Intelligent Design, Edward Feser's views

[Dan123]

That’s what I mean,what kind of environmental pressure would be the catalyst for the mudskipper to succeed in evolving into a new animal ?

Geographical isolation would be the most easy to understand. Two colonies of mudskippes become separated because what was once one lake has become two due to any number of geological events. Or humans dump a few into a pond that doesn’t have them, whatever. Come back in a long long time and there’s nothing preventing their genetics from drifting apart enough that they can’t breed.

 

[Techno2000]

Geographical isolation would be the most easy to understand.

There are already 32 species of mudskippers around the world.

 

[Bradskii]

No. Evolution works all the time. What you mean to say is that for enough changes to occur so that a new species can be classified could take millions of years. Ain’t necessarily so, but as long as you (finally) understand the previous posts, then I’m going to quit while ahead.

 

[Techno2000]

So lets say that an animal happens to have more fur than his buddy (which you know has absolutely nothing at all to do with whether it has got colder or not - it was just a random mutation).

So, the 10 million different plant and animal species we have on the Earth today just got a lucky mutation that ended up being beneficial.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

So lets say that an animal happens to have more fur than his buddy (which you know has absolutely nothing at all to do with whether it has got colder or not - it was just a random mutation).

So, the 10 million different plant and animal species we have on the Earth today just got a lucky mutation that ended up being beneficial.

Yes. And the gazzillion plants and animals that have become extinct did not get any advantages.

So it may seem to you that we have a lot of lucky occurences happening, but they are but the tiniest fraction that you can possibly imagine of all the occurences that ended up in extinction.

Your amazement at the lucky chances that these plants and animals had (in a negative sense) is like being amazed at everything lini g up just right for umpteen generations so that you can be sitting there reading this.

As long as you understand the principles then try not to worry about the very large numbers involved. It will just give you a headache.

 

[Techno2000]

As long as you understand the principles then try not to worry about the very large numbers involved. It will just give you a headache.

No chance of that happening, because that simplify principal falls way short of explaining the huge diversity and variety of all the plants and animals we have today.

 

[Dan123]

There are already 32 species of mudskippers around the world.

Good point. So suppose one population has environmental pressures that favor the mudskipper’s ability to spend time out of water and another population, geographically isolated from the first, has pressures that favor the mudskipper’s ability to spend time in the water. If we could visit them at some far off time in the future what differences might we see?

 

[Techno2000]

If we could visit them at some far off time in the future what differences might we see?

The clock for evolution started ticking billions of years ago, when the first so-called cell appeared. So we already have enough time that has already passed and nothing can be seen today in real life to be transitioning into a completely new species.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Nothing can be seen today in real life to be transitioning into a completely new species.

Yes it can. Tigers, for example (if we don’t wipe them out), and probably most domesticated mammals such as pigs and cows. Various cichlid fish, and any number of species of animals on remote islands.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

At the same time these capacities have worked against us, with the prolieration of sin.

Would Adam have had sickle cell anemia? If not does that mean he’d have been more likely to contract malaria than a modern human with the condition?

This comes across as facetious.

It’s also a stretch to see the connection between the quote from my post and your response. I was addressing the consequence of sickness and death that followed our original choice to sin, possible because we have a free will.

To answer your question, I would say that the presence of Sickle Cell anemia has a short history, maybe two or three thousand years. I would suggest that if you are truly interested in the matter, you do the research and report back. I would speculate that it arose as a genetic mutation causing an abnormal hemoglobin around that time. It proliferated because the malaria parasite became more virulent also around just before that. It did so, no longer centred around God, as part of the vagaries of a nature running its own course rather than that for which it was created. Again, this is a consequence of original sin.

As to why it did not devastate all mankind, Adam, is because we have been granted a certain amount of intelligence. Modern humanity is full of intellectual hubris, but may be actually less intelligent that our forebears. Yes, there is quinine found in bark as there exist many healing elements in nature. That said, I’m not a herbalist, finding empirical evidence far more convincing, although one should be cautious about the claims of the pharmaceutical industry. Placebo may be the greatest discovery.

So no, Adam did not have Sickle Cell anemia and being the first man, living hundreds of years in good health, would have been far more resilient and probably had an immune system capable of dealing with such disorders. Thousands of years of random genetic mutations finds us now more enfeebled and more victim to the blind determinism of natural selection. We are devolving.

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

Nothing can be seen today in real life to be transitioning into a completely new species.

Yes it can. Tigers, for example (if we don’t wipe them out), and probably most domesticated mammals such as pigs and cows. Various cichlid fish, and any number of species of animals on remote islands.

