Can Evolution Evolve Symbiosis and Mutualism?

@J.E.S, I.D.'s most important truth is NOT that God’s involvement can be proved. We will argue about that for eternity.

But the most important thing about I.D. is that God is the designer and he exists.

What more could you possibly want from your surroundings?

Now this thing where you plead with @swamidass to do something:

What on Earth hasn’t he already told you?

If he says God is the designer… and you say God is the designer… what does he know that you don’t know?
If you know for a fact symbiotic relationshipis exist … where is your question mark?
There is no part of nature that God isn’t touching… so what exactly do you think Joshua has left to tell you? I don’t get it.

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But you guys believe that God used evolution to create/design…correct?

So (pertaining to the current topic of mutualism), either

  1. An explanation must be given for how evolution could have accounted for the specific examples (which are my questions), or
  2. A “God of the gaps” position is being advocated.

I am sure that there are other options (please share them, if you will), but number 1 definitely has not been answered and I have a vague feeling that you would not agree with number 2…

However, let it be known that a discussion of number 1 would probably be the most topical course of action. :wink:

@J.E.S, what is the sentence you would use to describe your believe that God made the rain flood the Earth.

That’s the one we are talking about here. Who said anything about a God of the Gaps? Joshua is not at liberty to just SPOUT OFF about God… he has a science career to worry about. But I don’t.

Do you think ***** I ***** am talking about a God of the Gaps? Certainly not.

Look … there are only 2 ways for God to engage with the events of the Universe:

He either gets NATURAL LAW to do it,… or he POOFS it into existence.

So… Easy question: Did he make a MIRACLE to flood the Earth? Or did he use normal natural laws of nature to make it rain? This is not a trick question… it’s the basic question.

Now… 2nd question … ALSO not a trick question:

The first cell with a flagellum. Did got “POOF” the flagellum DNA into the cell, making sure
to add the necessary DNA so that the next generation would have the same flagellum?

Or did god design the flagellum with specific DNA sequences… and the DNA made the flagellum?

The answer to your question here is the answer to all your questions I believe.

An equally valid response would be that we don’t know if God used evolution to accomplish His purposes.

Really, what interesting and complex things points to the actions of an intelligent designer. Please tell me one interesting and complex things that isn’t explained by the evolution processes.

Well, that is certainly valid from an atheist point of view. It is not the view of a Christian though. Both views are consistent with the evidence.

I’ve told you that its not intuitive whether or not they can be evolved without God’s guidance. However, we have no problem with God’s guidance of evolution, so this is not evidence against evolution.

Sort of, because I think you mean something different by “evolution.” I just mean “common descent”.

I already did. Maybe God just did it in a process of common descent. If he can “poof” things into existence, He can surely evolve them too.

Well I have answered them. There is not much left to debate right? Why do you think this demonstrated God couldn’t create with common descent?

@J.E.S,

@swamidass has given you the definitive answer.

The reason you still feel empty about this, is because you have only articulated a “God of Gaps” solution.

Don’t you believe God made the floods ? Or made the Destroyer kill the first born in Egypt? If he can do those things… then he can do the flagellum or the symbiosis, right?

You just have to decide which things he did by miraculous effort, and which things he did by arranging the natural laws of his Creation.

Maybe ID thinks its easy to tell the difference.
But I would say it is very difficult to tell the difference in many cases.

@swamidass @gbrooks9

I will be more specific. I am specifically wondering how the instincts (or otherwise) necessary to form the mutualistic relationships mentioned in the article could have evolved (what I mean by “evolved” is that they came about fairly incrementally through strictly naturalistic means). I hope that clarifies things somewhat! :wink:

The science from a creationist standpoint explains the origins of these mutualistic relationships, or the instincts necessary to form them, very well: God created them. However, mine is not a “god of the gaps” solution. My solution is based solely on the ex nihlo creative power of God, consistent with His revealed word. It is not based on tacking Him onto a naturalistic theory which seems to deserve little confidence apart from divine intervention of some sort (at least, on this topic [as I have gathered from recent posts]). Theistic evolution, not creationism, falls prey to the “god of the gaps” approach.

