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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: God Magic and Expectation
Message-ID: <1140@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 17:43:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1140
Posted: Thu May 23 17:43:37 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 05:25:02 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
Lines: 68


>>       16.  There are many single cell forms of life, but there are no
>>            forms  of  animal  life  with  2,  3,..., or even 20 cells
>>            [a,b]. If organic evolution happened, these forms of  life
>>            should   exist   in   great   abundance.    None  do.  The
>>            evolutionary tree has no trunk [c].
>>

> [Keith Doyle]
> If this is true, and I don't know offhand if it is, there could be a lot 
> of reasons for this.   Single celled organisms may have a tendency to
> grow larger than 20 cells once they obtain the ability to grow to 
> multiple cells.  I would give this one much further study before I would
> write it off to 'God Magic'.

God Magic!  Mmm...
Your "I don't know if this is true, but if so it *may* be because..."
falls in the magic class, too, don't you think?

>>            c)  Actually, the form of life that has just over 20 cells
>>                is  a very simple PARASITE called the mesozoa. It must
>>                have a complex animal as a host in order to provide it
>>                with  such functions as digestion and respiration. The
>>                mesozoa could not be the evolutionary predecessors  of
>>                any  so  called  higher  animals  since  it requires a
>>                higher animal as its  host.  Sponges,  the  next  most
>>                complex  form  of multicellular life, are so different
>>                from higher forms of life that even  evolutionists  do
>>                not  consider  them  as  ancestral  to  anything. (For
>>                example see Cockrum, above, p. 167.)

> This is an excellent example of the twisted nature of creationist
> propoganda.  Anyone remotely familiar with current evolutionary thought
> would know that noone expects that this 20 celled organism has been
> around unchanged since the days when all life was less than 20 or so cells.

That's true.  Just ask any bacteria.  Or any algae.

I wonder what you mean by "expect"?  Is ther a genuine "expectation"
involved here, or simply observation?

> Clearly such a parasite would have evolved its parasitic nature after some
> life had evolved that it could be parasite to!

Clearly.  Since evolution is a fact, and since parasites exist ... what
other conclusion is possible?  (when the question of evolution is
begged, that is.)

> Yet this is still presented
> as evidence.  Note how the creationists seem to like to forget that once
> a new organism evolves it dosen't always stabilize forever.  Organisms
> continue to evolve, and not all primitive forms are directly in the 
> evolutionary path of higher forms.

More question begging.

---

By the way, just to avoid confusion here, I see your main point, i.e.,
that it is possible that parasites are degenerate forms of what were
once non-parasitic organisms.  But the arguments you use to support
that contention are not very convincing.

-- 
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Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
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