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

by dhw, Saturday, April 04, 2015, 15:51 (3300 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I am greatly in your debt for generously alerting me to the work of renowned experts who disagree with you. 
DAVID: Thank you. I try to present a variety of opinions since much of scientific conclusions are really opinions until fully verified.-And most of the subjects we discuss are unlikely ever to be fully verified. If they were, there would be nothing left to discuss! In all honesty, it is your indefatigable research into all the latest findings and opinions that keeps this website going.-dhw: ...why do you persist in telling me I reject theories which I neither accept nor reject, and why do you not understand that ALL the alternatives entail acts of irrational faith if one is to pass from neutrality to commitment?
DAVID: We have reached the nub of the issue: is there any faith you would find as rational? Or must everything be clearly black or white, and provable?-The questions of God's existence and the origin of life, evolution and consciousness are unique. In our day-to-day living, we perform acts of faith and make subjective decisions and judgements all the time, based on arguments that are neither clearly black/white nor provable. And you know this as well as I do. So drop your “everything” and focus on faith in God.-DAVID: You started this website as a answer to what you perceived as irrational atheism. And I have tried to show how I left agnosticism through what I feel are rational conclusions, as a means of offering an educational contribution to a line of reasoning. -The educational contribution is invaluable, and the conclusions are indeed rational until they reach a point where reason can no longer cope. You acknowledge that yourself, but seem to have difficulty grasping the rational arguments that lead to different conclusions, though these also reach a point where reason fails.-DAVID: I come from the position that living cells are highly complex, beyond what chance can produce, and yet are relatively mindless.-Your wording is interesting. How mindless is “relatively” mindless? To what extent is “relative” mindlessness able to evolve into complete mindfulness? -DAVID: Mind is required for complexity planning, and the cells can only use epigenetic automatic response mechanisms to various stimuli and stresses. -Your “only” is an opinion, not a fact. -DAVID: Mind and information are absolute requirements for life to exist. And therefore there must be a mind with information behind it all. Simple, no Bible needed.-I don't know why you bring the Bible into this, unless you are addressing these remarks to Tony. I know information is the current “in” word, and I dislike it. But yes, for life to exist and to evolve, certain materials have to combine in a manner so complex that you and I find it impossible to believe it could be achieved by chance. That side of the argument is based on incredulity. So is the other side: some of us find it impossible to believe in an eternally conscious, single-minded form of energy which creates whole universes and bacteria (in your case, all for the sake of humans), and for whose existence there is no objective evidence. No matter which incredible hypothesis you choose, all the “information” for life exists, but we do not know its source.