Evolution v Creationism: guided evolution? dhw? (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, April 02, 2015, 12:42 (3521 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Yes, most of our own responses are also automatic and entail biochemistry. But biochemistry does not explain innovation, and that is where the IM (which may or may not have been designed by your God) comes into play. Darwin's random mutations are indeed a problem, but you usually agree that common descent and natural selection remain untroubled.-DAVID: Interesting reply. In regard to evolution, I am stuck with evidence that life evolved 'somehow' from, single cells, once life started. However the idea that 'biochemistry does not explain innovation' is a neat sidestep. What has to be explained is the complexity of living biochemistry and how that was innovated. For me an IM designed by God or directed evolutionary design by God is all that can work. I cannot ever imagine evolution working freely by chance or an IM inventing on its own.-There is no sidestep. The autonomous inventive mechanism hypothesis attempts to explain how evolution works, starting with single cells which cooperate intelligently to invent increasingly complex cell communities with increasingly complex biochemistry. No chance involved. The origin of the IM is a separate issue. I cannot imagine evolution working by chance either, if by "chance" you mean random mutations, so I don't know why you continue to labour the point. On the other hand, I CAN imagine an IM working on its own, because I can imagine all organisms having their own individual form of inventive intelligence, just as humans do.
 
DAVID: One of your problems is your education which I presume did not include very much science. You have no background in biochemistry. I had had a half year both in premed and again in medical school and followed biochemical arguments during practice.. This not one-upmanship. You just do not appreciate what I see and you have no way of judging statements about biochemistry which I have reported to you can be interpreted as hyperbole. -What “can be” interpreted as hyperbole can also be interpreted as accurate. My non-scientific background leaves me dependent on experts. But although the experts may agree about the biochemical complexities and about how the physical processes work, they do not agree on how those complexities may have come into being, or on how much control organisms have over the physical processes. If you told a team of biochemists that all organisms (cell communities) have been preprogrammed by God to adapt and innovate, or innovations are the result of divine dabbling, do you think they would all cheer? You have said it's 50/50 whether the sentience and cognitive abilities (on which many experts do agree) are what they seem, as opposed to being automatic. That is good enough for me, and your choice of interpretation has nothing to do with science. 
 
dhw: The cop-out is associating first cause with CONSCIOUSNESS, because that is as much a matter of faith as belief in an unconscious first cause which in an eternity of mindless material-juggling comes up with a combination to engender life.

DAVID: [I can't accommodate your entire post, but this is the point that requires an answer:] "Mindless material-juggling" is an out-and-out required appeal to chance. You have accepted that chance doesn't work. How do you pull all you impossible ideas together?-Once life and the mechanism for evolution appear, there is no juggling (see above). The basic premise is an eternity and infinity of matter forming different combinations. Our universe (either eternal or one of an infinite succession of universes) alone has billions of galaxies (see Weinberg et al). I can easily accept that eventually one will provide conditions suitable for life. In eternity, there may even be millions of galaxies containing planets suitable for life. And in eternity eventually there will be the one great stroke of luck that actually produces the first living cells - an act of chance which, as I have repeated over and over again, I find as difficult to believe as eternal, infinite energy being a single conscious mind. That is one reason why I am an agnostic.-dhw: I am aware of your firm belief (see above), and respect it. The argument is powerful. Unfortunately, it does not explain everything. It does not explain how first cause energy can simply BE conscious and plan complexity, whereas it is impossible for energy/matter to evolve consciousness and develop complexity.-DAVID: Because logically, without chance as an active player, a first cause has to be capable of planning. That requires mind. It HAS TO BE conscious.-Of course there has to be a conscious mind or conscious minds if chance is not an active player - but an active player in what, and to what extent, and when? In the above scenario, given a mindless first cause of energy and matter interacting forever, a life-supporting system may have been inevitable, and the one chance element is life itself with its mechanism for evolution - but not evolution itself.