Natures wonders: ant care for the sick protects well ants (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 06, 2018, 11:35 (2421 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: So there we go again: your God designs diseases (unless he is not in control) and then designs protection against the diseases he has designed so that life can go on so that eventually he can produce the brain of Homo sapiens. (You have not yet come up with any other “secondary” purpose). There is no coherence in such a scenario.

DAVID: Not being able to see the coherence is why you are agnostic. My God knows what He is doing.

dhw: I have never said your God doesn’t know what he is doing. I am simply suggesting that the incoherence of the above scenario may indicate that YOU don’t know what your God is doing.

DAVID: From recent research reported in Nature, viruses have been around since life was very early. Bacteria have their own viruses. Perhaps they are part of the requirement of diversity for diversity sake, a point you seem to love. I cannot tell whether God wanted this or allowed it.

Your “perhaps” is most welcome. By the same token, you cannot tell if God allowed evolution to follow its own course, as I have suggested, or controlled every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder. I see a glimmer of hope that you may yet acknowledge the possibility that your God used evolution to create the ever-changing spectacle (including humans) which he watches with interest because he wanted an ever changing spectacle which he could watch with interest, i.e. “diversity for diversity’s sake”.

Thank you for the article you posted afterwards, which leads you to repeat your dilemma: “we [are] left to wonder whether God wanted them or not.”

DAVID: (under “Genome complexity”): We have one DNA but it can make all sorts of different functioning cells:
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-discovery-cells-identical-genes-unique.html
Scientists have made a significant discovery that explains how and why the billions of different cells in our bodies look and act so differently despite containing identical genes.

You understandably emphasize the design aspect of this. I would also emphasize the versatility of the cell. This ability to change form and function would be a key element in my hypothesis that the mechanism existed from the very beginning of life for organisms to restructure themselves. In a theistic context, this would mean your God gave them both the mechanism for diversity and the intelligence to use it.