@J.E.S

Scientists use terms like “through strictly naturalistic means”. That’s not a theological statement. And you don’t need to say it the way scientists say it.

What if we said: “they came about fairly incrementally, as God intended, by his use of naturalistic means”.

There’s no struggle here, man… nature is God’s servant. Whenever you hear a scientist describing nature, just smile to yourself… nature is at God’s bidding…

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Okay, but that is not what we mean. We do not mean “strictly natural” means. We just mean “common descent.”

It does clarify that we mean different things.

That is what @gbrooks9 and I believe too!

Well, there is an immense amount of evidence for common descent my friend. That is just how, it appears, that God created everything. This is not a naturalistic theory.

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So… if I understand your complaint, @J.E.S… the reason you object to invoking Evolution is that you have a nagging feeling that it is in “bad taste” for God to make anything using Evolution… you want him to use Special Creation and only Special Creation.

Just think about this for a second… you are fretting about God of the Gaps… and how to prove God is NOT a God of the Gaps and all that.

But try to imagine, just for a second, that you are God.

And you want to make a world of creatures… but for whatever reason, you need for it to take time… to work out slowly, at least from the world’s viewpoint.

And so you start working out the DNA details… and engaging in mutations here… and ecological shifts here…
and suddenly there is someone who looks like @J.E.S… and he says: you need to stop this!!!

Do you have any objections based on evidence instead of you not liking evolution?

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A lot of Christians have that view. Isn’t this the Roman Catholic view?

Maybe I’m using the term ‘monophyletic’ incorrectly? I mean this with regard to the chloroplasts, not the organisms which contain them.

There is an amoeboid group that appears to have ‘recently’ (100-200 mya) captured a different cyanobacterium than the progenitor of the plant and algal chloroplasts. With that exception (perhaps there are more?), it appears that chloroplasts were initially acquired in a single event / single source species at least a billion years ago. Plastids were subsequently acquired by other host species from this first source. There have been gains, losses and re-acquisition (horizontal transfer - secondary and tertiary endosymbiosis) of plastids through various host lineages over time, but the plastids all seem to trace back to that first source.

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Perhaps you guys might enjoy this?
http://mmbr.asm.org/content/68/2/173.full

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At the same time, natural processes can evolve mutalism. This is a great video to help explain how:

Is that helpful @J.E.S?

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I would be very curious to see if we can still observe this effect happening today…

I am also wondering what species of fungi specifically “eat” which species of algae specifically.

At any rate, would anything prevent some of the isolated “slower eaters” from evolving to be “faster eaters” (I have “eat” in quote marks because I am almost certain that “eat” is not the correct verb :wink: ) and thus recreate the initially problematic scenario? Would that not be just as likely as some of the fungi becoming such slow “eaters” that lichenization could occur?

I look forward to reading your response!

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Maybe, but the point it is that only one fungus has to evolve the capacity to “eat slowly” for symbiosis to arise. In the other cases, it wouldn’t, but for the fungus that got benefit from symbiosis, that would be enough for us to see it. Also, as I’ve pointed out, we’ve already observed this in the lab.

However, I have still been unable to find an answer to this critical question…Even after 15 minutes of searching Google :wink: . Perhaps you could enlighten me?

Not a microbiologist, but this is not not a surprising thing to suggest. Microbes are eating all sorts of things. We do not even have a catalogue of what all the fungi are. It would be profoundly bizarre to suppose that there is not now or anytime in history examples of fungi eating algae.

What exactly are you getting at?

Also, keep in mind, I gave you example of another way too: an infection leading to symbiosis. There are many ways to solve this problem. It is not nearly as hard as it might seem from instinct. Even if it was hard, remember, God could have done it. If you think God could have poofed things into existence, He can surely inspire proteins here and there, right?