How could you show or prove what you say is true ?

 

[Hugh_Farey]

How could you show or prove what you say is true ?

Do you really want to know?

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

How could you show or prove what you say is true ?

Do you really want to know?

I don’t know, maybe I can’t handle the truth ?

 

[Dan123]

It’s also a stretch to see the connection between the quote from my post and your response.

You and several others seem to keep repeating that mutations can only be a negative thing and can never provide any benefit. The point is someone today with sickle cell anemia would have more natural resistance to malaria than someone without it, so early humans after the fall would have been more susceptible to it. Perhaps they did have an acquired immunity through exposure to their immune system, but they’d have to be exposed first. Sickle cell is a hereditary trait.

 

[Aloysium]

I take it you don’t have sickle cell anemia, have no one close who has it and have never seen any one in sickle cell crisis. It is a disease, the result of a genetic disorder. The affected DNA codes for a type of hemoglobin protein, HbS, which causes the red blood cell to become rigid under certain circumstances related to low oxygen states. The biochemical activity that resulted in this particular corruption of the genome could not constitute the mechanism behind any possible evolutionary process. It is a defect in what already exists. We did not and could evolve out of a primordial soup through such errors. We are discovering now that in many instances of speciation, the cause is gene deletion. The offspring are different from the parents because something has gone wrong in the process of replication and reproduction. If anything, random mutations and natural selection result in devolution.

Our immune system enables us to combat potential intruders. As you state, one has to be exposed in order for the immunity to develop; that is why we are vaccinated. Interestingly, and I will be talking here a bit beyond my pay grade, eosinophils have the purpose of combating parasites. I could speculate that in our remote past they were very important and effective in this regard. With time and the accompanying random mutation of the genome that codes for their production and properties, they are now mainly a nuisance causing allergic rashes, asthma and anaphylactic shock.

 

[Dan123]

If anything, random mutations and natural selection result in devolution.

Stop inventing words. Evolution involve the change in the genetics of a population over time. How can a species de-change?

 

[Aloysium]

FYI for starters on the matter:

dev·o·lu·tion
ˌdevəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/
noun

1. the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration.
   synonyms: decentralization, delegation;
2. descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state.
   “the devolution of the gentlemanly ideal into a glorification of drunkenness”
3. LAW: the legal transfer of property from one owner to another.

ev·o·lu·tion
ˌevəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/
noun

1. the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.
   synonyms: Darwinism, natural selection
   “his interest in evolution”
2. the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.
   “the forms of written languages undergo constant evolution”
   synonyms: development, advancement, growth, rise, progress, expansion, unfolding;

There are other models which fit the scientific data far better than evolutionary theory, progressive creationism, discussed earlier by Richa, being one of them. I don’t really hold to any one theory; it’s all a work in progress, in which for me Darwinism fell by the wayside some time ago. It’s difficult to free oneself from the mindset that has been established over a lifetime of hearing about evolution, but the reality is that things were created perfect. Following the original sin, death entered the world and we see its impact on the accumulation of damage done to the genome. Random mutation and natural selection are at work in our fallen world as part of the suffering we must endure; they are not creative processes in th least.

 

[Techno2000]

So lets say that an animal happens to have more fur than his buddy (which you know has absolutely nothing at all to do with whether it has got colder or not - it was just a random mutation).

Now pay attention…

Conditions get colder for whatever reason. Is the animal with more fur better off or not? I’ll save time here by assuming you would say yes. That means, in the grand scheme of things, animals with more fur (due to random genetic changes) will survive long enough to pass on that genetic trait and animals with less will not.

This scenario would only be plausible if applied to people, example: a group of people are suddenly overcome by cold weather, the person who could build a shelter and keep warm would be the only one who would survive.In real life, in nature, if bad conditions happen all of the animals die, there’s no animal that has some special evolutionary survival kit up its sleeve.

In your scenario did the cold weather automatically induce it’s fur to start growing out as soon as the animal felt cold, or did everybody laugh at the extra furry critter until the cold weather struck ? In the way you explain evolution, it’s kind of like random mutations are the Noah’s Ark of survival, it always knows the future.

 

[Bradskii]

Thanks for playing. Have a nice day, OK?

 

[Vonsalza]

mVitus:

Bradskii’s analogy of you being a transitional stage between your parents and your children is rather apt.

Different individual characteristics do not mean transition. Other than individual characteristics, I doubt that I am essentially different than my father or my ancestor 2000 years ago.

You’re taller, for starters.