, before separating and becoming two bones. but in order to have two bones they need to be connected together and move independently.

The skeletal systems is just an intricate set of levers linked together to create movement. So we just need to understand how blind random mutation could create these shapes incrementally, to give selection a chance to work.

He’s also a reasonably fast runner. And my friend’s son is stronger but slower

This says nothing, they are both a mixture of their parents. Had you said one of them evolved four legs and three eyes, then you would have something to talk about.

Where the ToE lacks evidence is from a billion years ago, or three billion years ago, how did the first limbs come to be?

 

[rossum]

It has been suggested that the first bone might have been thin and bendy

It almost certainly was. Bones first evolved in fish, and fish bones are thinner and bendier than land animal bones. Fish bones do not have to support so much weight because the surrounding water provides a lot of support. Heavier, non-bendy, bones only evolved after fish left the water and started moving on land, where air provided a lot less support than water.

Teeth, which appeared before bones, have always been rigid, not flexible. See Conodonts for early teeth.

 

[Freddy]

This says nothing, they are both a mixture of their parents. Had you said one of them evolved four legs and three eyes, then you would have something to talk about.

I’m sure you would as well.

 

[Abrosz]

And my son has more body hair than I do. Why? Well how on earth would I be able to give an accurate explanantion for that? It’s simply random variation.

Very true, and an excellent refutation of PSR!

 

[Dan123]

Now can we move onto bones or cartilage, Starting with one bone, how does the second, the tenth and the hundredth bone evolve? It has been suggested that the first bone might have been thin and bendy in the middle, before separating and becoming two bones. but in order to have two bones they need to be connected together and move independently.

Why do they need to be connected initially? If you have a creature with a simple muscle system that allows it to flap about and move through water, adding an area of density to it is going to make the creature slightly more rigid and able to move better. If that proto-“bone” grows longer or rigid or what have you it will only enhance that effect. If that block of dna is copied via transcription error now there could be 2 bones, but they wouldn’t need to be connected to provide benefit. You keep wanting to zoom way out and look at the whole process, declare if unfathomable and abandon the idea, but that’s like saying ‘yeah okay someone can walk across a room but how can someone run 26 miles?’

Let’s try the other direction, suppose someone has a kid who due to some snafu in dna transcription has a bone in one of their toes that formed as 2 bones instead of one. Would adding one bone to a system made up of hundreds be some unfathomable leap? Especially when the ‘blueprint’ is already there in the dna to construct bones and tendons and so on?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Let’s try the other direction, suppose someone has a kid who due to some snafu in dna transcription has a bone in one of their toes that formed as 2 bones instead of one. Would adding one bone to a system made up of hundreds be some unfathomable leap? Especially when the ‘blueprint’ is already there in the dna to construct bones and tendons and so on?

Of course there is a blueprint for bones in a child’s toe, but you have skipped forwards a few billion years. Was this blueprint and dna for bones, tendons, ligaments and muscles available at the time of abiogenesis? How did it first get into the system?

Why do they need to be connected initially?

How did the first muscles evolve that connect to two bones? If a muscle should be an inch long, what good would a muscle be if it were only half an inch, or if it were only connected at one end? Like everything else, muscles should evolve in hundreds of incremental steps. If you have two bones that should be connected by muscle, then how would half a muscle be an advantage if it did not do anything? Muscles without ligaments and tendons would not work either.

Why do they need to be connected initially?

Does this still apply for the evolution of the 7th, 21st and the 111th bone? In whatever order bones evolved, when you add one or two more, they should be connected in some way. If a disconnected bone evolved, the species would in effect be like a cripple carrying extra weight and this would not be an advantage to pass forwards to the next generation.

If it took about 1800 incremental steps for the shape of an eye lens to evolve, it must have taken hundreds of steps for each individual bone, tendon, ligament and muscle to evolve.

How could this all happen without guidance from God?

 

[Freddy]

How could this all happen without guidance from God?

If you believe in God then it obviously couldn’t. If you don’t believe in God then it obviously did.

Can we put this to bed now? Please?

 

[rossum]

How did the first muscles evolve that connect to two bones?

The first muscles didn’t. Jellyfish have muscles and have no bones. The muscles were there first. Bones came later for some animals. Not all animals have bones, earthworms today have muscles but no bones.

 

[Autumn-Smoke]

just came across this

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3109056389119204

 

[Eric_Hyom]

The first muscles didn’t. Jellyfish have muscles and have no bones.

Not all animals have bones, earthworms today have muscles but no bones.

Absolutely agree with you, no arguments from me.

Bones came later for some animals.

As an example, take the group of animals that first had bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons. We know that evolution happens in incremental steps; and we know there are many species that would eventually end up with around two hundred bones.

Can we try and imagine how the first two separate bones linked up together, that had tendons, ligaments and muscles.If a muscle is to be of any use, it should connect up to an optimum position on both bones. How can this happen in incremental steps?

