An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 08, 2014, 12:15 (3517 days ago) @ David Turell

I have suggested six hypotheses to explain the different forms of life that occupy our planet: 1) Evolution happened through innovations caused by random mutations; 2) Evolution didn't happen: God made every species independently at the same time; 3) Evolution didn't happen: but God made every species separately at different times; 4) Evolution happened: God preprogrammed the first cells to pass on every stage of it; 5) Evolution happened: God directed it through innovations, as he inserted sequences of new computer programmes into different existing cell communities; 6) Evolution happened through innovations created by intelligent cell communities, whose intelligence may or may not have been created by a God.-David has described in intricate detail the immense complexity of the organic chemistry of life. Thank you for this highly educational post. As always, it makes a mockery of hypothesis 1. (Incidentally, the chief aim of the website article you quote seems to be to discredit the theory of evolution, disregarding the fact that theistic evolution is perfectly feasible.) Your main aim, however, seems to be to discredit 6. As an evolutionist, you do not doubt that the innovations happened, but you believe they were preprogrammed into the very first cells (4) or progressively directed by God (5). Prior to this latest phase of our discussion, your only alternative to (4) was God “dabbling” (3), which caused you problems as it entailed rejecting evolution. (We must always remember that evolution entails innovations taking place within existing organisms.) While firmly believing that God's 3.7-billion-year-old computer programmes will be found somewhere in the genome of living organisms, you categorically reject the possibility that God could have programmed cellular communities to make the changes on their own initiative (6).-In order to clarify this, I would like to go back, not to an innovation, but to one of Nature's Wonders which I love to use as an analogy. Fire ants cooperate to make themselves into a floating raft, which enables them to survive floods. A simple question: do you believe that your God preprogrammed this action into the very first living cells, to be passed down to the fire ants billions of years later? Or do you believe that God installed a new computer programme, let's say in the queen ant of the first rafting colony (later colonies would have learnt the trick from their predecessors), when he saw that the colony was in trouble? Or do you believe that the ant community devised the strategy on the spot? (If it hadn't worked, of course, they would have drowned.) Not to be compared to the complexity of cells, but I am now trying to understand how you think your own hypotheses might work in practice. -Coming closer to the question of cellular intelligence, I was also fascinated by your reference to a man born without a corpus callosum in his brain. Apparently this has disastrous effects on some people, but it didn't on him. How do you think his brain cells were able to organize their way round the problem? Did your God prepare a programme to deal with an absent corpus callosum 3.7 billion years ago, to be passed on to some humans but not to others? Or did he notice this particular man had something wrong, and juggle the programme just for him? We are coming very close to religion here, since many people believe in a personal God who takes a personal interest in each and every one of us. You don't go that far, but my question to you is how you think this extraordinary adjustment fits in with your concept of cells as automatons capable only of obeying instructions from God.