David's theory of evolution: James A. Shapiro's view (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, January 31, 2020, 12:55 (1756 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God produced us through evolution is my belief.

dhw: If God exists, he produced all life through evolution, including us. Please clarify once and for all: do you believe that your God preprogrammed every single bacterial response to every single problem throughout the history of life, or do you believe he gave them the autonomous intelligence to solve such problems themselves? Please avoid obfuscation through such terms as “guidelines”, which we know from the past is just another word for preprogramming.

DAVID: Please remember God is in charge of controlling evolution. All we know for sure is living organisms can make some minor modifications or adaptations epigenetically, but we do not know how speciation occurs, and I believe God does.

dhw: Of course nobody knows, which is why we have different theories. If organisms have the autonomous intelligence to make minor modifications, the theory we have been discussing is the possibility that the same intelligence may be capable of major modifications. Meanwhile, please clarify as requested above, now in bold. Thank you.

DAVID: I did answer. What you have bolded are my thoughts as to how God probably exerted His controls.

I gave you a choice: do you believe your God preprogrammed every bacterial response to new problems, or do you believe he gave bacteria the autonomous intelligence to work out their own responses? That is not a question about speciation.

Interview with Lynn Margulis:
Astrobiology Magazine: In Microcosmos, you talk about bacterial intelligence. A lot of people have trouble with that concept because […] they tend to think intelligence comes from brains.
LM: I know they do. They’re wrong.
AM: Can you explain how you view bacteria as being intelligent?
LM: If you look up consciousness in the dictionary, it says, "awareness of the world around you," and that’s because you lose it somehow when you become unconscious, right? Well, you can show that microorganisms, or bacteria, are certainly conscious. They will orient themselves, they will work together to make structures. They’ll do a lot of things. This ability to respond specifically to the environment and to act creatively, in the sense that that precise action has never been taken before, is a property of life.

dhw: Shapiro is in good company.

DAVID: And it all can be a response to programmed instructions.

So once more: which do you think it is for bacteria? 3.8 billion years’ worth of instructions so far, or autonomous intelligence?