An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, September 05, 2014, 12:48 (3730 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: You are quite right. A failed experiment will have resulted in death, and so the knowledge could not have been passed on. ....
TONY: Typically engineers/designers leave their notes, and even if they don't leave notes, others analyze the events surrounding their demise to construct how the failure occurred. Do you think cells have this ability, either the ability to leave notes with remarks about what failed and why, or the ability to conceptually construct why another organism failed in its experiment??-Hey, I've already agreed that it was a bad analogy! Do I have to agree twice?
 
TONY: The idea of progressive evolution through innovation is also just speculation without evidence. [...]
Dhw: This is where it gets interesting. David believes evolution happened through innovation (so do I), and for him that means God preprogramming every single innovation into the first living cells. You clearly favour dabbling (= creationism). [...]Perhaps you and David can explain why you don't like each other's speculative hypotheses.-TONY: Sorry, I thought I had been clear on that. I do not believe in divergence through gradual evolution beyond the species level. As for how God did it, I can't say, only speculate as we so often do.
 
Yes, you made it very clear, as quoted above, that you do not believe in progressive evolution through innovation. (None of us three believe in gradualism.) But David does believe in it, so I asked you to explain why you didn't like David's speculative hypothesis. And since you believe in separate creation of the species (in the broader sense - spiders/dragonflies/dogs) I asked David to explain why he didn't like your speculative hypothesis. I thought we might all learn something from such an exchange. You have both been quick to attack my own speculative hypothesis, so why the sudden coyness?!-TONY: I think of creation as a giant computer program. (Quantum) Physics acts as a native instructions for the machine logic, applying the required force to operate the components. On top of that you have Chemistry, which acts like a sort of "assembly" language, under and interfacing with the rules of physics. On top of that, you have the basic rules of biology, that work as an operating system, using the language of Chemistry. Within this framework you have DNA which acts like C++, a compilation of digital "libraries", bits of programs that are known to work very efficiently and can be organized in numerous different ways to create any possible program you can conceive of by arranging them in different ways. Just like a master engineer/programmer could create a computer starting with nothing but sand (silicon), time, and energy, I think God used pretty much the same methodology. -Another strikingly written account, for which again many thanks. My guess is that atheists would agree with most of this, apart from your finale. You have later referred to the laws of chemistry, biochemistry, physics, quantum physics etc. and that is the answer one so often gets from atheists: it's all a matter of natural laws. And theists cry: “Who made the natural laws?” And atheists cry: “Who made your God?” But this is not the problem we are investigating on the thread called “An Inventive Mechanism”. The idea of a mechanism that can change itself or be changed into virtually any form one can imagine lies at the heart of evolution. The great question, apart from how such a mechanism came into being (= the existence or not of God), is how it functions. You are a careful writer, and I assume when you say “can be organized”, your use of the passive is a reference to God dabbling. David doesn't much like that. He thinks God's programmes, handed down from the first tiny cells of 3.7 billion years ago, automatically switch themselves on when the environment provides the trigger. You don't like that, because it entails progressive evolution through innovation. That's why I hoped you would both exchange views on the subject.
 
TONY: Further, if we assume that there is a God, and that God exists as some form of energy, then it is only logical that he could manipulate energy as easily as we manipulate matter being material creatures. Since all matter is comprised of energy, his creating matter is no different kind than our creating buildings or other constructions out of raw matter. -Nicely put again, and I didn't make myself clear. I don't doubt that an omnipotent God could do it, just as I don't doubt that he could create an inventive mechanism that would do the same thing without his interference, but I can't imagine him spending billions of years painstakingly and personally making the first clockwork trilobites etc. etc. and popping the instructions in so that they can reproduce a few zillion more clockwork trilobytes (till they disappear) while he goes on to manufacture the first few clockwork spiders etc. etc. The idea bothers David too. I'm sure we would all learn a lot if only you would exchange views on the subject.