Logic and evolution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 22, 2016, 15:34 (3045 days ago) @ dhw

David: I have presented this article previously. (Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 14:03) It encompasses my thinking completely[/i]:
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-highly-engineered-transition-to-v... QUOTE: I will state now in advance the point that I am trying to make here: each of the transitions described requires tons and tons of new, original, highly specific functional information.
> 
> dhw: Exit your theory that innovation is caused by loss of information.-Not entirely. Since adaptation often is accompanied by loss of info, it is very possible some degree of innovation may result from loss of info.
> 
> DAVID: The advances are totally unexplained, not understood and require mental planning to coordinate all the new parts.
> 
> dhw; So why would it be unnatural for sentient, cognitive, decision-making beings to design and coordinate their new parts (allowing for your God giving them these powers)? You asked for a “natural” explanation and I gave you one. The fact that you prefer to believe in preprogramming/ dabbling does not make my hypothesis “unnatural”.-As long as they are God-given, your theory can be accepted. What is the agnostic theory?
> 
> dhw: So when you said that research has found that a new structure can be created without adding “new information”, you actually meant science has found that some adaptations lose information. There is a difference. 
> DAVID: I agree. But these adaptations are the only advances that we have to study. They contain the suggestion that possibly speciation may involve loss of information. -> DAVID: But He did give them alternate pathways to choose from! You seem to want simplicity. The h-p bush is not simple. You don't like my explanation, but complexity seems the rule. The particle zoo is complex. Quantum mechanics is very complex. But you want simplicity and we are surrounded by things we cannot explain. How about accepting what you see as the normal result of complex planning?
> 
> dhw: You are playing games. You know perfectly well that my hypothesis does not deny the complexities of life! It does away with the complexities of your God having to preprogramme the first cells with billions of adaptations, innovations and natural wonders to create a bush to balance nature - or satisfy his liking for complexity - while being geared to producing human beings. My hypothesis offers the simpler explanation that organisms have an autonomous ability (possibly designed by your God) to do their own “complex planning”, of which the higgledy-piggledy bush is the “normal result”.-Again, granting a God-given ability for cells doing their own complex planning can fit my theistic thinking, how does an agnostic thinks it works without any God help?-> David: it is still possible that God pre-loaded all the information in the beginning, and since He also was running the evolution of the universe He knew what environmental pressures would be brought to bear on developing organisms and set up preparatory changes for them. That or He dabbled. I'm stuck.-> dhw: So you must go back to speciation being the result of your God dabbling, i .e. adding rather than subtracting information. Therefore all the information required for evolution cannot have been present at the beginning, and evolutionary advances cannot have been caused by loss of information. Agreed?-With the evidence that adaptation can be due to loss of info, I cannot accept your dogmatic statement. I want to keep all possibilities: preplanning with some loss possible, and dabbling.