Bacterial motors carefully studied: Addendum (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 15, 2016, 14:27 (3144 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I see no reason why you should believe your God to have been incapable of creating an evolutionary mechanism that would function without his preprogrammed or personal “guidance”.
DAVID: I think he is perfectly capable of it with preprogrammed guidance.-Otherwise not capable, then. And yet according to you he IS capable of creating autonomous, inventive minds (free will) in humans and to a lesser degree in other large organisms. He just can't do it with small organisms, to enable them to control how they combine to form new, larger organisms. A strange gap in his almighty powers.
 
dhw: Nobody can explain innovations, or the Cambrian, or any sort of consciousness, human or otherwise. Nobody can explain your God either.
DAVID: Why is it then that all civilizations have suggested that there must be God/gods? It is an idea built into our consciousness, as a recognition that the mysteries of nature and life require a mind to plan it.-See the God thread (more suitable than bacterial motors).-dhw: I don't know why it should be deemed unnatural, or "no good reason", for some intelligent organisms to exploit nature's opportunities in order to improve themselves (remember, my hypothesis allows for your God endowing them with their intelligence).
DAVID: They can, but only if God gives them planning ability.-I would subsume planning ability under the heading of an autonomous inventive mechanism, but apparently your God's powers are too limited for him to provide organisms with that. However, thank you for now accepting that evolution might advance through a natural drive for improvement. Another problem solved.
 
dhw: But I accept the reasons for your questioning the concept of an autonomous inventive mechanism. I only remain surprised by your unwillingness to question the hypothesis that an individual, unknown, sourceless, superintelligent mind deliberately and personally organized every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder (including the weaverbird's nest) throughout the history of evolution in order to produce and feed humans.
DAVID: Simple answer. Why are humans here? An extremely improbable event.-All of life is an extremely improbable event, and every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder is an extremely improbable event. That still doesn't tell us why God had to design the monarch's migration, the weaverbird's nest and the duck-billed platypus in order to produce/feed humans.-DAVID: Tour's incredulity comes from more than his problems with protein synthesis etc. etc. […] I'm with Tour. His problems in the lab make the case: life is improbably complex, and could not have started by chance.
dhw: I also share Tour's incredulity. How often do I have to repeat that I do not believe in chance? ...However, that does not mean God personally organized every single innovation, lifestyle etc. etc. as per your own personal theory of evolution. .... I have similar problems of incredulity regarding a single, unknown, sourceless, superintelligent mind creating billions of solar systems. That is one of the main reasons why I am not a theist. I may have...zzzzz...-DAVID: And so to sleep with a dead end in your thinking. Perchance to dream...-A superb answer, totally apt on all levels, and it made me laugh out loud! Thank you.