Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 10, 2017, 17:33 (2874 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of course it is caused by intelligence, but it is the intelligence that gave the cells their automatic plans of action.

dhw: The “automatic plans of action” are the undiscovered 3.8-billion-year-old instructions which your God apparently implanted in the first cells to enable bacteria to solve every individual problem they will encounter throughout life’s history. And you state this as if it were a fact!

What is fact is that the processes in any active cell or bacteria are highly complex and well-coordinated. To me it is obvious that such planning requires a superior mind as the source.

QUOTE: "Immune cells such as macrophages sense biochemical cues in their environment to track down invaders and eventually engulf and neutralise them." (David’s bold)

dhw: Yes of course they sense biochemical clues. All organisms sense cues in their environment, and the senses – of whatever kind – work automatically. Intelligence is the faculty that uses the information provided by the senses.

Or uses intelligently designed responses.

David’s comment: It is my belief that the way bacteria live and work is exactly mimicked by the cells in our bodies working for us. I view early evolution as a developmental process to prepare for these cells.

dhw: That is my view too: that the intelligent behaviour of bacteria is exactly mimicked by the intelligent behaviour of cells/cell communities. Most of these activities are automatic, but (a) these activities must have had an origin, which in my hypothesis is the intelligent, inventive mechanism, and (b) intelligence is brought to bear when bacteria/cell communities are confronted with problems.

And I respond that such an inventive mechanism cannot develop by chance. It must have been provided.

DAVID: Your theorizing does fit a possible interpretation of past evolution, but it still presents a tentative God who is not sure of where He is going. I view God as a very purposeful guy who know exactly where He is taking things.

dhw: In other words, your interpretation of evolution’s history is not based on that history at all, but on your preconceived ideas concerning the nature of God. However, the hypothesis of an intentional free-for-all spectacle removes the “tentativeness” you don’t like. So what is your objection to that?

I simply don't think God was ever tentative in his use of evolutionary processes to produce the universe as it exists now with life on Earth, which He also developed by an evolutionary process. Free-for-all implies tentativeness on the part of God. You are right, I don't think God slows that degree of freedom.