Different in degree or kind: Egnor's take (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, October 23, 2016, 08:19 (2954 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: In the great big world, there are millions of problems, all of different kinds. Bacteria have found solutions to them all. Did God give them millions of automatic “shifts” to counter every single one of them? Or does he do a dabble whenever there’s a new one? Or did he give them the means to find their own solutions? That is the theistic choice.
DAVID: I know, and bacteria are capable of living in any extreme environment, and God helped, and I do not have the answer of exactly how He did it.

Nobody has, but you have said repeatedly that you believe only in preprogramming or dabbling (or a multiple choice guessing game). And you reject even the possibility of autonomous intelligence.

dhw: I can only quote your marvellous comment a few days ago: “I don’t believe God follows human logic in what he does.” Since you believe that God preprogrammes or dabbles, you clearly believe that these hypotheses are NOT compatible with human logic. And so on the assumption that you are human (though in my admiration for you, I sometimes wonder if you aren’t superhuman), you find them illogical.
DAVID: Logically, God is required, and I admit I cannot follow His logic at times.

Wearing my theist hat, I suggest you cannot follow your interpretation of his logic, which clearly you find illogical. But you are unwilling to admit that your interpretation of his logic might be wrong.

David’s comment Under “Explaining Crispr”: Note these are man-made modifications of bacterial defense enzymes. What is always striking to me is that bacteria in evolving these huge molecules had to invent them. Enzymes are giant in size and have loci which will grab both sides of a reaction, hold the molecules together and force a reaction that would otherwise take years to occur. Chance logically cannot create this. Saltation is logical.

A very striking comment. First of all, saltation is not the opposite of chance, but simply lengthens the odds against chance. However, we have always been in agreement (a) that chance is not an option, and (b) that Darwin was wrong to dismiss saltation in favour of gradualism. Far more important is your acknowledgement at last that bacteria may have invented the huge molecules. So much more logical than insisting that your God preprogrammed the first cells with every single innovation, or even with a collection of right and wrong pathways from which each bacterium could make its choice.