Bacterial Intelligence and Evolution (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 05, 2019, 20:00 (2027 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Well, surprise! Cells inventing new species is exactly what you have been touting.

dhw: What is the surprise? The whole point of the hypothesis is that they invent new species (i.e. change their own structure) IN RESPONSE TO to changing conditions and not in advance of them.
Perhaps you would tell us whether you regard a flipper as an innovation or as an adaptation of the pre-existing leg to enable it to function better in water.

The flipper is an innovation since its function is different than weight bearing. The bony pattern is used in both, but the muscle functions and the controls by the brain will be different. Walking and paddling are totally different motions. The difference requires planning as no tiny steps are seen in the gap between leg and flipper. Gaps absolutely require planning in my view and the fossil record is filled with gaps.

dhw: Yet again: my suggestion is evolution as the history of intelligent cells REACTING to changing conditions, not anticipating them. Many scientists now believe that the purposeful results achieved by cells denote autonomous (as opposed to your God-guided) intelligence, but whether this is inventive enough to power speciation remains a hypothesis.

The known fact is that what we see in existing species are minor adaptations to the changing conditions as you describe. The gap of speciation requires planning for the future existence of the new species, which it can be assumed will involve new capabilities of action.

DAVID: I find that idea as totally fanciful. I see the mind of God as necessary.

dhw: Your suggestion is that your God provided the very first cells with an undiscovered 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every undabbled bacterial variation, evolutionary innovation, econiche, life form, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life, but you do not regard that as fanciful. My theistic alternative is that your God may have provided the first cells with the mechanisms to do their own designing in response to changing conditions. Why is that more fanciful than your proposal.

The difference is I view God as very purposeful, and your fancy allows the organisms to evolve as they wish, under a God you envision as less purposeful..

dhw: We both accept that evolution happened, but your concept of evolution is that it was all preprogrammed or dabbled (both of which are a form of direct creation). This in itself is not illogical. It only leaves you floundering when you insist that it was all preprogrammed or dabbled so that God could fulfil his one and only purpose of specially preprogramming/dabbling H. sapiens, leading to your exasperated cry: “Haven’t you realized by now, I have no idea why God chose to evolve humans over time”.

I'll stick with my view of God as purposeful, and not wonder about His choice of method.

DAVID (under “anthropithicus”): Evolution requires steps to reach a goal. No matter how hard you try to make the steps as small, the design requirements and the gaps in forms is very large. Each step in whale evolution is the result of highly complex phenotypical and physiological design steps. In my view as God chose evolution to reach His goal of large-brained humans He knew He had to provide a larger bush of eco-niches to feel everyone on the way over lots of time. I don't know why you cannot see that as totally logical?

dhw: You cannot even see the logic yourself. Of course evolution is the history of steps, and of course the steps may be highly complex and sometimes large, and the gap between bacteria, whales, elephants, the duckbilled platypus and humans is also large. However, none of that explains why your God would choose to specially design all these life forms to eat or not eat one another if H. sapiens was the only thing he wanted to specially design, and if – as you maintain – he could and actually did specially design all the features (brain, pelvis, bipedalism) peculiar to H. sapiens. Hence the fact that you have no idea why he would have chosen your version of his method in order to achieve your version of his purpose.

It is your problem. There are no answers as to why God chose his method of creation. He had the right to chose, as you admit, so why question it? And the methods He chose to control evolution are the only ones that are reasonable to me.