Trilobite eyes (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, 14:58 (4050 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I sincerely appreciate your growth in recognizing Dawinism for what it is, an early attempt to conceptualize evolution, brilliant for the time, but fading as science expands our knowledge.-In the "brief guide", I questioned both randomness and gradualism, though not with anything like the scientific expertise which you bring to these discussions. This has been of immense importance to me in my own quest to understand the ins and outs of evolution.
 
DAVID: Much as the ID folks don't like it, I think common descent must be accepted. DNA was there at the beginning, but it appears that the many layered genomic controls must have been there also, which means, to me, that common descent was a controlled event from the beginning, with open-ended experimentation to create the huge forest-like bush we see. Life is extremely inventive in solving problems. It was always meant to be that way.-I don't understand how a controlled event leads to open-ended experimentation. The huge forest-like bush suggests the exact opposite of a controlled event.
 
DAVID: The intelligence of the genome is information built into the genome, and that information must be initially supplied by an intelligent mind. It is the source of that intelligent mind that we debate. [...]-Not quite. There are three separate issues here. The first is how evolution proceeded. The concept of the "intelligent genome" does away with Darwin's dependence on randomness and gradualism, which I see as the two weak links in his theory. I hope we have agreed on this once and for all. The second is how the intelligence got into the genome. Your hypothesis is that an intelligent mind (God) put it there, and I am suggesting the intelligence evolved from within (see Talbott). The third issue is: if there is a God, what is the source of HIS intelligence?-DAVID: So I apologize for constantly needling you about your amorphous 'intelligent genome concept'. I've been trying to hammer home how brilliant the real information/intelligence is. DNA is a better digital code than anything we have invented with our so-called brilliant human minds. We are competing against a mind that is infinitely better.-No need to apologize - we have been needling each other for years! The "intelligent genome" concept is no more amorphous than the God concept. You don't have to hammer home to me how brilliant the intelligence is (though I really appreciate the references you keep giving us, so please don't stop), or how unlikely chance is (which is even acknowledged by some atheists). The problem is the unlikelihood of the God hypothesis, and I don't need to repeat the arguments against faith in something not only amorphous but also hidden and unknowable. We shall probably never get to the bottom of how matter acquired intelligence, but if we accept the theory that this universe began 13.8 billion years ago (though I don't trust such figures), and life goes back say 3.8 billion years (ditto my mistrust), who can say that doesn't give time for a rudimentary intelligence to awaken, experiment and evolve in the manner I have described? After all, we have no precedent to set a time limit for how intelligence might evolve and function. I cannot see why this is any more unlikely than first cause energy being a single mind that has always been infinitely brilliant, or has evolved to brilliance independently of the matter it has produced.-DAVID: March 21 @ 14.56 (under "flytraps"): God's purpose was to produce inventive life. Flycatching was a by-product.-dhw: (dialogue continued): [...] he left the course of evolution in the "hands" of his intelligent invention ... apparently preprogrammed to experiment and take its own decisions [..]. In other words, he did not pre-programme "by-products" like flycatchers, trilobites, dinosaurs, dodos or duck-billed platypuses, but sat back watching while the intelligent genome produced its own inventions...-DAVID: A good synopsis of my view of evolution.-dhw What is clear from the above is that humans were not planned either.-DAVID: The material I have read about human development makes it look 'favored'. [...] Here my scenario implies a desired result.-DAVID (26 March at 13.27 on this thread): No question God planned US, but only He knows why he used the method he did.-Neither 'favored' nor 'a desired result' means 'planned'. It just isn't logical to say that every form of life was a by-product of God's plan to produce inventive life, but humans were planned, even though you can't understand the (higgledy-piggledy) method. If it doesn't make sense, why not consider an alternative that does?