Evidence for pattern development; mulling (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 04, 2014, 20:55 (3642 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: This is the dogmatism that makes your reasoning so hard to follow. On Tuesday you wrote: “...an epigenetic IM exists, its limits for invention are unknown”, but on Wednesday its limits for invention are “obviously” known. -Let's make it absolutely clear. I think the IM ( if it exists, and I think it probably does) is quite limited, as described.
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> dhw: Your stepwise programme is presumably from bacteria to humans. You have told us that 99% of the species in between are extinct. Either God planned them or he didn't. If he didn't, their IM was autonomous. If he did, why were they all necessary for the production of humans? ....... but I guess you know God better than I do.-I think I do know God better since I accept Him. Well, that is not really true, but I think about God differently than you do. I believe in God-guided evolution. As you know the dilemma came from not knowing how much dabbling He might have to do. With our discussion of an IM and learning from Tony how progressive programming might have been arranged, Bacteria started with a seriously complex DNA. It had to be. And to me a God-guided semi-independent inventive mechanism can explain the evolutionary pattern we see. You see it differently. We disagree. I see cells as a series of molecular reactions. It is very difficult for me to understand how a multi-cellular complex organism like an early mammal can conjure up major modifications involving many different types of cells, each with differing DNA; again the whale series. I suggest you look at it, because it involves major changes with each step, with no tiny intermediate steps found. To my an IM can only do this under conscious guidance and planning.
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> dhw: This whole quest is for the truth about how we got here. Since humans could not exist without a suitable environment, the problem of environmental change is fundamental to your anthropocentric hypothesis, which may be wrong. The higgledy-piggledy bush does not support it.-The bush is not a denial. It is evidence that life can be very inventive. I don't expect a direct line from bacteria to man, why do you? You try to interpret God more than I do. -> dhw: Disasters like Chicxulub do not support it. Mass extinctions do not support it. In each case you have to grub around for vague ways of justifying your huge leap from the fact that we are here to the assumption that we were meant to be here from the very beginning.-Again, you are interpreting what God might or might not have allowed. We are here, that is indisputable, and against all odds. That is the view I see. 
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>dhw: I admit my ignorance, and therefore leave my options open. Might it be that you want a weak IM because a strong one would undermine your argument for anthropocentric evolution preprogrammed from the very beginning? Your starting point is your fixed belief. Mine is an attempt to find a convincing explanation for the higgledy-piggledy course of evolution, whether God started it all off or not. But you are right: the concept of an autonomous IM, just like evolution itself, fits in both with theism and with atheism. However, I don't see that as a reason for rejecting it.-With both admit we are discussing from ignorance of underlying mechanisms. I don't reject a semiautonomous IM, just a totally independent one.