Genome complexity in embryology (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, April 30, 2015, 20:59 (3495 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: A God following the same learning curve would seem more convincing to me than your UI who preprogrammes humans from the start, but also preprogrammes plovers and platypuses, whales and weaverbirds for reasons you cannot discern.
DAVID: How do you know God has a learning curve? No theologian would claim that, why should you?-If a hypothesis seems to me “more convincing”, that does not mean it has become knowledge! I don't even know if God exists. I can't believe I'm the first person ever to conceive of a God who learns as he goes along, and some forms of process theology do suggest that. But frankly, I'm surprised that someone who claims to think for himself should be so dependent on what theologians claim. -DAVID: I've admitted to preprogramming or dabbling all along. Guided and directed fit the bill.
dhw; You have,but you stopped using those terms when I started pushing the unlikelihood of a 3.7-billion-year computer programme, and the problem of drawing the line between dabbling and separate creation. “Guided” and “directed” are so gently vague that they mask the colossal implications and the problems attached to them.
DAVID: They are your problems, not mine. I don't know why you try so hard to decipher God's exact role in evolution. I don't think anyone knows except Him. It seems He used an evolutionary process. Dayenu!-I try so hard because you have categorically stated God's exact role in evolution, and I am not convinced. You tell us that all the complexities are the result of God preprogramming the first living cells with every possible innovation over the last 3.7 billion years, or alternatively that these innovations are the result of his personal intervention, all for the purpose of producing humans. You even reject the alternative proposal that he might have endowed cells with an autonomous inventive mechanism, and you try to water it down to semi-autonomous in order to ensure that God is always in control. But when your theory is shown to be riddled with problems, you tell me not to bother!