An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, September 13, 2014, 09:30 (3723 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: Then as an evolutionist, you seem to have no choice: 3.7 billion years ago, your God implanted the very first living cells with programmes for every single innovation ... I suspect some people would call that “wild speculation”. Your alternative is to reject evolution and opt for separate creation. But you are against that.
DAVID: It is just my dilemma. I just don't know how God managed evolution. Since I believe a type of evolutionary But evolution could not have occurred without intelligent planning, once chance is excluded.-Tony says that “One of the key points of being a theist is trusting that God knows what he is doing.” Is it possible that this is part of your dilemma? Supposing creating life was a new experience for God, he hadn't a clue where it was leading, let it do its own thing (the bit you refuse to countenance), but then occasionally dabbled, and eventually decided to enhance simian intelligence into human intelligence a bit like his own? You would then have your mixture of guided and non-guided evolution, without separate creation. Only trying to be helpful. But you are already heading that way (see later).-I asked you how, if cells were automatons that could only obey God's instructions, the brain cells of one person could work their way round an abnormality while someone else's couldn't. -DAVID: Each individual has a brain plasticity on a bell curve, some more facile than others. [...] Biology in individuals has much variation-What does brain plasticity mean if not the flexibility of cell behaviour? The more variation you have, the less rigid the programming. I can't believe you're saying that every community of human brain cells consists of automatons obeying a separate programme God has devised for each individual. And if not, then each set of brain cells must be able to take its own decisions. (Remember in this case, the patient didn't know he had the condition, so the cells worked independently of his control - whatever “his control” might consist of.)
 
dhw:“We are trying to figure out the molecular pathways by which the cells make the decisions and decide if they need to kill themselves.”
DAVID: Note in the quote 'moleclar pathways'. How much thought do you think moleculs have? These are standarized biochemical reactions in cells.-I have not been talking of molecular intelligence. If cells make decisions, the decision-making mechanism must be within the cells, and the chemical processes, as in human brains, tell us what happens when intelligence is at work.-dhw: Strange that Calarco talks of an organism's ability to diversify its cellular function etc. It's almost as if he's saying that there is some mechanism within the organism that takes such decisions.
DAVID: Again, I'm looking for a way to have speciation as part of the evolutionary program written by god.-So are we all. Speciation is the whole point of evolutionary theory. How did single cell organisms develop into whales and humans? All these scientists keep talking of the cells processing information, communicating, cooperating, taking decisions....I wonder why they don't simply talk of cells being preprogrammed by God to do what he tells them.
 
dhw: In your post earlier today, there were two very striking sentences: “...I feel God could create an evolutionary system that could do a great deal of its own advancement planning.” And “Certainly, evolution looks like there was a process in place that God could have started.” An evolutionary system can't plan. Living organisms can plan, thereby creating a system. And so you are actually saying that living organisms could do a great deal of their own advancement planning. And if evolution is a process that God started, but he did NOT do all the “advancement planning”, he would have had to implant some kind of planning mechanism within the organisms he created. Where would he have put the mechanism for advancement planning?-DAVID: An evolutionary system can plan if programmed properly. -That is like saying a plan can plan if it's properly planned. Plans don't plan. Plans are planned by planners like your God, humans or other organisms.-DAVID: An evolutionary program can include a planning section for more complexity, and it is probably a layer in the genome. -Yes, a programme can INCLUDE a plan, and that would be the 3.7-billion-year-old programme for all innovations you think your God inserted into the first living cells. However, you think your God could create a SYSTEM that could do a great deal of its own planning. And yet you don't think he could create a MECHANISM that could do a great deal of its own planning. And the system that plans plans is probably a layer in the genome, which of course is situated in the cells, but the cells couldn't possibly contain a mechanism that plans plans. Does this make sense? -DAVID: Again, chance doesn't work. Living cells are controlled by the genome, but have the ability to make small modifications: i.e., Darwin's finch beaks.-We keep agreeing that chance doesn't work. We agree there is a mechanism within the genome, which is within the cells, that can make small modifications. We don't know how large those modifications might become, since we are going through a period of evolutionary stasis.