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

by David Turell , Saturday, March 09, 2019, 18:24 (2085 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: …until now your theory has been that your God provided the first living cells with a library of programmes for the whole of undabbled evolution. How could this library have been passed on if the only living creatures had a library restricted to instructions for themselves?

DAVID: Many possibilities. In computer terms: zipped files which could be opened by automatic triggers at certain point in time, opened by God, or opened when certain changes occurred in Earth's climate. This would cover Behe's theory about devolution of the genome, which uncovers one new layer at a time.

dhw: Forget about computer terms. Since you believe in common descent, your God’s programmes have to be passed on from life forms to life forms. You (and apparently Behe too) claim that every life form was preprogrammed from the beginning, and yet you claim that bacteria only had a programme for bacteria. So how did they pass on the programmes for whales and their flippers, cuttlefish and their camouflage, monarchs and their migration, and weaverbirds and their nests?

Bacteria carry their program and ones for the future they cannot use for themselves but is passed on to allow multicellular forms to arrive.

DAVID: Lenski's E. coli, after 22,000 generations are still E. coli with minor metabolic changes.

dhw: How does this prove they can’t be intelligent?

DAVID: We are stuck at this point. What I am reading in Behe shows automaticity. As research proceeds, more and more automaticity is described.

dhw: And yet we have just been discussing two articles which tell us that more and more scientists believe cells are intelligent and create instructions on the hoof, de novo. Could your view be the result of confirmation/conclusion bias?

What 'more and more' scientists. You keep quoting your tiny list.

DAVID( Under “confirmation bias”): […] this clearly points out skepticism is needed when reading any article with Darwin-inculcated authors.

dhw: Nobody knows the objective truth about any of the major issues we keep discussing. Therefore scepticism is needed when reading any article written by authors with fixed beliefs of whatever kind.

DAVID: Exactly my point.

dhw: Your point points at Darwin-inculcated authors but glaringly omits ID and religion-inculcated authors.

DAVID: Yes, that is the side I am representing.

dhw: So do you or do you not agree that scepticism is also needed when reading an article by ID and religion-inculcated authors?

I certainly agree that all articles must be read with an open mind. Some of the ID stuff I do not accept.