Immunity: Gamma Delta T cells hunt with precision (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 25, 2018, 20:42 (1972 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Your one step further is to say that only your God can design innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders, including such items as 50,000 different spider webs, different stages of whale, and the weaverbird’s nest. My theistic proposal is that your God may have designed the mechanism that enables organisms to do their own designing, but I keep agreeing that there is no proof that this mechanism may be responsible for major changes.

Innovations are not minor adaptations. My belief is unchanged. God is in control even if an inventive mechanism exists. I have no idea why you want God to give up full control. I realize as an agnostic, you can invent any kind of God you want. I'll stick with religion's view of Him as a Supreme Being.

DAVID: I've agreed that is possible, but all it does is keep God in control if he mechanisms have guidelines.

dhw: Why the if clause with "guidelines"? My theistic proposal is that he did not WANT to keep control, which is why he allowed his mechanism to do its own autonomous designing. Much more interesting than watching billions of automatons do exactly what you want them to do.

"Much more interesting" is again humanizing Him which you can't resist doing.

DAVID: My objection, as always, is that it takes mental planning to create advanced designs as required by the gaps in the fossil record.

dhw: Gaps in the fossil record may be the result of saltations, but in any case they do not require your God to have designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in advance of the changing conditions in which each new organism lives.

A non-answer, Popping in the word 'saltations' applies a label to gaps. But what makes the saltation (which by definition is a new design) happen. What is the agency that causes saltation? .

dhw: Under “microbiome of coral”:
DAVID: Bacteria and other organisms are everywhere and obviously play a role in evolution as microbiomes:
https://phys.org/news/2018-11-corals-microbiomes-evolved.html

dhw: The term “phylosymbiosis” sent me scurrying back to Lynn Margulis, who pioneered the whole idea that symbiosis and cooperation were every bit as crucial to evolution as competition. I found this in a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis

“…her theory that cell organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent bacteria was largely ignored for another decade, becoming widely accepted only after it was powerfully substantiated through genetic evidence.” The pattern of symbiosis and cooperation becomes clearer and clearer with all these examples, for which many thanks. Incidentally, Margulis was one of “my” scientists who believed in cellular intelligence.

I know. The cells are designed to make intelligent responses to stimuli.