Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 18, 2019, 10:54 (1895 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I've not changed any of my views from having reviewed [the article]. Note again, E. coli are still E.coli. They have solved as immediate solution for their immediate survival. Survival does not cause speciation. Survival does not drive evolution. Evolution requires design.

dhw: Article after article points out that bacteria solve their own problems, but you have not changed your views and you prefer to ignore all the evidence which you kindly present to us. Instead you revert to the issue of survival which we are discussing on the “Big brain evolution” thread. Once again, please stop pretending that an “immediate driving force” (your own description of survival) is not a driving force and that the hypothesis of (possibly God-given) cellular intelligence excludes design.

DAVID: First of all I did not 'switch to survival' as you claim. Look at the first comment of yours in this iteration of our discussion I've edited. You returned to the subject: 'switch to survival' as you put it by noting the quote in the article above your quote.

Fair comment (I overlooked that one quote and comment), but you then proceeded to ignore the main reason why I reproduced the article, which was the autonomous decision-making of bacteria (as opposed to your insistence that every decision was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago).

DAVID: You are quoting Darwinian scientists who wrote the article. I carefully watch the obvious background thinking of those who write whatever. It always has great influence on interpretation of results.

They would say exactly the same about your interpretation of results. But in any case, cellular intelligence has absolutely nothing to do with "Darwinian" science, and I wish you would stop blaming Darwin(ism) for any science you don’t like.

DAVID: I fully agree with you: bacteria can solve immediate problems. You and I are in complete disagreement as to how that happens. Our divisions of thought will not change. I've always known, as stated in my first book, only the realization of the magnitude of extreme complexity of living beings through scientific research, will it then drive most of us to accept God, the designer. Thus I continue to present the science delving into the complexities of living biology.

Yet again you revert to the design argument, which I keep accepting. It is your interpretation of your God’s purposes and methods that I question, but the alternative hypothesis – that evolution proceeds and immediate problems are solved through design by (possibly God-given) cellular intelligence, as opposed to a 3.8 billion-year-old computer programme for every undabbled solution, innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder – clearly depends on the concept of cellular intelligence! That is why I object to your continually ignoring or attempting to discredit the evidence offered by earlier scientists as well as by scientists working today.

http://brianhuffling.com/2018/03/13/why-philosophical-proofs-for-god-are-better-than-sc...

QUOTE: "I am very familiar with the intelligent design arguments from cosmology and biology. They are all very good and very convincing. So what’s the issue? Well, for one, natural science alone can’t prove God. It needs philosophy.Then what makes the scientific arguments good? They are good because they show that the chances for the design (not existence) of the universe and life due to random events are essentially zero. But the jump from probability to cause is a philosophical one. Science, does after all, require the use of philosophy. As someone once said, philosophy is unavoidable. Science can give us probability, mathematics, and descriptions of how things are. However, by definition natural science studies nature and thus cannot make the move beyond nature to the supernatural. Again, that is a philosophical move.”

Of course it is. I have already recently quoted my own “Limitations of Science”, written about 12 years ago, from the "brief guide", expressing the same ideas. And how often must I repeat that I have always accepted the strength of your design argument, and the weakness of the randomness argument. That is one major reason why I cannot embrace atheism.

https://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2019/02/finally-details-of-how-proteins-evolve.html
DAVID: Please read entirely: it is brief but it shows the inventiveness of Darwinian scientists' suppositions. Look up the original report if you wish. Hunter is directly quoting it. And his complaints are right on. Nothing of what they describe as real evolution in DNA is proven, It is call guess work as to what might have happened.

I agree. Their whole hypothesis is based on random mutations, which you and I have long since rejected. There is no more evidence for their claims than there is for the claim that an unknown, sourceless, eternal mind set out to design the brain of H. sapiens, and in order to do so spent 3.5+ billion years specially designing billions of problem-solutions, life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders, including anti-freeze for fish. When will you ever understand that the root of my agnosticism lies in my inability to choose one just-so story in preference to another?