More about how evolution works: multicellularity (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, November 03, 2016, 11:11 (2728 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: So I ask why else he might be hidden. Perhaps he’s lost interest? Or perhaps he’s watching and occasionally secretly dabbling because he enjoys the ever-changing spectacle, which includes humans. Why is this hypothesis less believable and more of a supposition than yours, and what aspects do not fit in with the history of life as we know it?

DAVID: The issue you have raised is whether there is a personal God or not. Many folks in this country approach their belief from this standpoint. Adler thought the chance was 50/50 in the issue of hearing and acting on prayers. But Adler actually believed in God and was not concerned about how personal He appeared to be. The Muslim religion says you find Him through the magnitude of His works. The Christians point to Jesus as God's direct intervention. Your agnostic suppositions are not found in any mainstream religious thought. But you are allowed to make up any stream of consciousness suppositions you want to satisfy your role on the fence. Why would God bother to invent a universe and life unless He was very interested in how it all goes?

This is the first time I have known you to turn to mainstream religion for support! And I don’t know what you mean by an agnostic “stream of consciousness supposition”. It is a hypothesis that offers a rational and direct answer to your last question: God bothered to invent the universe and life in order to enjoy the spectacle. Your own reading of his purpose is that he wants to have direct relations with humans, but you would rather not answer my question of how that is possible if he hides himself. And you still won’t tell me why my hypothesis is less believable and more of a supposition than yours, or what aspects do not cover life as we know it.

dhw: So although your God was in tight control of, say, Chixculub, and ensured that only pre-pre-pre-pre-humans were adequate to survive, did he lose his tight control of the organisms you described as “inadequate for the stress”? Or did he deliberately (tight control) make them “inadequate for the stress”? Or were Chicxculub and its consequences out of his control after all?

DAVID: Once again, organisms were adequate until challenges changed, and God might well have controlled all of it. There is no way of telling any further.

And again DAVID: Animals are adequate until they are inadequate. They are never designed as inadequate. That occurs when their stresses change.

It is certainly true that animals are adequate until they are inadequate. The problem for you is whether their inadequacy was by design or by “bad luck”. There would be no such problem if organisms were responsible for their own design. Then you could say their cell communities simply couldn't work out ways to cope. But if God preprogrammed them or dabbled them, as you insist he did, then either he deliberately designed them to be inadequate when the stresses changed (= in control), or…oops…he didn’t allow for the new stresses, which would be understandable if he didn’t know the stresses were going to happen (= not in control).

dhw: I pointed out the contradictions in your evolutionary scenario and tried to pin you down so that we could iron them out. You came down on the side of God “under tight control”. Now you say it was possible. Just a suspicion. Therefore it was also possible that he was not in tight control. And so once again you are stuck with all the contradictions I have listed in my “fair enough” comment.
DAVID: I see no contradictions. I take what I see and reach my conclusions. You have the right to disagree.

The basic contradiction lies in the fact that one day you conclude that the course of evolution depends on luck, the next day that God is in tight control, and the next day that it’s only possible that God is in control. Each of your daily beliefs throws up different problems. However, perhaps we should drop the subject for the time being, as you are clearly on safer ground sniping at my own hypotheses!

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DAVID: Need is not desire. Survival of bacteria, as you admit, is guaranteed. Why multicellularity is a question you can't answer, unless you admit to purpose, which you refuse to do. The human purpose answers the question.

Of course need is not desire. My proposal is that evolution is powered by need AND the desire (drive) for improvement. The purpose I “admit to” is need for survival AND the desire for improvement (possibly God-given), which explains multicellularity AND the vast range of innovations and natural wonders that constitute the history of life on Earth, including humans. As for an overall purpose, you refuse even to consider the hypothetical theistic purpose I have offered because it’s not to be found in mainstream religion, and because I’m an agnostic, but apparently not because you can find any fault in the reasoning.