Monday, October 03, 2005
A random discombobulated thought
I had this thought the other day. It's probably just malarky, but since most blogs are just a bunch of malarky, I thought it would fit in pretty well in the blogosphere.
This idea came to me while thinking about the created kinds and diversity, and while watching the video for Dennet's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". It occurred to me that:
a) there is a wide variability within created kinds, as has been fully documented by creationists since Linnaeus
b) within certain environments, there are very tightly coupled dependencies at play
c) these tightly coupled dependencies defy both traditional forms of creation and evolution
* they defy evolution because many of these dependencies show signs of being irreducibly complex
* they defy traditional creationist models because they are part of a created kind whose other members do not display such traits
d) some of the strangest species are island species
(c) has had me curious for a while. But I had this idea: what if in biology we are looking too zoomed in? What if we needed to zoom out to get a better picture? A fellow member of the CreationTalk mailing list has often pointed out the many ways that species within an environment seem to communicate with each other. Because of evolutionary predispositions and because of the existence of carnivory, we often assume that nature is in a violent struggle within itself for resources. But what if instead it was working in (at least somewhat) of a cooperation to produce resources?
The idea I'd like to offer up is this -- the created kinds are designed to sense their environment, and adapt to the complete ecological niche. Not only looking out for their survival, but looking out for the survival of the biosystem. Therefore, when certain parts of an ecology are missing, then existing animals can adapt to fill the role. They communicate biochemically to figure out a good stasis, and then change themselves to it.
On islands, you have a very limitted set of created kinds initially arrive, and somewhat haphazardly. Therefore, they have to do quite a bit of adapting to the new environment, to establish a stable ecosystem.
Anyway, it's a thought -- that the environment as a whole comes together to form an ecosystem, and that looking at animals as complete independent, autonomous units is missing the big picture.
This idea came to me while thinking about the created kinds and diversity, and while watching the video for Dennet's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". It occurred to me that:
a) there is a wide variability within created kinds, as has been fully documented by creationists since Linnaeus
b) within certain environments, there are very tightly coupled dependencies at play
c) these tightly coupled dependencies defy both traditional forms of creation and evolution
* they defy evolution because many of these dependencies show signs of being irreducibly complex
* they defy traditional creationist models because they are part of a created kind whose other members do not display such traits
d) some of the strangest species are island species
(c) has had me curious for a while. But I had this idea: what if in biology we are looking too zoomed in? What if we needed to zoom out to get a better picture? A fellow member of the CreationTalk mailing list has often pointed out the many ways that species within an environment seem to communicate with each other. Because of evolutionary predispositions and because of the existence of carnivory, we often assume that nature is in a violent struggle within itself for resources. But what if instead it was working in (at least somewhat) of a cooperation to produce resources?
The idea I'd like to offer up is this -- the created kinds are designed to sense their environment, and adapt to the complete ecological niche. Not only looking out for their survival, but looking out for the survival of the biosystem. Therefore, when certain parts of an ecology are missing, then existing animals can adapt to fill the role. They communicate biochemically to figure out a good stasis, and then change themselves to it.
On islands, you have a very limitted set of created kinds initially arrive, and somewhat haphazardly. Therefore, they have to do quite a bit of adapting to the new environment, to establish a stable ecosystem.
Anyway, it's a thought -- that the environment as a whole comes together to form an ecosystem, and that looking at animals as complete independent, autonomous units is missing the big picture.
Permanent Link posted by crevo @ 7:02 PM 
