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

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 07, 2015, 15:12 (3516 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Agreed. We also have to account for reproduction and innovation. It's as “magical” as a mind from nowhere that can create universes and bacteria.-The problem for you is that only a mind can conceivable do it. An IM unless directed is back to hunt and peck.
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> dhw: For you, the apparent sentience, cognition, communications and decision-making are all automatically governed by “information” your God has planted. You do not seem to distinguish between what is clearly automatic (perception of information through the equivalent of the senses) and individual cognition (the processing and use of such information) which is NOT clearly automatic.-It is clearly automatic to me and is demonstrated that way in the research. Your so-called cognition is the molecular response to stimuli, which stimuli are received by molecules. Molecules with a cortex? No, one molecule triggers another in series. All of life is like this except our consciousness and free will.
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> dhw: More obfuscation with “information”! The “machinery in action” has indeed been described on all levels, from perception through to cognition, in bacteria as in humans. But we do not know the extent to which that “machinery” is automatic or autonomous, or how autonomy actually works. Hence the never-ending debate on human free will. The job is nowhere near done - for cells/cell communities or for humans.-You have your interpretation of biochemistry. I have mine.-> 
> dhw: Like evolution itself, the IM hypothesis neither rejects nor favours God, but the mechanism would have to be of astonishing complexity, and so your design argument would still apply. However, your anthropocentric view of God demands his complete control of evolution, and so you can't bear the thought that he might have given his invention a free hand!-Please remember, we have no idea if an IM even exists. We do see epigenetic alterations that are responsive to changes, and that is probably what the IM is. It implies any major change is environmentally dependent. There is no clear cut correlation for the 3.5 million years of human development.
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> DAVID: Cells have a list of responses to choose from depending on the type and strength of stimuli. All automatic.
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> dhw: So 3.7 billion years ago, your God gave the first cells a list of possible responses to every future change in the environment, to be passed on through zillions of organisms so that 1% could automatically adapt and innovate, while 99% were preprogrammed to make the wrong choice (automatically) when certain changes took place. This particular human mind boggles.-It should boggle. Your reasoning is wrong. There is no reason for multicellularity or for any change from just bacteria. I don't see evolution as a process that is anything but driven by a thinking and planning force, and I know you cannot explain why a life form that can have every imaginable form of extremophile bothered with the further complexity of multicellularity. Simply, the evolution we see had to be guided. There is no obvious reason for multicellularity with bacteria so successful. Your concept that those single cell guys knew everything from the beginning is not reasonable. I assume the multi forms got a further input of instructions as they had to do more complex forms of living. Only simple logic.