Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, May 22, 2016, 17:54 (3107 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I simply cannot imagine your God supplying the first cells with programmes to pass on through billions of years and organisms for every single “complexification” in the history of evolution (= preprogramming). Or even constantly dabbling to add twiddly bits (complexities) just for the sake of adding twiddly bits.
DAVID: Fair enough: You have given me the task of explaining my vision of God's actions, when all we can see is results. Evolution produces very extreme complexity developed beyond what simple adaptation to stress or competition would imply. This is seen in body forms (neck), mammals birthing in water (Whales), extensive migrations (birds, insects), when the simple thought is 'why bother?' This is where purpose comes into play. Unless you realize this needs planning you won't use purpose as explanations, and you rely on 'imagining' without the underpinning of 'purpose'. My presumed purpose is to produce humans. If that is accepted, all falls into place as a overall concept.-On the contrary, I see purpose as an explanation for every single “complexification” - and the purpose is not complexification for its own sake, or for the production of humans. If an almighty God just wanted to create humans, I can see no reason why he would have specially equipped the first cells to pass on millions of other weird and wonderful “complexifications”, 99% of which have disappeared. What I can imagine is a God who creates an autonomous, inventive mechanism the purpose of which is to seek its own means of survival and improvement. THAT would explain the bush and the extinctions and every other characteristic of evolutionary history.
 
DAVID: We have a beginning (bacteria) and an endpoint (us) but your 'how' questions are what bother you about this. I would like to understand the 'how' but from a different viewpoint; I'm interested, you are critical. Would you be less critical if you understood fully how evolution works? Well, we have to work with what we have.-I don't know how you can be so sure that we are the endpoint. Evolution presumably still has a few more billion years to go. But I am not disputing the extraordinary success of our species: wearing my theist hat, I even consider it feasible that your God might have dabbled to get us. It is the gearing of all forms of life to humanity that I criticize for the reason given above, and because I am interested, I look for an alternative ‘how'. Working with what we have, I have offered you one, but you are so fixed on your God controlling every step that you in turn cannot imagine him deliberately setting up a mechanism that can act without his control. And yet, conversely, you insist that he did precisely that with humans by giving them free will.-dhw: Anyway, why stress? Why not in response to an environmental change that allows for new “complexities”? 
DAVID: The adaptations of epigenetics are small, not very complex, and so far no explanation for speciation.-I am not talking about adaptation. It is innovation that drives evolution, and a change in the environment (e.g. an increase in oxygen) might allow organisms to develop new forms.
 
dhw: Nor can I imagine God setting up a programme only to find that he doesn't like how it's working out, so he has to dabble to put right his own blunders. What sort of planning is that?-DAVID: You are describing my problem in trying to explain evolution guided by God: it is still pre-planning codes or dabbles along the way. One or both can be correct, but we have no clue.-You do indeed have a huge problem, but it would disappear if you acknowledged the possibility that God created a mechanism that would come up with its own inventions. Then it would make sense for him to dabble if he did not like the results, because they would not have been his design.-dhw: But if God starts each “complexification” automatically according to his own pre-set programme (or dabbles some of them), and organisms do not have an autonomous inventive mechanism to produce their own “complexities”, I can't imagine any kind of “somewhat” or “semi” that will enable organisms to complexify in a way he doesn't like. Please tell us more.
DAVID: What you are asking is when God sets a process in motion, how much leeway is allowed, if any. Tony, I think would say none. But from my non-religious approach, I admit I have no way of knowing when looking at the results evolution produced. It is your suggestion, not mine, that God sets evolution in motion and sits back to watch the fun, making God sound human. He isn't.-Since you insist that the inventive mechanism is either programmed or dabbled with, you leave no room for ANY leeway in the creation of new “complexities”. God controls everything. Yes, it is my suggestion that he might have set the mechanism up to relieve boredom, though reserving the right to dabble. But you yourself have frequently referred to God making man in his own image, so it must be possible that he and we have certain attributes in common. After all, you also suggested that he wanted a relationship with us. He could hardly do that if he and we were 100% “different in kind”.