Genome complexity: epigenetics in action (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, April 08, 2017, 12:55 (2574 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: A very simple organism inventing these highly complex weapons simply isn't going to happen. I stick with my comment. If these organisms need weapons of this magnitude for survival, it has to be a saltation.

dhw: A saltation simply means a jump – i.e. the invention arrived rapidly and not gradually. If organisms are capable of rapid adaptations, perhaps they are also capable of rapid innovations. Your comment, taken in conjunction with your other dogmas, means that your God either preprogrammed these different weapons 3.8 billion years ago or directly dabbled them in order to provide the energy to keep life going until he was able to achieve his only goal: to produce humans, which he could do without difficulty. And this makes sense to you?

DAVID: Your proposal that organisms can jump with rapid adaptations is possible, but this can be through God's actions just as well. As for producing humans in 3.8 billion years, brings us to considering limits vs. God's choice of timing, nothing more. I believe He choose that length of time rather than He is limited. Perfect sense to me.

There is no question that organisms do jump with rapid adaptations – we can witness that for ourselves with fish that adapt to pollution and with bacteria that seem able to adapt rapidly to any challenge thrown at them. It is innovation that is the problem. And yes, everything could be through God’s actions. He could be personally directing the behaviour of every individual organism on Earth including you and me. He can do whatever you want him to do.

I am aware that you have now rejected your own hypothesis that God might be limited. However, I’m afraid I can see no coherent logic in the hypothesis that God had only one purpose in life, namely to produce humans - which he could do “without any difficulty” - but chose first to specially design millions of other organisms and lifestyles and natural wonders (then get rid of 99% of them), such as the weaverbird’s nest and the monarch’s four-generational migration and the fly’s compound eye, in order to provide energy to keep life going until he produced the one organism he actually wanted to produce. (See “Purpose and design” for further discussion.)