Magic embryology: placenta maintains symmetry (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, September 21, 2018, 20:18 (2037 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Atheistic Darwinism relies on the truth of chance mutation causing an advance in fitness. In their view chance mutations that are good are rare, but they attach to the DNA and therefore an enormous amount of useless DNA proves their point! It is all mindless chance. And they have stated, without junk, Darwin is dead!

You are behind the times. Here is Dawkins’ volte face:

Egnorance: Richard Dawkins on junk DNA in 2009. …
http://www.egnorance.blogspot.com/2013/02/richard-dawkins-on-junk-dna-in-2009...

Dawkins in 2009:
"It stretches even their creative ingenuity to make a convincing reason why an intelligent designer should have created a pseudogene -- a gene that does absolutely nothing and gives every appearance of being a superannuated version of a gene that used to do something -- unless he was deliberately setting out to fool us...
Leaving pseudogenes aside, it is a remarkable fact that the greater part (95 percent in the case of humans) of the genome might as well not be there, for all the difference it makes."

The 2009 iteration of Richard Dawkins asserts confidently that most of the genome is junk, just as Darwinism predicts! What an embarrassment to Darwin doubters!

Dawkins in 2012:
"I have noticed that there are some creationists who are jumping on [the ENCODE results] because they think that's awkward for Darwinism. Quite the contrary it's exactly what a Darwinist would hope for, to find usefulness in the living world.... (dhw's bold)

Whereas we thought that only a minority of the genome was doing something, namely that minority which actually codes for protein, and now we find that actually the majority of it is doing something. What it's doing is calling into action the protein-coding genes. So you can think of the protein-coding genes as being sort of the toolbox of subroutines which is pretty much common to all mammals -- mice and men have the same number, roughly speaking, of protein-coding genes and that's always been a bit of a blow to self-esteem of humanity. But the point is that that was just the subroutines that are called into being; the program that's calling them into action is the rest [of the genome] which had previously been written off as junk."

TONY: The options for DHW's question always seem to devolve to:
Is it more plausible that:
• A) The laws of govern all energy, matter, and information, spontaneously spring into existence followed by, or perhaps part and parcel with, all matter becoming simultaneously intelligent and then said intelligent matter communicated and designed, all life, with its vastly more complex systems, and so on.
• B) A single intellect emerged once out of eternal form of energy, taking time beyond measure to become capable of bringing another single entity into existence, both of which were energy and information only (non-material). The two intelligences over time, worked together to develop/birth/spawn more similar to themselves (non-material), eventually learning to manifest energy and information into the material universe we know.
• C) Flip a coin...there was no intelligence, guidance, planning, or outside influence at all. Stuff just happened.

DHW: A is inaccurate. My hypothesis is that energy and matter are the eternal first cause, constantly giving rise to endless combinations. Intelligence “somehow” evolved through these changes, just as your first cause God energy “somehow” simply has his intelligence. If you want to pin me down, I actually find it impossible to believe that all matter is intelligent, but I do not find the idea that some matter evolved intelligence any more or any less plausible than that first cause energy already had intelligence. From the moment when matter intelligently coalesced to form the first living organisms, your account is correct.

I do not accept C. I believe that stuff happened because of intelligence, but I do not know whether that intelligence was there from the beginning (your God) or evolved out of impersonal energy and materials eternally entering into new combinations.

I think energy always existed. I think the entity referred to as God, is comprised of that energy. However, I do not assert that his intelligence has always existed. The energy itself is eternal, and in that sense, God is eternal, having neither a beginning nor an end. However, I am perfectly ok with the concept that the information that comprises his intellect developed slowly over unimaginably long periods of time.

dhw: (under "pointy eggs") First cause unconsciousness somehow evolving consciousness is just as logical or illogical or believable or unbelievable as first cause consciousness somehow just being there, but they are both first causes.

DAVID: Agreed, and you can't pick one.

You’ve got it.

Xxxxxx

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.