DILEMMAS: A Response to DHW (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, November 24, 2014, 17:07 (3650 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: But do you really believe that your God preprogrammed the very first cells so that billions of years and organisms later their descendants would produce two types of bird and butterfly to migrate or not migrate, irrespective of conditions? Is it not possible that each species in its own environment took its own decisions for its own particular reasons, and passed the lifestyle on to subsequent generations?
DAVID: I won't repeat the very complex lifestyle of the monarch. Is it due to chance, law, or design? Considering the body changes, the long flight plan and the eating requirements (milkweed) chance seems entirely unreasonable. Does it follow a required law of nature? No, they could just as well live their entire lives in Mexico, as they thrive here in winter. If they originated in the USA and discovered Mexico why not make life easier and stay there? No, there appears to be a specified complexity to require this life style. From that reasoning it appears designed to me. Designed by God or his proxy, the IM or NREH. I accept nothing else, because it makes no sense.-I can't explain the monarch's decision to leave Mexico, but maybe when the lifestyle originated long ago, climate conditions were different, and once the successful routine was established, it stuck. Your conclusion suggests that instead of God preprogramming the very first cells with the monarch's lifestyle, you're prepared to accept the possibility that the inventive mechanism designed it (hallelujah). That would indeed be progress, but your next paragraph shows that there has been no progress at all:
 
DAVID: I don't think the IM is in any way autonomous. I never have. That we have a 'partial glimmer' is true for current knowledge, but for my reasoning, semi-autonomy is all I can predict, based on the comments above.-Not "in any way autonomous" but maybe "semi-autonomous" (whatever that means) is another example of linguistic blurring. Strangely, you believe your God can create autonomous intelligence (human free will), and you have posted many articles demonstrating the autonomous reasoning powers of other animals and birds, and yet you dismiss the idea that he could design an inventive mechanism with which migrating and non-migrating butterflies and birds might have worked out their own lifestyle.
 
dhw: Of course nature contains a vast number of organisms, and of course life requires energy, and of course they get it from one another. [...] Please tell me what you are trying to prove.
DAVID: Only the point I keep repeating: everyone who is an animal needs to eat something. Plants need to thrive and supply needed nutrients to the animals. A very large bush is needed to provide that requirement. It is obvious. There is nothing more to the concept.-You are right. The fact that organisms need food is obvious. I'm not sure why you felt the need to state the obvious.