If a muscle should be an inch long, what advantage would a half inch muscle give, it would not be long enough to connect both ends. If the muscle was not connected at both ends, how would selection work? One muscle on its own is no use, it would only move the bones in one direction, you need more muscles to move the bone back.

Muscles on their own are pretty useless, the bones need to be connected with ligaments and tendons too, but what good is half a ligament that is only connected at one end?

Mutation would have to produce all this is in incremental steps. Selection would have to perceive an advantage for half a muscle, half a ligament and half a bone. But you would have to break this down for hundreds of steps for everything.

Repeat this process for connecting the 7th , 8th 199th and the 200th bone and every one in between. So how did it happen by natural causes? You are asking a lot of blind mutation and selection without any guidance.

 

[rossum]

As an example, take the group of animals that first had bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons. We know that evolution happens in incremental steps; and we know there are many species that would eventually end up with around two hundred bones.

A boneless ancestor with muscles would have had muscles, ligaments and tendons, so the muscles could attach to the rest of the boneless body. Again, see jellyfish. They already have muscles and attachments without bones. When the first bone evolved, all that is needed is for nearby muscles to attach to the new piece of bone, rather than to the body wall.

That is a change. Is the change beneficial or not? If not, then that line will go extinct. If the change is beneficial then the line with the bone and attached muscles will spread and increase its population. Repeat for the second bone etc. Wherever a bone appears there will be existing muscles with existing attachments to something else. As always, is the change an advantage, neutral or deleterious?

For ourselves, every single one of our ancestors succeeded in reproducing without one single failure. That weeds out a great many unsuccessful variants as well as the not-successful-enough variants

 

[Dan123]

If a muscle is to be of any use, it should connect up to an optimum position on both bones. How can this happen in incremental steps?

Why must it be in an optimum position to be of any use?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

When the first bone evolved, all that is needed is for nearby muscles to attach to the new piece of bone, rather than to the body wall.

Evolution must have gone through maybe a hundred incremental steps to attach muscle to the body wall. Natural selection would have acted a hundred times to select these beneficial changes.

Now you seem to be saying that through maybe fifty incremental steps; the muscles should disengage from the body wall. So now we have the body wall not being supported by muscle tissue, and the bones are not attached by muscles. Maybe it would take another fifty incremental steps for the muscles to lock onto the bones.

How could any of this process be seen as beneficial steps for selection to work on?

When the first bone evolved, all that is needed is for nearby muscles to attach to the new piece of bone, rather than to the body wall.

This might work for the first twenty bones in an animal, but you still have to find a way to get up to 200 bones. You wont have ready made muscles for all these bones, or ready made ligaments and tendons.

 

[Dan123]

Now you seem to be saying that through maybe fifty incremental steps; the muscles should disengage from the body wall. So now we have the body wall not being supported by muscle tissue, and the bones are not attached by muscles. Maybe it would take another fifty incremental steps for the muscles to lock onto the bones.

Or the ends of the muscle started growing more dense where they were already connected.

 

[rossum]

Evolution must have gone through maybe a hundred incremental steps to attach muscle to the body wall. Natural selection would have acted a hundred times to select these beneficial changes.

A lot more than a hundred I suspect. In a population of millions you are running millions of trials in parallel. Only a few trials need to succeed.

Now you seem to be saying that through maybe fifty incremental steps; the muscles should disengage from the body wall.

Why? Muscles can have more than one attachment. A biceps muscle has two attachments at one end and a triceps has three – hence their names. We have examples of both in our arms and legs.

This might work for the first twenty bones in an animal, but you still have to find a way to get up to 200 bones. You wont have ready made muscles for all these bones, or ready made ligaments and tendons.

For a lot of bones you have just that. Segmentation allows a copy of an existing part to be added, as with extending a tail. You do not need to evolve a new tailbone from scratch, you just duplicate the adjacent bone and adjust after the duplication. Some people have extra digits. Those extra digits appear with bones, muscles, attachments etc. already present because they are copies of existing digits. Early chordates were more obviously segmented than their land dwelling descendants.

Also, our bilateran ancestry means we do not need to evolve limbs separately; the left and right side limbs are always a mirror images. Each limb only has to evolve once, not twice.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Eric_Hyom:

Evolution must have gone through maybe a hundred incremental steps to attach muscle to the body wall. Natural selection would have acted a hundred times to select these beneficial changes.

A lot more than a hundred I suspect. In a population of millions you are running millions of trials in parallel. Only a few trials need to succeed.

If that were the case, then it should take more than a hundred incremental steps for a muscle to attach to two bones. Presumably this could take a thousand generations or so.

How could the second bone be an advantage if it was not attached by more than one muscle, ligament and tendons for 999 generations? How could a disconnected second bone offer any advantage for selection to work on? If you tear an ACL, it leaves you almost a cripple.

Also, our bilateran ancestry means we do not need to evolve limbs separately; the left and right side limbs are always a mirror images. Each limb only has to evolve once, not twice.

But that does not explain how the top and bottom are different, And the front and back are different. It does not explain how the clever HOX gene came to be.