Genome complexity: new review of epigenetics studies (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, May 08, 2017, 18:07 (2755 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: […] How God manages evolution is just guess work on my part and on your part. It fills much of our discussions, but it is totally beside the point. One must address the complexity of the living mechanisms, and it's source cannot be bottom up.

dhw: You are yet again conflating two separate issues. One is the existence of your God, and I have repeatedly explained why I cannot reject or accept the God hypothesis. The second issue is IF God does exist, what might be his purpose, his methods and his nature? These are not “beside the point”. If God exists, they are a point in themselves, as you insist when constantly harping on about his purposefulness.

I understand that you divide the God issue into two parts. Lets simply accept that I am convinced God exists and you aren't. Fine. As to the second issue, I see humans as His purpose, nothing more. His method is evolution. He does that with the development of the universe, of Earth, and with life. That history is quite clear. I do not know how He manages speciation, but it is obvious to me He does handle speciation. As for His nature, religions have discussed it for two millennia with no conclusions but many suggestions. I'm not inclined to bother with it as an issue.

dhw: My proposal that he may have given organisms the intelligence to do their own designing (with the option of an occasional dabble) seems to me at least as reasonable as your proposal that he preprogrammed or dabbled everything (including today’s Diplostomum pseudospathaceum and sexy orchid - thank you for two more amazing examples of Nature’s wonders) in order to keep life going until he could design the one thing he actually wanted to design (humans), which is the only hypothesis you have come up with.

Thank you for mentioning the current natures wonders. They bring up the major point I make. In creating a lifestyle or a new species, the designer or planner must have a mental vision of the future before beginning to design the jump to the next step in a developing evolution. That vision of the future will not be possible in bacteria which lack the consciousness to see a picture of a future arrangement as multicellular organisms, as one clear example of my viewpoint. To jump the gaps in the fossil record the organisms must visualize what is wanted or needed in the future in order to set up the design. Currently the only organisms we know of that have that capacity are humans, or at a different level, God!

We have round and round about how God runs evolution. I am convinced He guides each speciation and His goal is humans with a smidgen of His consciousness. I don't need any more than the statements I have just given. It is you who refuses to accept the necessity for mental planning to accomplish the appearance of life and its subsequent evolution to humans.