Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, November 24, 2013, 17:52 (3805 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have acknowledged that your theory concerning preprogramming and divine dabbling is entirely of your own making, and you cannot cite a single biochemist who supports it. I admire your courage in standing alone against the scientific world, but courage, faith and authoritative statements are not enough to win over an old sceptic like me.-DAVID: You were born with the potential of great intelligence. you exhibit it now, but how did you get there? You had to absorb a great deal of information both from experience and from being taught. Intelligence requires information in order to work properly. You keep telling me that intelligent cells cells just function as is. Don't they have information to work with? -You are juggling with two meanings of the word "information". The information we acquire through experience is what I meant when I referred to a mindless universe packed with information, which only an intelligent mind can perceive. When I pointed this out, you said you meant "the plan by which life operates", i.e. DNA. Human intelligence also operates through such inborn "information". Just like us, cells process the information they absorb from the world around them, but the "information" that constitutes the mechanism whereby they do the processing, communicate with one another, take their decisions etc. is, just like ours, of unknown origin.
 
DAVID: As for support for my position, Michael Behe, Professor at Leigh U. of Black Box fame. I could list others. I haven't bothered because the request from you is off the point of the discussion. You keep avoiding the issue of the fact that intelligent cells operate on information they have implanted within them.
 
There are two subjects under discussion here: 1) your hypothesis that every innovation/adaptation/lifestyle/strategy was preprogrammed in the very first cells by your God, although sometimes he intervened. 2) My hypothesis that evolution has proceeded not through random mutations or preprogramming of the first cells, but through changes engineered by intelligent cells/cell communities.
 
I have searched for any mention by Behe of your God installing billions of innovative programmes into the very first cells, to be passed on through billions of generations. All the websites I have found indicate that he believes in common descent and natural selection, but not in random mutations, and argues that the irreducible complexity (of cells) is an indication of intelligent design. He refuses to be drawn on the nature, motives or methods of a designer. Please give me a reference in which Behe explicitly supports your hypothesis of God preprogramming the very first cells to produce billions of innovations billions of years later.