Evolution and humans: our feet are special (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 15, 2018, 11:28 (2229 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The (theistic) choice here is between your God preprogramming/dabbling the cooperation that enabled them to evolve, or your God giving them the wherewithal to organize their own cooperation, so please don’t tell me the whole is not created by cooperating cells.

DAVID: I would offer a slightly different concept: the whole is created by cells that are designed to cooperate.

Thank you for withdrawing your assertion that “the whole is not created by cooperating cells”. We are therefore left with the alternatives I offered above.

dhw: You claimed that we know the extent to which cells can innovate because research only shows minor adaptations. My point is that research is not over. So maybe new research will reveal more than we know now.

DAVID: Of course it will.

So it’s goodbye to the argument that cells cannot invent because current research has not shown that they can. NB Nor has it shown that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the original cells with a computer programme for every undabbled innovation.

DAVID: All [the hypotheses] are equally God-possible, one not better than the others.

dhw: But you have completely ignored my own hypothesis, and have not explained why you think yours are less “magical” than mine – the question I asked you on Thursday.

DAVID: Not ignored: all possible thru God.

dhw: Thank you. Now that you agree to the possibility of autonomous cellular intelligence as a theistic hypothesis, please tell me why my hypothesis is more “magical” than yours.

DAVID: Your thesis about cellular intelligence extrapolates from the simple intelligent responses cells make to stimuli to being able to design new complex forms. I find that jump as an illogical jump.

Hypothesis, not thesis. Nothing to do with logic! If cells are capable of autonomously changing their own structure and function on a minor scale (adaptation), it is not illogical to speculate that under certain conditions that scale may become major, e.g. legs to fins, climbing feet to running feet. Why is this less “logical” and more “magical” than an unknown mind preprogramming or dabbling fins and running feet before they need to swim or run?

DAVID: What I seen in the biochemistry of cell reactions is pure automaticity, not inventivity. Nothing hypothetical about cell capacities. Just because you hypothetise it doesn't mean it is remotely possible.

What you have seen according to “my” experts is not pure automaticity, because they are convinced that cells are intelligent. Inventiveness is the purely hypothetical factor in my hypothesis. One moment you accept the possibility “thru God”, “one not better than the others”, and then you reject it on the grounds that you know more about cells than “my” experts, and prefer the unproven hypothesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every invention. You have every right to do so, but that does not make your hypothesis more “logical” or less “magical” than mine.